The poor denoising effect for noisy grayscale images with traditional processing methods would be obtained under strong noise condition, and some image details would be lost. In this paper, a parallel array model of Fitzhugh–Nagumo neurons was proposed, which can restore noisy grayscale images well with low peak signal-to-noise ratio conditions and the image details are better preserved. Firstly, the row-column scanning method was used to convert the 2D grayscale image into a 1D signal, and then the 1D signal was (...) converted into a binary pulse amplitude modulation signal by signal modulation. The modulated signal was input to an FHN parallel array for stochastic resonance. Finally, the array output signal was restored to a 2D gray image, and the image restoration effect was analyzed based on the PSNR and Structural SIMilarity index. It is shown that the SR effect can be exhibited in an array of FHN neuron nonlinearities by increasing the array size, and the image restoration effect is significantly better than the traditional image restoration method, and larger PSNR and SSIM can be obtained. It provides a new idea for grayscale image restoration in a low PSNR environment. (shrink)

If the end of exoticism is one of the characteristics of our time, and if classical anthropology based its study of alterity on this exotic distance from the other, is anthropology still possible, and if so, to what end? The author uses these questions as a point of departure for a probing interrogation of ethnological practice, starting with Le;vi-Strauss. The author advocates an anthropology of 'proximity' in place of the usual anthropology of distance. He has studied such emblematic places of (...) Western modernity as the Parisian Metro, or such emblematic 'non-places' as airports, treating as valid anthropological objects phenomena that others might judge less 'pure' or 'significant' than systems of filiation or matrimonial alliance. He outlines an approach to anthropology that focuses on negotiating the social meanings we and others use in making sense of the world, and on the processes of identification that create the difference between same and other. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis research investigates the cross-linguistic exploitations of Lakoff’s “STRICT FATHER” and “NURTURING PARENT” frames. The British, American, Spanish, and French languages show significan...

How might distance be reintroduced into contemporary art ? How might we extract ourselves, even for a moment, from the representation, consumption and technology that surround us ?

L’étude de 110 histoires de nominations individuelles dans l’administration publique au Gabon permet d’analyser l’importance des solidarités sociales situées en dehors d’une logique ethnique. Les relations individuelles qui prévalent au sein des réseaux des futures élites administratives montrent que la relation ethno-communautaire est latente dans le processus de sélection des élites de l’administration publique. Le lien ethnique devient actif dans le processus de nomination individuelle dès que s’ajoute un lien supplémentaire situé en dehors de l’affinité ethnique, comme les relations d’anciens (...) camarades de « fac », les relations avec les notables locaux et les liens engendrés par l’appartenance à des entités collectives. Cet article étudie la complexité des solidarités ethniques et les dynamiques relationnelles dans les nominations individuelles.A review of the process that led to the appointment of 110 Gabonese civil servants makes it possible to analyze the importance of social solidarity as well as ethnic solidarity factors. A close study of how future members of the elite connect within networks shows that ethnic relations act as a backdrop to the selection process of civil service elites. Ethnic relations are revived as soon as an additional factor is involved : old schools ties, relations with local prominent citizens, as well as connections resulting from memberships of political parties and freemasonry. The article assesses the complexity of ethnic logics and the relationship dynamics in the appointments reviewed. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to elucidate various practices for the structuring of images on an ultrasound monitor during prenatal ultrasound examinations. This study focuses on the practices that healthcare providers employ to invite pregnant women to differentiate a gray-tone image on the ultrasound monitor from the image’s background. In sequential environments in which pregnant women display difficulty in differentiating an image on the screen in response to the healthcare provider’s invitation, the healthcare provider employs practices that require additional (...) bodily involvement to structure the images on the screen. Furthermore, on certain occasions, the healthcare provider also points to a particular abdominal location with the ultrasound transducer, which is held against the abdomen to produce the very image being differentiated. This study demonstrates that the image on the ultrasound monitor is intrinsically embodied and spatially and modally distributed. In addition, the study suggests an interaction-organizational ground for an aspect of the ‘personification of the fetus’ through obstetric ultrasound. (shrink)

