Normative Image Research Articles

Morphology of the normative human cone photoreceptor mosaic and a publicly available adaptive optics montage repository.

Adaptive optics ophthalmoscopy has enabled visualization of the in vivo human photoreceptor mosaic in health, disease and its treatment. Despite this, the clinical utility of the imaging technology has been limited by a lack of automated analysis techniques capable of accurately quantifying photoreceptor structure and a lack of an available normative image database. Here, we present a fully automated algorithm for estimating cone spacing and density over a complete adaptive optics montage along with a database of normative images and cone densities. We imaged the cone mosaics surrounding the fovea and along the horizontal and vertical meridians of fifty normal-sighted controls with a custom-built, multimodal adaptive optics scanning light ophthalmoscope. Cone spacing was automatically measured in the frequency domain and spacing measurements were converted to estimates of cone density at all locations across the montage. Consistent with previous reports, cone density measurements were highest near fovea (152,906 ± 53,209 cones/mm2) and decreased exponentially with eccentricity. A 2.5-fold variation was found in cone density estimates at 0.1mm, this variation decreased to 1.75-fold at 1mm. We provide all images, mosaic quantifications, and automated software open source. This database will aid investigators in translating adaptive optics ophthalmoscopy to clinical applications.

The EU policy discourse on EdTech and constructing the image of an excellent teacher

ABSTRACT This article presents a discourse analysis of European Union (EU) policy documents on educational uses of digital technology (EdTech) from 2015 to 2022. It explores the ideological dimensions of language use and power relations, particularly concerning the teacher's role. Despite increasing critical scrutiny, the policy discourse in this period remains predominantly unidimensional, framing EdTech as a transformative solution. The study combines corpus-assisted analysis with critical discourse analysis and linguistic pragmatics to reveal how EU policy constructs a normative image of an ‘excellent' teacher inexorably linked to digital competencies. It shows how this discourse implicitly denies teachers' autonomy in technology adoption, reinforcing institutional power dynamics. The paper offers a critical perspective on the ideological underpinnings of language use in EdTech policy, challenging prevailing normative discourses and emphasising the need for a nuanced understanding of the socio-political implications and power dynamics inherent in the discourse surrounding teachers’ engagement with digital technology.

From 20th century weddings to quarantine weddings: Old and new approaches to analyzing rituals

Although ethnographic studies of marriage in 20th century Hungary have reckoned with the impact of socio-cultural transformations on getting married, nonetheless they primarily emphasized the normative aspects and permanence of the ritual; they stressed that marriage preserved “traditions”, or even that folk tradition acting as an ethno-folk-national “matrix” preserved and maintained the wedding rituals. Even if they touched upon the transformation of rituals, they primarily highlighted the modernization, simplification, fragmentation of the act of getting married and the marginalization of original meanings, traditional community norms, ideologies, and roles. Could this static and normative image depicting marriage not as a changing but rather as a decaying, diminished institution be in fact the result and consequence of an epistemological tradition, a methodological-theoretical focus that hides the process of the emergence of a new conception of marriage based on free choice, improvisation and on the idea of the individual breaking free of the yoke of normative traditions? The purpose of my paper is twofold. I will examine what the earlier Hungarian ethnographic studies understood by constancy, normativity, traditional or modern of wedding rituals. On the other hand, based on my current anthropological research (2019-2022, during the Covid–2019 pandemic) I will analyze the contemporary marriage rituals: and using the results of my research I also undertake a different kind of rereading of 20th century ethnographic descriptions. My paper based on the results of my digital anthropological research carried out between 2019 and 2022 (online questionnaires, digital ethnography, and in-depth interviews). I argue that the earlier Hungarian ethnographic approaches to weddings at the time may have been significantly influenced by prevailing Hungarian and international normative conceptualizations and theories of tradition and modernity.

