Visual Construction Research Articles

Education, propaganda, and visual discourse in socialist Romania (1948–1989)

ABSTRACT The official discourse during the communist regime in Romania (1948–1989) has not been paid much attention by researchers and the official visual discourse, addressing adults and children, even less so. My study aims to address this research gap and identify the identity markers of the Romanian territory during socialism by exploring spatial representations and the territorial identity that were produced through official visual imagery. Using qualitative discourse analysis and critical visual methodology, I analyse the visual construction, through discourse, of themes and places created starting with the 1950s and were featured repeatedly during the 1970s and 1980s Romania (the period of national communism), and which constructed and highlighted traits of the country’s territorial identity. To achieve the research aim, I explore three types of research materials and ways of realising spatial education and socialisation through (propaganda) images or a visual pedagogy of space: (1) photographs in three textbooks about the Geography of Romania – a tool in educating people’s representations of their homeland, (2) official (state-produced and distributed) picture postcards reflecting progress during socialist Romania, and (3) comics about work and class identities in Cutezătorii [The Daring Ones] youth magazine – a tool in the edutainment of Romanian communist pioneers. These three official visual discourses were part of a coherent cultural visual discourse about the socialist nation, pervading representations about Romania, about its urban area, and about who the Romanians were meant to have been. This plural discourse was constructed through the visual intertextuality of these three widely distributed media.

The visual construction of the people’s country and the Chinese nation: political aesthetics in the Ethno-documentaries of New China

This paper discusses the political positioning of the people and the cultural image of the Chinese nation through the lens of the Social-historical Scientific Documentary Films of China’s ethnic minorities (hereafter referred to as “the Ethno-documentaries”) by restoring the problem to the site of the investigation of humanities and social sciences and the General Surveys on (Folk) Arts in the early years of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in the 1950s. Through detailed analysis of specific Ethno-documentary films, this paper explores how the social sciences conducted its “Social and Historical Investigation of China’s Ethnic Minorities” via the medium of film to convey the advanced social concepts and ideological work of the new regime through the historical narrative of art and politics. This study highlights three key points. First, the “Chinese nation” as a modern political concept dates its origins back to the 1920s with the emergence of the “National Heritage Reorganization Movement” and the “Doubting Antiquity School.” However, it was only through the medium of the Ethno-documentaries that this concept was visually and aurally represented in films for the first time, which draws our attention to the fact that the entry point for understanding modern China lies in discerning the relationship between culture and politics. Second, when discussing the relationship between culture and politics, this study juxtaposes the Ethno-documentaries and “art for workers-peasants-soldiers,” which developed during the same period. These two forms of art focus respectively on national history and the suffering of the lower classes of society, and it is this intertextual nature of the historical narrative that jointly anchors the cultural and historical view of New China. Lastly, historical view is the core of the humanities, social sciences, and art disciplines in New China. Previous studies have mainly attributed certain phenomena to the “politicization” or “pan-politicization” of a particular historical period due to disciplinary barriers and cultural trauma and have stopped discussing such topics in depth. In contrast, the significance of the political aesthetics in the Ethno-documentaries is to have transformed classical Chinese artistic language into a modern one to represent the Chinese people and the Chinese nation. It also raises a question of re-sinicization of many modern political issues that have persisted until now: How do today’s Chinese art works vividly depict the prosperity of this country and its hardworking and courageous people?

Visions of Migration: News Images and the Production of Knowledge on the U.S. Southern Border

This monograph investigates the visual construction of migration on the U.S. southern border by the U.S. news industry. This study employs a quantitative ( N = 1,050) and qualitative ( N = 21) social semiotic analysis to illuminate the pervasive patterns of visual representation by three news agencies: The Associated Press, Getty Images, and Reuters. The analysis reveals levels of symbolic annihilation, social separation, and asymmetrical power dynamics that contribute to the symbolic othering of migrants. In-depth interviews with 21 photojournalists and field observation of an additional five photojournalists on the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas were conducted to analyze the factors that influence the production of images. Photojournalists are subject to myriad physical, social, and ideological influences from politicians, law enforcement, news organizations, non-governmental organizations, drug cartels, and border residents that constrain the depiction of migration. These complex conditions of production are marked by a scarcity of time, money, and autonomy that ultimately result in conventionalized imagery. The findings suggest that more comprehensive, nuanced, and humanizing accounts of migration can occur when external entities do not intercede in the interaction between photographers and migrants. Unconventional imagery, however, is no guarantee of empathetic reception from audiences who are steeped in hegemonic migration discourses produced by institutions that profoundly profit from a perpetual migration “crisis.”

