Diverse Visions Research Articles

The impact of traumatic brain injury on visual processing: a neuro-ophthalmological perspective.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a critical global health issue characterized by perturbance in cerebral function attributed to mechanical force. TBI often precipitates significant visual impairment that negatively impacts the patients' quality of life. This review examines the effects of TBI on visual function from a neuro-ophthalmological perspective, focusing on the assessment, diagnostics, and management of associated sequelae. A comprehensive literature review was conducted using PubMed/MEDLINE, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar to garner and collate relevant data. TBI may result in visual field defects, ocular motor dysfunction, insufficiency of accommodation, and photosensitivity. Early detection remains a profound challenge, partly due to a dearth of standardized protocols for evaluating visual impairment. Diagnostic methodologies include visual field testing, ocular motility assessments, and fundus photography, while rehabilitation approaches encompass vision therapy and low-vision rehabilitation. Establishing hospital-based multidisciplinary teams is essential for effectively addressing TBI-related visual impairment. Future research should prioritize evidence-based treatment protocols and explore diverse vision rehabilitation strategies through large-scale studies.

Czarnomorskie wizje w liryce Christa Fotewa

The purpose of this article is to interpret the semantic dominants in the lyrics of the Bulgarian writer Hristo Fotev, which deal with the diverse visions of the Black Sea coast, Burgas, the port, the inhabitants, the newcomers, and the sea waters. The analysis includes selected poems from the following volumes: Ballad Journey (1961), Lyrics (1965), Sentimental Dedications (1967), and Collected Works. Vol. 1: Poetry (1998). Attention is focused on the subjective identification with place and strategies for creating symbolic, metaphorical, imaginary, geographical, and historical space and its maritime elements. The seaside landscape becomes the inspiration for the poetic imagination, at the same time constituting the object of lyrical creation. Images of the sea also become a probe into the poet’s mental state, the individual elements of the maritime landscape being a metaphor for human experience. In the ballad convention, the sea takes on fantastic, supernatural, mysterious qualities and is the place of existence of mythical characters.

Geospatial foundation models for image analysis: evaluating and enhancing NASA-IBM Prithvi’s domain adaptability

Research on geospatial foundation models (GFMs) has become a trending topic in geospatial artificial intelligence (AI) research due to their potential for achieving high generalizability and domain adaptability, reducing model training costs for individual researchers. Unlike large language models, such as ChatGPT, constructing visual foundation models for image analysis, particularly in remote sensing, encountered significant challenges such as formulating diverse vision tasks into a general problem framework. This paper evaluates the recently released NASA-IBM GFM Prithvi for its predictive performance on high-level image analysis tasks across multiple benchmark datasets. Prithvi was selected because it is one of the first open-source GFMs trained on time-series of high-resolution remote sensing imagery. A series of experiments were designed to assess Prithvi’s performance as compared to other pre-trained task-specific AI models in geospatial image analysis. New strategies, including band adaptation, multi-scale feature generation, and fine-tuning techniques, are introduced and integrated into an image analysis pipeline to enhance Prithvi’s domain adaptation capability and improve model performance. In-depth analyses reveal Prithvi’s strengths and weaknesses, offering insights for both improving Prithvi and developing future visual foundation models for geospatial tasks.

Desirable futures: Human-nature relationships in urban planning and design

This article explores conceptualizations of future relationships between humans and nature in urban planning, introducing the special issue33https://www.sciencedirect.com/special-issue/10ZCL2J6GTV. It initiates by examining how the future of human-nature relationships can be seen as a consequence of resilience, or lack thereof, to global challenges. The special issue explores distinct visions of what nature may mean in desirable futures, and its relations to humans. Preferable futures portray harmonious interactions between nature and humans, recognizing nature's intrinsic and relational values, as well as acknowledging its agency in the context of urban planning. Additionally, the evolving role of technology in shaping these desirable futures is a growing area of exploration, potentially challenging established definitions of nature and paving the way for the construction of new natures in prospective scenarios. Another facet of exploration is the spatial dimension of human-nature relationships. Articles investigate various contexts where these relationships may unfold, spanning from within cities to envisioning revised approaches at the urban-rural interface for a radical transformation of our connection to the natural world, including the consideration of distinct entities, such as mountains or non-urban territories, as potential focal points for evolving human-nature relationships. The special issue helps deepen our understanding of the intricate interplay between humans and nature in urban planning, exploring diverse visions of the future and the spatial dynamics where these relationships may manifest. By integrating these elements, the aim is to contribute to a more comprehensive and forward-thinking approach in urban planning that embraces sustainable and harmonious futures for both humans and the natural world.