Fisting

Beyond parody, gay men’s identification with heteromasculinity, in its dead seriousness, appears to Bersani as being almost mad. In spatial terms, madness marks a proximity to—and not a distance between—powerfully normative images of gender. In his reading of the dynamics of madness, Bersani embraces this instability of identification that may ultimately cause the subject to collapse. Gay sex practices provide the occasion for this scene of vertigo, which, in Bersani’s work, opens a space that exists after the fall of the ego and that is often further explored through a turn to art: following the death of the psychoanalytic subject, the aesthetic subject appears. This essay, however, returns to the scene of the sexual. It traces the path of sexual practices discussed by Bersani, from gay anal intercourse to rimming, finally introducing fisting as a sexual practice that deserves to be read in Bersanian terms, insofar as it produces a form of “new masculinity.”

“Empathetic Egoist” and “Obedient Individualist”: Clash Between Family Practices and Normative Images of Children

<p class="Domylne">The initial aim of this article is to analyze the clash between everyday family practices and parents’ normative images of perfect children. I identified five sets of features and behaviors of the actual child that mirror daily parents–children interactions (including parental socialization strategies) and three sets of features and behaviors that reflect parents’ perceptions of a perfect child. The analysis revealed two “dimensions of contradiction”: egoism vs. empathy and obedience vs. independence. Investigating how family practices combine with parents’ normative images results in insights into parents’ ambivalent attitudes toward children. The second aim is to identify the social sources of these clashes. The Polish case appears to be intriguing due to a particularly rapid systemic transformation, resulting in overlapping patterns of everyday practices, divergent social norms, variant meanings, and contradictory discourses. This article’s contribution is to illustrate the hypothesis that systemic transformation might have a more immediate effect on changing social norms, meanings, and discourses on parenthood and childhood (and thus change parents’ normative images of children), while family practices are transformed with parents’ resistance. The concept of family practices developed by David H. Morgan is employed as a theoretical framework and starting point for the study. The analysis draws on qualitative data and in‐depth interviews with 24 couples of parents and six single parents.</p>

Neuroimaging-based analysis of DBS outcomes in pediatric dystonia: Insights from the GEPESTIM registry

IntroductionDeep brain stimulation (DBS) is an established treatment in patients of various ages with pharmaco-resistant neurological disorders. Surgical targeting and postoperative programming of DBS depend on the spatial location of the stimulating electrodes in relation to the surrounding anatomical structures, and on electrode connectivity to a specific distribution pattern within brain networks. Such information is usually collected using group-level analysis, which relies on the availability of normative imaging resources (atlases and connectomes). Analysis of DBS data in children with debilitating neurological disorders such as dystonia would benefit from such resources, especially given the developmental differences in neuroimaging data between adults and children. We assembled pediatric normative neuroimaging resources from open-access datasets in order to comply with age-related anatomical and functional differences in pediatric DBS populations. We illustrated their utility in a cohort of children with dystonia treated with pallidal DBS. We aimed to derive a local pallidal sweetspot and explore a connectivity fingerprint associated with pallidal stimulation to exemplify the utility of the assembled imaging resources. MethodsAn average pediatric brain template (the MNI brain template 4.5–18.5 years) was implemented and used to localize the DBS electrodes in 20 patients from the GEPESTIM registry cohort. A pediatric subcortical atlas, analogous to the DISTAL atlas known in DBS research, was also employed to highlight the anatomical structures of interest. A local pallidal sweetspot was modeled, and its degree of overlap with stimulation volumes was calculated as a correlate of individual clinical outcomes. Additionally, a pediatric functional connectome of 100 neurotypical subjects from the Consortium for Reliability and Reproducibility was built to allow network-based analyses and decipher a connectivity fingerprint responsible for the clinical improvements in our cohort. ResultsWe successfully implemented a pediatric neuroimaging dataset that will be made available for public use as a tool for DBS analyses. Overlap of stimulation volumes with the identified DBS-sweetspot model correlated significantly with improvement on a local spatial level (R = 0.46, permuted p = 0.019). The functional connectivity fingerprint of DBS outcomes was determined to be a network correlate of therapeutic pallidal stimulation in children with dystonia (R = 0.30, permuted p = 0.003). ConclusionsLocal sweetspot and distributed network models provide neuroanatomical substrates for DBS-associated clinical outcomes in dystonia using pediatric neuroimaging surrogate data. Implementation of this pediatric neuroimaging dataset might help to improve the practice and pave the road towards a personalized DBS-neuroimaging analyses in pediatric patients.

