Image pattern recognition supporting interactive analysis and graphical visualization

Image Pattern Recognition attempts to infer properties of the world from image data. Such capabilities are crucial for making measurements from satellite or telescope images related to Earth and space science problems. Such measurements can be the required product itself, or the measurements can be used as input to a computer graphics system for visualization purposes. At present, the field of image pattern recognition lacks a unified scientific structure for developing and evaluating image pattern recognition applications. The overall goal of this project is to begin developing such a structure. This report summarizes results of a 3-year research effort in image pattern recognition addressing the following three principal aims: (1) to create a software foundation for the research and identify image pattern recognition problems in Earth and space science; (2) to develop image measurement operations based on Artificial Visual Systems; and (3) to develop multiscale image descriptions for use in interactive image analysis

Dickens, Manzoni, Zola, and James : the impossible romance

Includes bibliographical references (pages 213-224) and index.The unrivaled power and tension in the best works of Dickens, Manzoni, Zola, and James are derived precisely from the authors' imaginative experimentation with the dialectic structure of this perpetual opposition. Unlike so many other novelists of the nineteenth century who characteristically suffered assimilation to generic and historic conventions, they were able to endure the "internal disturbances" attendant not upon willed mediation but upon willed refusal of mediation.Source and solution -- The salvational mode -- Between two gospels -- Suit and service -- Difficulties of relationship and form.Digitized at the University of Missouri--Columbia MU Libraries Digitization Lab in 2012. Digitized at 600 dpi with Zeutschel, OS 15000 scanner. Access copy, available in MOspace, is 400 dpi, grayscale

The Enlightenment Legacy of David Hume

Although many historians assert the unity of the Enlightenment, their histories essentially belie this notion. Consequently, Enlightenment history is confused and meaningless, urging the reader to believe that diversity is similarity and faction is unity. Fundamental among the common denominators of these various interpretations, however, are the scientific method and empirical observation, as introduced by Newton. These, historians acclaim as the turning point when mankind escaped the ignorance of superstition and the oppression of the church, and embarked upon the modern secular age. The Enlightenment, however, founders immediately upon its own standards of empiricism and demonstrable philosophical tenets, with the exception of David Hume. As the most consistent and fearless empiricist of the era, Hume's is by far the most "legitimate" philosophy of the Enlightenment, but it starkly contrasts the rhetoric and ideology of the philosophe community, and, therefore, defies attempts by historians to incorporate it into the traditional Enlightenment picture. Hume, then, exposes the Enlightenment dilemma: either the Enlightenment is not empirical, but rather the new Age of Faith Carl Becker proclaimed it, or Enlightenment philosophy is that of Hume. This study presents the historical characterization of major Enlightenment themes, such as method, reason, religion, morality, and politics, then juxtaposes this picture with the particulars (data) that contradict or seriously qualify it. As a result, much superficial analysis, wishful thinking, even proselytizing is demonstrated in the traditional Enlightenment characterization, especially with regard to the widely heralded liberal and progressive legacy of the era. In contrast, Hume's conclusions, based on the method of Newton-the essence of "enlightened" philosophy, are presented, revealing the authoritarian character (and legacy) of the Enlightenment as well as the utility and relevance of its method when honestly and rigorously applied. Through David Hume, the twentieth century can truly acquire what the Enlightenment promised—an understanding of human nature and a genuinely secular society

Poetry and Pose:Heterosexual Male Teachers’ Presentation of Gender Identity In the Secondary School English Classroom

Abstract: In this PhD thesis, I have investigated this question: How and why do heterosexual male secondary school English teachers present gender identity in the classroom? Prior to my thesis, little or no research existed regarding this question. I have reviewed literature in the areas of gender identity, masculinity studies, secondary education, and Queer educational theory to delineate the boundaries of my thesis study as well as identify a gap in the literature where my research lies. In addition, I have used the nascent methodology of braided autoethnography for my research: a braided autoethnographic approach allows me to write about my own experience alongside as well as within the narratives I developed regarding the interviews of my research subjects. As a result of my study, I have found that the subjects and I converge upon and diverge from different points regarding how and why we present our gender inside and outside of the secondary school English classroom, particularly regarding our sense of masculinity as essential or contextual. I conclude the thesis with three recommendations regarding my findings: 1) this research question suggests further study as it is currently written and also in various, new forms; 2) the nascent methodology of braided autoethnography necessitates further theoretical and practical description, and 3) secondary school teacher training can be developed regarding the contextuality of the teacher’s presentation of gender identity within a classroom

