Universal difference? Understanding relationality and difference in transpersonal psychotherapy

As a working class, black, male, who is the son of immigrants who travelled from the Caribbean with the Windrush Generation, I often feel at odds with my psychotherapy profession, dominated as it is by middle class, white, women, who typically have a British family line flowing back generations. My sense of otherness is with me throughout my working day, in my psychotherapy practice, as I sit with a diverse range of clients within the complex context of contemporary ‘multicultural’ Britain. The sense of ‘the other’, the sense of myself as ‘other’ impacts on, and to some degree constitutes therapeutic relationality. Within most styles of psychotherapy difference is mainly understood in terms of the acknowledgement of the various categories, consideration of power imbalances, which we try as therapists to work with, work around, work through. But I am a transpersonal psychotherapist, and within this modality, there is very little consideration of ‘difference’, or otherness, except to highlight the apparent universality of us all. In this paper, we will explore ways of carving out a space within transpersonal ways of thinking to consider the relational context of therapy, and to explore the constitution of ‘othering’ within this transpersonal therapeutic context. This paper outlines how the use of creative techniques common to Transpersonal psychotherapy, such as visualisations, drawing, and Sand Tray work can be used in research on therapy to explore the emotional bodily and relational experience of difference, between therapist and client, and between researcher and researche

Image segmentation evaluation using an integrated framework

In this paper we present a general framework we have developed for running and evaluating automatic image and video segmentation algorithms. This framework was designed to allow effortless integration of existing and forthcoming image segmentation algorithms, and allows researchers to focus more on the development and evaluation of segmentation methods, relying on the framework for encoding/decoding and visualization. We then utilize this framework to automatically evaluate four distinct segmentation algorithms, and present and discuss the results and statistical findings of the experiment

A framework and user interface for automatic region based segmentation algorithms

In this paper we describe a framework and tool developed for running and evaluating automatic region based segmentation algorithms. The tool was designed to allow simple integration of existing and future segmentation algorithms, both single image based algorithms and those that operate on video data. Our framework supports plug-in segmenters, media decoders, and region-map codecs. We provide several sophisticated implementations of these plug-ins, including a video decoder capable of frame accurate decoding of a large variety of video formats, an image decoder which also handles a comprehensive collection of formats, and a efficient implementation of a region-map codec. The tool includes both a graphical user interface to allow users to browse, visually inspect, and evaluate the algorithm output, and a batch processing interface for segmentation of large data collections. The application allows researchers to focus more on the development and evaluation of segmentation methods, relying on the framework for encoding/decoding input and output, and the front end for visualization

Exploring Magnetism in Solid Lattices with Efficient Monte Carlo Simulations

A Monte Carlo simulation was implemented for a square Isinglattice of interacting atomic spins to collect independent measurements of the crystal’s magnetization at varying times.Due to the stochastic updating algorithm for the spin sites, one system state was strongly correlated with the next state. To retain the validity of the magnetization average and variance calculations and minimize their bias, the simulation needed to only collect data when the states were nearly uncorrelated. Evidently, the time steps required for the 30x30 (dimensions in site numbers) lattice’s spin autocorrelation to drop below 10% ranged from ~20 steps when far from the critical temperature (ferromagnetic to paramagnetic phase change)to ~200 steps when very close to the critical temperature. Thenext step to improve the Monte Carlo simulation efficiency is to train a neural network to more quickly calculate the probabilities of flipping spins on the lattice

The expectations clock: a model for leadership, reversion, and over- and under-reaction

The expectations clock illustrates how expectations of future performance are driven by human biases tied to current and past changes in relative performance. The clock is a model of reversion and over- and under- reaction. Depending on initial expectations, disruptive events (or change events) may have different relationships with future performance. Leadership succession is utilized as a proxy for disruption and over- and under-reaction refer to reactions to negative circumstances. The interaction of expectations and disruption may be associated with a counterintuitive inverse relationship with future relative performance. When expectations are low, disruption may be related to over-reaction and when expectations are high disruption may reduce under-reaction. This occurs if expectations cycle, much like a clock, since the level of expectations is related to the level of inertia. Expectations appear to revert; although, the expectations clock exhibits "stickiness” at key points. Stickiness refers to how top and bottom performing institutions tend to rotate between improving and deteriorating performance but not cross over between the bottom and top halves, respectively. Disruption (or lack of disruption) at key points may influence reversion and stickiness. Contrary to prior studies, this research finds no relationship between initial expectations and the succession event itself