Data-driven visual model development and 3D visual analytics framework for underground mining

Data visualisation is broadly utilised to aid in presenting complex information, facilitating decision-making, and enhancing operational efficiency in the mining sector. However, due to the extensive utilisation of CAD files and the complexity and difficulty of converting 2D drawings into 3D models, it is challenging to realise (near) real-time 3D data visualisation in mining applications. The difficulties are including site drawing complexity, lack of standardisation, time-consuming cleaning, and imperative manual intervention. This paper addresses these challenges by focusing on an automatic, data-driven approach for 3D visual model development in mining, with an emphasis on lifetime support and sustainability. Therefore, we introduce standardised visual model data diagram and proposed conversion workflows to leverage digitised 2D drawings in automatic 3D visual model development. Moreover, to improve visualisation efficiency and facilitate visual analytics construction in mining, this paper also proposes a 3D tile index methodology for efficient visual model reconstruction and generic production data integration. To ensure lifetime support and sustainable development in visualisation, we propose two model expansion schemes: one based on dxf file-driven model development, and the other one is interaction-oriented 3D model design and development, which the two schemes share the same data exchange and conversion workflows. Furthermore, to facilitate data fusion among various datasets, we also provide insights into revealing spatial–temporal patterns among multimodality data by real-time visualisation. These advancements aim to propel the field of underground mining visualisation, offering significant insights into enhancing the efficiency and safety of mining operations.

Between Shenguai and Science: The Visual Imagination of Technical Objects in Republican China

Abstract This article first examines the technical objects in three Chinese graphic novels (lianhuanhua) during the Republican era: Scientific Investiture of the Gods (Kexue fengshenbang), Scientific Demon King (Kexue mowang), and Black Bat (Hei bianfu). I regard the visual construction of technical objects in these works as a prehistory of Chinese-styled science fiction films between the 1930s and 1940s. I argue that early Chinese science fiction films share the same resources of traditional shenguai xiaoshuo with these graphic novels in Republican China. Scrutinizing the information about several early Chinese science fiction films, I locate the visual imagination of technical objects in the context of Chinese art history combined with local and imported conventions. I attempt to answer the following questions about the visual construction of technical objects in Republican-era artworks: how does the visual tradition of shenguai xiaoshuo connect to graphic novels and films in Republican China? To what degree could the hybrid modernity of shenguai combined with Hollywood films become a unique legacy for visualizing the technical objects in Chinese science fiction arts?

Hierarchical visual semantic guidance for enhanced relationship recognition in domain knowledge graphs

Multi-modal entity relationship recognition is a crucial foundation for constructing accurate and comprehensive domain knowledge graphs. However, due to the sparse and diverse nature of textual semantic information and the semantic differences exhibited by multi-modal data, existing methods often suffer from issues such as information loss and noise features. In this paper, the Hierarchical Visual Semantic Guidance (HVSG) Network is proposed, which utilizes images to furnish visual semantic information for text, facilitating the identification of implicit relationships between entities. Specifically, salient local instance objects are initially extracted from the global image, followed by the use of a hierarchical visual semantic construction module to establish multi-level visual semantics. The integration of multi-level visual and textual features is then achieved through a visual semantic guidance module. This work constructed a Chinese multi-modal entity relation classification dataset in the domain of unmanned vessels and conducted experiments on two datasets. Compared to state-of-the-art (SOTA) models, HVSG achieved the best performance, with F1 scores improved by 1.05% and 0.58% respectively, indicating that HVSG can offer better performance in exploring implicit relationships between textual entities.

