Symbolic Patterns Research Articles

Writing Woodstock: The Prehistory of Richard II and Shakespeare’s Dramatic Method

Writing Woodstock: The Prehistory of <i>Richard II</i> and Shakespeare’s Dramatic Method

Sound symbolism in synesthesia: Evidence from a lexical–gustatory synesthete

Synesthesia is a condition in which perceptual or cognitive stimuli (e.g., a written letter) trigger atypical additional percepts (e.g., the color yellow). Although these cross-modal pairings appear idiosyncratic in that they superficially differ from synesthete to synesthete, underlying patterns do exist and these can, in some circumstances, reflect the cross-modal intuitions of nonsynesthetes (e.g., higher pitch sounds tend to be “seen” in lighter colors by synesthetes and are also paired to lighter colors by nonsynesthetes in cross-modal matching tasks). We recently showed that grapheme-color synesthetes are more sensitive to sound symbolism (i.e., cross-modal sound-meaning correspondences) in natural language compared to nonsynesthetes. Accordingly, we hypothesize that sound symbolism may be a guiding force in synesthesia to dictate what types of synesthetic experiences are triggered by words. We tested this hypothesis by examining the cross-modal mappings of lexical–gustatory synesthete, JIW, for whom words trigger flavor experiences. We show that certain phonological features (e.g., front vowels) systematically trigger particular categories of taste (e.g., bitter) in his synesthesia. Some of these associations agree with sound symbolic patterns in natural language. This supports the view that synesthesia may be an exaggeration of cross-modal associations found in the general population and that sound symbolic properties of language may arise from similar mechanisms as those found in synesthesia.

Presencia de pautas narrativas de la tradición oral y popular en &lt;i&gt;Cartucho&lt;/i&gt; de Nellie Campobello

This article examines the presence of discursive and symbolic patterns from Hispanic oral tradition in one of the most significant narratives of the Mexican Revolution, Nellie Campobello’s Cartucho (1931). With a view to offering a subjective, community and regionalist picture of the fights between villistas and carrancistas in the north of Mexico, the author decided to reproduce stories passed on to her by relatives and neighbours, thus creating a deeply polyphonic and testimonial tale. Hence, orality gives shape to a text where the dialogue with literary forms of the Mexican folklore is highly discernible. Particularly relevant is the dialogue maintained by Cartucho with such an outstanding expression of the ballad tradition as the corrido , which is incorporated into the prose through direct quotation, as well as through the reproduction of its typical language and poetics.

Cell-to-Cell Interference Compensation Schemes Using Reduced Symbol Pattern of Interfering Cells for MLC NAND Flash Memory

Cell-to-cell interference compensation schemes using reduced symbol pattern of interfering cells for multilevel cell (MLC) NAND flash memory are proposed in this paper. The proposed schemes consist of three procedures, estimation of cell-to-cell interference, compensation for cell-to-cell interference, and generation of log-likelihood ratio (LLR). First, reduced symbol pattern of interfering cells is used to estimate cell-to-cell interference by modifying the levels of the threshold voltage shift from multi page programming to two levels. Second, based on this estimation, cell-to-cell interference is compensated by modifying the read voltage considering the estimated cell-to-cell interference in the proposed scheme 1 and by subtracting the estimated cell-to-cell interference from the sensed voltage in the proposed scheme 2. Finally, after conducting compensation, LLR is calculated for low-density parity check (LDPC) codes in the assumption of free cell-to-cell interference since interference between cells is mitigated by the compensation procedure. By using these techniques, cell-to-cell interference can be relaxed with a simple structure and a high reliability. The bit error rate (BER) performances of the proposed schemes are compared with the conventional schemes on 8-level MLC NAND flash memory. Simulation results show that the proposed schemes show the improved BER performances by more than an order of magnitude compared with the conventional LDPC scheme.

