Eye Point Of View Research Articles

What Is It to Explain Extremism?

ABSTRACT This article explores what it is to explain extremism. Rather than providing yet another explanation of extremism, it takes a bird’s eye point of view at existing explanations of extremism. What is it that scholars are doing in seeking explanations of extremism? This article answers this question by considering four issues. First, exactly what is the explanandum for explanations of extremism, what is it that we seek to explain? Second, what is it to explain extremism rather than describing, interpreting, understanding, or predicting it? Third, how can explanations of extremism be categorized and what does that mean for the extent to which can they be combined? Fourth, what semantics is useful in construing an explanation of extremism? It turns out that most insights equally apply to explanations of related yet distinct phenomena, such as fundamentalism, fanaticism, conspiracy theorizing, and terrorism. The article concludes by providing five concrete guidelines that will help fine-tune and compare various explanations of extremism.

Curative handcrafted textiles: Healing generations

While natural disasters in the past, along with the recent COVID-19 pandemic, have disrupted livelihoods, they have also activated the structuring of handicraft as an age-old remedial practice with curative properties. Further, the need for communicating textile processes, in support of slow fashion, has allowed educational institutions to contextualize this teaching with the help of pedagogical models that define the role of both craft education and craft-based research. As an educator at Pearl Academy, India, what I can observe in the modern world today is that there is always a cross-cultural contact between the ‘local’ and the ‘global’ and that, the much-discussed ‘global village’ is no longer a fantasy but a fact, despite numerous paradoxes. This article aims at giving an insight into my perspectives and experiences that shed light on the plight of handicraft in the most hand-skilled country in the world. It also lends a bird’s-eye point of view on the need to break barriers between modern and traditional, between urban and rural, etc., and look at the many avatars of handicraft and techniques being repurposed for modern applications such as luxury fashion, interior design and jewellery. This can result in the creation of works that are not only aesthetically pleasing but are also functional, sustainable and culturally sensitive and can help designers and artists navigate complex ethical issues that resonate with diverse communities. The article takes into consideration handcrafted textile samples developed by three postgraduate fashion design students at Pearl Academy, India, who have developed textile samples as part of their project called ‘Hybrid Textiles’. The samples create an epilogue to the context of this study through an ‘end of life’ narrative and craft practices in India.

Toward Building Edge Learning Pipelines

From a bird's eye point of view, large-scale data analytics workflows, e.g., those executed in popular tools, such as Apache Spark and Flink, are typically represented by directed acyclic graphs. Also, they are in a large scale in two dimensions: first, they are capable of processing big data (e.g., both in terms of volume and velocity) mainly through employing massive parallelism, and second, they can run over (powerful) distributed infrastructures. This article focuses on edge computing and its confluence with big data analytics workflows, which nowadays place special emphasis on deep learning and data quality.

A Critical Companion to English Mappae Mundi of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries

A Critical Companion to English Mappae Mundi of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries

A Puzzle for Readers of Arthur Danto’s Aesthetic Theory

A Puzzle for Readers of Arthur Danto’s Aesthetic Theory

Three Observations on Filming Tactility and Movement in Crafts-based Practice

This film makes three observations on the filming of tactility and movement in order to adequately convey tacit knowledge in embodied ways. The author, Wuon-Gean Ho, studied the craft of traditional woodblock printmaking in Japan, and demonstrates planning, carving and printing of a woodblock print.
 The first observation is that an alteration of the time-base of the film and subsequent manipulation of the soundscape can provide embodied affects. Secondly the film refers to the effect of mirror-touch-synaesthesia with close macro shots and intimate angles. Thirdly, the use of a birds’ eye point of view, with the hands of the artist in the same anatomical position as the viewers’ hands, enables the gaze of the viewer to mimic that of the maker, conveying haptic knowledge through poetic means.The voiceover to the film is made with deliberate reference to ASMR videos that engender a sense of intimacy. The non-objectivity of the recording process is commented upon. The conclusion is that constructed scenarios might convey more than real-time truthful indexical footage.

