Ambiguous Picture Research Articles

Contribution of polymorphic variants of the NFKB1 transcription factor gene to the development of multifactorial diseases with an infammatory component

NFKB1 — a product of the same-name gene – is a transcription factor that regulates the expression of target genes which encode a wide range of proteins with properties essential for functioning of the body. Numerous studies confrmed the NFKB1 gene's contribution of the polymorphism to the processes of adaptation to climatic and geographical conditions, protection from infectious agents, as well as the pathogenesis of multifactorial diseases. In the materials supplied with the article is a summary of the results of published population-genetic and cohort studies of NFKB1. Summary data on the requencies of NFKB1 gene alleles (rs28362491, rs230521, rs4648068, rs3774937, rs3774959) in the population of Europe, Africa, South and East Asia, America, Eastern Russia and Siberia (according to the open databases from 1000 Genomes and Siberian projects) illustrates the pronounced genetic differentiation of world populations by polymorphic variants of NFKB1, which indirectly confrms their selective role. The signifcance of the aforementioned polymorphisms in the etiology and pathogenesis in a number of socially signifcant nosological forms was studied according to an analysis of materials from articles posted on NCBI platform from 2008 to 2021. As a result of deconstructing the data, it was found that changes in the structure of the promoter (del) and introns (SNP polymorphism) are able to modify the activity of the transcription factor NFKB1, through a change in the expression of the gene and the activity of its product. This information forms an ambiguous picture of associations of the NFKB1 gene polymorphic variants with oncological (ovarian, stomach, breast, bladder, colorectal cancer, Hodgkin's lymphoma, melanoma), cardiovascular (coronary heart disease, acute coronary syndrome, myocardial infarction, varicose veins), autoimmune and chronic infammatory diseases (obesity, chronic hepatitis, rheumatoid arthritis, Behcet's disease, psoriasis, acute infammatory reactions to the graft). Ambiguity of the established associative relations could be due to the modifying infuence of ethnic and population characteristics, as well as intensity of the infuence of phlogogenic factors. Nevertheless, the summarized data and generalizations published in the materials of the article can be used in development of a strategy for basic and screening studies in context of the etiology and pathogenesis of multifactorial diseases.

Winning Prescription Without Title of State Property

This paper is a study on the winning prescription without the title of state property, which is in itself one of the first ways of acquisition of property according to Albanian legislation. The project of this topic is the analysis of the practical implementation of the institute of winning prescription without the title of state property. From the comprehensive treatment made in practice regarding the procedural and material aspects of this institute, the issues raised for analysis are related to resolving the issue of whether state property is an item capable of being acquired by winning prescription and whether the issuance of laws and bylaws will be considered cause for termination of the statute of limitations. Seeing in full the legislation in force in the Republic of Albania, as well as the spirit of this special legislation in the field of property and and wealth real estate.State property is considered an impossible object to be acquired by winning prescription, as long as they do not meet the legal criteria for their transfer to private ownership entities..The plaintiff must prove that the lawsuit is directed against the person who was the owner until the conditions of the winning prescription are met.

Perception, Imagery, Memory and Consciousness

I propose and discuss some principles that I believe are substantial for perception, various kinds of memory, expectations and the capacity for imagination in the mammal brain, as well as for the design of a biologically inspired artificial cognitive architecture. I also suggest why these same principles could explain our ability to represent novel concepts and imagine non-existing and perhaps impossible objects, while there are still limits to what we can imagine and think about. Some ideas regarding how these principles could be relevant for an autonomous agent to become functionally conscious are discussed as well.

Damage to the human dentate gyrus impairs the perceptual discrimination of complex, novel objects

The hippocampus (HPC), and the dentate gyrus (DG) subregion in particular, is purported to be a pattern separator, orthogonally representing similar information so that distinct memories may be formed. The HPC may also be involved in complex perceptual discrimination. It is unclear if this role is limited to spatial/scene stimuli or extends to the discrimination of objects. Also unclear is whether the DG itself contributes to pattern separation beyond memory. BL, an individual with bilateral DG lesions, was previously shown to have poor discrimination of similar, everyday objects in memory. Here, we demonstrate that BL's deficit extends to complex perceptual discrimination of novel objects. Specifically, BL was presented with closely matched possible and impossible objects, which give rise to fundamentally different 3D perceptual representations despite being visually similar. BL performed significantly worse than controls when asked to select an odd object (e.g., impossible) amongst three identical counterpart objects (e.g., possible) presented at different rotations. His deficit was also evident in an atypical eye fixation pattern during this task. In contrast, BL's performance was indistinguishable from that of controls on other tasks involving the same objects, indicating that he could visually differentiate the object pairs, that he perceived the objects holistically in 3D, and that he has only a mild weakness in categorizing object possibility. Furthermore, his performance on standardized neuropsychological measures indicated intact mental rotation, visual-spatial attention, and working memory (visual and auditory). Collectively, these results provide evidence that the DG is necessary for complex perceptual discrimination of novel objects, indicating that the DG might function as a generic pattern separator of a wide range of stimuli within high-level perception, and that its role is not limited to memory.