Appropriation of Symbol as Disclosure of the World of the Play in Tennessee Williams’s “The Glass Menagerie”

This paper examines the symbol as a key to understanding the world of Tennessee Williams’s play The Glass Menagerie (1945) within the frame of hermeneutics offered by Paul Ricoeur. Various conceptions of the symbol are presented, and the impact of religion upon the playwright’s drama is discussed. The interest of the authors is particularly directed towards the role of Christian symbols and their power to present, in a distinctive and irreplaceable way, the interplay of sacred and profane contexts. The Christian images inspire and shape the narrative structure of the drama. The analysis of particular symbols reveals that the playwright artistically uses Christian iconographic and liturgical implications as the symbolic pattern of the play. The spiritual meanings are evoked by the symbol of the rose, which is traditionally regarded as an emblem of the Virgin Mary, while the symbolic representation of the unicorn is associated with the Annunciation.

Time-series analysis of foreign exchange rates using time-dependent pattern entropy

Time-dependent pattern entropy is a method that reduces variations to binary symbolic dynamics and considers the pattern of symbols in a sliding temporal window. We use this method to analyze the instability of daily variations in foreign exchange rates, in particular, the dollar–yen rate. The time-dependent pattern entropy of the dollar–yen rate was found to be high in the following periods: before and after the turning points of the yen from strong to weak or from weak to strong, and the period after the Lehman shock.

Marketing the “radical”: Symbolic communication and persuasive technologies in jihadist websites

This paper reviews the persuasion techniques employed by jihadist websites with particular reference to the patterns of rhetoric, image, and symbolism manifested in text, videos, and interactive formats. Beyond symbolic communication, the online media needs to be also understood through its persuasive tendencies as a medium which elicits social response through its design architecture. This double articulation of new media technologies, as a medium for information and as a form of persuasive technology, has provided new means to market the radical. The marketing techniques of jihadist websites through multimedia formats have consequences for the formation of identities, both collective and individual. As a marketing tool it combines established forms of rhetoric and propaganda with new ways to reach audiences through both popular culture and religious ideologies. The paper analyses the implications for further research and counterterrorism strategies.

Dramatic performances in the play of politics: Egypt, Obama and the works of Jeffrey Alexander

AbstractThis review article explores Jeffrey Alexander's cultural theory of political transformations. In his two recent works Performative Revolution in Egypt (2011) and The Performance of Politics: Obama's Victory and the Democratic Struggle for Power (2009), Alexander analyses the fall of President Hosni Mubarak and the rise of President Barack Obama, respectively. Alexander challenges the idea that revolutions depend primarily on the material conditions of a population, demographic changes, and the capacity of a group of contenders to gather material support for an overthrow. He also argues that the stagecraft of the political horserace matters for national elections. The strong versus weak dramaturgical performances of presidential candidates (rather than macroeconomic or geopolitical changes) proved consequential for changes in the poll numbers of Obama versus McCain, for example. Macroeconomic conditions had to be filtered, interpreted, and made meaningful; the candidate who could cast these material conditions onto the sacred side of civil discourse improved his likelihood of victory. Curiously, many social scientists and political pundits have largely taken performances for granted in the democratic struggle for power, and have therefore rendered the charismatic speeches and the grand narratives (culture) as epiphenomena, plays in the shadow of large structural shifts – a residual variable, or else as shifting, evanescent meanings produced in local, face‐to‐face settings. In the newer understanding, ‘culture’ is a level of analysis researchers use to investigate symbolic patterns and meaningful practices that structure how people act, how they define identities, even how they define what counts as ‘strategic’ or instrumental. Since the 1980s, sociologists working with this notion of culture have crafted different approaches to political culture, in national, organizational, and informal everyday arenas. Their different culture concepts carry different strengths and liabilities for research and they rely on different assumptions about action and meaning. This article reviews these arguments and asks what the limits to Alexander's performative theory are, how his theory can be reformulated to address settled versus unsettled political regimes, and how disaggregating Alexander's concept of audiences along with their roles in political change would provide the theory with greater predictive power.

