Political Power and Its Representation

This response to Andrew Rehfeld's “Representation Rethought” (American Political Science Review2009) takes up his criticisms of my “Rethinking Representation” (American Political Science Review2003) to advance a more relational and systematic approach to representation. To this end, it suggests replacing the “trustee” concept of representation with a “selection model” based on the selection and replacement of “gyroscopic” representatives who are both relatively self-reliant in judgment and relatively nonresponsive to sanctions. It explores as well the interaction between representatives’ (and constituents’) perceptions of reality and their normative views of what the representative ought to represent. Building from the concept of surrogate representation and other features of legislative representation, it argues for investigating, both normatively and empirically, not only the characteristics of individual representatives emphasized by Rehfeld's analysis but also the representative–constituent relationship and the larger representative system, including both elected and nonelected representatives, inside and outside the legislature.

The temporal evolution of conceptual object representations revealed through models of behavior, semantics and deep neural networks

Visual image in the book is an important part of making a literary work especially in children picture book and the visual image were studied in social semiotic. This research aims to find the visual representation in children book Charlie and The Chocolate Factory written by Roald Dahl in 1964, as well as to identify the meaning by explaining social semiotic through visual representation in representational meaning, character manifestation, appearance and inter-circumstance by Painter. This study classified into qualitative research and types of data in this research classified into document of analyzing. While the steps collecting and analyzing data the researcher using social semiotic approach through multimodality by Bezemer and Jewitt: collecting and logging, viewing, sampling and transcribing the data. Then, for analyzed the data using visual representation (narrative representation, conceptual representation, and embedding) by Kress and Leeuwen also character manifestation, appearance, and inter-circumstance by Painter. This research used qualitative descriptive method in reporting the result of analysis in which description took the most important role in displaying the data analysis. The researcher found 43 of illustration images in the context of children book Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. The researchers found narrative representation (40), conceptual representation (3), embedding (images that contain narrative and conceptual representation) (4). Then, the researcher found appear (12), reappear (28), and 3 images are not counted because there is no character in the structure of character appearance. All of data or 43 images classified complete feature in the structure of character manifestation, and all of data classified into sustain degree in the structure of inter-circumstance. The result of this research is be able to explain the visual representation meaning, character manifestation, appearance, and inter-circumstance which found in children book Charlie and The Chocolate Factory.

Untangling featural and conceptual object representations

The purpose of this study was to identify effects of variability of visual input on development of conceptual representations of academic concepts for college-age students with normal language (NL) and those with language-learning disabilities (LLD). Students with NL (n = 11) and LLD (n = 11) participated in a computer-based training for introductory biology course concepts. Participants were trained on half the concepts under a low-variability condition and half under a high-variability condition. Participants completed a posttest in which they were asked to identify and rate the accuracy of novel and trained visual representations of the concepts. We performed separate repeated measures analyses of variance to examine the accuracy of identification and ratings. Participants were equally accurate on trained and novel items in the high-variability condition, but were less accurate on novel items only in the low-variability condition. The LLD group showed the same pattern as the NL group; they were just less accurate. Results indicated that high-variability visual input may facilitate the acquisition of academic concepts in college students with NL and LLD. High-variability visual input may be especially beneficial for generalization to novel representations of concepts. Implicit learning methods may be harnessed by college courses to provide students with basic conceptual knowledge when they are entering courses or beginning new units.

A recent resurgence of decolonisation movements and tensions between the university and wider civic spheres, alongside growing marketisation and internationalisation indicate critical tensions in higher education in the UK. Drawing on the concept of representation, defined as the process through which meaning is produced and exchanged (Hall, Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices. Sage, 1997), we focus on the central role of the university in knowledge production. We explore the experiences of doctoral students in the social sciences and humanities in the UK, who we position as new ‘knowledge-makers’. Using narrative inquiry and fictionalised vignettes, we found that doctoral training continues to perpetuate existing Eurocentric and masculinised forms of logic, or ‘regimes of representation’. Participants expressed concern over hegemonic knowledge cultures that often marginalised their epistemic vantage points. However, reflection on representation can be driven and fostered by collective action to create powerful subcultures of critical reflexivity. We argue that these must be incorporated within the design of doctoral training programmes.

