Deep Epitomic Convolutional Neural Networks

Deep convolutional neural networks have recently proven extremely competitive in challenging image recognition tasks. This paper proposes the epitomic convolution as a new building block for deep neural networks. An epitomic convolution layer replaces a pair of consecutive convolution and max-pooling layers found in standard deep convolutional neural networks. The main version of the proposed model uses mini-epitomes in place of filters and computes responses invariant to small translations by epitomic search instead of max-pooling over image positions. The topographic version of the proposed model uses large epitomes to learn filter maps organized in translational topographies. We show that error back-propagation can successfully learn multiple epitomic layers in a supervised fashion. The effectiveness of the proposed method is assessed in image classification tasks on standard benchmarks. Our experiments on Imagenet indicate improved recognition performance compared to standard convolutional neural networks of similar architecture. Our models pre-trained on Imagenet perform excellently on Caltech-101. We also obtain competitive image classification results on the small-image MNIST and CIFAR-10 datasets.Comment: 9 page

The figure of executioner in Dubrovnik between social acceptance and rejection (fourteenth to eighteenth century)

Based on the documents from the State Archives of Dubrovnik, this article examines the office of executioner in the period between the fourteenth and the late eighteenth century. Introduction of professional executioner is being correlated with the process of the expansion of state “services” managed by professionals, with distinctive features of the penal system and the symbolic role of executioner in the rituals of power, while the abolishment of permanent office is accounted by the changing criminality trends in the mid-eighteenth century. Through the elements of execution, the ideal of “good death” is elucidated, along with the executioner’s intermediary role between the worlds of the dead and living. Further analysed is the attitude of Ragusan society towards the executioner, attention being drawn to certain ambivalent aspects, with a conclusion that in Dubrovnik, unlike elsewhere in Europe, less stigma was attached to this profession: executioner was generally perceived as an “official” who performed an unattractive though essential service to the benefit of the community

Hide seek and negotiate: Alfred Cope and counter intelligence in Ireland 1919–1921

British intelligence in Ireland between 1919 and 1921 has been characterized as a toxic mix of incompetence and mendacity. This article will challenge this judgement by examining the activities, impact and consequences of a British civil servant, Alfred Cope, who between 1920 and 1921 was an Assistant Under Secretary in Dublin Castle. Using the three criteria of counter-intelligence operations: the ability to locate, identify and neutralize a target, it will be shown that within months of his posting to Dublin British intelligence, albeit inadvertently, had located and identified him as passing classified information to Sinn Fein. Political patronage meant the ability of the intelligence community to neutralize his impact was nugatory. Latterly Cope recognized the consequences of his actions reverberated beyond the period of his time in Ireland

Integrative Levels of Knowing

Diese Dissertation beschäftigt sich mit einer systematischen Organisation der epistemologischen Dimension des menschlichen Wissens in Bezug auf Perspektiven und Methoden. Insbesondere wird untersucht inwieweit das bekannte Organisationsprinzip der integrativen Ebenen, das eine Hierarchie zunehmender Komplexität und Integration beschreibt, geeignet ist für eine grundlegende Klassifikation von Perspektiven bzw. epistemischen Bezugsrahmen. Die zentrale These dieser Dissertation geht davon aus, dass eine angemessene Analyse solcher epistemischen Kontexte in der Lage sein sollte, unterschiedliche oder gar konfligierende Bezugsrahmen anhand von kontextübergreifenden Standards und Kriterien vergleichen und bewerten zu können. Diese Aufgabe erfordert theoretische und methodologische Grundlagen, welche die Beschränkungen eines radikalen Kontextualismus vermeiden, insbesondere die ihm innewohnende Gefahr einer Fragmentierung des Wissens aufgrund der angeblichen Inkommensurabilität epistemischer Kontexte. Basierend auf Jürgen Habermas‘ Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns und seiner Methodologie des hermeneutischen Rekonstruktionismus, wird argumentiert, dass epistemischer Pluralismus nicht zwangsläufig zu epistemischem Relativismus führen muss und dass eine systematische Organisation der Perspektivenvielfalt von bereits existierenden Modellen zur kognitiven Entwicklung profitieren kann, wie sie etwa in der Psychologie oder den Sozial- und Kulturwissenschaften rekonstruiert werden. Der vorgestellte Ansatz versteht sich als ein Beitrag zur multi-perspektivischen Wissensorganisation, der sowohl neue analytische Werkzeuge für kulturvergleichende Betrachtungen von Wissensorganisationssystemen bereitstellt als auch neue Organisationsprinzipien vorstellt für eine Kontexterschließung, die dazu beitragen kann die Ausdrucksstärke bereits vorhandener Dokumentationssprachen zu erhöhen. Zudem enthält der Anhang eine umfangreiche Zusammenstellung von Modellen integrativer Wissensebenen.This dissertation is concerned with a systematic organization of the epistemological dimension of human knowledge in terms of viewpoints and methods. In particular, it will be explored to what extent the well-known organizing principle of integrative levels that presents a developmental hierarchy of complexity and integration can be applied for a basic classification of viewpoints or epistemic outlooks. The central thesis pursued in this investigation is that an adequate analysis of such epistemic contexts requires tools that allow to compare and evaluate divergent or even conflicting frames of reference according to context-transcending standards and criteria. This task demands a theoretical and methodological foundation that avoids the limitation of radical contextualism and its inherent threat of a fragmentation of knowledge due to the alleged incommensurability of the underlying frames of reference. Based on Jürgen Habermas’s Theory of Communicative Action and his methodology of hermeneutic reconstructionism, it will be argued that epistemic pluralism does not necessarily imply epistemic relativism and that a systematic organization of the multiplicity of perspectives can benefit from already existing models of cognitive development as reconstructed in research fields like psychology, social sciences, and humanities. The proposed cognitive-developmental approach to knowledge organization aims to contribute to a multi-perspective knowledge organization by offering both analytical tools for cross-cultural comparisons of knowledge organization systems (e.g., Seven Epitomes and Dewey Decimal Classification) and organizing principles for context representation that help to improve the expressiveness of existing documentary languages (e.g., Integrative Levels Classification). Additionally, the appendix includes an extensive compilation of conceptions and models of Integrative Levels of Knowing from a broad multidisciplinary field

Cultural Pervasiveness or Objective Violence?: Three Questions about KOS as Cultural Arbiters

Knowledge organization and knowledge organization systems are pervasive in human experience, yet the effect of this pervasiveness is overlooked and little analyzed. Several authors have called for a theory of knowledge organization that embraces cultural and social realities alongside domain-centric ontologies. Examples of leading studies point to pervasive and occasionally oppressive discourses embracing race, sex and gender and economics. Three research questions are presented about how to study knowledge organization systems as cultural arbiters and how to incorporate temporality and atemporality into the methodology of subject ontogeny