This article focuses on referential practices at a Japanese midwife house, where at prenatal examinations, a midwife palpates a pregnant woman’s abdomen with her hands, without any assistance from an ultrasound scanner. The midwife often refers to spots on the abdomen in palpation with locative demonstrative expressions. I demonstrate that ways in which references to spots on the pregnant woman’s abdomen are accomplished are subtly different, depending on the action sequence in which they are embedded. The description of referential practices (...) in which the touching plays an important role has consequences for the re-conceptualization of human interaction in general, and interaction between medical professionals and their clients in modern medical settings in particular. (shrink)

The aims of this paper are: (1) to criticize the traditional conception of understanding in sociology; (2) to show how doing interpreting is achieved within the activity the participant is currently involved in; (3) to show how an individual's special characteristics, e.g., a "strange foreigner," are constructed and used within the actual trajectory of interaction; and (4) to demonstrate how the participants in the so-called intercultural communication 'do cultural differences' within interaction.

Using the methodology of conversation analysis to examine interactions in outdoor activities, this study explores how participants specifically see an object or event in the development of an activity. In particular, the distinction between perception and knowledge is oriented to by the participants as a practical issue that informs their alternative action constructions. This distinction matters as a resource for implementing an action in an interaction. The data are in Japanese with English translations.

Continues Augé's critical exploration of contemporary modernity with an examination of the role of dreams, myth and fiction in the age of satellite TV and the Internet.

Dans un monde en transformation accélérée, un changement d'échelle affecte et réoriente nos existences individuelles et collectives. Dans ce nouvel environnement, l'anthropologie a dorénavant la tâche immense de critiquer l'ensemble encore protéiforme que nous appelons le monde global. Marc Augé revient ici sur les catégories de l'espace et du temps, notamment à travers la notion de temps mort dans sa relation à celle de non-lieu, pour s'interroger sur les rapports entre sens social et liberté individuelle dans le monde contemporain. L'anthropologue (...) contribue ainsi à l'effort de lucidité critique dont l'humanité a plus que jamais besoin si elle veut pouvoir se dire un jour, non plus globale, mais totale, au sens de Mauss, c'est-à-dire intelligente, lucide, ambitieuse et solidaire. (shrink)

In recent years, social workers have raised a new concern about the appearance of a new category among the working poor. Even employed, there are people so overburdened by the cost of living and so under compensated that they cannot afford a place to sleep. Contrary to popular opinion, according to the website for the Coalition for the Homeless, forty-four percent of the homeless in first world countries actually have jobs. In No Fixed Abode, Marc Augé's pathbreaking ethnofiction--a fictional ethnography--a (...) man named Henri narrates his strange existence in the margins of Paris. By day he walks the streets, lingers in conversation with the local shopkeepers, and sits writing in cafés, but at night he takes shelter in an abandoned house. From here, we see a progressive erosion of Henri's identity, a loss of bearings, and a slow degeneration of his ability to relate to others. But then he meets the artist Dominique, whose willingness to share her life with him raises questions about who he has become and about what a person needs in order to be a part of society. This is a book about how we live in geographical space and how work and patterns of domicile affect our status and our inner being. Despite the apparent simplicity of the fictional premise, Augé's book asks serious questions about the nature of our culture. (shrink)

This paper starts with questioning the traditional approach to the so-called intercultural communication. Most students of intercultural communication, it seems, use the categories characterising a cultural or ethnic identity, such as Western, Indian, European, Aboriginal and the like, as parameters by reference to which some distinctive phenomena observed in conversational materials should be explained. Even though they may apply these categories correctly, they do not take into account the relevancy of these categories in each interaction.The aim of this paper is (...) to demonstrate that being a Japanese is achieved interactively and that interculturality of intercultural communication is constituted in and through the actual course of the interaction. In the analysis of interviews conducted with foreign students in Japan, it can be seen that the interviewer and the interviewee had to keep on coordinating their conduct throughout the development of their interaction in order that they could be a Japanese and a foreigner relevantly. In this way, what, in the studies of intercultural communication, is presupposed to be simply given, that is, the fact of a person being a Japanese or the like, is shown to be analysable and investigable as an interactive phenomenon in its own right. (shrink)

