Visual Artefacts Research Articles

How to visualise futures studies concepts: Revision of the futures cone

Futures studies concepts are complex and challenging to communicate and elaborate on. Visual artefacts exist to aid this process. Variants of futures cones, plausibility cones, or cones of possibilities are most common. Yet, the is a lack of scientific discussion and consistency. A review of what does exist can lead to a more coherent communication of concepts. This aids futures literacy and enables more targeted theoretical elaborations using the cone as an intermediary object. We pose the questions (1) how futures cones have been used so far to visualise concepts of futures studies and (2) how characteristics can be consolidated into a revised version. We compiled 14 representations and compared and analysed them. We identified and described 14 characteristics, including three shared between most cones, eight derived from existing ones, and three newly proposed ones, namely black swans, unknown unknowns, and exponential growth. This culminates in a revised futures cone that shall:(1)Act as a more accurate depiction of futures studies concepts in their uncertainty, ambiguity, and multiplicity.(2)Strengthen the applicability and understanding within and outside the futures studies field.(3)Refine the futures cones as a canvas for conceptual and theoretical discussions of futures studies concepts.

City governance and visual impression management: Visual semiotics and the Biccherna panels of Siena

A major preoccupation in the contemporary organizational landscape is governance and how to cope with conflict and uncertainty. These challenges are particularly evident in the governance of cities, with their complex histories, politics and administrative processes. We argue that visual artefacts can form powerful visual impression management, constituting ‘visual governance’, for dealing with such complexities. We construct a framework from the visual semiotics of Umberto Eco, extended by medieval aesthetics. We analyse the pre-modern case of the Sienese Biccherna panels (painted covers and paintings linked to the city accounts) to show how their calligraphy, heraldry and pictures convey idealized reassuring images of orderly administration, in times of complicated, disordered underlying realities. In demonstrating how art and accounting are intertwined as tools of governance, and that there are contemporary resonances in corporate annual reporting, we add both to research in governance and to visual organizational research, and pave the way for further interdisciplinary work on the relationship between art and organizations.

Managing Paradox with Visuals: Persistence and Adaptation in an Airline’s Crisis Response

Increasing volatility and disruptions, which organizations have to respond to, can contribute to salience of paradoxical tensions. Such can be addressed in proactive or defensive ways. Despite increasing interest in sociomateriality, little is known about its role in management of paradoxes, let alone in the context of a crisis. This paper adopts a video-ethnographic approach to study a materially managed paradox in an airline setting during the COVID-19 crisis. Specifically, a year-long set of meetings was analysed with a focus on a visual artefact used for management of airline operations. Our results show how material mediation with dynamically changing visual artefact contributes to management of adaptability and persistance paradox and how the malleable nature of the visual enabled responding to the disruption, as well as maintaining ongoing operations. Our study showcases the mediation through first splitting the crisis response from continuous issues of operating an airline, and later through merging the two. This paper extends understanding on how material mediation happens as material artifacts are changed, establishing two-way relationship between the discourse and materiality governed by multiple concepts identified as capturing honing, connecting and transcending and leading to different outcomes across the time. Our findings re-emphasize the importance of considering the two-way relationship between the discourse and materiality in management of paradoxes.

A diagnostic pitfall; Small cell carcinoma-like features in basaloid squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus.

Esophageal basaloid squamous cell carcinoma may resemble small cell carcinoma biopsy specimens and cause difficulties in pathology diagnosis. We aimed to clarify the clinicopathological significance of small cell carcinoma-like morphologies in basaloid squamous cell carcinoma. Thirty biopsy specimens of esophageal basaloid squamous cell carcinoma were reviewed and compared with 13 matched surgical specimens. Small cell carcinoma-like features, such as diffuse growth, nuclear molding, or nuclear crush artifact, were identified in 80% (24/30) of the biopsies and in 77% (10/13) of the surgery specimens, but in a proportionally much smaller area in the surgical specimens than in the biopsy samples. The presence of a small cell carcinoma-like feature had no impact on patients´ outcome. Immunohistochemically, synaptophysin and chromogranin A were consistently negative, while CD56 was expressed in 42% (10/24) of basaloid squamous cell carcinomas with small cell carcinoma-like features. p16, a highly sensitive marker for small cell carcinoma, was also expressed in 8% (2/24). p40 was expressed in all cases of basaloid squamous cell carcinoma. In conclusion, small cell carcinoma-like features are frequent and conspicuous in biopsies, which are probably caused by exogenous factors such as friction and external pressure that occur in biopsy procedure and in the tumor environment. Small cell carcinoma-like features may lead to a misinterpretation of a true small cell carcinoma, if CD56 is the only neuroendocrine marker expressed. p16 expression may also be detected in basaloid squamous cell carcinoma.