Emotion Semantics Construction in Industrial Product Application

The theory of emotion semantics constitution put forward in this study aims to explore on how to convey emotions in product design. First, the development of emotion expression methods is reviewed, to point out the trend from physiological aspect to psychological activities and bring up a double-layer research framework composed of expression communication and sensory reception. The study has made a profound discussion on how to convey emotions in product design with sensory elements such as vision, hearing and touch, and to rouse the users’ emotional resonance with multiple elements in product design. On theoretical level, this study has discussed how to construct visual symbols and apply concepts such as “emotional bionics” and product semantics, so as to optimize the function of sensory elements in regulating emotions by combining morphological aesthetics and semantic representations. In terms of practice, this study puts forward the visual modelling construction theory for “allomorphic” product, corresponds visual symbols such as product modelling, color design and material with emotional conveyance semantics, and highlights the users’ unique emotional experience facilitated by art and sensory experience, so that the viewers can be greatly impressed by the product. The study also emphasizes the key role of design in promoting emotional resonance and sensory experience, and brings forward a series of design methods and technological innovation including emotion analysis, multimedia interaction, multi-element integration, introduction of cultural symbols and the incorporation of knowledge of applied psychology and physiology, aiming at enhancing positive interaction in the users’ emotion and psychology via a full range of sensory stimulation.

QOL-35. ANALYSIS ON THE EVOLUTIONARY PATTERN OF COGNITIVE FUNCTIONS IN CHILDREN ON FOLLOW-UP FOR BRAIN TUMORS

Abstract BACKGROUND Long-term cognitive sequelae of paediatric brain tumors are of increasing interest. The role of histology and surgery remains still unclear. Our study aimed to evaluate children cognitive functioning before and after brain tumors surgery, and at the end of additional treatments. METHODS New diagnoses of paediatric primary brain tumors were prospectively assessed. Neurocognitive evaluations were performed at diagnosis (T0), within 7-10 days from surgery (T1) and 12-18 months after the end of treatments (T2). Language, learning and memory, attention, executive functions, visuo-constructional and sensorimotor skills were evaluated at T0 and T1, Intelligent Quotient (IQ) was explored at T0 and T2. RESULTS Twenty-five patients (M:F=15:10, mean age 10.9±3.4 years) were enrolled between January 2019 and December 2022. In comparison to normal values (>7.0), at baseline patients showed major deficits in narrative memory (6.6±3.7, p<0.001) and visuo-spatial memory (copy design tasks: general 6.8±3.9, p<0.001, specific 6.2±3.3, p<0.001, motor 5.2±3.2, p<0.001). At T1 assessment, significant deficits remained in narrative memory (6.2±3.3, p<0.001) and visual-motor coordination (copy design tasks: specific 5.9±3.0, p<0.001 and motor 4.8±4.3 p<0.001); attention and visual-constructional abilities significantly improved (p=0.04 and p=0.001). On the visual construction test, children with high-grade histology scored lower than the low-grade group (Rey- Osterrieth complex figure-copy 5.1±4.4 vs 11.0±4.3; p=0.019). At T2 evaluation children showed persistent deficits in visuo-spatial processing and a possible decline in IQ scores, with lower scores compared with T0 (93 vs 100, p=0.05). CONCLUSIONS Children with brain tumors may present several neuropsychological impairments at diagnosis, particularly those with high-grade diseases. Surgery may have a positive effect on the recovery of some cognitive functions. However, cognitive decline may worsen over time. Baseline and periodic neurocognitive evaluations should be encouraged to identify functional difficulties and to develop a tailored treatment approach for the patient.

Una trampa de espejos: cine silente y la representación de lo mapuche.

The Mapuche theme has been present since the beginning of cinema in Chile, highlighting in particular two films from the silent period; The Agony of Arauco (1917) and Araucanian Nobility (1925). In both films a rather contradictory image is constructed, since in one way or another the situation of this town in the face of the abuses of the white man is evident, but there is also something exotic in the physical characterizations and clothing. The following article will address the representation of the Mapuche in these early cinematographic productions, allowing us to reflect on that trap of mirrors that is combined in the visual construction of native peoples in cinema.