Social inclusion and values: a study from culture

Nowadays, studies in this area of ​​knowledge proliferate and the criteria in this regard are diverse. In this research, emphasis is placed on the main concepts, their importance and relationship from different points of view according to the authors. There is a series of deeply rooted values ​​in our society, shared values ​​that even make it difficult to accept it from a positive vision of diversity, and it is also recognized by some researchers that it does not have to be an obstacle for a group of people, with specific characteristics learn, but with the right and adequate guidance it can be a motivating and energizing factor for the development of learning of the specific group in question. In order to achieve the proposed objective, a theoretical and descriptive analysis is carried out that shows the different approaches and values ​​that highlight inclusion in accordance with the social demand of these times.

ViT-Calibrator: Decision Stream Calibration for Vision Transformer

A surge of interest has emerged in utilizing Transformers in diverse vision tasks owing to its formidable performance. However, existing approaches primarily focus on optimizing internal model architecture designs that often entail significant trial and error with high burdens. In this work, we propose a new paradigm dubbed Decision Stream Calibration that boosts the performance of general Vision Transformers. To achieve this, we shed light on the information propagation mechanism in the learning procedure by exploring the correlation between different tokens and the relevance coefficient of multiple dimensions. Upon further analysis, it was discovered that 1) the final decision is associated with tokens of foreground targets, while token features of foreground target will be transmitted into the next layer as much as possible, and the useless token features of background area will be eliminated gradually in the forward propagation. 2) Each category is solely associated with specific sparse dimensions in the tokens. Based on the discoveries mentioned above, we designed a two-stage calibration scheme, namely ViT-Calibrator, including token propagation calibration stage and dimension propagation calibration stage. Extensive experiments on commonly used datasets show that the proposed approach can achieve promising results.

How good are global DNA-based environmental surveys for detecting all protist diversity? Arcellinida as an example of biased representation.

Metabarcoding approaches targeting microeukaryotes have deeply changed our vision of protist environmental diversity. The public repository EukBank consists of 18S v4 metabarcodes from 12,672 samples worldwide. To estimate how far this database provides a reasonable overview of all eukaryotic diversity, we used Arcellinida (lobose testate amoebae) as a case study. We hypothesised that (1) this approach would allow the discovery of unexpected diversity, but also that (2) some groups would be underrepresented because of primer/sequencing biases. Most of the Arcellinida sequences appeared in freshwater and soil, but their abundance and diversity appeared underrepresented. Moreover, 84% of ASVs belonged to the suborder Phryganellina, a supposedly species-poor clade, whereas the best-documented suborder (Glutinoconcha, 600 described species) was only marginally represented. We explored some possible causes of these biases. Mismatches in the primer-binding site seem to play a minor role. Excessive length of the target region could explain some of these biases, but not all. There must be some other unknown factors involved. Altogether, while metabarcoding based on ribosomal genes remains a good first approach to document microbial eukaryotic clades, alternative approaches based on other genes or sequencing techniques must be considered for an unbiased picture of the diversity of some groups.

Extended commentary—Keeping the republic: A vision for America

AbstractThe United States is enduring an identity crisis characterized by a polarized political climate precipitating an American culture war. In this battle the Republican Party has been overtaken by “Anti‐wokeism” allied with antidemocratic “states' rights” beliefs claiming an exclusive, antipluralist definition of republic. The extremist right in America insists that America is not a democracy, but a “republic” built to respect the status of a minority characterized as white, nationalist and Christian. “Anti‐wokeism” is an extension of Trumpism and MAGA (Make America Great Again), gathering together antidemocratic forces, fueled by resentment and theories of racial displacement known as the Great Replacement Theory. These forces are overwhelming the modern Republican Party, inspiring homophobia, misogyny, racism, book bans, and violence. This essay addresses the following four elements of this crisis with an eye to a renewed vision of America: (1) the difference between an 18th Century and 21st Century definition of a republic; (2) the antidemocratic states' rights movement; (3) the nature of strongman populism in American politics; and (4) a vision of diversity as the core principle of the American Republic.