Investigating World’s Fairs: an Historiography Lisa Munro World’s fairs and international expositions captured the imagination of both the public and world leaders from the late nineteenth century until well into the twentieth. Expositions organized the world into an orderly, symbolic representation of cultural modernity and industrial progress. At their zenith, expositions took place several times a year in different locations around the world, but occurred most frequently in the United States and Europe. Nations across the globe scrambled to host their own expositions or, at the very least, participate in an important exposition in order to share in the excitement that surrounded these fairs. The multiple goals, exhibits, and expressions of the nature of world’s fairs and international expositions makes them ideal subjects for cultural historians to understand the assumptions, beliefs, and worldviews of people who both constructed and attended these major events. These fairs not only captivated international audiences, but also influenced collective and individual memories of the enormous spectacles. The visual representation of people and concepts has structured knowledge and provided people with an easily understood ideological map of the world. Although images had always served to transmit information and ideas, representations assumed an even higher profile in the late nineteenth century after the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of an economic system that relied on the production of massive amounts of consumer goods that came to adorn public venues for visual consumption. A pattern of display emerged: Visual representations took on increased significance as private, closed displays of collections of art, scientific specimens, and archaeological artifacts became more accessible through the gradual opening of locations that encouraged the public to understand the world through exhibition. The shift toward expositions formed part of a larger “exhibitionary culture” that developed during the late nineteenth century.1 The increased visibility of world’s fairs, national museums, and department stores allowed new cultural attitudes toward display and exhibition to flourish, making visual representation an authoritative medium for the transmission of knowledge. The strategic display of material culture in these public venues provided a tangible way for powerful institutions, such as local and national governments, as well as elite economic interests to broadcast visually their worldviews to a large audience. 2 The increasing visibility of science, art, and consumer goods promoted [End Page 80] visual representations as the primary means of learning about the world as well as providing explanations about its order and purpose. The culture of display helped structure the relationships between visitors and objects in the exhibit that mirrored the proper relationship between the public and state institutions and reinforced social order. Furthermore, expositions served didactic purposes in that fair organizers designed exhibits inculcate the public in acceptable social roles and cultural values.3 Among the plethora of exhibits of natural resources, scientific devices, and modern consumer products, the display of human beings constituted a crucial part of the visual messages that viewers received. Fairs offered viewers a glimpse of strange and exotic beings through both living ethnographic exhibits and static dioramas, which commonly featured indigenous people from both overseas and internal colonial possessions. Colonized peoples at fairs served as trophies as well as souvenirs for imperial nations and their citizens. Even in stationary dioramas, exhibits that displayed archaeological and ethnographic materials represented the symbolic presence of foreign peoples and structured the relationship between the viewers and the exhibit. The display of people served as a bridge between popular entertainment and both popular and anthropological conceptions of race and evolution based on Social Darwinism. These exhibits conveyed a number of ideas, such as the power of empire as well as popularized pseudo-scientific ideas about the nature of indigenous people. By the end of the nineteenth century, representations of imperialism had become standard fare at expositions.4 Fair organizers, often in the guise of anthropologists, attempted to present indigenous people in supposedly authentic settings, creating the impression of savagery, barbarity, and exoticism that titillated fairgoers.5 The juxtaposition of well-heeled visitors and savage Indians emphasized the dichotomy between civilization and barbarity as well as progress and primitivism. The subtle ideas and discourses generated at expositions remained lodged in the public consciousness long after the destruction...

Background: In mathematics education, the understanding of concepts is often influenced by students' visual abilities, making conceptual representation crucial in facilitating comprehension of the material.Aim: This study aims to analyze the role of visual abilities in facilitating the understanding of mathematical concepts through conceptual representation.Method: This research combines quantitative analysis with the use of attribute control diagrams to evaluate data obtained from tasks designed to test students' visual abilities in a mathematical context. These tasks include the manipulation of visual representations and problem-solving using geometric concepts.Results: The findings indicate that 80% of the sample possessed visual abilities that did not meet the expected index, showing a wide variation in students' visual representation abilities. Additionally, most students (70%) were more likely to choose familiar geometric representations in problem-solving, despite difficulties in manipulating more complex concepts.Conclusion: This study demonstrates that students often struggle to effectively utilize visual representations, preferring algebraic approaches that do not fully exploit the potential of conceptual representation. The findings suggest that an increased focus on developing visual abilities, especially in conceptual representation, could strengthen mathematical understanding. Further research is needed to develop intervention strategies that can help students overcome gaps in their visual abilities.

