Direct Representation Research Articles

Non-Concentric Differential Model with Geographic Information-Driven Weights Allocation for Enhanced Infrared Small Target Detection

Infrared small target detection technology has received extensive attention due to its advantages in long-distance monitoring. However, there is much room for improvement in its performance due to complex backgrounds and the lack of distinct features in small targets. Many specific scenarios can lead to target loss, such as edge-adjacent targets, intersecting targets, low contrast caused by locally bright backgrounds, and false alarms induced by globally bright backgrounds. To address these issues, we have identified the positional correlation differences between the local background location and whether the target can be perceived by the human eye, thereby introducing geographic information weights to represent this correlation difference. We first constructed a non-concentric Gaussian difference structure to prevent the central target energy loss caused by traditional concentric filters. Based on this, we introduced Gabor filters, which have the capability of directional feature extraction and position correlation representation, into the non-concentric differential structure. By adjusting the relative position of the Gabor filter center and configuring frequency parameters based on geographic information, we optimized the filter weights to handle complex situations, such as targets being close to background clutter or other targets. Subsequently, an improved logarithmic function was applied to adjust the overall saliency of candidate targets, preventing the loss of low-contrast targets and the residual high-energy background clutter. Extensive experiments show that our method exhibits effective detection performance and robustness in four application scenes and three challenging image distribution scenes.

Genocide and the Plague of Fantasies in La Llorona and Sueño en otro idioma

This paper examines how two contemporary Latin American films—Jayro Bustamante’s La Llorona and Ernesto Contreras’s Sueño en otro idioma—engage with physical and cultural genocide through distinct deployments of fantasy elements that reflect the evolution of horror and magic-realist genres in Latin American cinema. The films repurpose fantastical elements through horror and mythopoetic narrative in order to confront the legacies of colonial trauma. Building on Slavoj Žižek’s concept of the plague of fantasies, the paper examines how La Llorona mobilizes the Mesoamerican folk figure of La Llorona to connect contemporary genocide in Guatemala with its historical necropolitical origins, while Sueño en otro idioma examines cultural genocide through the extinction of an indigenous language in Mexico. Both films demonstrate how fantasy can function in destabilizing ways in postcolonial contexts, offering distorted glimpses of horrors that resist direct representation. Through close analysis of these works, the paper reveals how contemporary Latin American cinema deploys fantasy elements, including magic realist conventions, to provide a fundamental challenge to colonial epistemologies, by exposing the phantasmatic underpinnings of colonial violence and its contemporary reverberations.

A computational model for angular velocity integration in a locust heading circuit.

Accurate navigation often requires the maintenance of a robust internal estimate of heading relative to external surroundings. We present a model for angular velocity integration in a desert locust heading circuit, applying concepts from early theoretical work on heading circuits in mammals to a novel biological context in insects. In contrast to similar models proposed for the fruit fly, this circuit model uses a single 360° heading direction representation and is updated by neuromodulatory angular velocity inputs. Our computational model was implemented using steady-state firing rate neurons with dynamical synapses. The circuit connectivity was constrained by biological data, and remaining degrees of freedom were optimised with a machine learning approach to yield physiologically plausible neuron activities. We demonstrate that the integration of heading and angular velocity in this circuit is robust to noise. The heading signal can be effectively used as input to an existing insect goal-directed steering circuit, adapted for outbound locomotion in a steady direction that resembles locust migration. Our study supports the possibility that similar computations for orientation may be implemented differently in the neural hardware of the fruit fly and the locust.

Exploring New Algorithms for Molecular Vibrational Spectroscopy Using Physics-Informed Program Synthesis.

