A machine learning approach to predict perceptual decisions: an insight into face pareidolia

The perception of an external stimulus not only depends upon the characteristics of the stimulus but is also influenced by the ongoing brain activity prior to its presentation. In this work, we directly tested whether spontaneous electrical brain activities in prestimulus period could predict perceptual outcome in face pareidolia (visualizing face in noise images) on a trial-by-trial basis. Participants were presented with only noise images but with the prior information that some faces would be hidden in these images, while their electrical brain activities were recorded; participants reported their perceptual decision, face or no-face, on each trial. Using differential hemispheric asymmetry features based on large-scale neural oscillations in a machine learning classifier, we demonstrated that prestimulus brain activities could achieve a classification accuracy, discriminating face from no-face perception, of 75% across trials. The time–frequency features representing hemispheric asymmetry yielded the best classification performance, and prestimulus alpha oscillations were found to be mostly involved in predicting perceptual decision. These findings suggest a mechanism of how prior expectations in the prestimulus period may affect post-stimulus decision making

Reflections on transformative pedagogies and ecology in the cultural sphere.

This chapter reflects on the scope of community engagement practices, creative partnerships and emergent ways of working in the cultural sphere. Providing an articulation of key ideas significant in creative partnerships this chapter critically reflects on the theoretical framework of ecologies of practice to re-consider community connectivity related to the visual domain. Evidence of transformative pedagogies as strategies to inform practice will be articulated. An examination of the ways in which practices can be considered as living things interdependent and connected in ‘ecologies of practice’ (Kemmis et al, 2012) will be undertaken using contemporary community engagement projects. Evidence of practices as orchestrated transdisciplinary arrangements are described using reflexive accounts to further examine specific projects and how ideas, methods and approaches are situated in relation to the broader field. The implications of ideas presented as “practice encounters” is considered in terms of participatory practice and transformative research methods. We revisit the existing terrain and identify how community engagement encompassing art, education and the cultural sphere can be re-imagined and re-oriented to explore concepts of educational encounter beyond experience and dialogue. How social worlds related to art, education and the cultural sphere are prefigured, enacted and reconfigured using permeable boundaries and transformative pedagogy is disclosed. We conclude by speculating on the adaptations and implications of transformative pedagogies and ecologies of practice in art, education and the cultural sphere

Beyond Community Engagement: Transforming dialogues in art, education and the cultural sphere

This book reconsiders fundamental questions about relationships between community engagement, art and education within cultural spheres. Transdisciplinary chapters bring together researchers as “insider-practitioners” to challenge assumptions and offer new insights about practice, engagement and possibilities for transformation. The chapters reflect both localised projects and international perspectives on ecologies of practice as a key marker of the mobility of ideas as well as social mobility. Addressing socially engaged, informal pedagogy re-examines the aesthetic possibilities of social capital in the public domain. Re-considering contributions of education and research through transfer of knowledge and expertise across small social collectives, partnerships and larger institutional agencies is a growing practice. Examining equity and types of participation alongside issues of local and global significance is emergent in new, pop-up and continuing communities. Gauging social impact through case studies is an important project within the tertiary sector to ensure that critically reflexive visual research methodologies gain currency within contemporary neo-liberal funding and educational agendas. In the current milieux we ask, is all engagement transformative, educative, sustainable and linked to democratizing principles that address civic agendas? Re-imagining sites/situations of learning, culture and place as “practice encounters” utilises practices relevant for educators and practitioners. Applications of ecology, practice architectures and site ontologies inform broader social challenges. Conceiving arts-based research as a network, prioritises transitions and becomings to re-conceptualise the significance of relationships within local/global connectivity. Linking professional networks and agencies to adaptive communities, creates an expanded field of real world creative partnerships to enable changing pedagogies

Examining the lived experience of bullying: a review of the literature from an Australian perspective

Bullying in schools is a significant and continuing issue in education. This is despite widespread attention within the professional education community and beyond, into the wider public arena. In this paper, we review the existing literature on bullying in schools, with a particular focus on the Australian secondary school context, to develop a position that questions the bully/victim binary pervading public discourse and educational research. In doing this, we identify common themes within the literature including: definitions of bullying; responses and interventions to bullying; discourses of bullying in schools; and the role of stakeholders involved in managing and responding to bullying incidents. Based on this review, we argue that much of the literature approaches the topic from an individual and psychological point of view, and there are multiple problems related to both methodology and representation. There appears to be an absence of research about the broader social contexts and processes in which bullying occurs, while there is a strong argument for its importance. From this basis, we briefly speculate on alternative approaches that potentially address such concerns and allow for new approaches to a continuing problem, in Australia and internationally

Histopathologic and bacterial evaluation of conventional and new copper amalgams

. In vivo pulpal responses in monkeys and in vitro bacterial inhibition studies were completed on new copper amalgams, Sybraloy, ® Dispersalloy, ® Tytin® and a conventional Spheraloy® amalgam. Amalgams were placed in cavities lined with ZOE and in unlined cavities. Silicate and ZOE were used as controls. A total of 165 adult monkey teeth were evaluated at 3 days, 5 and 8 weeks. At 3 days the pulpal responses elicited by the copper amalgams appeared similar to conventional Spheraloy, ® all showing a slight to moderate response. At 5 weeks the majority of amalgams exhibited a slight pulpal response with a tubular reparative dentin under each restoration. The 8 week pulpal response showed a reduction of the inflammatory response characterized by a tubular reparative dentin with a uniform zone of predentin. Lined ZOE controls exhibited a slight response while silicate showed a moderate response with some persistent chronic inflammation. In vitro bacterial tests revealed that the various amalgams had little to no inhibitory effect on the three serotypes of S. mutans that are most prominent in humans.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/73155/1/j.1600-0714.1979.tb01626.x.pd

A 189 MHz, 2400 deg2 polarization survey with the Murchison widefield array 32-element prototype

We present a Stokes I, Q and U survey at 189 MHz with the Murchison Widefield Array 32 element prototype covering 2400 deg2. The survey has a 15.6 arcmin angular resolution and achieves a noise level of 15 mJy beam–1. We demonstrate a novel interferometric data analysis that involves calibration of drift scan data, integration through the co-addition of warped snapshot images, and deconvolution of the point-spread function through forward modeling. We present a point source catalog down to a flux limit of 4 Jy. We detect polarization from only one of the sources, PMN J0351-2744, at a level of 1.8% ± 0.4%, whereas the remaining sources have a polarization fraction below 2%. Compared to a reported average value of 7% at 1.4 GHz, the polarization fraction of compact sources significantly decreases at low frequencies. We find a wealth of diffuse polarized emission across a large area of the survey with a maximum peak of ~13 K, primarily with positive rotation measure values smaller than +10 rad m–2. The small values observed indicate that the emission is likely to have a local origin (closer than a few hundred parsecs). There is a large sky area at α >= 2h30m where the diffuse polarized emission rms is fainter than 1 K. Within this area of low Galactic polarization we characterize the foreground properties in a cold sky patch at (α, δ) = (4h, –27°.6) in terms of three-dimensional power spectra