Transbronchial Cryobiopsy Compared to Forceps Biopsy for Diagnosis of Acute Cellular Rejection in Lung Transplants: Analysis of 63 Consecutive Procedures.

Background: Acute cellular rejection (ACR) is a complication after lung transplantation (LTx). The diagnosis of ACR is based on histologic findings using transbronchial forceps biopsy (FB). However, its diagnostic accuracy is limited because of the small biopsy size and crush artifacts. Transbronchial cryobiopsy (CB) provides a larger tissue size compared with FB. Methods: FB and CB were obtained consecutively during the same bronchoscopy (February 2020–April 2021). All biopsies were scored according to the ISHLT criteria by three pathologists. Interobserver agreement was scored by the kappa index. We assessed the severity of bleeding and the presence of pneumothorax. Results: In total, 35 lung transplant recipients were included, and 126 CBs and 315 FBs were performed in 63 consecutive bronchoscopies. ACR (A1–A3, minimal–moderate) was detected in 18 cases (28.6%) by CB, whereas ACR was detected in 3 cases (4.8%) by FB. Moderate and severe bleeding complicated FB and CB procedures in 23 cases (36.5%) and 1 case (1.6%), respectively. Pneumothorax occurred in 6.3% of patients. The interobserver agreement was comparable for both CB and FB. Conclusions: CB provided an improved diagnostic yield for ACR diagnosis, leading to reclassification and changes in treatment strategies in 28.6% of cases. Prospective studies should better define the role of CB after LTx.

Understanding emotional responses to visual aesthetic artefacts: the SECMEA mechanisms

While many models attempt to explain the aesthetic experience, most limit themselves to art as their focal point and only a few look into why we arrive at a certain response to a visual aesthetic object. This article attempts to offer an extension to the current models by focusing on the mechanisms that induce emotions in relation to visual aesthetic objects. It takes Juslin’s (2013) BRECVEM mechanisms – developed for the domain of music – as its basis. In this article, Juslin’s mechanisms are adapted to the visual domain, resulting in six different emotion-evoking mechanisms: startle reflex, evaluative conditioning, emotional contagion, mental imagery, syntactic expectancy and external appraisal. The authors give an overview of frameworks and empirical studies, demonstrating each of these mechanisms in relation to visual aesthetic objects (visual art as well as advertising and product design). The article’s focus on emotion-inducing mechanisms and existing empirical research provides a basis for improving empirical testing of emotional responses to a broad range of visual aesthetic objects.

Threat cues in metal’s visual code

Metal music has a signifying visual aesthetic or so-called visual code. In this article, I examine the significance of four primitive visual properties that characterize the code. I propose that the propensity for visual artefacts of metal music to depict low luminance, low colourfulness, redness and angular shapes is because these properties can act as subtle threat cues. As metal music has a preoccupation with threatening themes and sounds, these four properties provide concordant visual information about the affective attributes of the genre. After reviewing the supporting psychological evidence, I conduct a quantitative test of this proposal by comparing album covers from extreme metal bands to those from children’s music, two genres that are opposed to one another in their embrace of a threatening atmosphere. The results indicate that extreme metal album covers are darker, less colourful, redder and feature more angular shapes compared with their children’s counterparts, which suggests that these properties are relied upon to communicate a clear threat signal.