Inductive program synthesis (PS) has recently begun to emerge as a useful new approach to automatically generate algorithms in quantum chemistry, as demonstrated in recent applications to the vibrational Schrödinger equation for simple model systems with one or two degrees-of-freedom. Here, we report a new physics-informed approach to inductive PS that is more conducive to the generation of discrete variable representation algorithms for real molecular systems. The new framework ensures separability of the kinetic and potential operators and does not require an exact solution to compare synthesized algorithmic predictions with. Algorithms with a tridiagonal matrix structure are generated via a variational-based stochastic optimization procedure. Crucially, through an extensive testing procedure, we demonstrate that variationally synthesized algorithms perform just as well as those generated using a target function. Assuming a direct product representation of normal coordinates, these algorithms are applied to three triatomic molecules. In total, we identify a set of seven PS algorithms that accurately reproduce the vibrational spectra of H2O, NO2, and SO2, as predicted by Colbert-Miller and sine-DVR algorithms.

Classification of images using Gaussian copula model in empirical cumulative distribution function space.

This study introduces an innovative approach to image classification that uses Gaussian copulas with an Empirical Cumulative Distribution Function (ECDF) approach. The strategic use of distribution functions as feature descriptors simplifies the approach and enables a better understanding of the correlation structure between features in the image. This approach helps the model understand the contextual relationships between different parts of the image, resulting in a more abstract representation than a direct representation of individual pixel values. The proposed model utilizes the Distribution Function of the Distribution Value (DFDV) as the margin distribution. The Modified National Institute of Standards and Technology (MNIST) dataset is comprehensively used to assess the effectiveness of this model. The results show that the model achieves a noteworthy level of accuracy, with an average accuracy of 62.22% and a peak accuracy of 96.92%. This success was obtained by applying the Inference Function for Marginals (IFM) principles during the training stage.

Simultaneous encoding of speed, distance, and direction in discrete reaching: an EEG study

Objective.The complicated processes of carrying out a hand reach are still far from fully understood. In order to further the understanding of the kinematics of hand movement, the simultaneous representation of speed, distance, and direction in the brain is explored.Approach.We utilized electroencephalography (EEG) signals and hand position recorded during a four-direction center-out reaching task with either quick or slow speed, near and far distance. Linear models were employed in two modes: decoding and encoding. First, to test the discriminability of speed, distance, and direction. Second, to find the contribution of the cortical sources via the source localization. Additionally, we compared the decoding accuracy when using features obtained from EEG signals and source-localized EEG signals based on the results from the encoding model.Main results.Speed, distance, and direction can be classified better than chance. The accuracy of the speed was also higher than the distance, indicating a stronger representation of the speed than the distance. The speed and distance showed similar significant sources in the central regions related to the movement initiation, while the direction indicated significant sources in the parieto-occipital regions related to the movement preparation. The combination of the features from EEG and source localized signals improved the classification.Significance.Directional and non-directional information are represented in two separate networks. The quick movement resulted in improvement in the direction classification. Our results enhance our understanding of hand movement in the brain and help us make informed decisions when designing an improved paradigm in the future.

Neural Encoding of Direction and Distance across Reference Frames in Visually Guided Reaching.

Goal-directed actions require transforming sensory information into motor plans defined across multiple parameters and reference frames. Substantial evidence supports the encoding of target direction in gaze- and body-centered coordinates within parietal and premotor regions. However, how the brain encodes the equally critical parameter of target distance remains less understood. Here, using Bayesian pattern component modeling of fMRI data during a delayed reach-to-target task, we dissociated the neural encoding of both target direction and the relative distances between target, gaze, and hand at early and late stages of motor planning. This approach revealed independent representations of direction and distance along the human dorsomedial reach pathway. During early planning, most premotor and superior parietal areas encoded a target's distance in single or multiple reference frames and encoded its direction. In contrast, distance encoding was magnified in gaze- and body-centric reference frames during late planning. These results emphasize a flexible and efficient human central nervous system that achieves goals by remapping sensory information related to multiple parameters, such as distance and direction, in the same brain areas.

