975 research outputs found

    Conversations on Empathy

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    In the aftermath of a global pandemic, amidst new and ongoing wars, genocide, inequality, and staggering ecological collapse, some in the public and political arena have argued that we are in desperate need of greater empathy — be this with our neighbours, refugees, war victims, the vulnerable or disappearing animal and plant species. This interdisciplinary volume asks the crucial questions: How does a better understanding of empathy contribute, if at all, to our understanding of others? How is it implicated in the ways we perceive, understand and constitute others as subjects? Conversations on Empathy examines how empathy might be enacted and experienced either as a way to highlight forms of otherness or, instead, to overcome what might otherwise appear to be irreducible differences. It explores the ways in which empathy enables us to understand, imagine and create sameness and otherness in our everyday intersubjective encounters focusing on a varied range of "radical others" – others who are perceived as being dramatically different from oneself. With a focus on the importance of empathy to understand difference, the book contends that the role of empathy is critical, now more than ever, for thinking about local and global challenges of interconnectedness, care and justice

    The Texture of Everyday Life: Carceral Realism and Abolitionist Speculation

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    Exploring the ways in which prisons shape the subjectivity of free-world thinkers, and the ways that subjectivity is expressed in literary texts, this dissertation develops the concept of carceral realism: a cognitive and literary mode that represents prisons and police as the only possible response to social disorder. As this dissertation illustrates, this form of consciousness is experienced as racial paranoia, and it is expressed literary texts, which reflect and help to reify it. Through this process of cultural reification, carceral realism increasingly insists on itself as the only possible mode of thinking. As I argue, however, carceral realism actually stands in a dialectical relationship to abolitionist speculation, or, the active imagining of a world without prisons and police and/or the conditions necessary to actualize such a world. In much the same way that carceral realism embeds itself in realist literary forms, abolitionist speculation plays a constitutive role in the utopian literary tradition. In order to elaborate these concepts, this dissertation begins with a meta-consideration of how cultural productions by incarcerated people are typically framed. Building upon the work of scholars and incarcerated authors’ own interventions in questions of consciousness, authorship, textual production, and study, this chapter contrasts that typical frame with a method of abolitionist reading. Chapter two applies this methodology to Edward Bunker’s 1977 novel The Animal Factory and Claudia Rankine’s 2010 poem Citizen in order to develop the concept of carceral realism and demonstrate how it has developed from the 1970s to the present. In order to lay out the historical foundations of the modern prison, chapter three looks back to the late 18th century and situates the emergence of the penitentiary within debates regarding race, citizenship, and state power. Returning to the 1970s, chapter four investigates the role universities have played in the formation of carceral realism and the complex relationship Chicanos and Asian Americans have to prisons and police by analogizing the institutionalization of prison literary study to the formation of ethnic studies. Chapter five draws this project to a conclusion by developing the concept of abolitionist speculation, or the active imagining of a world without prisons or the police and/or the conditions necessary to realize such a world, which I identify as both a constitutive generic feature of utopian literature and something that exceeds literature altogether. In doing so, this dissertation establishes an ongoing historical relationship between social reproduction of prisons and literary forms that cuts across time, geography, race, gender, and genre

    Tradition and Innovation in Construction Project Management

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    This book is a reprint of the Special Issue 'Tradition and Innovation in Construction Project Management' that was published in the journal Buildings

    Tracing the Creative Influence of Samuel Beckett’s ‘Psychology Notes’: The ‘Three Novels’ and Krapp’s Last Tape