Joan Neuberger’s This Thing of Darkness

The note is about the place of Joan Neuberger’s monograph among books on Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible, and, more broadly, among writings on period films, be they by film historians or by historians proper. The book is a triple portrayal — of Eisenstein, his Ivan, and, indirectly, of Stalin, whose favorite pastime was to use historical novels, plays, and films on Russia’s historic tyrants as one might a vanity mirror. The virtue of Neuberger’s approach is that, rather than judge or define, she successfully captures the ambiguity of each of her three protagonists. It is as much an analysis of the movie as an ambivalent mirror as it is of the person that holds it and of the one who expects to see in it a flattering reflection of himself — to no avail. Instead of assuming a bird’s eye point of view on the Soviet film-land, Neuberger nose-dove into it like a kid-loving pelican, picked one film and brought it to us in a big beak of a book. That is not to portray Joan Neuberger as a shape-shifter, a historian-turned-film-scholar. Yes, film scholars do write book-length studies on a single movie while political historians rarely do, but the choice of this specific format does not turn Neuberger into a film scholar. There is a lot of superb film scholarship to be found here, but the stunt that makes Neuberger’s scholarship unique is that, for all its film-scholarship lenses, it remains a historical study par excellence.

Side effects of 1% cyclopentolate hydrochloride in children and adolescents attended at Centro Universitário FMABC

Introduction: It is known that vision disorders are within the context of public health problems. In childhood, during the neuropsychomotor development phase, visual changes are crucial, since there is a strong correlation between poor school performance and changes in acuity. For these reasons, ophthalmological examination in children, including refraction, is extremely important, aiming at the early diagnosis of diseases and possible refractive errors that may compromise the child's life and development. 1% cyclopentolate hydrochloride eye drops are the most used during ophthalmic clinical evaluation as a cycloplegic and mydriatic agent to assist in refractive examination. Objective: The ocular and systemic side effects of 1% cyclopentolate hydrochloride eye drops were studied in patients who underwent static refractive examination in the strabismus sector of the Ophthalmology Discipline of the Centro Universitário FMABC. Methods: A drop of 1% cyclopentolate is instilled in both eyes of each patient and the possible ocular and systemic signs and symptoms presented were observed after 40 minutes and 24 hours after instillation. Results: we expect to find ocular side effects more evident than systemic symptoms in the two evaluation times (40 minutes and 24 hours after instillation). All symptoms (ocular and systemic) are reversed spontaneously. Conclusion: The present study aims to show that the side effects observed by the topical (ocular) use of cyclopentolate eye drops 1% are few and present spontaneous reversal both from an eye point of view, as well as from a systemic point of view.

The Ontological Nature of Intuition in Schelling

In this paper, I focus on the concept of intuition (Anschauung) in Schelling’s philosophy. More specifically, I show how Schelling attributes to intuition an ontological value by essentially relating it to freedom and primal Being (Ursein). Indeed, for Schelling intuition is both the main instrument of philosophy and the highest product of freedom, by which we attain the so-called “God’s-eye point of view” and concretely grasp things in their immediate existence. That is, through intuition it is possible to grasp the absolute and original unity of the principles, namely of being and thought, subject and object and freedom and necessity. Accordingly, I argue that Schelling’s conception of intuition, rather being a merely theoretical speculation, is aimed at demonstrating the immanent nature of Being, which is one of the key points in Schelling’s philosophy.

Why invisible boundaries matter: imagined institutions and power

ABSTRACT This paper develops an alternative to Erin Meyer’s influential argument that national culture determines how people in a nation behave, thereby creating invisible boundaries that divide nations according to behavioural stereotypes. Whereas Meyer makes the implicit assumption that we could observe national culture and its effect on behaviour as if from a God’s Eye point of view, we might do better to begin with an Insider’s Eye perspective on whom we could trust to do what. If we take too much for granted, we may miss invisible boundaries that matter; which might have happened when the English executive, Michael Woodford, became president and CEO of Japan’s Olympus Corporation, only to find himself fearing for his life after exposing fraud that his Japanese colleagues thought wise to hide. Woodford’s startling story is used here to consider three conceptual questions. First, how might power mediated by what people imagine influence the evolution of institutional ecologies, together with invisible boundaries that divide insiders from outsiders? Second, why should management theorists move from an objective God’s Eye perspective to Insider’s Eye reflections on power mediated by imagined institutions? And third, if we want to avoid falling foul of invisible boundaries, what should we do?

