'Kandinsky-fying’ the law: A translaborative use of abstract art in the law classroom

Sources of law are made up of terms that, amongst other things, mediate between facts and different results, and it is the role of lawyers to explain or justify why a particular interpretation or permutation of a given term should be taken in a given case. Such terms do not exist in isolation, but are hugely contextual and play an integral role in intermediating between different potential outcomes. Therefore, the skill of carefully applying and using legal terms is one of the primary focuses of legal education and calls for a consideration of the intricate role that legal terms play in legal argumentation. However, sometimes this endeavour in the law classroom is affected by the focus placed on the meaning of individual terms, as opposed to the broader role they have in legal reasoning and the analysis of legal outcomes. In considering this, this paper draws a contrast between the way in which students sometimes use different legal and moral terms in the various roles in their lives outside of the classrooms and within, and contends that one of the reasons for this is the greater liberty that they feel in using different terms outside of the classroom. This paper contends that, pedagogically, a similar level of independence can be achieved through the collaborative translation of legal concepts into abstract art, by enabling students to take greater co-ownership of legal language. Specifically, it argues that Wassily Kandinsky’s art theory, with its emphasis on the spirit and emotions, can provide an effective framework for this

Mona Lisa, the stochastic view and fractality in color space

A painting consists of objects which are arranged in specific ways. The art of painting is drawing the objects, which can be considered as known trends, in an expressive manner. Detrended methods are suitable for characterizing the artistic works of the painter by eliminating trends. It means that we study the paintings, regardless of its apparent purpose, as a stochastic process. We apply multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis to characterize the statistical properties of Mona Lisa, as an instance, to exhibit the fractality of the painting. Our results show that Mona Lisa is long range correlated and almost behaves similar in various scales.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures, to appear in Int. J. Mod. Phys.

Fast lemons and sour boulders:Testing crossmodal correspondences using an internet-based testing methodology

Abstract. According to a popular family of hypotheses, crossmodal matches between distinct features hold because they correspond to the same polarity on several conceptual dimensions (such as active–passive, good–bad, etc.) that can be identified using the semantic differential technique. The main problem here resides in turning this hypothesis into testable empirical predictions. In the present study, we outline a series of plausible consequences of the hypothesis and test a variety of well-established and previously untested crossmodal correspondences by means of a novel internet-based testing methodology. The results highlight that the semantic hypothesis cannot easily explain differences in the prevalence of crossmodal associations built on the same semantic pattern (fast lemons, slow prunes, sour boulders, heavy red); furthermore, the semantic hypothesis only minimally predicts what happens when the semantic dimensions and polarities that are supposed to drive such crossmodal associations are made more salient (e.g., by adding emotional cues that ought to make the good/bad dimension more salient); finally, the semantic hypothesis does not explain why reliable matches are no longer observed once intramodal dimensions with congruent connotations are presented (e.g., visually presented shapes and colour do not appear to correspond)

Modality and uncertainty in data visualizations : A corpus approach to the use of connecting lines

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Three color strategies in architectural composition

This is the pre-peer reviewed version of the following article: Serra, J. (2013), Three color strategies in architectural composition. Color Res. Appl., 38: 238–250. doi: 10.1002/col.21717, which has been published in final form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/col.21717/abstractThis article deals with the possibilities that color affords architectural composition, the strategies facilitated through color as a vocabulary of expression. It primarily focuses on the rules of grammar and syntax of color, and to a lesser degree on the semantic meanings, as this would entail multiple interpretations by the observer. Following an analysis of architectural color classification systems suggested by other authors, we reason that there are three main groups of plastic strategies. These are not mutually exclusive, but rather, complementary to each other: (I) color can influence the perception of the visual properties of architectural shapes; (II) color can describe the building and (III) color can be arranged for its intrinsic value. Each of these strategies deals with a different level of knowledge of the building, which requires both subconscious and conscious mechanisms of identification by the observer. These are the color strategies used by architects to express a particular compositional purpose. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Serra Lluch, J. (2013). Three color strategies in architectural composition. Color Research and Application. 38(4):238-250. https://doi.org/10.1002/col.21717S238250384Arnoldi, P. (2007). Colour is Communication. doi:10.1007/978-3-7643-8202-5Fridell Anter K 2004 227 230Arrarte Grau M 2008 53 54http://www.mvrdv.nl/#/news/074studiothonikIttelson, W. H., & Kilpatrick, F. P. (1951). Experiments in Perception. Scientific American, 185(2), 50-55. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0851-50Bottoni P 1927Humphrey N The effect of color on our perception of space Porter T Mikellides B London Studio Vista 1976 98 99Caivano JL Menghi I Iadisernia N 2004 113 115Humphrey N The color currency of nature Porter T Mikellides B London Studio Vista 1976 98 99Serra J Gilabert S Torres A Llopis J García A 2010 178 18