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    Sammendrag Avhandlingens hovedargument er at notatkorpuset om psykologiske og spesielt psykoanalytiske emner som Samuel Beckett utarbeidet i 1934-1935 mens han var i terapi hos Wilfred Bion representerer en sentral og vedvarende innflytelse pĂ„ hans litterĂŠre verk. Den umiddelbare anvendelsen av disse psykologinotatene i arbeidet med romanen Murphy er velkjent, men avhandlingen gjennomgĂ„r denne opprinnelige kreative bruken pĂ„ nytt for Ă„ vise hvordan Beckett etablerer en form for parodisk overdrevet bruk av det lĂŠrebokaktige sprĂ„ket i mange av kildene som han hentet sine notater fra. Dette indikerer en kritisk avstandstagen fra psykoanalysen som disiplin, som ogsĂ„ fĂžrte til en plutselig avslutning av det terapeutiske forholdet til Bion in 1935. De to fĂžrste kapitlene i avhandlingen diskuterer konteksten for komposisjonen av psykologinotatene og diskuterer en rekke kreativt sentrale tematikker for Beckett. En ledetrĂ„d for diskusjonen er at Becketts tilnĂŠrming til det psykoanalytiske lĂŠreboksprĂ„ket fungerte bĂ„de tiltrekkende og motstandsgivende for ham som forfatter. PĂ„ den ene siden finner vi bĂ„de i Becketts tekster og i psykoanalysen en fascinasjon for det avskyvekkende, mens pĂ„ den annen side kan vi spore hos Beckett en bevisst motstand mot psykoanalysens forpliktelse til Ă„ sĂžke mot helbredelse, kontroll og meningsfullhet. Becketts tekster iscenesetter en avvisning av det psykoanalytiske sprĂ„ket som et feilslĂ„tt medium for Ă„ skrive om selvet, gjennom sin ironiske undergraving av psykoanalysens kognitive, autoritetsbaserte og terapeutiske utgangspunkt. Implikasjonene av dette utvikles i avhandlingen gjennom en nĂŠrlesing av romanene Molloy, Malone meurt/Malone Dies and L’Innommable/The Unnamable, og det korte teaterstykket Krapp’s Last Tape. I denne lesningen behandles Becketts psykologinotater som genetisk kildemateriale som fortsatt ble anvendt kreativt lenge etter de opprinnelig ble komponert. Avhandlingen tar utgangspunkt i en mest mulig empirisk etterprĂžvbar og manuskriptgenetisk tilnĂŠrming til kildene, med utstrakt bruk av Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project og andre arkivressurser som stĂžtte for sin argumentasjon. Men et pragmatisk forhold til behandlingen av tekstlig innflytelse som gĂ„r utover det som kan fĂžres sikre bevis for er ogsĂ„ nĂždvendig, for en viss grad av usikkerhet er umulig Ă„ unngĂ„. Likevel fastslĂ„r avhandlingen at en nylesning av disse verkene av Beckett med utgangspunkt i hans egne psykologinotater kan bĂ„de utvide og korrigere fokuset i den eksisterende faglitteraturen. Videre har det kritiske fokuset og opptreningen som denne avhandlingen presenterer ogsĂ„ et potensiale til Ă„ kunne generere en ny litteraturkritisk tilnĂŠrming til alle verkene i Becketts karriere som ble skrevet etter psykologinotatene.Abstract This study argues that the corpus of notes on psychological and especially psychoanalytic topics composed by Samuel Beckett in 1934-1935 during his therapy with Wilfred Bion represents a crucial and continuous creative influence on his literary work. While the immediate use of the ‘Psychology Notes’ in the writing of Murphy is well established, it is revisited here to suggest that this initial creative deployment is characterized by a parodic over-indulgence in the ‘textbook’ language of the sources Beckett was drawing on. This indicates a critical distancing from the discipline of psychoanalysis that also manifested itself in a sudden disruption of his therapy with Wilfred Bion in 1935. Drawing on the original context of the composition of the Notes, and developing a taxonomy of creatively important themes for Beckett, the first two chapters of the thesis trace a formative attraction-repulsion ambivalence in Beckett’s approach to the use of psychoanalytic textbook language in his writing. On the one hand, there is a shared obsession with ‘abjection’ between Beckett’s texts and the discipline of psychoanalysis, whereas on the other, the commitment to cure, control and meaning in psychoanalysis is being resisted in Beckett’s texts. Beckett’s later texts stage the rejection and failure of the psychoanalytic language as medium of writing the ‘self’ by ironically subverting its cognitive, authoritative and therapeutic purposes. This argument is developed through detailed close readings of the ‘Three Novels’ (Molloy, Malone meurt/Malone Dies and L’Innommable/The Unnamable) and the short play Krapp’s Last Tape, treating the ‘Psychology Notes’ as genetic source material that continued to be actively deployed long after its initial composition and creative impact. While the thesis is based on an empirical, genetic approach, making extensive use of the Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project and other archival sources, its approach is also pragmatic in its approach to influence, recognizing that conclusive evidence of intertextual relationships is not always possible to establish. Nonetheless, re-reading these Beckett works with the Notes to hand can both expand upon and correct the emphases of previous scholarship on these texts. Ultimately, the critical focus and training provided by this thesis is therefore intended to provide a scholarly tool for re-engaging all of Beckett’s post-Notes work.Doktorgradsavhandlin

