Photography in the Szondi Test: ‘The Analysis of Fate’

Léopold Szondi invented a projective test using photographs of people with mental pathologies to determine the unconscious, ancestral illnesses (or aptitudes) of his subjects. Szondi’s images were garnered from psychiatric textbooks published around 1900. Such photographs presumably revealed unconscious thoughts, desires, and destinies in the course of a test session. If a patient responded positively to a photo-portrait of a diagnosed ‘hysteric’, for instance, this indicated that the subject herself had unconscious, inherited hysterical traits. Szondi’s reasoning was predicated upon two commonly held fallacies: first that an individual’s physical appearance is the external marker of mental life, and second that photography is a transparent means of revealing true facts. In spite of (or maybe even because of) such problematic assumptions, Szondi’s use of photographs can be located historically in a tradition of reading human character from portraiture. The test was widespread, and was even administered to Adolf Eichmann at the time of his trial in Jerusalem – an ironic cultural development as Szondi himself would have been among the thousands of Jews deported from Hungary directly to Auschwitz by Eichmann had the Szondi family not been rescued by the Kastner train of 1944.     

Inverting an image does not improve drawing accuracy.

It has been suggested that inverting an image will increase drawing accuracy. However, perceptual evidence suggests that inverting an image inhibits processing of spatial information. D. J. Cohen and S. Bennett (1997) theorized that perceptual distortions will lead to drawing errors. In the present experiment, the authors test whether inverting an image improves drawing accuracy, as suggested by art educators, or results in distorted drawings, as predicted by Cohen and Bennett. The present data reveal that inverting an image inhibits the drawing accuracy of spatial relations thus supporting Cohen and Bennett's (1997) theory of drawing accuracy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Can people really “laugh at themselves?”—Experimental and correlational evidence.

Laughing at oneself is considered a core component of the sense of humor in the theories of several authors. In McGhee's (1996) eight-step-training program of the sense of humor, laughing at oneself constitutes one of the most difficult levels. However, until now, only little empirical evidence on laughing at oneself exists. Using a multimethod approach, in the current study, 70 psychology students and a total of 126 peers filled in the Sense of Humor Scale (SHS, McGhee, 1996), containing as a subscale “Laughing at oneself”. In addition, the participants answered the Trait and State forms of the State-Trait-Cheerfulness-Inventory (STCI, Ruch, K?hler, & van Thriel, 1996; Ruch, K?hler, & van Thriel, 1997). They then were confronted with six distorted images of themselves. Facial responses of the participants were videotaped and analyzed using the Facial Action Coding System (FACS, Ekman, Friesen, & Hager, 2002). Four indicators of exhilaration were examined: (a) experienced funniness, (b) AU12 smiles, (c) Duchenne displays, and (d) laughter. Furthermore, fake and masking smiles were studied. Results demonstrated that self- and peer reports of “laughing at oneself” converged moderately. All four indicators of exhilaration were shown, but funniness and laughter seemed to be the most strongly related indicators. Trait cheerfulness and (low) seriousness, and a cheerful mood state formed further characteristics of persons who laugh at themselves. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Critical point detection in fluid flow images using dynamical system properties

This paper introduces an algorithm for critical point detection in textured fluid flow images. A new measure is defined, based on dynamical system properties, that identifies candidate critical points in an orientation field. The candidates are verified or rejected based on estimates of the local flow field properties. The algorithm can locate partially occluded and degraded flow structures, and applications of this algorithm to experimental flow imagery are included. The algorithm performance is quantified, and it is compared to other detectors.     

漫画风格的人脸肖像生成算法

为模拟艺术家画出的具有夸张效果的肖像漫画,由用户输入正面人脸照片,通过交互获取关键特征点,根据特征点计算面部特征值来判断需要夸张的部分和各自的夸张方式;然后根据特征点自动生成不同层级的网格并分层实施夸张变形;最后进行图像处理以获得不同艺术风格的图像.该算法从研究漫画家的作画风格入手,总结了肖像漫画特定的夸张规律,所生成的漫画风格人脸肖像效果较好,能够应用于非真实感图形学和数字娱乐等领域.     