On the Evaluation of Diverse Vision Systems towards Detecting Human Pose in Collaborative Robot Applications.

Tracking human operators working in the vicinity of collaborative robots can improve the design of safety architecture, ergonomics, and the execution of assembly tasks in a human-robot collaboration scenario. Three commercial spatial computation kits were used along with their Software Development Kits that provide various real-time functionalities to track human poses. The paper explored the possibility of combining the capabilities of different hardware systems and software frameworks that may lead to better performance and accuracy in detecting the human pose in collaborative robotic applications. This study assessed their performance in two different human poses at six depth levels, comparing the raw data and noise-reducing filtered data. In addition, a laser measurement device was employed as a ground truth indicator, together with the average Root Mean Square Error as an error metric. The obtained results were analysed and compared in terms of positional accuracy and repeatability, indicating the dependence of the sensors' performance on the tracking distance. A Kalman-based filter was applied to fuse the human skeleton data and then to reconstruct the operator's poses considering their performance in different distance zones. The results indicated that at a distance less than 3 m, Microsoft Azure Kinect demonstrated better tracking performance, followed by Intel RealSense D455 and Stereolabs ZED2, while at ranges higher than 3 m, ZED2 had superior tracking performance.

Visualizing and Understanding Contrastive Learning.

Contrastive learning has revolutionized the field of computer vision, learning rich representations from unlabeled data, which generalize well to diverse vision tasks. Consequently, it has become increasingly important to explain these approaches and understand their inner workings mechanisms. Given that contrastive models are trained with interdependent and interacting inputs and aim to learn invariance through data augmentation, the existing methods for explaining single-image systems (e.g., image classification models) are inadequate as they fail to account for these factors and typically assume independent inputs. Additionally, there is a lack of evaluation metrics designed to assess pairs of explanations, and no analytical studies have been conducted to investigate the effectiveness of different techniques used to explaining contrastive learning. In this work, we design visual explanation methods that contribute towards understanding similarity learning tasks from pairs of images. We further adapt existing metrics, used to evaluate visual explanations of image classification systems, to suit pairs of explanations and evaluate our proposed methods with these metrics. Finally, we present a thorough analysis of visual explainability methods for contrastive learning, establish their correlation with downstream tasks and demonstrate the potential of our approaches to investigate their merits and drawbacks.

The evolution of vision

Dr Douglas Clarkson considers the evolutionary processes behind the diverse vision systems across current and extinct species

From maps to spatial stories: a case study to understand children’s (re-)productions of art museum space

ABSTRACT Children play an important role (re-)producing art museum spaces. De Certeau, M. 2001. “Spatial Stories.” In Defining Travel: Diverse Visions. concept of spatial stories provides a helpful framework to uncover children’s (re-)productions of art museum spaces through their maps and noted explanations. Bridging the fields of children’s geographies and art museum design, this case study reviews the maps and explanations of a small art museum space that is mobile – located inside a bus – by seven children between the ages of four to seven. Spatial stories of the art museum emerge for all seven children, and key themes suggest: (1) children do not perceive of the art museum as a simple repository for art; (2) real and imagined objects and interactions comprise children’s experiences of the museum space; (3) sensory engagements factor heavily into children’s conceptions; and (4) opportunities for play and social interaction matter. These themes are considered through the lens of De Certeau, M. 2001. “Spatial Stories.” In Defining Travel: Diverse Visions. concept of spatial stories, and their analysis is valuable to future programming and art museum design. The process of studying children’s spatial stories ultimately facilitates further understanding how children comprehend museum spaces.