    Deep Multimodality Image-Guided System for Assisting Neurosurgery

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    Intrakranielle Hirntumoren gehören zu den zehn hĂ€ufigsten bösartigen Krebsarten und sind fĂŒr eine erhebliche MorbiditĂ€t und MortalitĂ€t verantwortlich. Die grĂ¶ĂŸte histologische Kategorie der primĂ€ren Hirntumoren sind die Gliome, die ein Ă€ußerst heterogenes Erschei-nungsbild aufweisen und radiologisch schwer von anderen HirnlĂ€sionen zu unterscheiden sind. Die Neurochirurgie ist meist die Standardbehandlung fĂŒr neu diagnostizierte Gliom-Patienten und kann von einer Strahlentherapie und einer adjuvanten Temozolomid-Chemotherapie gefolgt werden. Die Hirntumorchirurgie steht jedoch vor großen Herausforderungen, wenn es darum geht, eine maximale Tumorentfernung zu erreichen und gleichzeitig postoperative neurologische Defizite zu vermeiden. Zwei dieser neurochirurgischen Herausforderungen werden im Folgenden vorgestellt. Erstens ist die manuelle Abgrenzung des Glioms einschließlich seiner Unterregionen aufgrund seines infiltrativen Charakters und des Vorhandenseins einer heterogenen KontrastverstĂ€rkung schwierig. Zweitens verformt das Gehirn seine Form ̶ die so genannte "Hirnverschiebung" ̶ als Reaktion auf chirurgische Manipulationen, Schwellungen durch osmotische Medikamente und AnĂ€sthesie, was den Nutzen prĂ€opera-tiver Bilddaten fĂŒr die Steuerung des Eingriffs einschrĂ€nkt. Bildgesteuerte Systeme bieten Ärzten einen unschĂ€tzbaren Einblick in anatomische oder pathologische Ziele auf der Grundlage moderner BildgebungsmodalitĂ€ten wie Magnetreso-nanztomographie (MRT) und Ultraschall (US). Bei den bildgesteuerten Instrumenten handelt es sich hauptsĂ€chlich um computergestĂŒtzte Systeme, die mit Hilfe von Computer-Vision-Methoden die DurchfĂŒhrung perioperativer chirurgischer Eingriffe erleichtern. Die Chirurgen mĂŒssen jedoch immer noch den Operationsplan aus prĂ€operativen Bildern gedanklich mit Echtzeitinformationen zusammenfĂŒhren, wĂ€hrend sie die chirurgischen Instrumente im Körper manipulieren und die Zielerreichung ĂŒberwachen. Daher war die Notwendigkeit einer BildfĂŒhrung wĂ€hrend neurochirurgischer Eingriffe schon immer ein wichtiges Anliegen der Ärzte. Ziel dieser Forschungsarbeit ist die Entwicklung eines neuartigen Systems fĂŒr die peri-operative bildgefĂŒhrte Neurochirurgie (IGN), nĂ€mlich DeepIGN, mit dem die erwarteten Ergebnisse der Hirntumorchirurgie erzielt werden können, wodurch die GesamtĂŒberle-bensrate maximiert und die postoperative neurologische MorbiditĂ€t minimiert wird. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit werden zunĂ€chst neuartige Methoden fĂŒr die Kernbestandteile des DeepIGN-Systems der Hirntumor-Segmentierung im MRT und der multimodalen prĂ€ope-rativen MRT zur intraoperativen US-Bildregistrierung (iUS) unter Verwendung der jĂŒngs-ten Entwicklungen im Deep Learning vorgeschlagen. Anschließend wird die Ergebnisvor-hersage der verwendeten Deep-Learning-Netze weiter interpretiert und untersucht, indem fĂŒr den Menschen verstĂ€ndliche, erklĂ€rbare Karten erstellt werden. Schließlich wurden Open-Source-Pakete entwickelt und in weithin anerkannte Software integriert, die fĂŒr die Integration von Informationen aus Tracking-Systemen, die Bildvisualisierung und -fusion sowie die Anzeige von Echtzeit-Updates der Instrumente in Bezug auf den Patientenbe-reich zustĂ€ndig ist. Die Komponenten von DeepIGN wurden im Labor validiert und in einem simulierten Operationssaal evaluiert. FĂŒr das Segmentierungsmodul erreichte DeepSeg, ein generisches entkoppeltes Deep-Learning-Framework fĂŒr die automatische Abgrenzung von Gliomen in der MRT des Gehirns, eine Genauigkeit von 0,84 in Bezug auf den WĂŒrfelkoeffizienten fĂŒr das Bruttotumorvolumen. Leistungsverbesserungen wurden bei der Anwendung fort-schrittlicher Deep-Learning-AnsĂ€tze wie 