基于改进TF-IDF算法的供电营销服务方法

针对传统的供电营销服务方式单一、服务成本高和电力客户体验差等情况,提出了一种基于改进TF-IDF算法的供电营销服务方法。首先,构建电力客户信息数据分类方法,基于电力客户的“行为-需求-价值”,建立电力客户信息数据分类;其次,构建特征标签指标集,采用多标签分类算法实现电力客户新增信息类别的标签识别;再次,充分计及电网规划、建设、运行维护等影响供电企业运营的因素,构建电力客户经济贡献画像模型,基于改进TF-IDF算法,形成全面的电力客户行为特征评估结果,并针对不同类型的客户,提供多种供电营销服务套餐;最后,通过对四川某供电服务区域的实例分析,验证了该算法的可行性和实用性,实际应用结果表明该方法在服务成本和客户体验方面优于传统的供电营销服务方法。     

A new multi-stable fractional-order four-dimensional system with self-excited and hidden chaotic attractors: Dynamic analysis and adaptive synchronization using a novel fuzzy adaptive sliding mode control method

Four-dimensional chaotic systems are a very interesting topic for researchers, given their special features. This paper presents a novel fractional-order four-dimensional chaotic system with self-excited and hidden attractors, which includes only one constant term. The proposed system presents the phenomenon of multi-stability, which means that two or more different dynamics are generated from different initial conditions. It is one of few published works in the last five years belonging to the aforementioned category. Using Lyapunov exponents, the chaotic behavior of the dynamical system is characterized, and the sensitivity of the system to initial conditions is determined. Also, systematic studies of the hidden chaotic behavior in the proposed system are performed using phase portraits and bifurcation transition diagrams. Moreover, a design technique of a new fuzzy adaptive sliding mode control (FASMC) for synchronization of the fractional-order systems has been offered. This control technique combines an adaptive regulation scheme and a fuzzy logic controller with conventional sliding mode control for the synchronization of fractional-order systems. Applying Lyapunov stability theorem, the proposed control technique ensures that the master and slave chaotic systems are synchronized in the presence of dynamic uncertainties and external disturbances. The proposed control technique not only provides high performance in the presence of the dynamic uncertainties and external disturbances, but also avoids the phenomenon of chattering. Simulation results have been presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the presented control scheme.     

安徽气象为农服务大数据平台设计与应用

从安徽省气象为农信息服务的个性化、精准化、智能化需求出发,采用Hadoop架构、自然语言处理、相关度分析、大数据可视化等大数据和人工智能相关技术,研发安徽省气象为农服务大数据平台。汇集安徽省多部门涉农数据资源,通过建立用户行为画像、网络服务热点的预测,开展精准化的服务产品相关性推荐服务,并跟踪评估信息服务产品的网络传播服务效果,指导后续关键农时农事建议和决策服务产品的研发与制作,同时建立气象为农服务大数据展示系统,探索实现气象为农信息服务从“人找信息”到“信息找人”的转变。该平台已在安徽气象为农业务服务中应用,提升了服务能力,具有较好的行业知名度和社会影响力。     

Practices of Photography: Circulation and Mobility in the Nineteenth-Century Mediterranean

Recent theoretical work on the Mediterranean has emphasised the sea as an agent of ‘connectivity’ over a highly fragmented space, bringing peoples, goods, languages, and ideas into contact. Early photography in the Mediterranean manifests this connectivity and mixedness across the whole field of its practice: among photographers, sitters, printers, dealers, consumers, patrons, and even the photographs themselves. Focusing on the eastern Mediterranean, this article treats early photography in its ‘Mediterranean’ context: located within a space of multiple languages, ethnicities, and religions, of personal and commercial networks between cities and across borders, and of spatial and social circulation and exchange. Such an approach complicates the two prevailing scholarly narratives of Mediterranean photography: one based on place, nationality, or ethnicity; the other on Orientalism. Seen in this light, the early history of photography in the Mediterranean may have implications for understanding the ways in which modernisation took hold and operated in the region.     

Review of Three men: An experiment in the biography of emotion.

Reviews the book, Three men: An experiment in the biography of emotion by Jean Evans (1954). The unusual quality of Evans' writing lies in the happy blend she has achieved of the good qualities of both artist and scientist. The first two "portraits" in this book are of men at least a significant portion of whose lives was lived under conditions of real poverty. In the case of the third man, however, this was not the case. "Martin Beardson's" father was a prosperous business man, his mother an "upper class" woman of "genteel tradition." "Except for brief periods, and then only in recent years, Martin has never known deprivation in terms of food, clothing, and comfortable shelter. By realistic standards he also enjoyed many luxuries . . . . Yet Martin has always had a sense of poverty no less poignant than if he had been a slum child, and a sense of grievance no less biting than if he had lived all his life on the periphery of want" (p. 195). This is a book that will be read with pleasure and pondered with profit by many scientists and professionals in clinical, social, and dynamic psychology, in sociology, psychotherapy, social work, and a number of other related fields. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)