The Economic Aspect of the Image of Well-Being of the Kursk Region: Comparative Analysis of Statistical Indicators of the Chernozem Regions

The relevance of the topic of the article is due to the uneven level of economic development among the regions of the Chernozem region. The need for a comparative analysis of economic factors of well-being is associated with determining the best indicators among the regions, and identifying the Kursk region's place in this rating.The purpose of the article is the economic characteristics of the well-being of the Chernozem regions and their comparative analysis.Objectives: to consider the theoretical aspects of the formation of the image of well-being; to consider the system of economic indicators that make up the image of well-being; to provide statistical data for the Kursk region, as well as for other regions of the Chernozem region (Voronezh, Lipetsk, Tambov, Belgorod regions); to conduct a comparative analysis of the obtained indicators for the regions of the Chernozem region.Methodology. The study was carried out on the basis of a systematic approach within the framework of structural-functionalism using universal scientific methods such as analysis, synthesis, generalization, as well as the method of correlation analysis.Results. In the course of the study, criteria were identified, on the basis of which we derived economic parameters by which well-being was measured. Further, statistical data were collected according to the selected parameters, with which computational manipulations were carried out, in particular, the dynamics index was calculated. The data were analyzed and compared by region.Conclusions. Economic indicators, among which we used the levels of GRP, unemployment and employment, showed an ambiguous picture in which the Kursk region occupies a median position in a number of regions of the Black Earth region, having average indicators and growth rates of indicators. However, the unemployment rate of the Kursk region, considered in dynamics, allows us to judge higher rates of unemployment decline, which is good for the region, but does not give grounds to call the Kursk region more or less prosperous in comparison with the rest.

Consumers’ sustainability-related perception of and willingness-to-pay for food packaging alternatives

Research regarding consumers’ perception of and willingness-to-pay for alternatives to conventional plastic packaging reveals an ambiguous picture. On one hand, consumers are said to be neither willing to change their consumption behavior nor to pay for alternatives. On the other hand, there is evidence that consumers have an increasing environmental awareness and a positive willingness-to-pay for packaging alternatives. The mixed-method study (Discrete Choice Experiment and qualitative free-text analysis) described in this paper, elucidates the role of consumers and analyzes both consumers’ sustainability-related perception of and willingness-to-pay for alternative food packaging (unpackaged, paper, recycling plastic, bioplastic). Results demonstrate that consumers are willing to pay for packaging that they perceive to be sustainable and are not willing to pay for packaging that they perceive to be non-sustainable or about which they are uncertain. Considering the general disagreement on what kind of packaging actually is sustainable, these results raise the question: if neither theorists, nor companies, nor government agree on the sustainability of different types of packaging – how are consumers supposed to make correct assessments? Besides, results demonstrate that consumers are largely united in their general dissatisfaction with the current packaging situation, even though they are aware of the positive characteristics of single-use plastic packaging.

Rational Reasons, Counterfactual Statements and “Impossible Worlds” in the Philosophical Justifications of Thought Experiments

In his theory of natural laws David Lewis rejects the authenticity of impossible worlds on the grounds that the contradiction contained within his modifier "in (the world) w" is tantamount to a contradiction in the whole theory, which seems unacceptable. At the same time, in philosophical discourse very often researchers use counterfactual situations and thought experiments with impossible events and objects. There is a need to apply the theory of worlds to genuine, concrete, but impossible worlds. One way to do this is to reject Lewis's classical negation on the grounds that it leads to problems of completeness and inconsistency inside the worlds. The proposed extension for impossibility is compatible with Lewis's extensional metaphysics, although it leads to some loss for description completeness in semantics.

Does funds-based adaptation finance reach the most vulnerable countries?