Escaping from Confinement: Hell Imagery in the Shōjuraigōji Rokudō-e Scrolls

This article explores the pictorial representation of the Buddhist hell in Kamakura (1185–1333) Japan, with a focus on a mid-thirteenth century rokudō-e, or Pictures of the Six Realms, preserved at Shōjuraigōji Temple. The examination revolves around how these scroll paintings convey messages of salvation by representing the symbolic architecture of the hell realm, the lowest level within the six realms. By scrutinizing the visual representation of hell landscapes in four hell scrolls in the Shōjuraigōji set, the study unveils the architectural symbolism of boundaries and pathways. A visual analysis of two hell-tearing narrative scrolls further reveals that the key iconography involves the destruction of the architectural symbols of hell. Through tracing the concurrent processes of constructing and destroying the imaginary space of hell, the study demonstrates that the conceptual and visual construction of hell is coupled with an equally pronounced intent for hell-tearing. Lastly, based on the visuality of the hell-escaping narratives, the medium of hanging scrolls, and the centrality of an Enma scroll within the Shōjuraigōji set, the author proposes a spatial arrangement of this set of fifteen scrolls that could systematically convey the visual massage of “escaping from suffering in the six courses”.

TQU-SLAM Benchmark Dataset for Comparative Study to Build Visual Odometry Based on Extracted Features from Feature Descriptors and Deep Learning

The problem of data enrichment to train visual SLAM and VO construction models using deep learning (DL) is an urgent problem today in computer vision. DL requires a large amount of data to train a model, and more data with many different contextual and conditional conditions will create a more accurate visual SLAM and VO construction model. In this paper, we introduce the TQU-SLAM benchmark dataset, which includes 160,631 RGB-D frame pairs. It was collected from the corridors of three interconnected buildings comprising a length of about 230 m. The ground-truth data of the TQU-SLAM benchmark dataset were prepared manually, including 6-DOF camera poses, 3D point cloud data, intrinsic parameters, and the transformation matrix between the camera coordinate system and the real world. We also tested the TQU-SLAM benchmark dataset using the PySLAM framework with traditional features such as SHI_TOMASI, SIFT, SURF, ORB, ORB2, AKAZE, KAZE, and BRISK and features extracted from DL such as VGG, DPVO, and TartanVO. The camera pose estimation results are evaluated, and we show that the ORB2 features have the best results (Errd = 5.74 mm), while the ratio of the number of frames with detected keypoints of the SHI_TOMASI feature is the best (rd=98.97%). At the same time, we also present and analyze the challenges of the TQU-SLAM benchmark dataset for building visual SLAM and VO systems.

Representation and stereotyping of the female image in modern mass media (based on glossy magazines)

In the 21st century, the need for the development of the glossy sector is increasing every day. The main object of the study is the image of female beauty in modern glossy magazines; the subject of the study is the formation of a stereotypical idea of beauty in modern mass media. The purpose of this article is to analyze the linguistic and visual representation of women in modern mass media (based on glossy magazines), as well as the features of the linguistic (linguistic and visual) construction of the image of a woman in modern discursive linguistics. In addition, when conducting this research, not only general scientific methods are used, such as comparison, description, classification, systematization, interpretation, analysis, classification, but also special linguistic methods for analyzing lexical-semantic groups: contextual and stylistic analysis of semantics, the method of psycholinguistic modeling, method of complex analysis. The scientific novelty of the study is due to the subject of the study and the lack of modern comparative studies in the field of the specific representation of the image of beauty in the media (in glossy magazines) for young women. During the study, the features of modern visual culture and mass media products were studied, the standards of beauty and the female image being a sociocultural phenomenon were described, the methods of applying various methodologies to the visual content of glossy magazines and digital analogues were analyzed, axiological pictures of the world in different cultures and social gender stereotypes were partially described, reflected in language, the representation and stereotyping of the beauty of the female image in modern mass media (based on glossy magazines) is analyzed and ways of stereotyping beauty in glossy magazines are identified, including the features of visual design and promotion of content personalization (recommendation technologies) in the modern glossy segment.