Imagining Meaningful Human Control: Autonomous Weapons and the (De-) Legitimisation of Future Warfare

ABSTRACT The concept of meaningful human control has taken centre stage in the debate on autonomous weapons systems (AWS). While the precise meaning of the concept remains contested, convergence is emerging of the notion that humans should keep control over the use of force. In this paper, I investigate how political actors make sense of meaningful human control as a response to increasing use of autonomous function in weapons and how these processes intersect with imaginations of future warfare. I argue that these diverse visions of human control contribute to either the legitimisation or the delegitimisation of certain types of AWS and ways of conducting future warfare. The paper analyses the international debate about autonomous weapons systems at the United Nations and shows how the relevant actors imagine meaningful human control as a response to AWS meaningful human control. This also influences what options for political regulation are made thinkable and viable.

Improved Understanding of Learning Characteristics among International Students in Post-Baccalaureate Medical Education for Sustainable Development

Ensuring the success of medical students in post-baccalaureate training is crucial for providing sustainable, high-quality healthcare worldwide. However, international medical students encounter unique sustainability challenges that may affect their ability to learn and excel in medical schools. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate and assess the key attributes of learning styles and attitudes among first- and second-year medical students from a university in Southern Taiwan using the Attitudes Toward Thinking and Learning Survey (ATTLS). In November 2022, a cross-sectional survey and purposive sampling were used to recruit all 43 international medical students. Factor analysis was employed to identify and simplify complex personality traits associated with learning styles and attitudes. The resulting four-factor solution, which accounted for 70.364% of the total variance, was labeled as follows: Factor 1 “Understanding, Interaction Insights, and Empathy”, Factor 2 “Respect, Trust, and an Objective and Rational Vision of Multicultural Diversity”, Factor 3 “Comment, Debate, and Declare One’s Position”, and Factor 4 “Critical Thinking, Logical and Rational Problem Solving, and Rigorous Inference”. This study highlights the significance of connected knowers, who possess both Factor 1 and Factor 2, in providing holistic empathy and multicultural insight for future pedagogy. The four factors identified in this research can serve as a guide for developing teaching strategies that consider students’ diverse learning preferences and needs. By cultivating connected knowers, this research contributes to the sustainable improvement of pedagogical quality and the reduction of non-intellectual challenges in the classroom.

The impact of knowledge brokering in health sector and the challenges: A review of literature.

Knowledge brokering is a type of knowledge translation that bridge the researchers and end users. Knowledge brokering assist the interactions between all agents to understand each other's perspectives and goals to improve health system performance. The failure to deliver how important the research implementation in society may cause significant outcome. A person or organization who perform knowledge brokering is called knowledge broker (KB). Literature review is conducted for the clinical question of how knowledge brokering impact the health sector and the visible challenges. A literature search is performed by systematic search using three major online databases; Cochrane, PubMed, and EBSCO. Hand-searching also yielded one result that fit the objective of this study. The database result search was being screened from the title and abstract which resulted in 14 relevant articles. After reading the full-text articles, four literatures were ruled-in. The study assessed knowledge brokering process using various methods like single framework or model as well as the combination. The challenges include the lack of communication between internal team and end users, leadership skill, engaging end users, knowledge transfer activity, different timeline, and diverse vision. Evaluating and applying knowledge brokering strategies were needed as the practice itself bringing positive outcomes. Knowledge brokering approaches consist of many methods which tailored to the study objective. Challenges that stand out were communication and personal skill, engaging end users, and perspectives difference. The impact of knowledge brokering is challenging to assess. Further studies that evaluate the impacts of knowledge brokering are still needed.

An Invitation to Discomfort in Pursuit of Diversity, Inclusion, and Excellence

An Invitation to Discomfort in Pursuit of Diversity, Inclusion, and Excellence

RELIGIUSITAS DAN INTELEKTUALITAS DALAM RUANG PUBLIK UNTUK MENGGIATKAN MODERASI BERAGAMA

Indonesia as a multicultural and multiethnic nation, this is a privilege as well as a challenge to maintain diversity. The formation of public space allows various communities to grow and develop according to the capabilities of each step. With a high level of diversity, the Indonesian nation is a religion-centric society: seeing all things from a religious perspective. The interaction of religiosity and intellectuality in the public space can radiate values ​​and norms resulting from existing religions and cultures to ensure a sustainable shared life in a pluralistic society that can fulfill the same function and is eager to contribute to religious moderation. The method to be used is a literature review to survey the thoughts of figures and the scientific community who have an interest in discussing religiosity, intellectuality and religious moderation within the scope of Bhinneka Tunggal Ika. Religiosity implements the vision of diversity, in which religion appears as social capital to build a better life together. Religiosity pursues common ground in religious moderation, that is, there are universal teachings and values ​​that bring religions together. Intellectuality in a public space that is familiar but critical of conditions of intolerance to diversity will be able to save diversity from the rifts of religious communication and offer how a substantially better world can be created.