Through a wide-ranging international collection of papers, this volume provides theoretical and historical insights into the development and application of phenomenological sociology and ethnomethodology and offers detailed examples of research into social phenomena from these standpoints. All the articles in this volume join together to testify to the enormous efficacy and potential of both phenomenological sociology and ethnomethodology.

Ştefan Aug. Doinaş and Basarab Nicolescu, two great spirits related through the generosity of the humanist vision, met, held an epistolary dialogue and had common projects. Doinaş commented upon a few of the innovative concepts proposed by Basarab Nicolescu and he also aesthetically transfigured, in literary pages, certain concepts of transdisciplinarity.

Die in diesem Band versammelten Arbeiten des französischen Phänomenologen Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961) führen nicht nur auf vorzügliche Weise in dessen Philosophie ein, sie dokumentieren darüber hinaus auch die Entwicklung neu einsetzender Reflexionen in den Jahren nach der Publikation der Phänomenologie der Wahrnehmung (1945). Kunsttheoretische, sprachphilosophische und auch soziologische Untersuchungen erschließen dem Leser eine Philosophie, die im Rahmen einer kulturphilosophischen Selbstverständigung das 20. Jahrhundert hinsichtlich seiner großen Themen und seiner radikalen Fragestellungen umgreift. Inhalt: Der Zweifel Cézannes (1945), Das Kino und die (...) neue Psychologie (1947), Das Metaphysische im Menschen (1947), Der Mensch und die Widersetzlichkeit der Dinge (1952), Schrift für die Kandidatur am Collège de France (1951/52), Das mittelbare Sprechen und die Stimmen des Schweigens (1952); Lob der Philosophie (1953), Von Mauss zu Claude Lévi-Strauss (1959), Der Philosoph und sein Schatten (1959), Das Auge und der Geist (1961). (shrink)

Pese al rol clave que cumple la imaginación en Kant y el problema de la metafísica, este concepto dejó de ser objeto de análisis. El objetivo del presente artículo es explicar los motivos de su auge y desaparición. Consideramos que su auge se debió a que, con este concepto, Heidegger logró llevar a cabo una ontología positiva de la personalitas trascendentalis kantiana y articularla con la personalitas moralis. Su desaparición, en cambio, se dio porque esta imaginación es ontológicamente espontánea, y (...) por lo tanto, inconsistente con el concepto de finitud receptiva que se irá afianzando en esta obra. En otras palabras, esta desaparición se encuentra asociada con el replanteamiento de la finitud del Dasein. (shrink)

La idea nuclear de este artículo consiste en la consideración de que el teatro griego tiene una gran importancia para comprender el auge y el declive de la democracia ateniense. La base de esta tesis estriba en que el escenario participa en el discurso democrático mediante el uso del diálogo y el debate, y en él se esbozan conflictos de calado político que tienen un carácter claramente democrático. Son dichos conflictos los que iremos vislumbrando en este trabajo, sin dejar de (...) perfilar el contexto en el que se producen. Para ello proponemos demostrar la existencia, en la vida real democrática, de una serie de teorías vigentes en las que los autores trágicos y cómicos ocupan un lugar preeminente. Un objetivo que se plantea como una metáfora que sigue aportando reflexiones para nuestra actualidad, y más cuando cada vez son más las voces que hablan de la crisis de las democracias occidentales. (shrink)

Víctor A. Sánchez Azanza, Raúl López Penadés y Daniel Adrover-Roig Dept. de Pedagogía Aplicada y Psicología de la Educación, Universidad … Read More →.