This article describes the conceptions of governmental held by Burmese villagers in Upper Burma, and the degree to which their conceptions correspond to the behavior of government officials at the township and district levels. The present is Burma to the 1962 military coup. (Burmese villages, political power, government officials) Some years ago Nash (1965:76-79, 271-72) observed that Burmese society is best understood by means of three concepts, or (as they might be called) organizing principles: goun, hpoun, and awza. The first can be glossed as prestige, the second as charisma, the third as authority. Although Nash is correct, in my view these three concepts must be augmented by a fourth. (ana). Since, however, and authority, in Burma and elsewhere, sustain a reciprocal relationship - sometimes is a function of authority, sometimes authority is a function of - the Burmese most frequently speak of awza-ana when referring to political power. Having elsewhere discussed the social and cultural relevance of prestige (Spiro 1966, 1996) and charisma (Spiro 1982:396-404) in Burmese village society, in this article I discuss power, specifically political power.(2) Before doing so, however, it is perhaps useful to explain the critical terms in the title. First, ethnographic signals that the discussion of political is not based on such currently fashionable abstract concepts as (Foucaultian) of power or (Gramscian) hegemonic structures that have come to pervade contemporary social science discussions of power. Rather, this discussion is based on concrete expressions of political (governmental) power, and the actors' conceptions of such power, as the former were observed and the latter elicited in the course of anthropological fieldwork in the Upper Burma village that I call Yeigyi. Second, notes signals that this article neither derives from nor attempts to develop a unified theory of relations. Nonetheless, since many of the observations recorded here have been replicated pari passu in many other peasant societies, their implications for the development of such a theory are self-evident. Finally, the expression prior to the 1962 military coup indicates that the fifteen months of fieldwork on which this article is based occurred immediately before the present military government seized power, when I (together with other foreign scholars) was forced to leave the country. Hence, it is that period that represents this article's present. Because it has not been possible to conduct fieldwork there since then, the oppressive political record of this illegal government (which, according to Amnesty International, is one of the world's worst offenders against human rights) is not dealt with here. VILLAGERS' CONCEPTIONS OF GOVERNMENTAL POWER In some important respects villagers, conceptions of governmental are informed by traditional political values regnant during the Burmese monarchy. (For descriptions of the monarchy and its complex administrative system see Crawfurd 1834; Foucar 1946; Harvey 1925;, Koenig 1990; Lieberman 1984; Mya Sein 1938; Nisbet 1901.) According to these values, the authority and legitimacy of the monarchy rested on the following four foundations. first, the Indian concept of royalty associated with the Code of Manu, with its emphasis on the magical of the court regalia; second, the Hindu-derived cosmological significance of the capital, according to which the royal palace symbolized the center of the universe and its inhabitants were accorded divine status, third, the conception of the king as the Protector of the Faith and kin some cases) his claim to being a Future Buddha (bodhisatta) and universal emperor (cakkavatti); and fourth, the Buddhist doctrine of karma (kamma), which provided religious sanction for the regime. (For detailed discussions see Cady 1958:ch. …

Shaw by the Numbers

Perception and cognition are highly interrelated. Given the influence that these systems exert on one another, it is important to explain how perceptual representations and cognitive representations interact. In this paper, I analyze the similarities between visual perceptual representations and cognitive representations in terms of their structural properties and content. Specifically, I argue that the spatial structure underlying visual object representation displays systematicity – a property that is considered to be characteristic of propositional cognitive representations. To this end, I propose a logical characterization of visual feature binding as described by Treisman’s Feature Integration Theory and argue that systematicity is not only a property of language-like representations, but also of spatially organized visual representations. Furthermore, I argue that if systematicity is taken to be a criterion to distinguish between conceptual and non-conceptual representations, then visual representations, that display systematicity, might count as an early type of conceptual representations. Showing these analogies between visual perception and cognition is an important step toward understanding the interface between the two systems. The ideas here presented might also set the stage for new empirical studies that directly compare binding (and other relational operations) in visual perception and higher cognition.