Berlin Jews, Business, and Bourgeois Feminism 1890-1914: Commerce and the Making of a Cultural Moment?

ABSTRACT The article explores the relationship between commercial capitalism and the first European women’s movement through the lens of Jewish business activity in the fashion-related industries of Wilhelmine Berlin. The analysis centers on Kaufhaus N. Israel, a department store and clothier. Between 1899 and 1914, the firm issued a series of prolifically illustrated albums, several featuring explicit ‘feminist’ elements. Through its elaborate publications, the author argues, the commercial company crafted its image as a cultural institution, relying on associations of the department store as a ‘women’s paradise,’ while venturing into political visions of egalitarianism and ethnic diversity in image and text.

Reevaluating Diversity and the History of Women in Soil Science: A Necessary Step for a Real Change

Over the last decades, diversity in science has focused on the inclusion of individuals from formerly under-represented backgrounds. While this is important, it can result in reducing the topic to a game of numbers and quotas, but individuals are not numbers. Science today must include all that a human can be, and this means both to include the under-represented and the represented. As a group endeavor, science can only be as good and innovative as the sum of its individuals’ brilliance, because of this, science needs to ensure it has the largest pool of individuals to choose from. In the same sense, now more than ever, soil science faces problems that come from complex causes and require interdisciplinary equally complex solutions, meaning that it requires minds with different perspectives, different skills, and different life histories. Minds that contribute diverse knowledge and visions to the soil’s preservation so that it maintains its properties and ecosystem benefits over time: minds capable of making soil’s sustainable use. While only two aspects of diversity (the recognition of Women and Traditional Knowledge in soil science) were analyzed in this document, is an attempt of broadening the understand of diversity and their fundamental importance to achieve soil sustainability and contribute to reach the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) as has been widely documented in FAO (2010), mentioned in Reyes-Sánchez (2018) and discussed in Dawson et al. (Eur J Soil Sci, 2021, 72, 1929–1939).

THE CONCEPT OF CENTER IN AIKIDO STUDY

The article analyzes the concept of “center” in the context of aikido and other oriental martial arts. It is determined that the category of center in aikido completely coincides with the definition of the general center of gravity in general physiology. That once again proves the practical effectiveness of techniques used in aikido, as well as the important positive impact of aikido practice on harmonizing the interaction of right and left-brain hemispheres, balance of psycho-emotional state and improvement of general health and well-being. The state of physical culture and sports activities of Aikido athletes is revealed, which is seen as a syncretism of external (physical, social) and internal (emotional, mental, volitional, independent) multifaceted work, which, although not a competitive and stimulating system, but aimed at long term of study and comprehension, without age requirements. It was found that a deeper understanding by aikido practitioners of the basic and key concepts of the presented martial art contributes to a better understanding of the biophysical basis of techniques, ukemi and tai sabaki movements, which increases the level of preparation for the certification. In addition, it was found that understanding and using the work of the center has a significant positive impact in the study of other martial arts, including judo, iaido, jodo, hand-to-hand combat, and even in teaching acrobatics elements. The authors of this article, based on their own experience of Aikido practice and its teaching, as well as other disciplines in the field of physical culture and sports, provide a generalized and diverse vision of the concept of “center” to better master key concepts, awareness effective and wide application of theoretical knowledge gained in training. We consider the results of the presented study to be especially significant for people of the second adulthood and older age who practice aikido [7]. It is possible because the use of the center can significantly reduce the load and joints of both upper and lower body, which not only allows practicing aikido even in old age, but also makes practice possible even in the presence of injuries or disabilities [8]. The results of the presented research are relevant both for martial arts schools and for any kind of sports and physical culture activities that involve interaction with a partner.