СТАНОВЛЕНИЕ ОНТОГНОСЕОЛОГИЧЕСКОГО ИДЕАЛА "ЦЕЛЬНОГО ЗНАНИЯ" В РУССКОЙ МЕТАФИЗИКЕ

The article argues the position, according to which every ideal is a complex of ideas and judgments expressing the desired normative image. It allows defining more or less clearly the specific characteristics of the proper state for a particular sphere of human life. The realization of ideals occurs through the formation of value orientations complementary to them, which determine the subsequent purposeful actions of individuals to transform the natural and social environment in accordance with the parameters set by these ideals. The authors propose to consider the concept of “whole knowledge”, which is characteristic of Russian metaphysical thought, as an ontognoseological ideal. Its implementation is aimed at designing methodological approaches and specific techniques. The process of formation of the “whole knowledge” ideal in Russian metaphysics, which had prerequisites in Christian theological and philosophical thought, is analyzed. It is argued that its fairly complete conceptualization was carried out by V.S. Solovyov. The philosopher emphasized the conceptual and normative development of the ideal of “whole knowledge”. However, later the difference in the ontological and historiosophical views of some of his followers led to the formation of another approach to understanding the ideal based on Christian eschatological premises. They understood it not so much as the due norm of human knowledge, but as its unattainable, but necessary goal.

The making of Sikh student: Ethnographic study of a minority school in Delhi

ABSTRACT Religious minority schools are seen to take on the task of transmitting the normative image of a community, its ideology and culture. Through pedagogy and daily routine practices, schools seek to shape students’ ideas of a religion and ways in which it is to be performed. This paper, based on ethnography of a Sikh school in Delhi, explores such schooling spaces and practices that attempt to establish and promote a homogenous religious identity among students. The school rules make it mandatory for Sikh students to adhere to the Sikh identity that it supports. However, interviews reveal that they interpret the religion differently from what is being projected to them through the school’s pedagogy. The meaning-making process in the school is complex because while this is a religious institution, it caters to students from other faiths as well. The article argues that religious schools often overlook the diversity of beliefs among students and educational ethnographies can be helpful to explore such institutionalised practices and students’ agency in identity formation.

Aberrant impulse control circuitry in obesity

The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) to nucleus accumbens (NAc) circuit has been implicated in impulsive reward-seeking. This disinhibition has been implicated in obesity and often manifests as binge eating, which is associated with worse treatment outcomes and comorbidities. It remains unclear whether the vmPFC-NAc circuit is perturbed in impulsive eaters with obesity. Initially, we analyzed publicly available, high-resolution, normative imaging data to localize where vmPFC structural connections converged within the NAc. These structural connections were found to converge ventromedially in the presumed NAc shell subregion. We then analyzed multimodal clinical and imaging data to test the a priori hypothesis that the vmPFC-NAc shell circuit is linked to obesity in a sample of female participants that regularly engaged in impulsive eating (i.e., binge eating). Functionally, vmPFC-NAc shell resting-state connectivity was inversely related to body mass index (BMI) and decreased in the obese state. Structurally, vmPFC-NAc shell structural connectivity and vmPFC thickness were inversely correlated with BMI; obese binge-prone participants exhibited decreased vmPFC-NAc structural connectivity and vmPFC thickness. Finally, to examine a causal link to binge eating, we directly probed this circuit in one binge-prone obese female using NAc deep brain stimulation in a first-in-human trial. Direct stimulation of the NAc shell subregion guided by local behaviorally relevant electrophysiology was associated with a decrease in number of weekly episodes of uncontrolled eating and decreased BMI. This study unraveled vmPFC-NAc shell circuit aberrations in obesity that can be modulated to restore control over eating behavior in obesity.