Flow-dependent observation errors for greenhouse gas inversions in an ensemble Kalman smoother

Abstract. Atmospheric inverse modeling is the process of estimating emissions from atmospheric observations by minimizing a cost function, which includes a term describing the difference between simulated and observed concentrations. The minimization of this difference is typically limited by uncertainties in the atmospheric transport model rather than by uncertainties in the observations. In this study, we showcase how a temporally varying, flow-dependent atmospheric transport uncertainty can enhance the accuracy of emission estimation through idealized experiments using an ensemble Kalman smoother system. We use the estimation of European CH4 emissions from the in situ measurement network as an example, but we also demonstrate the additional benefits for trace gases with more localized sources, such as SF6. The uncertainty in flow-dependent transport is determined using meteorological ensemble simulations that are perturbed by physics and driven at the boundaries by an analysis ensemble from a global meteorology and a CH4 simulation. The impact of direct representation of temporally varying transport uncertainties in atmospheric inversions is then investigated in an observation system simulation experiment framework in various setups and for different flux signals. We show that the uncertainty in the transport model varies significantly in space and time and that it is generally highest during nighttime. We apply inversions using only afternoon observations, as is common practice, but also explore the option of assimilating hourly data irrespective of the hour of day using a filter based on transport uncertainty and taking into account the temporal covariances. Our findings indicate that incorporating flow-dependent uncertainties in inversion techniques leads to more accurate estimates of GHG emissions. Differences between estimated and true emissions could be reduced more effectively by 9 % to 82 %, with generally larger improvements for the SF6 inversion problem and for the more challenging setup with small flux signals.

Detection of Traffic Anomalies Based on Their Frame Wavelet Transformations Processing

Relevance. The active transition to a massive digital infrastructure based on Internet of Things (IoT) technology has brought telecommunications networks to the level of dominant information resources. The one-time increase in the number of existing Internet services is inextricably linked to the growing variety of network anomalies on telecommunications equipment. In turn, existing methods of detecting network threats do not allow timely assessment of network traffic, which is characterized by a large number of parameters, and the detected anomalies from external interference do not have pronounced patterns. The purpose of the study is to increase the efficiency of detecting traffic anomalies based on the results of processing its frame wavelet transform. The scientific task is to develop scientific and methodological approaches that allow effective analysis and timely detection of anomalies in network traffic. A comparative review of search methods for detecting network traffic anomalies, algorithms for detecting uncontrolled anomalies, traffic analysis methods based on local emission factor, binary trees, optical emission spectroscopy. Decision. The results of the study of the possibility of detecting anomalies in the bitstream traffic based on the results of its multiple-variable transformation in the Haar wavelet basis are considered. The choice for further processing of the coefficients of the traffic decomposition matrix along the time shift variable is justified. It is proved that multiple-scale transformations not only increase the structural differences in traffic, but also open up the possibility of localization of anomalies that caused these differences. The scientific novelty of the work is determined by the author's approach to detecting network traffic anomalies during the transition from the direct representation of a signal in the form of its discrete samples to coefficients formed from the matrices of its wavelet transformations, and, as a result, increasing its contrast with other signals with a similar structure. Theoretical significance. The necessity and sufficiency of using wavelet coefficients instead of time samples of signals in the basis of the parent wavelet from the matrix of the generated frame is proved. The relationship between the Hurst indicators and the coefficients of the cross-correlation functions has been established. Practical significance. The results obtained in the work, in the future, can be used in the construction of models for evaluating network traffic in conditions of deliberate, as well as methods for searching and synthesizing effective methods of protection against them.

Mythical Eugenics. The Macedonian-Amazon Royal Alliance in Classical Sources

The most well-known Amazon stories exhibit a number of common characteristics, most notably their ultimate defeat at the hands of a legendary male hero. Even those narratives in which such characters did not achieve the same degree of renown as Heracles, Theseus or Achilles, as in the case of Bellerophon, or those who were not even granted a Hellenic origin, as in the case of the young Priam, the most important of these premises is fulfilled: they were all characters as mythical as the Amazons themselves. However, the case of Alexander III of Macedon presents particularities that are not linked to the historical character of the main character, but rather to the time in which this story arose (4th century BC), which is much later than the traditional heroic texts. This tale is atypical and marks a significant turning point in the Amazon mythological tradition. Despite the growing prominence of the Macedonian ruler, there is no direct representation of this encounter. Indirect references to it emerge only at a relatively late stage in the tradition. This article will analyse the classical sources dedicated to this legendary encounter in order to ascertain the reasons behind its invention.