The evolving architecture of global climate change adaptation finance is shifting towards fund mechanisms with competitive application and allocation principles. At the same time, prioritization of the most vulnerable countries is a key goal within this emerging architecture. The paper analyses whether the Green Climate Fund (GCF), by far the largest climate change fund, has so far delivered on its promise to prioritize the most vulnerable countries. For our analysis, we consider the USD 2.5 billion GCF funding allocated until the end of the first mobilization phase and disaggregate it project-by-project into its mitigation and adaptation related amounts. We then analyze the adaptation flows in terms of the recipient country’s level of vulnerability and institutional capacity. We further analyze whether funds are being accessed through independent national entities or international intermediaries and whether recipient countries have developing country priority status. The results show that funds-based adaptation finance creates an ambiguous picture: On the one hand, the GCF is on track in allocating its funds largely to country groups which its statutes aim to prioritize, particularly LDCs, African countries and SIDS. At the same time, the proposal process results in the fact that many countries with the highest climate vulnerability but weak government institutions and fragile state-bureaucracies have missed out and not been able to access project funding, mostly LDCs in Africa and conflict-ridden countries. Further, most countries have not yet been able to access project funds independently through their national entities, limiting direct access and country ownership – the strengthening of which is a major goal of the fund. The findings suggest that simplified approval tracks need to be strengthened in the emerging climate finance architecture so that populations in countries with the lowest institutional capacity but highest vulnerability are not being left behind in the long-run.

The Effect of Sanitizing Treatments on Respirator Filtration Performance.

The potential for alcoholic vapors emitted by common sanitizing treatments to deteriorate the (electrostatic) filtration performance of disposable respirator masks has been investigated. Reports in the literature and some standard test methods provide a confusing and ambiguous picture concerning the relevance of this effect. Four different types of exposure were investigated in this study to clarify the effect of alcoholic vapor emissions on respirator masks. These included exposure to saturated vapors, use of hand sanitizers, cleaning of table surfaces and sanitization of masks by spraying them with alcohol-containing solutions. Methods employed were designed to be as real-world oriented as possible while remaining reproducible. Filtration performance and deterioration effects on exposure to the different treatments were determined on three different types of certified commercial respirator masks—a P2 and two KN95 masks. This study provides substantial evidence that disposable respirator masks with an accepted performance rating are seriously compromised from an exposure to saturated alcoholic vapors, can tolerate a one-off spray treatment with an alcoholic solution and retain their attested protection under the influence of alcoholic vapors from the use of hand sanitizer or spray sanitizer. Considering the range of vastly different outcomes obtained from the four treatments investigated, it seems prudent to assess in each case the specific effects of alcoholic solution treatments and vapors on respirator masks before use.

Analog Desires: On Stranger Things and the Logics of Nostalgia

This paper examines the relation between Stranger Things (Netflix, 2016–) and the omnipresence of nostalgic tropes within current mediascapes. Nostalgia for the 1980s is already a well-examined subject within film and media studies, yet there remains much to say about the ties between nostalgia and desire. As with any desire considered from a psychoanalytic standpoint, nostalgia is focused on an impossible object that is conceived in retrospect. After comparing the object of nostalgia with the functioning of the object-cause of desire as it is conceptualized in psychoanalytic thought, this paper argues that the nostalgic desire expressed within the series is situated around the very shift from the analog to the digital. It is argued that nostalgia within Stranger Things emerges from the remediation of analog media and technologies, and that its relation to desire emanates from the very lack that is retrospectively situated at the heart of digital media.

Predictors of Eye Tracking to Ambiguous Pictures in Trauma Survivors

Predictors of Eye Tracking to Ambiguous Pictures in Trauma Survivors

"As an illuminator the Oil is without a figure—it is the light of the age": Traumas and Aporias of Oil as a Global Object of Desire in Ella Hickson's Oil