Кризисы и этапы в служении и жизни священника

In this paper, we reconsider the ways to understand the ministry and life of a priest, based on empirical evidence. We propose supplement the understanding that sees it as a normative way of exercising the priesthood as unaltered throughout life with an approach to priesthood as changing over time and therefore going through a number of significantly different stages that involve specific conditions to proceed to the next one. In contrast to the normative image of a priest in pastoral theology, empirical evidence suggests that the ministry and life of a priest are constituted by a series of different stages -- from accepting the priesthood after ordination to aging and the leaving at the end of life. The concept of pastoral temptation used by pastoral theology can be contrasted with the concept of developmental crisis. The latter can lead to mistakes and temptations, up to the abandonment of the priesthood, but in case of productive comprehension leads to the passage to a new stage of ministry.A developmental crisis is a passage from one stage of ministry to the other, which is characterized by following: 1) it brings to collision with something fundamentally new, which arises from the accumulated positive experience but finds the priest unprepared; 2) it is potentially dangerous, 3) it ends up with a breakdown or passage to a new stage, 4) it is never repeated afterwards, e.g. during the passage to a new stage.Pastoral temptation is always a situational distortion of ministry. This implies: 1) the danger of distortion of the ministry as a whole, up to its collapse and loss of the priesthood; 2) potential threat throughout the entire period of the priest's ministry, temptation can come back regardless of the accumulated experience, 3) possibility of a developmental crisis.If temptations must be avoided, although this is not always possible, if they are external, then passages are not only inevitable, but directly necessary for the spiritual growth of the priest and and help acquire the fullness of pastoral experience.The passage to the next stage is not always accompanied or is a reaction to a crisis, understood as a pastoral temptation or a life catastrophe. On the contrary, it can be interpreted not as one-time, but as an extended period of accumulation of pastoral experience that occurs at every stage of the ministry and life of a priest.In the paper, we provide a primary description of the main developmental crises and stages in the ministry and life of a priest: the acceptance of the priesthood, pastoral development, an active priest, a mature priest, an experienced priest, aging and leaving”. Each stage corresponds to the corresponding group of steps of the "Ladder" by St. John Climacus. Situations in which the crisis component of the passagts appears, and various types of reaction to them are analyzed.Criticism of the psychological understanding of the ministry and life of a priest is offered. Including criticized the concept of "pastoral burnout".

Imagining a ‘gothic disability’: literary genre, political theory, and living disabled in Riva Lehrer’s portraiture

Normative images of disability portray disabled people as ‘supercrips,’ victims, or symbols. These forms of representation, which oversimplify disability and demand narrative predictability, resemble ‘romantic’ norms of governance as described by Bonnie Honig. Offering an alternative, Honig translates the ‘female gothic’ literary genre into a ‘gothic subjectivity’ in which political subjects are ‘neither solely grateful nor perpetually disaffected’ within various ‘sites of belonging’ such as governing bodies, authority figures, and the self (Beltràn 2015, 102). I propose that disability is one such ‘site of belonging’ which would benefit from a gothic lens, as exemplified by Riva Lehrer’s portraiture. In contrast to the norm, a gothic imagining of disability celebrates disability without romanticizing it, presents disabled people as self-determined subjects rather than objects, and develops political significance without rhetorical exploitation. Thus, a ‘gothic disability’ may reject prescriptive narratives of ableism and facilitate the formation of a complex and liberatory disabled subjectivity.

Cognitive and Emotional Components of the Image of an Ideal Parliament in the Minds of Russian Citizens

The article discusses to the study of the image of an ideal parliament that has developed in the political consciousness of Russian citizens and includes cognitive, emotional, and dynamic elements. The normative images of political leaders and institutions of power are fundamental for citizens’ choice of an ideological platform for political participation and, ultimately, affect their actual behaviour at the present time. Constructing an image of the future, of which the studied phenomena of mass consciousness are a part, is the most important task of state policy at the present stage in the face of challenges in the domestic political environment, geopolitical risks, and crises. A purposeful, consolidated information policy is required to form a clear image of the future crystallising consistent historical, cultural, political, and ideological constants that have a strong connection with the past and reliance on the present. The revealed contradictions and informational gaps make it possible to give specific recommendations to the state authorities that ensure the retransmission of political and cultural meanings to Russian society.