Drusen Formation in Type II Membranoproliferative Glomerulonephritis after Renal Transplantation

Abstract Type II membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis (MPGN) is a systemic disease that almost invariably recurs in renal allografts. This is a case of a 45-year-old woman with biopsy proven type II MPGN that led to renal failure 10 years after diagnosis. During the fifth month after cadaveric transplantation she was treated with pulse doses of methylprednisolone owing to acute T-cell mediated rejection without pathohistological signs of type II MPGN recurrence. One month later the patient was hospitalized due to acute bilateral vision deterioration. Ophthalmoscopy showed bilateral, multifocal drusen, concentrating in the posterior pole, and exudative ablation of the retinal pigment epithelium. Ocular coherence tomography (OCT) revealed focal retinal pigment epithelial elevation and detachments. The patient was treated with methylprednisolone (1 mg/kg) for 3 days. Therapy led to regression of exudation and flattening of the pigment epithelial detachments with discrete subjective visual improvement. Type II MPGN almost invariably recurs and leads to graft failure in 50% of cases. Our patient had evident chronic eye changes due to type II MPGN leaving allograft function intact during the first year of follow-up. Considering these potentially devastating effects of the disease, type II MPGN patients should be observed carefully from both the renal and eye point of view, because the severity of ocular changes, like in our case, is not always in line with allograft function.

Brand Promotion Expenditure - A Critical Analysis from the Perspective of Indian Transfer Pricing

Brand promotional expenditure has become a subject of great interest in the Indian Transfer Pricing circle after the decision of Delhi High Court in the case of Maruti Suzuki vs ACIT, TPO. This expenditure is spent to create an intangible asset even though they may have no book value in the company’s Balance Sheet. The decision of the Delhi High Court has triggered a lot of debates as it has proposed an altogether new methodology to determine whether the brand promotional expenditure incurred by the Indian entity benefited the foreign holding company.This paper seeks to analyse the brand promotional expenditure from the bird’s eye point of view by tracing to its origin (i.e., Glaxosmithkline-US Case) and the methods used by different countries to determine whether brand promotional expenditure is at arm’s length. This paper also analyses various decisions of the High Courts (HC) and Income Tax Appellate Tribunals (ITATs) of India.

Practical Realism: Against Standard Scientific Realism and Anti-Realism

In this paper, the elaboration of the concept of practical realist philosophy of science which began in the author's previous papers is continued. It is argued that practical realism is opposed to standard scientific realism, on the one hand, and antirealism, on the other. Standard scientific realism is challengeable due to its abstract character, as being isolated from practice. It is based on a metaphysical-ontological presupposition which raises the problem of the God's Eye point of view (as it was called by Hilary Putnam). Joseph Rouse's conception of science as practice, Sami Pihlström's pragmatic realism, and even Ilkka Niiniluoto's critical scientific realism are interpreted as practical realist conceptions. Pihlström suggests that the contemporary scientific realist should be prepared to accept the pragmatically naturalized Kantian transcendental perspective on realism. It is argued, however, that this realistically naturalized Kantianism can be nothing more than practical realism, as originated by Karl Marx.

Vormt moderne antropologie een probleem voor het Christelijk geloof?

Does modern anthropology pose a problem to the Christian faith? Contemporary scientific anthropology proposes a naturalistic conception of human personhood because of humankind’s place somewhere in the larger evolutionary process of life. Some authors use the theory of biological evolution to explain phenomena in other areas as well, and due to its success suggest it has universal application in cultural and religious studies too, as if it were a theory of everything. Darwin’s idea of a common origin of all life undermined a supposed superiority of humankind. It signalled the end of an Aristotelian metaphysical notion of classification and constituted a real blow for classical individualistic anthropology. Dawkins explains religion in terms of empirical immanent biological processes in the human brain. He views religious ideas as ‘memes’ that act like an infectious virus in mental processes. His hypothesis seems to be a relapse into the old Aristotelian pattern. Michael Persinger interprets religion as an internal physiological state of an individual brain and reduces the language of mental concepts to physiological states of a material brain. Persinger’s, and also Dennett’s, materialistic view presupposes a God’s Eye Point of View as an Archimedian perspective outside the world. If a God exists, the neurologists Newberg and d’Aquili argue that he needs a point of contact within our brain: the God spot. Sociobiologists Edward Wilson and David Wilson consider religion a form of group adaptation, because cooperating individuals show the primary benefits of cooperation and altruistic behaviour, just as social insects. Religion is an evolutionary support of altruistic instincts and creates a social infrastructure to benefit a cooperative society. However, social insects merely act on their instincts whereas human beings can act intentionally even against their primary instincts, because of motives for altruist practices inspired, for example, by the narratives and concepts of a Christian tradition. The communion of saints does not take place merely because of a social instinct, but because of the shared motive of the community as a whole, that is, the body of Christ, which acts altruistically irrespective of persons, including outsiders!