3D-Faltungen ĂŒber alle Schichten, regionenbasier-tes Training, fliegende Datenerweiterungstechniken und Ensemble-Methoden beobachtet. Um Hirnverschiebungen zu kompensieren, wird ein automatisierter, schneller und genauer deformierbarer Ansatz, iRegNet, fĂŒr die Registrierung prĂ€operativer MRT zu iUS-Volumen als Teil des multimodalen Registrierungsmoduls vorgeschlagen. Es wurden umfangreiche Experimente mit zwei Multi-Location-Datenbanken durchgefĂŒhrt: BITE und RESECT. Zwei erfahrene Neurochirurgen fĂŒhrten eine zusĂ€tzliche qualitative Validierung dieser Studie durch, indem sie MRT-iUS-Paare vor und nach der deformierbaren Registrierung ĂŒberlagerten. Die experimentellen Ergebnisse zeigen, dass das vorgeschlagene iRegNet schnell ist und die besten Genauigkeiten erreicht. DarĂŒber hinaus kann das vorgeschlagene iRegNet selbst bei nicht trainierten Bildern konkurrenzfĂ€hige Ergebnisse liefern, was seine AllgemeingĂŒltigkeit unter Beweis stellt und daher fĂŒr die intraoperative neurochirurgische FĂŒhrung von Nutzen sein kann. FĂŒr das Modul "ErklĂ€rbarkeit" wird das NeuroXAI-Framework vorgeschlagen, um das Vertrauen medizinischer Experten in die Anwendung von KI-Techniken und tiefen neuro-nalen Netzen zu erhöhen. Die NeuroXAI umfasst sieben ErklĂ€rungsmethoden, die Visuali-sierungskarten bereitstellen, um tiefe Lernmodelle transparent zu machen. Die experimen-tellen Ergebnisse zeigen, dass der vorgeschlagene XAI-Rahmen eine gute Leistung bei der Extraktion lokaler und globaler Kontexte sowie bei der Erstellung erklĂ€rbarer Salienzkar-ten erzielt, um die Vorhersage des tiefen Netzwerks zu verstehen. DarĂŒber hinaus werden Visualisierungskarten erstellt, um den Informationsfluss in den internen Schichten des Encoder-Decoder-Netzwerks zu erkennen und den Beitrag der MRI-ModalitĂ€ten zur end-gĂŒltigen Vorhersage zu verstehen. Der ErklĂ€rungsprozess könnte medizinischen Fachleu-ten zusĂ€tzliche Informationen ĂŒber die Ergebnisse der Tumorsegmentierung liefern und somit helfen zu verstehen, wie das Deep-Learning-Modell MRT-Daten erfolgreich verar-beiten kann. Außerdem wurde ein interaktives neurochirurgisches Display fĂŒr die EingriffsfĂŒhrung entwickelt, das die verfĂŒgbare kommerzielle Hardware wie iUS-NavigationsgerĂ€te und Instrumentenverfolgungssysteme unterstĂŒtzt. Das klinische Umfeld und die technischen Anforderungen des integrierten multimodalen DeepIGN-Systems wurden mit der FĂ€higkeit zur Integration von (1) prĂ€operativen MRT-Daten und zugehörigen 3D-Volumenrekonstruktionen, (2) Echtzeit-iUS-Daten und (3) positioneller Instrumentenver-folgung geschaffen. Die Genauigkeit dieses Systems wurde anhand eines benutzerdefi-nierten Agar-Phantom-Modells getestet, und sein Einsatz in einem vorklinischen Operati-onssaal wurde simuliert. Die Ergebnisse der klinischen Simulation bestĂ€tigten, dass die Montage des Systems einfach ist, in einer klinisch akzeptablen Zeit von 15 Minuten durchgefĂŒhrt werden kann und mit einer klinisch akzeptablen Genauigkeit erfolgt. In dieser Arbeit wurde ein multimodales IGN-System entwickelt, das die jĂŒngsten Fort-schritte im Bereich des Deep Learning nutzt, um Neurochirurgen prĂ€zise zu fĂŒhren und prĂ€- und intraoperative Patientenbilddaten sowie interventionelle GerĂ€te in das chirurgi-sche Verfahren einzubeziehen. DeepIGN wurde als Open-Source-Forschungssoftware entwickelt, um die Forschung auf diesem Gebiet zu beschleunigen, die gemeinsame Nut-zung durch mehrere Forschungsgruppen zu erleichtern und eine kontinuierliche Weiter-entwicklung durch die Gemeinschaft zu ermöglichen. Die experimentellen Ergebnisse sind sehr vielversprechend fĂŒr die Anwendung von Deep-Learning-Modellen zur UnterstĂŒtzung interventioneller Verfahren - ein entscheidender Schritt zur Verbesserung der chirurgi-schen Behandlung von Hirntumoren und der entsprechenden langfristigen postoperativen Ergebnisse