Designing Political Brand Identity Through Architecture: A Case of Malatya City Hall

Corporate level awareness and understanding of political systems are widely spreading in politics through the application of marketing concepts by parties. This study explores how party ideology, hierarchical structures, and symbolism are embedded into the design of government buildings to enhance corporate communication with stakeholders. A design strategy that links architecture with politics views specific architectural features as semiotic resources for party identity and envisions them as design patterns in the future. This paper presents the Malatya City Hall as an example, which was designed using a similar architectural style to that of the Nationalist Movement Party Headquarters in Türkiye. Employing critical discourse analysis (CDA), we unveil the political structure underlying the Headquarters, which is subsequently transposed into the design of City Hall. The Ottoman-Seljuk architectural style, in its modern interpretation, serves as a reflection of political ideology in these buildings. The corporate organizational structure is emphasized through the president’s prominent position and the restricted accessibility to his spaces, evident in the layout design. Additionally, symbolism is incorporated by aligning the building’s architectural plan with the party’s logo, creating a direct visual representation of political brand identity.

Mixed representations of choice direction and outcome by GABA/glutamate cotransmitting neurons in the entopeduncular nucleus.

The basal ganglia (BG) are an evolutionarily conserved and phylogenetically old set of sub-cortical nuclei that guide action selection, evaluation, and reinforcement. The entopeduncular nucleus (EP) is a major BG output nucleus that contains a population of GABA/glutamate cotransmitting neurons (EP Sst+ ) that specifically target the lateral habenula (LHb) and whose function in behavior remains mysterious. Here we use a probabilistic switching task that requires an animal to maintain flexible relationships between action selection and evaluation to examine when and how GABA/glutamate cotransmitting neurons contribute to behavior. We find that EP Sst+ neurons are strongly engaged during this task and show bidirectional changes in activity during the choice and outcome periods of a trial. We then tested the effects of either permanently blocking cotransmission or modifying the GABA/glutamate ratio on behavior in well-trained animals. Neither manipulation produced detectable changes in behavior despite significant changes in synaptic transmission in the LHb, demonstrating that the outputs of these neurons are not required for on-going action-outcome updating in a probabilistic switching task.

“So Beautiful That Mortal… Eyes Can’t Take It”: How Postmodernism Shows Us the Function of the Beautiful in the Landscape of the Traumatic

In her 2010 article “Aesthetic Wit(h)nessing in the Era of Trauma”, Griselda Pollock lamented the aperture between psychology, particularly that of PTSD, and esthetics in the search to bear witness to traumatic experience. This article explores the gray area that exists when the esthetic and the traumatic converge, arguing that such areas exist not only as direct representations of the difficulty of narrativizing trauma as described by such theorists as Cathy Caruth, Onno van der Hart, and Bessel van der Kolk, but also simultaneously as windows into the moments of what Dominick LaCapra calls “the sublime object of endless melancholia and impossible mourning”. Postmodernism is argued to be the organic choice of voicing traumatic retellings, and close readings of John Hersey’s proto-postmodern Hiroshima (1946), Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried (1992), and David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest (1996) work to highlight the intersections of trauma, postmodern literature, and esthetics; or, in Wallace’s case, theoretical discussions of traumatic tropes as facilitated by the postmodern tradition. In drawing attention to this tripartite convergence, this article hopes to continue in the vein of scholarship that reaffirms the need for evermore research in the field of trauma studies as well as substantiate a claim of the heightened importance of postmodern literature in the 21st century—an epoch indelibly marked by trauma, as noted by Pollock.