For more than half a century, Erwin Panofsky's Perspective as Symbolic Form has dominated studies of visual representation. Despite the hegemony of central projection, or perspective, other equally important methods of representation have much to tell us. Parallel projection can be found on classical Greek vases, in Pompeiian frescoes, in Byzantine mosaics; it returned in works of the historical avant-garde, and remains the dominant form of representation in China. In Oblique Drawing, Massimo Scolari investigates anti-perspective visual representation over two thousand years, finding in the course of his investigation that visual and conceptual representations are manifestations of the ideological and philosophical orientations of different cultures. Images prove to be not just a form of art but a form of thought, a projection of a way of life. Scolari's generously illustrated studies show that illusionistic perspective is not the only, or even the best, representation of objects in history; parallel projection, for example, preserves in scale the actual measurements of objects it represents, avoiding the distortions of one-point perspective. Scolari analyzes the use of nonperspectival representations in pre-Renaissance images of machines and military hardware, architectural models and drawings, and illustrations of geometrical solids. He challenges Panofsky's theory of Pompeiian perspective and explains the difficulties encountered by the Chinese when they viewed Jesuit missionaries' perspectival religious images. Scolari vividly demonstrates the diversity of representational forms devised through the centuries, and shows how each one reveals something that is lacking in the others.

Multivariate pattern analysis is a technique that allows the decoding of conceptual information such as the semantic category of a perceived object from neuroimaging data. Impressive single-trial classification results have been reported in studies that used fMRI. Here, we investigate the possibility to identify conceptual representations from event-related EEG based on the presentation of an object in different modalities: its spoken name, its visual representation and its written name. We used Bayesian logistic regression with a multivariate Laplace prior for classification. Marked differences in classification performance were observed for the tested modalities. Highest accuracies (89% correctly classified trials) were attained when classifying object drawings. In auditory and orthographical modalities, results were lower though still significant for some subjects. The employed classification method allowed for a precise temporal localization of the features that contributed to the performance of the classifier for three modalities. These findings could help to further understand the mechanisms underlying conceptual representations. The study also provides a first step towards the use of concept decoding in the context of real-time brain-computer interface applications.

Political power and state institutions, primarily in the sense of inter weaving and reduction of their political power, is a research topic that has been going on for thousands of years. Many have studied the intertwined corridors of these political phenomena, but they have never been able to fully explore this topic. In this paper, their causal relationship is analyzed, with a special emphasis on the tendency of political power and state institutions to become alienated, in which these "servants of the people" are transferred over time to lords, which is why this paper starts from the position that political power wants to subordinate state institutions. The scientific importance is primarily contained in the effort to further enrich the scientific fund in the field of political theory and the state. The aim of the research is much more ambitious and is contained primarily in the intention to point out all the positive and negative repercussions that arise from the complex relations between the political power and state institutions, with the intention of pointing out these social anomalies and to increase the degree of democratization, but also functionality of society as a whole

Who gets what, when and how is affected by the power of different groups in society to affect the political process. Many feminists see increasing women's political representation, via elected office or interest-group involvement, as a necessary condition for improving the status of women. Many studies have examined whether the numerical representation of women translates into legislation or legislative behaviour that seeks to improve the status of women. Although we have evidence that women's legislative representation matters, the passage of legislation is only half of the story in public policy making. After policies are enacted, the bureaucracy must implement them and little research has examined the impact of women's political representation on policy outputs. The question of women's influence on bureaucracies is especially important, because bureaucracies deliver services that have a direct bearing on the status of women. It is an important issue for representative democracy whether women have an influence on the bureaucracies that affect them.Beth Reingold, ‘Concepts of Representation among Female and Male State Legislators’, Legislative Studies Quarterly, 17 (1992), 509–37; Michelle A. Saint-Germaine, ‘Does Their Difference Make a Difference? The Impact of Women on Public Policy in the Arizona Legislature’, Social Science Quarterly, 70 (1989), 956–68; Sue Thomas, ‘The Impact of Gender on Activities and Priorities of State Legislatures,’ Western Political Quarterly, 44 (1990), 445–56.