    Memory of Central and Eastern Europe: Past Traumas, Present Challenges, Future Horizons

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    The collective monograph Memory of Central and Eastern Europe: Past Traumas, Present Challenges, Future Horizons provides a unique platform for collaboration of different theoretical and conceptual approaches to memory and related studies. The first part of the book focuses on the issues related to the problematic aspects of memory in the context of urban and media space. The second part deals with the interaction between nation, national history and memory. The third part is devoted to the representation of memory and sheds light on the specific role of text as a means of cultural memory

    Security Analysis: A Critical Thinking Approach

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    Security Analysis: A Critical-Thinking Approach is for anyone desiring to learn techniques for generating the best answers to complex questions and best solutions to complex problems. It furnishes current and future analysts in national security, homeland security, law enforcement, and corporate security an alternative, comprehensive process for conducting both intelligence analysis and policy analysis. The target audience is upper-division undergraduate students and new graduate students, along with entry-level practitioner trainees. The book centers on a Security Analysis Critical-Thinking Framework that synthesizes critical-thinking and existing analytic techniques. Ample examples are provided to assist readers in comprehending the material. Newly created material includes techniques for analyzing beliefs and political cultures. The book also functions as an introduction to Foreign Policy and Security Studies.https://encompass.eku.edu/ekuopen/1005/thumbnail.jp

    The emergence of the English art school system

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    This thesis deploys a Foucauldian genealogy to critique the historical emergence of the English art school system. The first part considers the ancient values that transform the idea of the artist as distinctly different from that of the artisan; the second part considers the transformation of art itself, from serving the wealthy patron to its co-option by government to improve public taste and national economic success. This gave rise to a national system of art education. The third part considers the final emergence of the English art school in its modern form, and almost simultaneously, its disappearance as an autonomous institution within the wider education ecology. This was described at the time as the ‘Murder of the Art Schools’. This thesis contends that, rather than being murdered, the art schools were seen in the end, despite centuries of development and state support, to have failed in their aims either to raise the level of public taste or to provide professional training for industries which depended on good design and craftsmanship. Subsequently, the art schools became irrelevant as a state concern and were absorbed into the polytechnics. This thesis further contends that far from being the radical, creative centres of their own imagining, the art schools were often regressive, hierarchical, solipsistic, prone to the whims of charismatic individuals and in thrall to their own historical origins. They had scarcely advanced in any meaningful sense over several centuries. Ultimately, the English art school system, in the view of the state, became both irrelevant and obsolete

    K-Means and Alternative Clustering Methods in Modern Power Systems

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    As power systems evolve by integrating renewable energy sources, distributed generation, and electric vehicles, the complexity of managing these systems increases. With the increase in data accessibility and advancements in computational capabilities, clustering algorithms, including K-means, are becoming essential tools for researchers in analyzing, optimizing, and modernizing power systems. This paper presents a comprehensive review of over 440 articles published through 2022, emphasizing the application of K-means clustering, a widely recognized and frequently used algorithm, along with its alternative clustering methods within modern power systems. The main contributions of this study include a bibliometric analysis to understand the historical development and wide-ranging applications of K-means clustering in power systems. This research also thoroughly examines K-means, its various variants, potential limitations, and advantages. Furthermore, the study explores alternative clustering algorithms that can complete or substitute K-means. Some prominent examples include K-medoids, Time-series K-means, BIRCH, Bayesian clustering, HDBSCAN, CLIQUE, SPECTRAL, SOMs, TICC, and swarm-based methods, broadening the understanding and applications of clustering methodologies in modern power systems. The paper highlights the wide-ranging applications of these techniques, from load forecasting and fault detection to power quality analysis and system security assessment. Throughout the examination, it has been observed that the number of publications employing clustering algorithms within modern power systems is following an exponential upward trend. This emphasizes the necessity for professionals to understand various clustering methods, including their benefits and potential challenges, to incorporate the most suitable ones into their studies
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