Symbolic patterns of heart rate dynamics reflect cardiac autonomic changes during childhood and adolescence

Symbolic dynamics derived from heart rate variability (HRV) is able to reflect changes of cardiac autonomic modulations in healthy subjects. It has been shown that linear measures of HRV in children and adolescents monotonically increase or decrease (depending on the measure) with age whereas non-linear measures show a local extreme value at the age of 7 to 9 years. In this study, the age-related variations of dynamical features of the R-R interval series during childhood and adolescence were addressed. In particular, the binary symbolic dynamics reflecting the sequence of acceleration (='1') and deceleration (='0') of heart rate was examined. The R-R interval series of 409 healthy children and adolescents (age range: 1 to 22 years, 220 females) was analyzed with respect to the regularity of binary patterns of length 8 using Approximate Entropy (ApEn). Binary patterns were grouped to patterns sets according to the level of their regularity as assessed by ApEn. Pattern sets containing regular binary patterns occurred more often with increasing age whereas irregular binary patterns occurred less often. Specific regular binary patterns show an unexpected behavior. They occurred fewest in the group 7 to 9 years. Furthermore, regular binary patterns occur more often during daytime whereas irregular binary patterns occur more often during nighttime. In conclusion, the analysis of binary symbolic dynamics is able to reflect age-related changes during childhood and adolescence in spite of the considerable reduction of information involved. As many binary patterns are linked to sympathetic or parasympathetic modulations of the autonomic nervous system e.g. spectral analysis of HRV may be complemented by this kind of analysis.

Effective Graphic Features for Multivariate Symbol Mapping

Various patterns of cartographic multivariate symbols (MSs) have been developed to work efficiently with objective symbol mapping. One such MS pattern is composed of a graph that uses spatial data to represent statistical data. A preliminary study revealed major problems with users’ perceptions and understanding of the symbol. These problems present obstacles to the presentation objectives. We are therefore interested in studying the human factors that contribute to the visual perception of graph symbols. We predict that the graph symbols currently in use are too complex for viewers to fully understand what they are intended to represent. This research aims to study the mechanisms and behaviours of human visual perception that are necessary to understand cartography MSs and to determine a more effective prototype symbol that presents and conveys information to viewers more efficiently. The prototype design is based on a basic cartographic symbol and includes the characteristics and properties of the original patterns of graph symbols via a study of their pros and cons. Graphic structures and properties were modified to create a more effective symbol.

The wide-open doors to lexical access

The wide-open doors to lexical access

DSI3 Sensor to Master Current Threshold Adaptation for Pattern Recognition

The newly released Distributed System Interface 3 (DSI3) Bus Standard specification defines 3 modulation levels form which 16 valid symbols are coded. This complex structure is best decoded with symbol pattern recognition. In order to simplify the pattern recognition correlation calculation, the received differential current is quantized back to 3 levels. This paper describes how the thresholds are estimated and adapted for the most optimum quantization. The complete system was simulated in Matlab script. It will be shown that after 24 symbols, the estimated threshold is 6% away from the optimum thresholds when the initial currents are 35% off the expected nominal thresholds. This proves fast convergence to the optimal threshold and a small residual error in a system that includes the major distortions and inaccuracies. 

Challenging the Traditional Sequence of Teaching Introductory Calculus

Despite considerable research with students of calculus, rate, and hence derivative, remain difficult concepts to teach and learn. The demonstrated lack of conceptual understanding of introductory calculus limits its usefulness in related areas. Since rate is such a troublesome concept, this study piloted reversing the usual presentation of introductory calculus to begin with area and integration, rather than rate and derivative. Two classes of first-year university students taking introductory calculus were selected to pilot the effect of changing the sequence; one class was a control group and the other class followed the reversed sequence. Advances in technology, especially computer algebra systems (CASs) may facilitate new ways of studying mathematics. In this study, handheld CASs were used to support students’ thinking as they grappled with the concepts of introductory calculus. The use of CASs enabled consideration of symbolic patterns and numerical integration leading to a deeper conceptual understanding of integration. The easy access to the multiple representations of functions provided by CASs facilitated an exploration of rate where each representation highlighted different aspects of rate resulting in deeper conceptual understanding of differentiation.

