Between Regional and National Identity: Spectacle and Festival in Modern Japan

Distinctive cultures of display and spectacle mark the regional diversity of Japanese festivals. At the same time, material and ritual links among these traditions speak to broader forces of cultural standardization and commodification. This paper examines the mobile architecture and wood sculpture of festival floats (dashi) in central Japan as discursive and material markers of the connections between local Shintō festivals (matsuri) and broader agendas of nationalism in modern Japan. The Chita peninsula in Aichi prefecture is famous for dashimatsuri, Shintō shrine festivals featuring the procession of huge, wheeled floats called dashi. I argue that the recurrent reinvention of festive material culture and ritual has reflected and influenced broader ideological and social transformations. As the religious historian Helen Hardacre has shown, the modern reconfiguration of religious ritual as part of the construction of State Shintō co-opted local practices into larger discourses of national cultural identity. Studies of the art, architecture and ritual of dashi festivals view them as unchanging folk art and local practices that embody the cultural values of the merchant class of early modern (1600-1868) Japan. However, during Japan’s rapid modernization during the Meiji period (1868-1912), the ritual and doctrinal disciplining of matsuri through official programs of shrine consolidation, ritual standardization, and fiscal austerity transformed the cultural landscape of popular festivity in modern Japan. I argue that most surviving dashimatsuri reflect their early 20th-century reinvention as local expressions of popular nationalism. The ritual process and sculptural iconography of festival floats on the Chita peninsula reflected and reinforced discourses of national cultural exceptionalism and colonialism

National Agendas and Local Realities: Festive Material and Ritual Culture, Nationalism, and Modernity in the Chita Region of Japan

Abstract The reworking of religious space in modern Japan encompassed the reinvention of the spatial, material, and ritual culture of matsuri 祭り(festivals). After a period of relative official disfavor, festivals in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were reinvigorated by changes in ritual process and spatial scope, as well as by shifts in the architecture and sculpture of dashi 山 車 (wheeled festival floats). The incorporation of matsuri into broader discourses of national cultural identity was driven by the affective potential of their supposed cultural authenticity. This reinvention of festivity is evident in the Tokoname Matsuri of Tokoname City, Aichi Prefecture, where after the 1905 Russo-Japanese conflict several Edo-period shrine festivals were merged into a shōkonsai 招魂祭 (festival for the war dead). The spatial scope and ritual process, as well as the architecture and sculptural iconography, of the six dashi built for the new Tokoname Matsuri tied this regional city into national discourses of cultural authenticity, racial purity, and martial valor. The ideological resonance in prewar Japan of the Tokoname Matsuri and other festivals with nationalist imagery sprang from their indelibly local origins; matsuri were not controlled entirely from the top down, but rather were mediated at multiple levels

Race/ethnicity and gender differences in drug use and abuse among college students

This study examines race/ethnicity and gender differences in drug use and abuse for substances other than alcohol among undergraduate college students. A probability-based sample of 4,580 undergraduate students at a Midwestern research university completed a cross-sectional Web-based questionnaire that included demographic information and several substance use measures. Male students were generally more likely to report drug use and abuse than female students. Hispanic and White students were more likely to report drug use and abuse than Asian and African American students prior to coming to college and during college. The findings of the present study reveal several important racial/ethnic differences in drug use and abuse that need to be considered when developing collegiate drug prevention and intervention efforts.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2377408/https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2377408/Accepted manuscrip

An Analysis of RF Transfer Learning Behavior Using Synthetic Data

Transfer learning (TL) techniques, which leverage prior knowledge gained from data with different distributions to achieve higher performance and reduced training time, are often used in computer vision (CV) and natural language processing (NLP), but have yet to be fully utilized in the field of radio frequency machine learning (RFML). This work systematically evaluates how radio frequency (RF) TL behavior by examining how the training domain and task, characterized by the transmitter/receiver hardware and channel environment, impact RF TL performance for an example automatic modulation classification (AMC) use-case. Through exhaustive experimentation using carefully curated synthetic datasets with varying signal types, signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs), and frequency offsets (FOs), generalized conclusions are drawn regarding how best to use RF TL techniques for domain adaptation and sequential learning. Consistent with trends identified in other modalities, results show that RF TL performance is highly dependent on the similarity between the source and target domains/tasks. Results also discuss the impacts of channel environment, hardware variations, and domain/task difficulty on RF TL performance, and compare RF TL performance using head re-training and model fine-tuning methods.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2206.0832