A content analysis of counseling psychology literature: Resilience against oppression among people of color.

The researchers analyzed articles from two flagship counseling psychology journals (i.e., Journal of Counseling Psychology and The Counseling Psychologist) to examine current understandings of resilience. There were 54 articles included in the final analysis that spanned the years 1997-2022. The researchers conducted a content analysis to identify, analyze, and report patterns across counseling psychology journals with regard to how resilience has been defined, the racial/ethnic groups that were of focus, and the forms of oppression that were studied or addressed. Five themes were generated that are a direct representation of the topics within previous literature on resilience in the field of counseling psychology. Those topics included: (a) ways of coping, (b) ethnic and racial identity, (c) advocacy/collective action, (d) personality factors, and (e) ability to endure stress and thrive. Implications for future research, clinical applications, mentoring, and advocacy are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Joint Physics and Data Driven Geometrical Factors of Array Laterolog in Layered Formations

Numerical geometrical factors (GFs) are developed for array laterolog measurements in one-dimensional (1D) cylindrically and planarly layered formations. The kernel of GFs assumes that laterolog responses can be expressed in terms of linear superposition of formation resistivities at different units. Two techniques, namely physics-driven modeling and data-driven approximation, have been employed to ensure both computational accuracy and efficiency of GFs. Physics-driven modeling utilizes a three-dimensional finite element algorithm to generate high-precision and fully labeled GFs data and library. Subsequently, these predetermined data are trained offline using classical neural network algorithm to establish an implicit relationship between formation parameters and GFs. The joint physics and data-driven GFs presents three main advantages. Firstly, it enables the direct representation of the spatial sensitivity of layered formations both laterally and horizontally in vertical and horizontal wells. Secondly, GFs can be used to rapidly calculate the array laterolog responses. The computation speed can be enhanced by thousands of times in comparison with traditional physic-driven modeling, allowing for real-time data processing. Another noteworthy aspect is that GFs forward modeling can handle formations with arbitrary layers, thereby resolving the fixed-layer modeling issue inherent in traditional data-driven methods. Thirdly, the GFs can be employed to approximate the derivative of logging response with respect to formation resistivity, significantly reducing the complexity of Jacobian matrix calculation for deterministic inversion. These numerical GFs not only serve as an excellent alternative simulator for array laterolog, but also will be helpful to accelerate the modeling and inversion of other logging measurement in layered structures.

Исследование распределения контроля и метрик разнообразия в децентрализованных автономных организациях

This study empirically investigates the distribution of control and diversity in decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) on the Ethereum blockchain. It uses a number of measures-the Nakamoto coefficient, Gini coefficient, Her-findahl-Hirschman index, Theil index, Shannon entropy, and Simpson diversity index-to assess decentralization and fairness in the distribution of control tokens. The analysis reveals a complex landscape in which some DAOs exhibit decentralization with diversity in the distribution of control, while others exhibit significant concentration of power and inequality in the distribution of power. A key observation is the coexistence of a broad distribution of control among EOA addresses with significant inequality in the ownership of control tokens. This indicates that a broad distribution of control does not always correlate with a fair distribution of management tokens. The study also highlights the possibil-ity of delegation mechanisms that may lead to a more equitable distribution of power compared to direct representa-tion. This study provides insight into the governance dynamics of DAOs by demonstrating the complex multi-level bal-ance between decentralization and centralization in a decentralized technology infrastructure.

The problem of management by dependant and independent persons in D. 15,3,17 pr.

AbstractThe following paper examines a text found under the title actio de in rem verso of the Digest. The Roman archetype of modern direct and indirect representation can be discovered in the short fragment — consisting of only two sentences. Africanus compares the management of the dependant and independent representative in the assessment of a specific case (borrowing for the benefit of the represented). The representatives undertook to administrate someone else's affairs with the same aim, but the legal effects of their actions show differences in several aspects. The analysis attempts to reconstruct the fact pattern and to provide a possible solution to the arising legal problems.