비대칭적 유사도 기반의 심볼릭 객체의 계층적 클러스터링

패턴 인식, 데이터 분석, 침입 탐지, 이미지 처리, 바이오 인포매틱스 등과 같은 수많은 분야에서 클러스터링 분석이 사용되고 있다. 기존의 많은 연구들은 수치 데이터에만 기반을 두고 있다. 그러나 구간 데이터, 히스토그램, 심지어는 함수들을 값으로 갖는 변수들을 다루는 심볼릭 데이터 분석이 부상하고 있다. 본 논문에서는 이런 심볼릭 데이터들을 클러스터링하기 위하여 비대칭적 유사도를 제안한다. 또한 평균 유사도 값(ASV)에 기반한 클러스터링 방법도 개발한다. 제안하는 클러스터링의 결과는 기존 방법들과 다르며, 매우 고무적인 결과를 보여준다. Clustering analysis has been widely used in numerous applications like pattern recognition, data analysis, intrusion detection, image processing, bioinformatics and so on. Much of previous work has been based on the numeric data only. However, symbolic data analysis has emerged to deal with variables that can have intervals, histograms, and even functions as values. In this paper, we propose a non symmetric proximity based clustering approach for symbolic objects. A method for clustering symbolic patterns based on the average similarity value(ASV) is explored. The results of the proposed clustering method differ from those of the existing methods and the results are very encouraging.

ADVANCED SYNCHRONIZATION OF AUDIO OR SYMBOLIC MUSICAL PATTERNS: AN ALGEBRAIC APPROACH

We define a generic model for finite audio or symbolic musical patterns that structurally encodes a rich and abstract synchronization mechanism. This is achieved by distinguishing for each pattern a realization window, describing what the pattern is, from a synchronization window, describing how the pattern can be used. The sequential composition of patterns is defined and studied. An algebra of musical patterns is introduced in a mathematically well-founded approach. We propose several high level operators that can be used either in audio processing or in musical analysis and composition. Practical uses and experiments conducted in both fields are described.

The urban anthropologist as flâneur; The symbolic pattern of Indonesian cities

Cities are places full of symbols. In the past decades, Indonesian cities have become the cradle of urban symbolism studies. In this article, the author presents the results of these studies. The cities researched differ tremendously, ranging from the national capital to provincial capitals and small towns; some of them, such as Jakarta, are purely colonial in origin, while others are more or less traditional in character. Some of them have a top-down symbolic structure, largely the product of government activities, while others have symbolic configurations which have a more grassroots character and are based in the religious domain. The methodological aspect of urban symbolism fieldwork is explored by the introduction of the concept of fl neur.

The urban anthropologist as flâneur The symbolic pattern of Indonesian cities

Cities are places full of symbols. In the past decades, Indonesian cities have become the cradle of urban symbolism studies. In this article, the author presents the results of these studies. The cities researched differ tremendously, ranging from the national capital to provincial capitals and small towns; some of them, such as Jakarta, are purely colonial in origin, while others are more or less traditional in character. Some of them have a top-down symbolic structure, largely the product of government activities, while others have symbolic configurations which have a more grassroots character and are based in the religious domain. The methodological aspect of urban symbolism fieldwork is explored by the introduction of the concept of flâneur.

The urban anthropologist as flâneur The symbolic pattern of Indonesian cities

Cities are places full of symbols. In the past decades, Indonesian cities have become the cradle of urban symbolism studies. In this article, the author presents the results of these studies. The cities researched differ tremendously, ranging from the national capital to provincial capitals and small towns; some of them, such as Jakarta, are purely colonial in origin, while others are more or less traditional in character. Some of them have a top-down symbolic structure, largely the product of government activities, while others have symbolic configurations which have a more grassroots character and are based in the religious domain. The methodological aspect of urban symbolism fieldwork is explored by the introduction of the concept of flâneur.