Ella Hickson's Oil is the first and only work in modern and contemporary Anglo-American drama that takes Oil and its concomitant existential-psychological, social-political and economic implications as its sole, sustained focal point. Undertaking an exploration of Hickson's Oil, this essay seeks to demonstrate how Oil, as a paradigmatic example of world dramas, constitutes a potent means to register not only the world-systemic nature of petro-capitalism, but also the different meanings of "oil" available in different historical moments, social systems, and world cultures. Indeed, the thematics and dynamics of Oil demand that we probe the meanings of oil under such rubrics as oil as commodity, social agent, social relation, cultural signifier, hyper-object, and, above all, an impossible object of desire. Accordingly, the crux of this essay is an exploration of this pivotal facet of oil: oil as a traumatic and aporetic object of desire along with the questions of racial and gender politics and ethics implicated in it. Finally, pondering the questions of the politics and ethics of gender in conjunction with the economy of gendered subjectivity, I demonstrate how May, and later Amy, come to varyingly embody a neoliberalist vision of selfhood and subjective autonomy, mode of self-governmentality, and, finally, understanding of freedom and self-worth. Ultimately, the essay argues how Hickson's Oil presents a bio-energetic deconstruction of the Eurocentric account of modernity subjectivity (and its ultimate value: autonomy) by exposing its material conditions of possibility and its uneven, core-periphery economic dynamics.

3D Realization of Penrose Polygons Using Non-Rectangularity Trick

This paper generalizes an impossible figure called a "Penrose triangle" to regular polygonal figures and proposes a method for constructing real 3D objects from such figures. Two well-known tricks, namely the curved surface trick and the discontinuity trick, have been used to construct 3D objects from impossible figures. However, these tricks are very sensitive to viewpoint. The proposed method uses only planar faces and connects them wherever they appear to be connected. The resulting objects are thus less sensitive to viewpoint in the sense that the impression of impossibility does not disappear when the viewpoint slightly changes. Moreover, the constructed objects have the same symmetry as that of the original figures, preserving their elegance.

Subject-activity approach of S.L. Rubinstein: Neo-Kantianism and Marxism

Pages history Soviet psychology often contain gaps, which are due to incomplete or inaccessible sources as well as to ideological distortions реrception and interpretation events epoch totalitarianism. Historical-psychological reconstructions, inspired these days archival and revisionist turns, as well as methodology latent change, offer other interpretative models, on one hand, overcoming established mythologems, and on other, revealing а complex, contradictory and ambiguous picture development socio-humanitarian knowledge first half 20th сеntury. Under influence globalization and transnational research projects, contemporary Russian historiography in one way or another updates its methodological tools, turns to polyparadigmatics and transdisciplinarity, and shifts from linear interpretative schemes to constructions that include marginal and non-obvious narratives and discourses along with canonical ones. In light new interpretive model, which takes into асcount historio-graphical materials related sciences as well as hidden currents Soviet culture, three methodological milestones are singled for analysis in S.L. Rubinstein’s intellectual biography: neo-Kantian, Marxist, and anthropological (existential) реriods scientific work. It is emphasized that Soviet historiography left almost no doubts concerning Marxist foundations S.L. Rubinstein’s subjectivе-асtivity арproach, but other models interpretation not only immerse Russian psychology in context epistemological twists and turns in socio-humanitarian knowledge 20th сеntury, but also problematize established ideas and call them into question. Among such problematizations is а comprehension neo-Kantian and Marxist premises S.L. Rubinstein’s doctrine. It is stated that principle creative асtivity, notion self-development and individuation subject, problem ethics and values as internal guidelines human development represent latent neo-Kantianism in intellectual biography scientist.

Eating Insects: A Christian Ethic of Farmed Insect Life

Proponents of entomophagy have argued that the farming of insects offers many advantages when contrasted with more traditional farming practices. This article explores the place of insect farming within a wider Christian food ethic and argues that insect farming has much to recommend it. However, through exploring the role of animal agriculture within the ideological structures of anthropocentrism, a more ambiguous picture of the ethics of insect farming emerges. This belies a simple endorsement or denunciation of insect farming as an ethical alternative to the farming of larger animals. Moreover, the example of insect farming reveals that Christian food ethics needs to radically reimagine the entire food provisioning system if it is to inculcate substantive change in human relationships with nonhuman animals.

Are firms withdrawing from basic research? An analysis of firm-level publication behaviour in Germany

Previous research has expressed concerns about firms engaging less in basic research. We contribute to this debate by studying trends in the scientific publishing activities of firms located in Germany. Our results indicate that the firms’ aggregate volume of scientific publications stayed constant between 2008 and 2016. However, the number and share of publishing firms declined, and publication activities became more concentrated among publishing firms. Beyond that, we observe positive trends in publishing in basic research journals compared to journals focused on applied research, and publishing in collaboration with academic partners compared to publishing alone. Thus, our results paint an ambiguous picture. While they do not confirm a decrease in firms’ basic research engagement in the aggregate, the figures document a concentration of publishing activities on fewer firms. We argue that this concentration of basic research activities in firms may pose a threat to the longer-term innovativeness of the German economy.