P‐40: Techniques of Touch Sensing and Display Driving for Avoiding Display Artifacts for Flexible OLED Applications

Currently, use of flexible OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) displays is increasing, especially in mobile phone applications due to the high flexibility in industrial design they provide for curved edge and foldable smartphones and tablets. For flexible OLED, TFE (Thin Film Encapsulation) technology is widely used to prevent water and oxygen permeation, and as the name suggests, it is extremely thin. Accordingly, when on‐cell touch panels transition from rigid OLED with ~200 um glass encapsulation to flexible OLED with ~8 um TFE, the distance between display electrodes and the touch sensor becomes considerably closer. The dramatically increased capacitive coupling between the display and touch systems produces a correspondingly increased risk of errors in voltages driven to the display pixels due to touch sensing modulation coupling into the display system, resulting in deteriorated display image quality. In this paper, we introduce touch sensing and display driving techniques for avoiding display artifacts for flexible OLED applications.

Is it a WoMan’s World? Gender Stereotypes and Social Role Inequalities in Commercials

Gender representation is a very complex system, which, according to a wide body of research, is never static, but rather ever-changing, due to the mediated visual artefacts channelled through advertisements. Research has shown that marketers most often prefer to show females as desirable creatures in decorative roles, while men are typically featured as authoritarian and independent (Reichert & Carpenter, 2004). A growing interest in ‘non-stereotypical gender role representation’ placed gender under a different light (Chu et al., 2016). The intention of the present paper is to contribute to the enrichment of the identified gap by identifying the expected gender inequalities, the illusional visual portrayals, and the possible negative effects that can come into existence in society.
 Therefore, the present research aims to explore the changing frequency of male and female presence and the gender role representation with a special focus on the various trait descriptors, physical characteristics, and clothing styles, all of which either strengthen or break stereotypes. Focusing on the interval between 2015 and 2019, the aim is to contrast two main pillars: the first pillar represents six randomly selected commercial advertisements of different international product brands (Audi car, Ariel detergent, Johnson and Johnson’s Baby products, Activia yoghurt, Nike sports accessories and Advil painkiller medicine), while the second pillar is based on the five latest Epica Award-winning Grand Prix Films, juried by two hundred international journalists. 
 The research hypothesis suggests that mass-targeted commercial advertisements are more likely to be stereotype-consistent, while jury-targeted commercials, which compete for a professional creative prize, are rather stereotype-inconsistent. The proper operationalization of the collected data required a descriptive method, which offered enough room for the characterization of actions, stylistic features and body language featured in the commercials. Therefore, the qualitative research is built on Charteris-Black’s (2019) visual rhetorical content analysis. Results indicate that while the award-winning commercials are more likely to be stereotype-inconsistent, those commercials that are presented for the mass are rather stereotype-consistent.

Multimodality in medical education: Perspectives on medical shadowing from an experiential learning curriculum

When undergraduate students join a premedical programme, they enrol in basic sciences with the rare opportunity to engage in clinical activities. One way to overcome this is a medical shadowing programme aimed at introducing students to important aspects in building their professional identity as future doctors: emotional intelligence and empathy, professionalism, teamwork, and leadership in medicine. As medical shadowing involves students’ constant engagement with various material artefacts in a clinical setting, it makes sense to apply methods that include artefacts, such as multimodal and visual semiotics. Using an inquiry graphics analytical framework inspired by Peircean semiotics, this paper argues for the integration of multimodality in undergraduate medical experiential learning, a scarcely researched area in medical education. Using a case study methodology, this study reports on an analysis of students’ visual representations of the intended learning goals and the applicability of visual artefacts as a tool for reflection on their shadowing experience. This research fills a gap in the literature on the role of multimodality, particularly visual imagery, in fostering new ideas that promote professional identity in medicine. Using data collected from 15 premedical students’ written reflections on their shadowing experience, the study results show students’ heightened awareness of physician attributes and their role in socializing premedical students early in their medical profession. The research findings would benefit premedical education leaders, instructional designers, and curriculum developers and inspire medical educators to embrace multimodality in teaching, learning, and assessment.Keywords: premedical education; multimodality; medical shadowing programmes; visual imagery; experiential learningPart of the Special Issue Visual literacies and visual technologies for teaching, learning and inclusion <https://doi.org/10.21428/8c225f6e.bf2afe2e>

