Interactive Extraction of High-Frequency Aesthetically-Coherent Colormaps

Color transfer functions (i.e. colormaps) exhibiting a high frequency luminosity component have proven to be useful in the visualization of data where feature detection or iso-contours recognition is essential. Having these colormaps also display a wide range of color and an aesthetically pleasing composition holds the potential to further aid image understanding and analysis. However producing such colormaps in an efficient manner with current colormap creation tools is difficult. We hereby demonstrate an interactive technique for extracting colormaps from artwork and pictures. We show how the rich and careful color design and dynamic luminance range of an existing image can be gracefully captured in a colormap and be utilized effectively in the exploration of complex datasets

Write Like a Visual Artist: Tracing artists’ work in Canada’s textually mediated art world

This study examines the social organisation of Canada’s art world from the standpoint of practising visual artists. Bringing together theories of literacy and institutional ethnography, the article investigates the literacy practices of visual artists, making visible how artists use written texts to participate in public galleries and in the social and institutional relations of the art world. Drawing on extended ethnographic research, including interviews, observational field notes and textual analyses, this study sheds light on the ways visual artists enact particular texts, enact organisational processes, and to enact the social and conceptual worlds they are a part of. Through the lens of visual artists, this study locates two particular texts – the artist statement and the bio statement – in the extended social and institutional relations of the art world.

Federal Reserve Communications and Emerging Equity Markets

Work on the impact of U.S. monetary policy on emerging financial markets mostly focuses on official federal funds rate announcements; empirical evidence using data on informal communication channels, such as speeches, is scant. Employing a unique data set covering formal and informal communication channels in a GARCH model framework, we provide comprehensive evidence on the effects of U.S. monetary policy on 17 emerging equity market returns over the period 1998–2009. We find, first, that both monetary policy actions and communications have a significant impact on market returns. Second, target rate change surprises are an important driver of emerging market returns. However, informal communications—particularly when taking into account their higher frequency—have a larger (cumulative) influence on returns than do target rate surprises. Third, during the financial crisis, central bank communication plays an even more pronounced role. Finally, American emerging markets react more to U.S. central bank communications than do non-American markets. We discuss the policy implications of the findings.Central Bank Communication, Emerging Markets, Federal Reserve, Financial Crisis, Monetary Policy

Free Speech and National Security Bootstraps

It is troubling that courts treat administrative designations—specifically, both FTO determinations and information classification—as bootstraps by which to yank speech restrictions from the clutches of probing judicial scrutiny. This Article builds on existing scholarly critiques to identify and examine the common thread of national security bootstrapping that runs through both sets of cases. The hope is that in so doing, some greater light may be shed both on the cases themselves and, more broadly, on the costs and benefits of judicial deference to executive national security claims where civil rights and civil liberties are at stake

Transduction and Meaning–Making Issues Within Multimodal Messages

This paper analyzes transduction as an action of transposing information from one mode to another within the communication process and its implications in terms of meaning and coherence of a multimodal message. First, I discuss the multimodal method and its conjunction with some key concepts such as: sign, meaning, mode, transduction. Secondly, I approach transduction as an essential method of translating messages across the media variety, describing my interdisciplinary approach – that brings together semiotics and communications – and proposing a framework of explanation for transduction in the field of advertising. Drawing from a previous model (Culache 2015), I illustrate the way transduction takes place and identify its meaning-making issues while introducing the concept of ‘dominant mode.

Challenging the mathematician’s ‘ultimate substantiator’ role in a low lecture innovation

In this paper we draw on our experiences as member of the International Advisory Board and principal investigator of a research project on undergraduate mathematics teaching and learning to comment on the study of university mathematics as a process of enculturation into new mathematical practices and new ways of constructing and conveying mathematical meaning. We see this enculturation as the adaptation of different ways to act and communicate mathematically. We take a discursive perspective and we treat the changes to the mathematical and pedagogical perspectives of those who act – students and lecturers – as discursive shifts (Sfard, 2008). Our particular focus is on the shifts concerning the ‘ultimate substantiator’ role typically attributed to the lecturer

Case study report The view of the EU cultural and science diplomacy from Egypt. EL-CSID Working Paper Issue 2018/12 • April 2018

As a reminder of the framework of this study, it is worth mentioning, even in general terms, a few schemes and figures. A EU-Egypt Association Agreement (2004) and a EU-Egypt Partnership (2017) have been guiding the relationship between the European Union and the Arab Republic of Egypt, which was maintained throughout all the recent historical events and mishaps of this big country. EU assistance to Egypt under the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI) for 2007-2013 was over 1 billion €. Under the Single Support Framework for the period 2014-2016 a total amount of 320 million € in EU grants were committed by the EU. For the period 2014-2020, the European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI) is the main financial instrument for EU cooperation with Egypt. A “Memorandum of Understanding regarding the EU's Single Support Framework 2017-2020” was signed with Egypt (for an amount of 500 million €), defining priority sectors, amongst which economic modernisation, energy and environment, having been consensually determined by both parties. The “Euro-Mediterranean agreement establishing an association between the European communities and their member states and the Arab Republic of Egypt” (2004) already included some articles about culture, science and innovation1

Community Land Conservation in the Coastal Watershed

The New Hampshire Estuaries Project (NHEP) provided a $10,000 grant to the Southeast Land Trust of New Hampshire (SELTNH) to support the hiring of a Community Land Protection Specialist to expand the region’s capacity to implement and complete conservation efforts within the coastal watershed, and specifically within the Lamprey River and Exeter River corridors. Over a period of eighteen months (January 2007 through June 30, 2008), the Community Land Protection Specialist (Specialist) worked with the Town of Brentwood, the Lamprey River Advisory Committee, and other community partners to conserve critical lands along the Exeter River, Lamprey River, and other areas of the coastal watershed. The Community Land Protection Specialist Managed all aspects of nine land conservation transactions completed during the grant period. Six projects (236 acres) are within the coastal watershed and include 1,200 feet of frontage on the Lamprey River and more than 800 feet of frontage on the Exeter River. Three other projects (189 acres) were outside of the coastal watershed. Assisted with the completion of six other land conservation transactions completed during the grant period, totaling 213 acres in the coastal watershed and 17 acres outside of the coastal watershed. The projects in the coastal watershed included 8,000 feet of frontage on the Lamprey River, 300 feet on the Taylor River, and a significant salt marsh in Rye. Conducted direct outreach (including personal letters and phone calls) in collaboration with the Lamprey River Advisory Committee to more than 45 landowners along the Lamprey River, resulting in follow-up interest among at least six landowners with ongoing conservation discussions including some appraisals and pending offers. Also hosted a land protection workshop attended by twenty-three interested landowners In collaboration with the Town of Brentwood assisted four landowners interested in conserving their land by helping them with their applications to the USDA Wetlands Reserve Program In addition, the Specialist coordinated outreach activities for targeted landowners. One estate planning and conservation options workshop was hosted in June 2007 in Epping, drawing 20 landowners. An introductory mailing and follow up calls were made to priority landowners within the Lamprey River watershed, yielding several land conservation projects that are in current discussions