An Age of Crisis

Originally published in 1959. This book examines the French Enlightenment by analyzing critical thought in eighteenth-centruy France. It examines the philosophes' views on evil, free will and determinism, and human nature. This is an interesting group to look at, according to Crocker, because French Enlightenment thinkers straddled two vastly different time periods

A supreme fire of thought and spirit : modernist patterns of cultural renewal in First World War Britain

This thesis seeks to analyse a highly diverse range of intellectuals operating in Britain during the First World War through a "maximalist" model of modernism. This ideal type identifies modernist qualities in radical politics, religious faith, spirituality and philosophy, as well as aesthetic innovation. From this perspective, it demonstrates a gap in the exploration of the modernist dynamic of the British intelligentsia during the First World War in the current secondary literature. Further, it offers an ideal type of modernism that characterises the phenomenon as thought marked by a radical confrontation with an intetpretation of modernity as decadence. The first three chapters of the study explore this phenomenon through a wide-ranging textual recovery of various wartime debates published in the avant-garde journal The New Age. The first chapter offers a survey of the philosophical and political modernism articulated by A. R. Orage, the editor of The New Age, which took the form of a fusion of Nietzsche with the neo-Marxist ideology guild socialism. The second chapter offers further textual recovery of other guild socialist ideologues who published in The New Age, including S. G. Hobson, G. D. H. Cole, Ivor Brown and A. J. Penty. The final chapter on The New Age completes this textual recovery and examines essays published by other contributors, including the promotion of Nietzsche by Oscar Levy and A. E. R., alongside the modernist thinking of figures such as Herbert Read, T. E. Hulme, Ezra Pound, Janko Lavrin, and Ramiro de Maeztu. Following this in depth survey of The New Age, the study examines the wartime writings of H. G. Wells, focusing on how the war led him to propose his own modernist religion as a solution to wartime modernity's alleged decadence. Having located modernist qualities in Wells' wartime non-fiction and fiction, chapter five explores the ideas of May Sinclair, who not only proposed a new variant of philosophical idealism that fused mysticism and new developments in psychoanalysis, but articulated this philosophy in her wartime novels, especially The Tree of Heaven. The final chapter examines three British war poets, Isaac Rosenberg, Siegfried Sassoon and Rupert Brooke, arguing that each developed their own idiosyncratic confrontation with a decadent modernity during the war. This analysis examines both their poetry and their wider attitudes and responses to the conflagration. The study concludes by arguing that modernist cultural production in Britain chimed with wider European patterns in wartime and postwar culture and ideology. Further, drawing on cultural anthropology, it stresses that significant aspects of European culture were thrown into a profound state of liminality by the First World War, resulting in myriad attempts by modernists either to revitalise modernity through radical ideologies and cultural production, or to forward ideas that used a profound sense of cultural decline and fragmentation to explore the deeper significances of living in a decadent modernity. Further, it suggests that the "maximalist" definition of modernism forwarded by the thesis could be used to explore other instances of modernist cultural production articulated during the first half of the twentieth century

Real romance came out of dreamland into life H. G. Wells as a romancer

The aim of this study is to demonstrate that Wells's early works are the supreme fruits of his ambiguous and complicated reaction against, and interaction with, romance and realism in fiction. Wells's efforts concentrate on combating against and, at the same time, capitalising on the popular narratives that flooded the expanding fin-de-siècle mass market and the powerful influence of the continental and American Realists. In so doing, Wells eventually purports to revive and modify the English novel tradition from Chaucer to Scott and Dickens, and the romantic transformation of everyday life without losing a sense of reality. By reading Wells's fictional and non-fictional works published between the 1890s and the 1900s, this thesis maintains that Wells is a novelist who could exploit romance contingencies in his fiction Wells's early literary criticism demonstrates that his theory of the novel is preoccupied with the potential of the romance rather than with the strict realistic representation of everyday life advocated by Naturalists and Realists. His non-scientific romances reveal Wells's instinctive grasp of the romance potential Wells's major scientific romances confirm his effort in writing within the established romance grammar and deconstruct the forms and themes of fìn-de-siècle popular romances. Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of carnivalism and Foucaulťs theory of power are also applied to Wells's texts. This study contends that Wells's major scientific romances not only differentiate themselves from other popular narratives but also create a new genre: the carnivalesque romance. Wells's early twentieth century Utopian projects continue the carnival theme, and develop the carnivalised narrative space in which the sociologist's logical speculation is mixed with the romancer’s dream. Reading Wells's Edwardian novels, Tono-Bungay and The History of Mr Polly as marking a turning point in his literary career, the thesis advocates that when Wells ceased to be a romancer, his creative energy began to wane