Robinson &amp; compagnie: aspects de l’insularité politique de Thomas More à Michel Tournier (review)

Reviewed by: Robinson & compagnie: aspects de l’insularité politique de Thomas More à Michel Tournier Maximillian E. Novak (bio) Jean-Michel Racault. Robinson & compagnie: aspects de l’insularité politique de Thomas More à Michel Tournier. Paris: Éditions Pétra, 2010. 374pp. 29€. ISBN 978-2-84743-033-2. If the robinsonade has remained a significant sub-genre of fiction since the eighteenth century, the contemplation of this variation on a theme of Daniel Defoe is becoming a sub-genre of the criticism of the novel, from Martin Green’s Robinson Crusoe Story (1990) to Jean-Paul Engélibert’s La Postérité de Robinson Crusoé (1997). Jean-Michel Racault’s Robinson & compagnie, the most recent study to join the sub-genre, attempts to show why the robinsonade was and remains an important literary form—why the pattern of shipwreck, redemption on the island, and return to Western society is so fertile for European literature. He argues that so far from being a somewhat primitive writer with unexamined ideas, Defoe had one of the most complex minds of his time, passing on that complexity to a host of future authors fascinated by the possibilities inherent in Crusoe’s narrative. Defoe’s treatment of guilt, isolation, the concept of the self, the fear of the other (in the form of the cannibals), Crusoe’s socialization with the coming of Friday, his attempt at establishing a kind of contractual government among the settlers, and his emergence as the governor of his island with the suppression of the mutineers all raised serious questions for his time and for the centuries that have followed. Part of a series on “des Îles,” Racault’s book begins with a section on Thomas More’s Utopia—a revisit to a work that was a key reference point for his own book on Utopias. Racault states the difference between the robinsonade and the Utopia succinctly. In a robinsonade, an isolated character (or a group) struggles to survive and actively transforms the surrounding nature; in a Utopia, a character arrives at an already formed, ideal society for which he usually expresses his uncritical admiration. Since it is already perfect, there is nothing to change. If Utopias depict an ideal society, they nevertheless depend on a dialectic with the real world; similarly, the robinsonade creates a dialectic with the original place of departure, through the creation of a society that, by its relative simplicity, serves as a critique of the outside world. If it is not always on a literal island, the robinsonade nevertheless always has an island mentality. It does not offer perfect solutions to the political, economic, social, and psychological problems of the civilized world in the manner of a Utopia, but rather a new way of seeing them. In approaching his subject, Racault uses Gérard Genette’s concept of “hypertextualité.” There were robinsonades before Defoe co-opted the form, and to some extent, versions of the Crusoe story written after Defoe’s work modify the ways in which we view the original. The chapter on Shakespeare’s The Tempest is excellent in this regard. Defoe [End Page 716] had probably read the Dryden-Davenant version and certainly knew of the political struggles of those wrecked on Bermuda who inspired Shakespeare. Crusoe as the magician Prospero? Caliban as a Friday incap able of adapting to his master’s whims? And if Ibn Thofaïl’s Hayy ben Yaqdhân and Gracian’s Andrenio give us directions in which Defoe might have gone (but, for the most part, did not), so Jules Verne’s wind-blown balloonists, remnants of America’s Civil War, show how Crusoe’s recreation of human development, with his pottery and bread-making, might have taken shape with the influence of nineteenth-century science. In his examination of Robinson Crusoe, Racault attempts to reconcile the realism of the style with what he considers to be a symbolic pattern in line with the interpretations of G.A. Starr and J. Paul Hunter. He provides three detailed readings of the novel in the form of the seeming miracle of the European grain growing on the island; of the cave with the goat; and of Crusoe’s assuming his role...

Consistency of multidimensional combinatorial substitutions

Multidimensional combinatorial substitutions are rules that replace symbols by finite patterns of symbols in Zd. We focus on the case where the patterns are not necessarily rectangular, which requires a specific description of the way they are glued together in the image by a substitution. Two problems can arise when defining a substitution in such a way: it can fail to be consistent, and the patterns in an image by the substitution might overlap.We prove that it is undecidable whether a two-dimensional substitution is consistent or overlapping, and we provide practical algorithms to decide these properties in some particular cases.