An Efficient Low-Complexity Convolutional Neural Network Filter

Convolutional neural network (CNN) filters have achieved significant performance in video artifacts reduction. However, the high complexity of existing methods makes them difficult to be applied in actual usage. In this article, an efficient low-complexity CNN filter is proposed. We utilized depth separable convolution merged with the batch normalization as the backbone of our proposed CNN filter and presented a frame-level residual mapping (RM) to use one network to filter both intra- and intersamples. It is known that there will be an oversmoothing problem for the interframes if we directly use the filter trained with intrasamples. In this article, the proposed RM can effectively solve the oversmoothing problem. Besides, RM is flexible and can be combined with other learning-based filters. The experimental results show that our proposed method achieves a significant bjøntegaard-delta(BD)-rate reduction than H.265/high efficiency video coding. The experiments show that the proposed network achieves about 1.2% BD-rate reduction and 79.1% decrease in FLOPs than VR-CNN. Our performance is better with less complexity than the previous work. The measurement on H.266/versatile video coding and ablation studies also ensure the effectiveness of the proposed method.

ART EDUCATION FOR LEARNERS WITH SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS: CASE STUDY OF VISUAL ARTEFACTS PRODUCED BY HEARING-IMPAIRED PUPILS OF TETTEH OCLOO STATE SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF

Formal education becomes most authentic, inclusive, and learner-centred when Art is at its forefront. The Arts provide learners with authentic learning experiences that engage their minds, hearts, hands, and entire bodies. The general relevance of Art education for learners with special educational needs has been variously and solidly argued by previous studies. However, much is not known about the creative artefacts of learners with special educational needs. The focus of this qualitative case study was to artistically appreciate selected visual artefacts produced by hearing-impaired pupils of Tetteh Ocloo State School for the Deaf located at Adjei-Kojo, a suburb of Accra in Ghana. Adopting triangulation of instruments (semi-structured interviews, field observation &amp;amp; photography), the study gathered in-depth data from sixteen (16) purposively sampled respondents with findings analysed using qualitative descriptive tenets. The study ascertained that the Creative Arts subject is dedicatedly taught in Tetteh Ocloo State School for the Deaf by Art specialist teachers. As a result, the study observed that the hearing-impaired primary pupils of Tetteh Ocloo State School for the Deaf were able to produce intriguing Visual artefacts (ranging from drawings/painting, clay work &amp;amp; papercraft). Aesthetic appreciation of some of the artefacts revealed that the works represent the oral accounts of the pupils’ worldview of salient experiences in their immediate social and physical environments. It is recommended that the Art specialist teachers of Tetteh Ocloo State School for the Deaf should continue to teach the Creative Arts subject with dedication as this would nurture and inculcate the needed creative, innovative, and inventive skills onto the pupils for responsible adulthood.&lt;p&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt; Article visualizations:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0937/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