The Normative Image of Qatari Society: A Study of Foreign Residents' Representations

تتمتع دولة قطر بإمكانيات إضافية في مجال القوة الناعمة، باعتبارها من الدول التي تستقطب أعدادًا كبيرة من المهاجرين، يمكنهم المساهمة في تعزيز جهودها في صُنع صورة الدولة. تهدف الدراسة إلى فهم تصورات المقيمين تجاه الدولة والثقافة والمجتمع القطري، اعتمدت الدراسة المنهج الكيفي، وجمعت بيانات من عينة قصدية، شملت 111 مقيمًا من مختلف الجنسيات، وأُجري تحليل موضوعاتي باستخدام MAXQDA، خلصت الدراسة إلى أن لدولة قطر ميزات ثقافية إيجابية وأخرى سلبية، إلا أن تصورات المقيمين في مجملها إيجابية تُجاهها، وتَخضع لشروط: الخبرة الشخصية، والأُطُر المرجعية الثقافية. وتبعًا للمقيمين؛ فإن قطر سوف تواجه تحديات ثقافية، يرتبط أبرزها باستحقاقات تتعارض مع الثقافة المحلية والمعتقدات الدينية، وأخرى ذات طابع حقوقي.

Let’s (re)tweet about racism and sexism: responses to cyber aggression toward Black and Asian women

ABSTRACT Online, anyone’s words can easily be amplified – and on Twitter, the platform’s algorithm highlights tweets that gain attention from other users, which can exponentially reinforce a tweet’s popularity. Moreover, retweets can help spread a message well beyond the reach of its original poster. Thus, users’ interactions with posts containing or making reference to racism or sexism both illuminate the ways individuals accept, challenge, or engage with racism and sexism online, and shape how those messages spread. Using an original dataset of 59.5 million tweets, I test how particular features of messages referencing Black and Asian women predict user engagement (retweets, likes, and replies). This analysis further focuses on messages including terms that express racist or sexist content. Generally, messages including covert racist or sexist insults have a modest positive effect on all measures of user engagement (retweets, likes, and replies), which may suggest that social media environments allow individuals the time and opportunity to contend with topics that can be more difficult in-person. Additionally, variations in engagement with tweets that include references to women, Black or Asian individuals implies that users respond differently to messages involving references to and normative images of different racial, ethnic, and gendered identities. This research illuminates how specific manifestations of racialized and gendered language referencing women, Black and Asian people can not only encourage more engagement, but also share, accept, or challenge messages about marginalized identities.

Multi-Layered Documentation of Heritage Villages: The Case of Tinbak, Qatar

Heritage settlements have long histories that consist of multiple layers of urban layouts, building forms, and culture. Looking at the first layer that formed the initiation stage of the growth becomes a difficult task because of the disguise of other successive layers. This article studies the abandoned village of Tinbak in Qatar that exemplifies a settlement at its initial stage of development. The method of examining a societal normative image of culturally suitable domiciliary development adds to the understanding of a heritage settlement layout. However, the village lacks literature sources and urban and architectural documentation. So, this article presents the first documentation of the tangible characteristics of both urban morphology and architectural typology. Site visits, oral documentation, photographic records and a 3D Faro scanner with a 130 m range were utilized to record and document the physical environment.

“If I’m shinin’, everybody gonna shine”: centering Black fat women and femmes within body and fat positivity

ABSTRACT In this article, we negotiate the tension of Lizzo’s embodiment and the work she is forced to perform to appease and mollify both thin and non-Black audiences. As a Black fat rapper, singer, dancer, and performer, Lizzo at once disrupts the normative image of a performer and becomes a commodified representation of body positivity. Her self-love messaging undoubtedly touches a broad fan base who look to her for guidance and inspiration. But how is she taken up by audiences dissimilar to her? Lizzo’s body-positive politic is presented as being particularly interested in disrupting body terrorism, while some audiences perceive it as a neoliberal model of self-love, failing to challenge systems. We consider ways in which Black fat bodies are consumed and used for their utility, while broader relationships to other Black fat people remain unchanged. We map selections from Lizzo’s creative output in 2019 to demonstrate racialization and fat embodiment intertwined in her performances, leading to the necessary coalition that fat activism must adopt.