Automation of visual communication and aesthetic construction of national image: a computational aesthetic analysis of social bots on Twitter

Abstract Vision and aesthetics are inseparable dimensions of national image building. Based on 106,562 China-related images from Twitter (renamed as X), this paper introduced a computational aesthetic approach to investigate the visual communication activities of social bots on Twitter and compared the similarities and differences between human and bot accounts’ posted images so as to explore the influence of social bots’ aesthetic strategies. The results show that social bots have displayed different aesthetic strategies in the construction of the China-related visual frame, and formed obvious stylistic differences with humans in brightness, saturation, color, etc. Negative binomial regression indicates that the aesthetic strategies of social bots contribute to more likes and shares. The automation of visual communication and aesthetic construction not only makes the global building and communication of national image face new situations and challenges, but also pushes the whole human visual aesthetic, creation, and communication activities under the potential subjectivity crisis.

The Visual Economy of Cultural Consecration

Abstract This article explores the impact of the Nobel Prize on the visual economy of literary culture by analysing how photographic author portraits are used by the Nobel Foundation and the Swedish Academy to construct a visual pantheon of literary laureates. The photographic Nobel pantheon is here conceptualised as a transnational visual construction that has a unique symbolic function in demarcating, homogenising, and essentialising the global literary field. It is argued that the images, together with their use by the consecrating institutions, ‘mythologise’ the author persona as a timeless, supra-national essence rather than presenting the more accurate picture of an historically, nationally, and culturally specific and contingent conception of literature. In analysing the semiotic structures and functions, as well as aesthetic patterns of photographic author portraits in relation to implicit notions of authorship, the article thereby shines a critical light on institutional ideology and its relation to visual culture.

Analysis of the Research Status of Traditional Chinese Medicine Pension Industry Based on Bibliometrics

At present, the problem of population aging in China is becoming increasingly prominent, and the combination of traditional Chinese medicine and elderly care is becoming a hot topic. In this paper, VOSviewer was used to statistically and visually analyze the literature related to traditional Chinese medicine pension in CNKI database from 2013 to 2023. Firstly, we collected and sorted out the research literature on the Chinese medicine pension industry in recent years, and then used bibliometric methods to quantitatively analyze the quantity, quality and research fields of the literature. The study found that the number of research literature on the elderly care industry of traditional Chinese medicine has increased year by year, the research quality has been continuously improved, and the research field has gradually expanded. At the same time, we also found that the research hotspots of traditional Chinese medicine for the elderly care industry are mainly focused on elderly care services, traditional Chinese medicine health preservation, rehabilitation treatment, etc (Ge & Xu, 2023). In addition, this paper also puts forward the shortcomings and development directions of the research on the Chinese medicine pension industry in China and hopes that this study can provide useful reference and guidance for the development of the Chinese medicine pension industry. Based on the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) database as the main data source, this paper uses the topic search method in advanced search to search the CNKI database, and confirms that “Chinese medicine for the elderly” is used to read a large number of literature and understand the health care of traditional Chinese medicineAs the theme, the document format was set to see the full text only and Chinese and English extensions, the search time range was set from January 1th, 2013 to December 31th, 2023, the document type was set to academic journals, and the journal source category was set to all journals, a total of 149 articles were obtained, excluding news, publicity, interviews, correspondence and other literature that did not meet the research theme, and finally a total of 149 articles were obtained by manual screening 126 articles in Chinese. VOSviewer is an open-source network analysis tool, mainly used for scientific literature analysis, which can help users carry out visual analysis and network construction and is suitable for analyzing the research status of a certain field. In this paper, the VOSviewer visual analysis tool was used to process and analyze the literature data of 126 academic journals included in CNKI from 2013 to 2023, and the knowledge map of Chinese medicine pension in China was drawn, so as to visually analyze the author cooperation, hot topics and cutting-edge trends of Chinese medicine pension research in China.