J112011 イノベーション剔出のための根本的エンジニアリングの場の研究

The authors propose a new creative concept of "meta-engineering" as a dynamic engineering approach that is effective for continuous innovation. Addressing merely emerging issues with science and technology is insufficient for realizing such innovation. The proposal maintains that the spiral process is a key driving force for innovation and solution of challenges that local economy, regional communities, whole countries, and the world are faced with. The processes include "mining invisible and potential/latent issues from bird's eye point of view (M)", "exploring and strengthening necessary science and technologies (E)", "converging these science and technologies to generate solutions (C) " and "implementing them for creating social value (I)". These processes are represented as MECI process. Such actions require well-coordinated and intense academia-industry-government collaborations with close interactions with the general public, under the national and international science, technology and innovation policies execution. The authors emphatically propose to put a high priority on the development of "meta-engineering" as a new approach for innovation and sustainability for generations to come.

Is There an Empirical Disagreement between Genic and Genotypic Selection Models? A Response to Brandon and Nijhout

In a recent paper, Brandon and Nijhout argue against genic selectionism—the thesis, roughly, that evolutionary processes are best understood from the gene's-eye point of view—by presenting a case in which genic models of selection allegedly make predictions that conflict with the (correct) predictions of higher-level genotypic selection models. Their argument, if successful, would refute the widely held belief that genic models and higher-level models are predictively equivalent. Here, I argue that Brandon and Nijhout fail to demonstrate that the models make incompatible predictions.

Perspective: from basic to creative

Part I: One point, two point and three-point perspective with objects inclined to the ground plane (from the worm's-eye to the bird's-eye point of view) * Part II: Developing the basic principles into a set of valuable creative tools, using step-by-step processes.

Theologie als verbeelding over grenzen heen1Een uitgewerkte versie van het afscheidscollege uitgesproken bij de sluiting van de Kerkelijke Opleiding bij de Faculteit der Godgeleerdheid en Godsdienstwetenschap van de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen d.d. 25 juni 2004.

The author argues for a revaluation of images and myths as the proper means for talking about God in systematic theology. As myths are not understood descriptively, they function neither as a kind of primitive ‘science’ nor as disguised philosophy. Because of God’s transcendence, thcistic talk of God as an external object is logically improper, for it implicitly adopts a God’s Eye point of view. Systematic theology that takes its internalist perspective seriously, will refrain from using descriptive talk of God’s transcendence, and employ narratives, rather than ‘theories’ to speak about the Christian form of life. By means of Christian narratives believers creatively construe and reconstrue their collective and individual narrative identity in relation to God who is transcendent in the middle of human life (Bonhoeffer). A Trinitarian modeled narrative framework as ‘mythistory’ interprets life experiences as a form of life orientation. Finally, the imago Dei is interpreted as a form of life coram Deo, rather than as an essential property of human personhood.

Scientific Realism and the God's Eye Point of View

According to scientific realism, the aim of science is to discover the truth about both observable and unobservable aspects of the mind-independent, objective reality, which we inhabit. It has been objected by Putnam and others that such a metaphysically realist position presupposes a God’s Eye point of view, of which no coherent sense can be made. In this paper, I will argue for two claims. First, scientific realism does not require the adoption of a God’s Eye point of view. Instead, scientific realism is a hypothesis about the relationship between scientific theory and reality which may be proposed from within our human perspective. Second, even if scientific realism did require a God’s Eye point of view, this would not necessarily be to the detriment of realism. For it is possible to develop an intelligible external perspective on human epistemic relations to our environing reality.

Pierre Bourdieu’s Political Turn?

This contribution has two main goals. First, Pierre Bourdieu’s later work is critically reviewed. The question is posed whether or not his recent critical work has to be interpreted as the result of what might be called a ‘political turn’. Second, in reviewing the critical content of this recent work, a clarification of the critical potential present in Bourdieu’s general methodological and theoretical presuppositions is given. It can thus be seen that Bourdieu’s analyses have always been critical, because of their anti-essentialist relational logic, and that there is a definite continuity between his ‘older’ work and his more recent work. However, his analyses have become more harsh in tone. To conclude, then, the foundations of Bourdieu’s critique are critically examined. First, it is noted that his recent change in tone reveals a theoretical inconsistency between his earlier work and his recent writings. Second, a critique is given of the theoretical basis of all of Bourdieu’s work: relational logic. It is argued that his anti-essentialism is founded on – in Putnam’s words – a ‘God’s eye point of view’, which seems to be incompatible (if it were ever obtainable) with precisely this anti-essentialist analysis.