Multi-layer Architecture For Storing Visual Data Based on WCF and Microsoft SQL Server Database

In this paper we present a novel architecture for storing visual data. Effective storing, browsing and searching collections of images is one of the most important challenges of computer science. The design of architecture for storing such data requires a set of tools and frameworks such as SQL database management systems and service-oriented frameworks. The proposed solution is based on a multi-layer architecture, which allows to replace any component without recompilation of other components. The approach contains five components, i.e. Model, Base Engine, Concrete Engine, CBIR service and Presentation. They were based on two well-known design patterns: Dependency Injection and Inverse of Control. For experimental purposes we implemented the SURF local interest point detector as a feature extractor and $K$-means clustering as indexer. The presented architecture is intended for content-based retrieval systems simulation purposes as well as for real-world CBIR tasks.Comment: Accepted for the 14th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Soft Computing, ICAISC, June 14-18, 2015, Zakopane, Polan

'Deliver us from Evil': Pentecostal Christianity, Queer Sexualities and the Language of Deliverance in Nigerian Literature

Exploring the relationship between religion and queerness in Africa, this chapter discusses three Nigerian queer-themed novels – Elnathan John and Àlàbá Ònájìn’s On Ajayi Crowther Street, Buki Papillon’s An Ordinary Wonder, and Chinelo Okparanta’s Under the Udala Trees. Each of these texts offer a literary representation of Pentecostal Christianity, its demonization of queer sexuality, and its culture of deliverance of the queer body. The chapter argues that deliverance is a central, critical and productive theme in contemporary queer Nigerian literature used with a twofold purpose: first, to critique a dominant religious culture that demonizes queer subjects; second, to suggest that Pentecostalism may need deliverance itself from its obsession with demons, in order for queer African bodies to flourish. The chapter distinguishes three different strategies – exposing religious hypocrisy, reclaiming indigenous religion, and reinterpreting Christianity – that offer alternative modalities of African queer religious worldmaking. It argues that such worldmaking can be conceptualized as post-queer in the sense that the novels move beyond, and present alternatives to, a Eurocentric secular frame of understanding sexual and gendered embodiment