Understanding EU External Perceptions: Theorising Local ‘Cultural Filters’ in the Normative Power Approach (casestudy of textbooks)

This article argues that one way to advance the ‘Normative Power Europe’ (NPE) discourse is to shift the analytical focus to the ‘locals’ – or ‘norm-receivers’ – rather than to ‘norm-senders/makers’. The analysis examines the range of locals’ reactions – from learning to adaptation or rejection of norms – and explains the factors behind those reactions. Building on Ian Mannersʼ claim that normative power is informed by ‘cultural filters’ which affect the impact of international norms and political learning in non-European Union (EU) countries, the article advances the concept of ‘external recognition’. It considers one type of local cultural filters -- images and perceptions of the EU as a normative power. Deepening and enriching the ‘Normative Power Europe’ Approach (NPA) by theorising ‘cultural filters’ of external perceptions, this article undertakes a comparative study of Europe’s normative images in high school textbooks in Israel and New Zealand.

Affective calculus: The construction of affect through information integration over time.

Humans receive a constant stream of input that potentially influence their affective experience. Despite intensive research on affect, it is still largely unknown how various sources of information are integrated into the single, unified affective features that accompany consciousness. Here, we aimed to investigate how a stream of evocative input we receive is dynamically represented in self-reported affect. In 4 experiments, participants viewed a number of sequentially presented images and reported their momentary affective experience on valence and arousal scales. The number and duration of images in a trial varied across studies. In Study 4, we also measured participants' physiological responses while they viewed images. We formulated and compared several models with respect to their capacity to predict self-reported affect based on normative image ratings, physiological measurements, and prior affective experience (measured in the previous trial). Our data best supported a model incorporating a temporally sensitive averaging mechanism for affective integration that assigns higher weights to affectively more potent and recently represented stimuli. Crucially, affective averaging of sensory information and prior affect accounted for distinct contributions to currently experienced affect. Taken together, the current study provides evidence that prior affect and integrated affective impact of stimuli partly shape currently experienced affect. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Парадоксы идентичности с ἄθεος и religio в религиоведческих дискуссиях современной России

From the perspective of philosophical religious study, religion and atheism are viewed as social phenomena and legacy periodically defined and redefined in lo­cal contexts. Historically and in modern spiritual culture, they are a collective set of heterogeneous forms ascending to the Greco-Roman cultural context of the terms “ἄθεος” and “religio”. Explicit and implicit characteristics of these cross-cultural and trans-historic symbolizations of normative images of true forces of being are analyzed as disconnected from various marginalities and de­viations constructed at different stages of global civilization development in lo­cal centers, including Russia. The lexeme “ἄθεος” is viewed in the spectrum of connotations from the tragic abandonment by gods to the heroic enthusiasm of the denial of false images of gods”. The lexeme “religio” is shown in the range of connotations from horror of ominous signs to the jubilant veneration of legiti­mate gods leading to harmony with the supreme forces of nature (Cicero). Insti­tutional and elementary phenomena of religious commitment and atheism are separated and defined in the light of distancing unfamiliar and familiar rather than by traditional division of faith and mind or sacred and profane (N. Luh­mann). Man has always created speculative realms (magic, myth, religion, phi­losophy, and science) where the unknown was symbolically presented as hope of communication with mysterious actors, experienced as joy and jubilation in the case of support, or as disappointment and weeping in the case of absence of such support.

Rethinking nongovernmental organizations: Neoliberalism, “nonstate” actors, and the politics of recognition in the United States

AbstractThis article builds on and contributes to the scholarship on social movements and the law by revealing the critical function of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in law and policy in neoliberal times. Building on frame theories in social movement literature, this essay uses the lens of NGO‐produced advocacy for binational same‐sex couples to consider more broadly the relationship between individual experience, subjectivity, and the discourses and practices employed by NGO actors. It offers an analysis of both how NGOs developed and utilized particular messaging strategies and rhetorical frames to discursively produce a normative image of their constituency, and how constituents navigated and made use of the framing strategies developed by NGOs in their own claims to state rights and recognition. This discussion thus highlights the potentials and the problematics of the NGO model in social movements' efforts toward legal and political change.