Event as the central construal of psychological time in humans.

Time is a fundamental dimension of our perception and mental construction of reality. It enables resolving changes in our environment without a direct sensory representation of elapsed time. Therefore, the concept of time is inferential by nature, but the units of subjective time that provide meaningful segmentation of the influx of sensory input remain to be determined. In this review, we posit that events are the construal instances of time perception as they provide a reproducible and consistent segmentation of the content. In that light, we discuss the implications of this proposal by looking at "events" and their role in subjective time experience from cultural anthropological and ontogenetic perspectives, as well as their relevance for episodic memory. Furthermore, we discuss the significance of "events" for the two critical aspects of subjective time-duration and order. Because segmentation involves parsing event streams according to causal sequences, we also consider the role of causality in developing the concept of directionality of mental timelines. We offer a fresh perspective on representing past and future events before age 5 by an egocentric bi-directional timeline model before acquiring the allocentric concept of absolute time. Finally, we illustrate how the relationship between events and durations can resolve contradictory experimental results. Although "time" warrants a comprehensive interdisciplinary approach, we focus this review on "time perception", the experience of time, without attempting to provide an all encompassing overview of the rich philosophical, physical, psychological, cognitive, linguistic, and neurophysiological context.

Revisiting Dissolved Organic Matter Analysis Using High-Resolution Trapped Ion Mobility and FT-ICR Mass Spectrometry.

The molecular level characterization of complex mixtures remains an analytical challenge. We have shown that the integration of complementary, high-resolution, gas-phase separations allows for chemical formula level isomeric content description. In the current work, we revisited the current challenges associated with the analysis of dissolved organic matter using high-resolution trapped ion mobility separation (TIMS) and Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FT-ICR MS). In particular, we evaluated the separation capabilities provided by TIMS-MS compared to MS alone, the use of ICR complementary data acquisition (DAQ) systems and transient processing strategies, ICR cell geometries (e.g., Infinity cell vs harmonized cell), and magnetic field strengths (7 T vs 9.4 T vs 21 T) for the case of a Harney River DOM sample. Results showed that the external high-performance DAQ enables direct representation of mass spectra in absorption mode FT (aFT), doubling the MS resolution compared to the default magnitude mode FT (mFT). Changes between half- vs full-apodization result in greater MS signal/noise vs superior MS resolving power (RP); in the case of DOM analysis, a 45% increase in assigned formulas is observed when employing the DAQ half (Kaiser-type)-apodization window and aFT when compared to the default instrument mFT. Results showed the advantages of reprocessing 2D-TIMS-FT-ICR MS data with higher RP and magnetic field chemical formulas generated list acquired (e.g., 21 T led to a 24% increase in isomers reported) or the implementation of alternative strategies.

Street photography and the flâneur: reflections on Australian city narratives

This original photographic work investigates the intersection of street photography and the concept of the flâneur within an Australian urban context. By transforming cityscapes into visual texts, the study captures urban narratives through the absence and reflection of inhabitants, rather than their direct representation. The photographic work employs window reflections as a key technique, introducing multiple visual dimensions to enrich street scenes and overall narratives. Drawing on Baudelaire's notion of the flâneur and Tomanić-Trivundža's three-stage journey of the flâneur (perambulating observation, critical reflection, and production of communicable texts), this work synthesises street photography with flâneur-like observation. It employs a multi-layered visual approach to city streets, representing a less-explored facet of lens-based practice in Australia. While the use of window reflections and the flâneur in street photography are well-established in European and North American contexts, their application in Australian settings remains less explored. This work aims to contribute to the street photography canon by translating these established techniques to Australian cities, offering insights into unique local urban characteristics. By exploring the interplay between global photographic traditions and local realities, this work seeks to provide a fresh perspective on Australian city life through the flâneur lens and reflective urban surfaces, thus expanding the geographical and cultural scope of this photographic tradition.