Clinical and histopathological correlation in patients with chronic tonsillitis

&lt;p class="abstract"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Background:&lt;/strong&gt; Chronic tonsillitis is diagnosed when an individual has 7 episodes of tonsillitis in 1 year, 5 episodes in 2 consecutive years, or 3 episodes each year for 3 years consecutively. There is correlation of clinical and histopathological findings in patients with chronic tonsillitis.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class="abstract"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Methods:&lt;/strong&gt; It is prospective study which is aimed at correlation of clinical and histopathological findings in chronic tonsillitis patients underwent tonsillectomy. This was carried out in tertiary care hospital, Pune, Maharashtra, India. In our study, 25 patients of chronic tonsillitis underwent tonsillectomy were included. In this we have examined the histopathology of tonsillar tissue section in correlation with the clinical manifestations of tonsillar diseases that were due to infection. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class="abstract"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Results:&lt;/strong&gt; In pathological examination of palatine tonsil, underlying subepithelial tissue showed many lymphoid follicles with prominent germinal centres comprising of centrocytes, centroblasts, immunoblasts, small and large lymphocytes in 19 patients (76%). 13 patients (52%) showed prominent germinal centres with bites of salivary gland and muscle tissue. 6 patients (24%) showed prominent germinal centre with mild lymphoplasmocytic inflammatory cell infiltrate. In 4 patients (16%), tissue lined by stratified squamous epithelium showed focal ulceration. 3 patients (12%) showed stratified squamous epithelium with granulation tissue. Crush artifact were noted in 3 patients (12%). 2 patients (8%) had small granules with actinomycotic species colonies within the palatine tonsilar crypts. Only 1 patient (4%) showing keratin impacted in tonsilar tissue.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class="abstract"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusions:&lt;/strong&gt; There is strong correlation between histopathological examination suggestive of lymphoid hypertrophy and grading of palatine tonsil hypertrophy.&lt;/p&gt;

Actorhood of the European Court of Auditors: a visual analysis

PurposeThis paper explores how public audit institutions establish themselves as distinct actors on the public stage through communication practices. By focussing on the journey of the European Court of Auditors (ECA), this paper addresses the following research question: how does a transnational audit institution construct its actorhood through visual communication practices?Design/methodology/approachUsing the theoretical framework of actorhood theory and inspired by the visual accounting methodology, this study explores the ECA actorhood journey through the visual analysis of front pages of its official journal (ECA Journal) from its inception in 2009 up to 2019. The visual analysis is conducted through content analysis and a two-step cluster analysis.FindingsBy showing how combinations of different visual artefacts have evolved over time, this study highlights the ways transnational public audit institutions, such as the ECA, construct their actorhood and position themselves on the public stage. It further reveals the underlying legitimacy mechanisms through which organisations such as the ECA position themselves in the public eye.Originality/valueThis study sheds light on the depiction of individuals and their contexts in interaction with each other and how this interaction reveals the development of the actorhood journey of the ECA over time.

Demystifying the Differences between Structure-from-MotionSoftware Packages for Pre-Processing Drone Data

With the increased availability of low-cost, off-the-shelf drone platforms, drone data become easy to capture and are now a key component of environmental assessments and monitoring. Once the data are collected, there are many structure-from-motion (SfM) photogrammetry software options available to pre-process the data into digital elevation models (DEMs) and orthomosaics for further environmental analysis. However, not all software packages are created equal, nor are their outputs. Here, we evaluated the workflows and output products of four desktop SfM packages (AgiSoft Metashape, Correlator3D, Pix4Dmapper, WebODM), across five input datasets representing various ecosystems. We considered the processing times, output file characteristics, colour representation of orthomosaics, geographic shift, visual artefacts, and digital surface model (DSM) elevation values. No single software package was determined the “winner” across all metrics, but we hope our results help others demystify the differences between the options, allowing users to make an informed decision about which software and parameters to select for their specific application. Our comparisons highlight some of the challenges that may arise when comparing datasets that have been processed using different parameters and different software packages, thus demonstrating a need to provide metadata associated with processing workflows.

Multiframe Joint Enhancement for Early Interlaced Videos.

Early interlaced videos usually contain multiple and interlacing and complex compression artifacts, which significantly reduce the visual quality. Although the high-definition reconstruction technology for early videos has made great progress in recent years, related research on deinterlacing is still lacking. Traditional methods mainly focus on simple interlacing mechanism, and cannot deal with the complex artifacts in real-world early videos. Recent interlaced video reconstruction deep deinterlacing models only focus on single frame, while neglecting important temporal information. Therefore, this paper proposes a multiframe deinterlacing network joint enhancement network for early interlaced videos that consists of three modules, i.e., spatial vertical interpolation module, temporal alignment and fusion module, and final refinement module. The proposed method can effectively remove the complex artifacts in early videos by using temporal redundancy of multi-fields. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can recover high quality results for both synthetic dataset and real-world early interlaced videos. At the same time, the method also won the first place in the MSU Deinterlacer Benchmark. The code is available at: https://github.com/anymyb/MFDIN.