Visual Knowledge Graph Construction of Self-directed Learning Ability Driven by Interdisciplinary Projects

INTRODUCTION: The application of interdisciplinary information technology is becoming more and more widespread, and the application of visual knowledge mapping in the process of students' independent learning is also becoming more and more important; therefore, in this context, takes the history discipline as a starting point to study the construction of visual knowledge mapping of students' independent learning ability under the drive of interdisciplinary projects.OBJECTIVES: To enrich the means of student independent learning aids in China's history discipline and enhance the modernization level of China's history discipline construction; to solve the problem that student independent learning ability under the drive of China's interdisciplinary projects can not be visualized and observed; to further improve China's distance education environment and to enhance the educational capacity of the history discipline.METHODS: Firstly, the relevant modeling uses a visual knowledge map. Secondly, the neural network model assesses students' independent learning ability in history learning. Finally, the convolutional neural network model is used to assess the efficiency of the knowledge map.RESULTS: The Sig and Tanh function models have better robustness, and the ReLU and PReLU functions have weaker interdisciplinary driving performance. However, the iterative Knownledge1 and Knownledge2 models have better robustness of the visualized knowledge graph.CONCLUSION: In studying history, the interdisciplinary, project-driven, and independent learning ability of students could be more vital, and our country should vigorously develop new information network technology to improve the status quo of history discipline education in China.

A Visual Deconstruction of La Salaga: Unveiling the Traditional Visual Language in A Balinese Painting by I Made Sesangka Puja Laksana

This research aimed to explore wimba (image), wimba methods, and expressions in the “La Salaga” painting by I Made Sesangka Puja Laksana with a focus on the structure of the storyline. This research used a descriptive qualitative research method, where the data collection technique focused on the analysis of visual language from the painting. The visual analysis included exploring the meanings of Balinese and Sulawesi culture based on how wimba created the visual narrative and visual construction in the painting. The results of this study concluded that the content of wimba or image, the method used to depict the image, and the meaning of the painting in La Salaga by I Made Sesangka Puja Laksana contained the storyline of the painting that expresses a particular space.

Highly Dynamic Visual SLAM Dense Map Construction Based on Indoor Environments

Highly Dynamic Visual SLAM Dense Map Construction Based on Indoor Environments

Ontology-Based Semantic Construction Image Interpretation

Image-based techniques have become integral to the construction sector, aiding in project planning, progress monitoring, quality control, and documentation. In this paper, we address two key challenges that limit our ability to fully exploit the potential of images. The first is the “semantic gap” between low-level image features and high-level semantic descriptions. The second is the lack of principled integration between images and other digital systems used in construction, such as construction schedules and building information modeling (BIM). These challenges make it difficult to effectively incorporate images into digital twins of construction (DTC), a critical concept that addresses the construction industry’s need for more efficient project management and decision-making. To address these challenges, we first propose an ontology-based construction image interpretation (CII) framework to formalize the interpretation and integration workflow. Then, the DiCon-SII ontology is developed to provide a formalized vocabulary for visual construction contents and features. DiCon-SII also acts as a bridge between images and other digital systems to help construct an image-involved DTC. To evaluate the practical application of DiCon-SII and CII in supporting construction management tasks and as a precursor to DTC, we conducted a case study involving drywall installation. Via this case study, we demonstrate how the proposed methods can be used to infer the operational stage of a construction process, estimate labor productivity, and retrieve specific images based on user queries.

Fakturen eines Faszinosums: ‚Italien‘ als multimedialer Assoziationsgegenstand

Abstract From the postwar period onwards, media pluralisation, mass tourism and internationalisation have not only led to an increase in the marketing of Italy as a historical place of longing, but they also enhanced the auditory and visual construction of ‚Italy‘ as an object with numerous associations in everyday culture. This essay offers some preliminary thoughts on a series of case-studies that examine the multimedia imagining of ‚Italy‘ from the mid-20th century. The aim is to better understand the construction of the powerful myth of Italy in modernity, as well as the frequently associated phenomenon of internationally disseminated clichés with national connotations.