A failure to learn object shape geometry: Implications for convolutional neural networks as plausible models of biological vision

Here we examine the plausibility of deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) as a theoretical framework for understanding biological vision in the context of image classification. Recent work on object recognition in human vision has shown that both global, and local, shape information is computed, and integrated, early during perceptual processing. Our goal was to compare the similarity in how object shape information is processed by CNNs and human observers. We tested the hypothesis that, unlike the human system, CNNs do not compute representations of global and local object geometry during image classification. To do so, we trained and tested six CNNs (AlexNet, VGG-11, VGG-16, ResNet-18, ResNet-50, GoogLeNet), and human observers, to discriminate geometrically possible and impossible objects. The ability to complete this task requires computation of a representational structure of shape that encodes both global and local object geometry because the detection of impossibility derives from an incongruity between well-formed local feature conjunctions and their integration into a geometrically well-formed 3D global shape. Unlike human observers, none of the tested CNNs could reliably discriminate between possible and impossible objects. Detailed analyses using gradient-weighted class activation mapping (GradCam) of CNN image feature processing showed that network classification performance was not constrained by object geometry. In contrast, if classification could be made based solely on local feature information in line drawings the CNNs were highly accurate. We argue that these findings reflect fundamental differences between CNNs and human vision in terms of underlying image processing structure. Notably, unlike human vision, CNNs do not compute representations of object geometry. The results challenge the plausibility of CNNs as a framework for understanding image classification in biological vision systems.

Teacher professionality at a time of mobility:

This study aims to investigate how the educational and linguistic backgrounds of teachers affect how they are positioned and how they position themselves in relation to their profession in a language introduction programme at upper secondary school in Sweden. Material from two years of study at one school was used to conduct a nexus analysis. The material comprised policy documents at the national and local levels; interviews with principals and teachers; and classroom and school environment observations. Conflicting discourses appear in the analysis in terms of teacher competence and teacher roles. Those teachers who had the relevant professional competence, as according to national documents, felt that their knowledge was not acknowledged and that they were not listened to. Official documents state that principals are responsible for fulfilling stipulated demands; however, they do not always have the necessary knowledge as this is not a requirement for their position. Thus, an ambiguous picture appears where teachers who are positioned as competent at the national level are positioned only to teach their own subject and are not given voice on issues relating to general teacher competence and organisation of education at the local level. This article highlights the importance of knowledge and understanding relating to L2 student learning at the management level.

"Impossible" Somatosensation and the (Ir)rationality of Perception.

Impossible figures represent the world in ways it cannot be. From the work of M. C. Escher to any popular perception textbook, such experiences show how some principles of mental processing can be so entrenched and inflexible as to produce absurd and even incoherent outcomes that could not occur in reality. However, impossible experiences of this sort are mostly limited to visual perception; are there “impossible figures” for other sensory modalities? Here, we import a known magic trick into the laboratory to report and investigate an impossible experience for somatosensation—one that can be physically felt. We show that, even under full-cue conditions with objects that can be freely inspected, subjects can be made to experience a single object alone as feeling heavier than a group of objects that includes the single object as a member—an impossible and phenomenologically striking experience of weight. Moreover, we suggest that this phenomenon—a special case of the size-weight illusion—reflects a kind of “anti-Bayesian” perceptual updating that amplifies a challenge to rational models of perception and cognition.

Research on hybrid bounding box interference check algorithm for robot offline simulation system

Aiming at the problem that the traditional industrial robot may interfere with the workpiece when running in the offline simulation environment, a hybrid bounding box algorithm based on octree is proposed. First, AABB is used for rough interference checks, which quickly eliminates the pairs of impossible objects to intersect, then OBB hierarchical bounding box is used for precise interference checks. A new OBB construction method is proposed, which recalculates the semi-axis length and centre of the constructed traditional OBB to make it surround the object as much as possible and reduce the space gap. A traversal method based on distance priority is proposed, which traversed the closest node every time by maintaining a priority queue. And in the update strategy, “update on demand” is adopted, which discards updating the entire tree before each intersection and only updates the current node during the intersection traversal to achieve the purpose of partial update. Experiments show that the proposed hybrid bounding box algorithm can detect interference faster and perform better real-time performance and accuracy.