SpaceNet MVOI: a Multi-View Overhead Imagery Dataset

Detection and segmentation of objects in overheard imagery is a challenging task. The variable density, random orientation, small size, and instance-to-instance heterogeneity of objects in overhead imagery calls for approaches distinct from existing models designed for natural scene datasets. Though new overhead imagery datasets are being developed, they almost universally comprise a single view taken from directly overhead ("at nadir"), failing to address a critical variable: look angle. By contrast, views vary in real-world overhead imagery, particularly in dynamic scenarios such as natural disasters where first looks are often over 40 degrees off-nadir. This represents an important challenge to computer vision methods, as changing view angle adds distortions, alters resolution, and changes lighting. At present, the impact of these perturbations for algorithmic detection and segmentation of objects is untested. To address this problem, we present an open source Multi-View Overhead Imagery dataset, termed SpaceNet MVOI, with 27 unique looks from a broad range of viewing angles (-32.5 degrees to 54.0 degrees). Each of these images cover the same 665 square km geographic extent and are annotated with 126,747 building footprint labels, enabling direct assessment of the impact of viewpoint perturbation on model performance. We benchmark multiple leading segmentation and object detection models on: (1) building detection, (2) generalization to unseen viewing angles and resolutions, and (3) sensitivity of building footprint extraction to changes in resolution. We find that state of the art segmentation and object detection models struggle to identify buildings in off-nadir imagery and generalize poorly to unseen views, presenting an important benchmark to explore the broadly relevant challenge of detecting small, heterogeneous target objects in visually dynamic contexts.Comment: Accepted into IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV) 201

Avoid Yet Another Search: Programs that Support a Diverse Faculty

Retaining quality faculty members is a critical issue in collegiate settings. This session will give background on retention, including (1) a video showcasing faculty diversity issues, (2) a case study application activity, and (3) a description of retention initiatives. The session will conclude with a synthesis activity wherein participants will develop a list of activities that can promote retention in their own settings

Transition to parenthood in the neonatal care unit: a qualitative study and conceptual model designed to illuminate parent and professional views of the impact of webcam technology

Background: Complications during pregnancy, childbirth and/or the postnatal period may result in the admission of a baby to a neonatal unit (NNU). While the survival and long-term prospects of high-risk infants are enhanced by admission, the enforced separation of the parent and child may have psychological consequences for both. There is a need to develop and evaluate interventions to help parents ‘feel closer’ to their infants in circumstances where they are physically separated from them. In this paper we present findings from an in-depth, theoretically-driven, evaluation of a technological innovation designed to address this need. The study sought to explore parent and professional views of the impact of the technology, which transmits real-time images of the baby via a webcam from the NNU to the mother’s bedside in the post-natal care environment.Methods: A qualitative approach was adopted, guided by a critical realist perspective. Participants were recruited purposively from a NNU located in East-central Scotland. Thirty-three parents and 18 professionals were recruited.Data were collected during individual, paired and small group interviews and were analys ed thematically. Following the initial analysis process, abductive inference was used to consider contextual factors and mechanisms of action appearing to account for reported outco mes.Results: Views on the technology were overwhelmingly positive. It was perceived as a much needed and important advancement in care delivery. Benefits centred on: enhanced feelings of closeness and responsiveness; emotional wellbeing; physical recovery; and the involvement of family/friends. These benefits appeared to function as important mechanisms in supporting the early bonding process and wider transition to parenthood. However, for a small number of the parents, use of the technology had not enhanced their experience and it is important, as with any intervention, that professionals monitor the parents’ response and act accordingly.Conclusions: With a current global increase in premature births, the technology appears to offer an important solution to periods of enforced parent-infant separation in the early post-natal period. The current study is one of a few world-wide to have sought to evaluate this form of technology in the neonatal care environment

Genome Sequencing of Blacklip and Greenlip Abalone for Development and Validation of a SNP Based Genotyping Tool

Abalone breeding in southern Australia often involves the production of interspecies hybrids through crossing blacklip (Haliotos rubra) and greenlip (H. laevigata) parental populations. To assist applied breeding and investigate genetic divergence, this study applied genome sequencing and variant detection to develop and validate a SNP genotyping tool. Skim short read Illumina sequencing was performed using 24 individuals from each of the two parental species and a hybrid population. Raw reads were assembled into three population specific pools (each 12–15 fold coverage), before mapping was performed against a draft greenlip abalone reference genome. Variant detection identified 22.4 M raw variants across the three populations (SNP and indels), suggesting they are highly heterozygous. First stage filtering defined a high quality SNP collection of 2.2 M variants independently called in each of the three populations. Second stage filtering identified a much smaller set of variants for assay design and genotyping using a validation set of 191 abalone of known population and pedigree. Comparison of allele frequency data revealed a high proportion of SNP (43%) had divergent allele frequency (< 0.2) between the two parental populations, suggesting they should have utility for parentage assignment. A maximum likelihood approach was used to successfully assign 105 of 105 progeny to their known true parent amongst a set of 86 candidate parents, confirming the genotyping tool has utility for applied breeding. Analysis of pairwise allele sharing successfully discriminated animals into populations, and PCA of genetic distance grouped the hybrid animals with intermediate values between the two parental populations. The findings present a library of DNA polymorphism of utility to breeding and ecological application, and begins to characterize the divergence separating two economically important aquaculture species