The traces left by the information designer. Data visualization and enunciation

A common understanding considers information design to be a clear and immediate transfer of information, in which the author disappears to make the data emerge with utmost clarity. This idea of infographics as a transparent and objective medium is questioned by several scholars and practitioners who consider visualization not just as a representation of numbers but as an interpretative device. In this essay, we will review these positions, with special regard to the use of the semiotic concept of enunciation, which is also beginning to be used in critical design theory and digital humanities. This concept allows us to detect the traces of the act of enunciation in the visual artefact. In particular, we will deal with the recognition of visualization as an act of interpretation, the visual calibration and distancing from one’s statement in journalism and scientific communication and the visual reference to the production process in graphic design.

ResNet50-Based Effective Model for Breast Cancer Classification Using Histopathology Images

Breast cancer is considered an immense threat and one of the leading causes of mortality in females. It is curable only when detected at an early stage. A standard cancer diagnosis approach involves detection of cancer-related anomalies in tumour histopathology images. Detection depends on the accurate identification of the landmarks in the visual artefacts present in the slide images. Researchers are continuously striving to develop automatic machine-learning algorithms for processing medical images to assist in tumour detection. Nowadays, computer-based automated systems play an important role in cancer image analysis and help healthcare experts make rapid and correct inferences about the type of cancer. This study proposes an effective convolutional neural network-based (CNN-based) model that exploits the transfer-learning technique for automatic image classification between malignant and benign tumour, using histopathology images. Resnet50 architecture has been trained on new dataset for feature extraction, and fully connected layers have been fine-tuned for achieving highest training, validation and test accuracies. The result illustrated state-of-the-art performance of the proposed model with highest training, validation and test accuracies as 99.70%, 99.24% and 99.24%, respectively. Classification accuracy is increased by 0.66% and 0.2% when compared with similar recent studies on training and test data results. Average precision and F1 score have also improved, and receiver operating characteristic (RoC) area has been achieved to 99.1%. Thus, a reliable, accurate and consistent CNN model based on pre-built Resnet50 architecture has been developed.

Face off – a semiotic technology study of software for making deepfakes

Deepfakes, an algorithm that transposes the face of one person onto the face of another person in images and film, is a digital technology that may fundamentally alter our belief in visual modality and thus presents alarming consequences for an image-centric culture. Not only are these face-translations now so advanced that it is virtually impossible for people to tell that they are fake – this technology is also becoming accessible to laypersons who, with little or no computer skills, can use them for all kinds of purposes, including criminal intentions like revenge porn and identity theft. It is therefore timely and crucial to explore the semiotic potential of deepfakes.&#x0D; This paper presents a semiotic technology perspective, i.e., the study of technology for meaning- making that is an emergent field in social semiotics, to report on findings from an ongoing study of how deepfake software is designed and used as a semiotic resource in erotic and political contexts. The paper advances the argument that the software is able to appropriate all signifiers of the face and their cultural history. Consequently, the semiotic operations of this technology prepare the ground for the problematic perspectives of synthetic facial imagery.&#x0D; On this basis, the paper calls for a critical awareness of taking visual representations of current events at face value and considers how deepfake technology is embedded in unsound sharing practices of visual artefacts that tamper with the rich meaning potential of the face.

Spatio-Temporal Inference Transformer Network for Video Inpainting

Video inpainting aims to complete in a visually pleasing way the missing regions in video frames. Video inpainting is an exciting task due to the variety of motions across different frames. The existing methods usually use attention models to inpaint videos by seeking the damaged content from other frames. Nevertheless, these methods suffer due to irregular attention weight from spatio-temporal dimensions, thus giving rise to artifacts in the inpainted video. To overcome the above problem, Spatio-Temporal Inference Transformer Network (STITN) has been proposed. The STITN aligns the frames to be inpainted and concurrently inpaints all the frames, and a spatio-temporal adversarial loss function improves the STITN. Our method performs considerably better than the existing deep learning approaches in quantitative and qualitative evaluation.