Place for Lisbon in Eighteenth Century Europe : Lisbon, London and Edinburgh, a town-planning comparative study

From the incipient and occasional town planning solutions of the late medieval period, to the Renaissance model of the "ideal city", there was primarily a process of conceptualisation of the dream urban environment. Order and utility were the main premises conforming to the structuring of a rational approach to knowledge and to the organisation of societies. The Baroque period developed and put extensively into practise the above referred to town planning schemes. They were carried out according to a defined economic, social and political context. Ports and capital cities became major elements in the urban-network. Their impressive growth was the reflection of a fast evolving society. Architectural excellence and regular spatial layout became the main town planning premises. In the eighteenth century, these concepts evolved to architectural embellishment and public utility. Apart from the unquestionable symbolic character of architecture, there was also an emerging concern with more wide-ranging issues: the social dimension of town planning was gaining an increasing relevance. The Enlightenment looked at the city as a coherent urban unit, which should be able to supply to its citizens a favourable environment. The Enlightened city was an ideological statement, which only made sense by its practical implementation. It was a conceptual model that determined a precise and operative town planning program. Utopia was gradually turning into an attainable vision of the city. Pombaline Lisbon, the New Town of Edinburgh and London's West End are three specific, yet comparable, town planning situations. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as large and important European cities, Lisbon, Edinburgh and London underwent a parallel process of urban growth and urban planning. They were all confronted with uncontrolled and deficient building, sanitary problems, traffic congestion and criminality. In Lisbon, the political and military circumstances determined the structuring of a sober and pragmatic architectural and town planning trend. The military engineering directed and developed the latter. At the eve of the earthquake of the 1st November 1755, the military engineers possessed simultaneously the knowledge and the skills to set up a major town planning venture. They built a new city, which was designed to promote progress. The New Town of Edinburgh was born from two concomitant premises: the need to give to the middle class a suitable residential area and the desire to improve the city's image. The model was indisputably the Enlightened city. Pombaline Lisbon and the New Town of Edinburgh depict a low cost and efficient urban ensemble that was also able to enhance their image in an international context. London served unquestionably as an example, given the spacious and agreeable new West End squares. London's expansion was a major financial enterprise, which used established schemes of building procedures. The aim was to improve London's urban conditions, yet the drive was its financial benefit. London's main town-planning procedures suggested already a new urban context: the industrial city

Interlitteraria : Tartu Ülikooli maailmakirjanduse õppetooli ja Eesti Võrdleva Kirjandusteaduse Assotsiatsiooni rahvusvaheline ajakiri = international refereed edition of the Chair of Comparative Literature of Tartu University and the Estonian Association of Comparative Literature

http://www.ester.ee/record=b1226153*es

The Bad Good Life: On the Politics of Impasse

The Bad Good Life: On the Politics of Impasse addresses the narrowness of conditions of political change. Political theorists have detailed the promise of events in sparking political change but few have examined why events occur rarely or not at all. Impediments to political change are also not fully captured by important analyses of coercion, ideology, and disciplinary power. Meanwhile, the pursuit of social justice in the United States has been at an impasse due to unresolved issues of racism, the normalization of sexuality, settler colonialism, global war, and ecological crises. The Bad Good Life addresses these theoretical and political predicaments by developing a concept of “impasse” from critical comparisons of political theory, American studies, feminist and queer theory, and anthropologies of ordinary life. It finds impasse to be more than a deadlock in beliefs, values, or political positions; impasse involves deeply rooted affective attachments that impede change even when it is strongly desired. The Bad Good Life clarifies how dominant political systems in the US manage to persist despite the powerful efforts of minoritized subjects to build alternative worlds. It also develops forms of politics that risk the loss of attachments even when full-bodied alternatives have yet to arise