El cómic es cosa seria. El cómic como mediación para la enseñanza en la educación superior Caso Universidad Nacional, Universidad de Medellín y Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana

El problema planteado en esta investigación es estudiar el posible uso del cómiccomo mediación para la enseñanza en la educación superior. Su objetivo es establecerlas condiciones y características que debe tener el cómic para enseñar. El trabajoconsidera una muestra referenciada de informantes, y se desarrolla por medio deobservaciones, entrevistas en profundidad, redacción de diarios de campo y estudio defuentes documentales. Las principales conclusiones son que el cómic tiene potencialdidáctico, que ha sido poco utilizado para enseñar, y que las instituciones de educaciónsuperior deben propiciar su uso, e investigar para validar este potencial. Se plantea unapropuesta didáctica para fomentar la utilización del cómic en la educación superior.Los tres proponentes de esta investigación son docentes y utilizan la imagen en suslabores educativas

ВАРИАНТЫ КЛИНИЧЕСКОГО ТЕЧЕНИЯ ВАЗОСПАСТИЧЕСКОЙ СТЕНОКАРДИИ

Vasospastic angina (angina inversa, variant angina or Prinzmetal angina) is a rare variant of the course of coronary artery disease. Despite a good understanding of its underlying mechanisms (prolonged coronary spasm resulting from endothelial dysfunction) and contributing factors (smoking, exposure to cold weather, cocaine, autoimmune diseases, etc.), the treatment of each individual patient remains a source of discussion. To date, these patients are commonly treated with drugs, especially calcium antagonists and nitrates. The article presents clinical cases of patients with vasospastic angina and discusses their treatment depending on the individual clinical pattern. Early diagnosis of vasospastic angina allows preventing in some cases fatal complications and save patients’ life.Вазоспастическая стенокардия (ангиоспастическая, вариантная или стенокардия Принцметала) – редко встречающийся вариант течения ишемической болезни сердца. Несмотря на хорошую изученность механизмов ее возникновения (длительный спазм коронарных артерий, являющийся следствием эндотелиальной дисфункции) и провоцирующих факторов (курение, холод, прием кокаина, аутоиммунные заболевания и др.), вопросы лечения каждого отдельно взятого пациента остаются предметом дискуссии. На сегодняшний день предпочтение в лечении таких пациентов отдается медикаментозным препаратам, прежде всего антагонистам кальция и нитратам. В работе представлены случаи вазоспастической стенокардии и обсуждаются особенности их лечения в зависимости от клинического варианта ее течения. Диагностика вазоспастической стенокардии в ранние сроки позволяет предотвратить в ряде случаев фатальные осложнения и спасти жизнь пациенту

1/f2 Characteristics and Isotropy in the Fourier Power Spectra of Visual Art, Cartoons, Comics, Mangas, and Different Categories of Photographs

Art images and natural scenes have in common that their radially averaged (1D) Fourier spectral power falls according to a power-law with increasing spatial frequency (1/f2 characteristics), which implies that the power spectra have scale-invariant properties. In the present study, we show that other categories of man-made images, cartoons and graphic novels (comics and mangas), have similar properties. Further on, we extend our investigations to 2D power spectra. In order to determine whether the Fourier power spectra of man-made images differed from those of other categories of images (photographs of natural scenes, objects, faces and plants and scientific illustrations), we analyzed their 2D power spectra by principal component analysis. Results indicated that the first fifteen principal components allowed a partial separation of the different image categories. The differences between the image categories were studied in more detail by analyzing whether the mean power and the slope of the power gradients from low to high spatial frequencies varied across orientations in the power spectra. Mean power was generally higher in cardinal orientations both in real-world photographs and artworks, with no systematic difference between the two types of images. However, the slope of the power gradients showed a lower degree of mean variability across spectral orientations (i.e., more isotropy) in art images, cartoons and graphic novels than in photographs of comparable subject matters. Taken together, these results indicate that art images, cartoons and graphic novels possess relatively uniform 1/f2 characteristics across all orientations. In conclusion, the man-made stimuli studied, which were presumably produced to evoke pleasant and/or enjoyable visual perception in human observers, form a subset of all images and share statistical properties in their Fourier power spectra. Whether these properties are necessary or sufficient to induce aesthetic perception remains to be investigated