Masculine Power? A Gendered Look at the Frontispiece of Hobbes's Leviathan

The frontispiece of Hobbes's Leviathan is justly renowned as a powerful visual advertisement for his political philosophy. Consequently, its rich imagery has been the subject of extensive scholarly commentary. Surprisingly, then, its gendered dimensions have received relatively limited attention. This essay explores this neglected facet of the frontispiece. I argue that the image initially appears to present a hypermasculine sovereign. However, upon closer inspection, and considered alongside Hobbes's economic theory, it yields to a reading of the sovereign as an ambiguously gendered figure. Reading the frontispiece through the prism of gender and the economy reveals not a static image of unwavering male power but rather one of an equivocally-sexed creature teeming with life, contradictions, and complexities worthy of continued examination.

System for determining the parameters of a sea vessel by analyzing a photo image

In this paper, a method is considered for determining the parameters of a sea vessel, such as its spatial orientation and the distance from the observation point to this vessel from a photographic image to facilitate the task of identifying vessels at night. A measuring system for practical implementation is proposed, consisting of an optical segment, a segment for determining the angle of the vessel by the image, a segment for determining the distance to the object, and a segment for accumulating and filtering data. An algorithm for extracting the parameters of ship lights from a photographic image, their analysis, and the calculation of the quantities required for classification are described. The effectiveness of various classifier architectures for determining the angle of the vessel was experimentally tested, among which the SVM architecture was the most effective. A method for compiling a “depth map” for a static image based on the data of real distances to objects in the daylight image and the coordinates of the corresponding pixels in the same image is described. The method of backpropagation of the error is used for the obtained distances in the corresponding segment of the system based on the existence of the position-distance mapping. The model of the “depth map” constructed based on these data made it possible to obtain a sufficient distance to the object from the photograph.

Input Fields Recognition in Documents Using Deep Learning Techniques

Identification of input fields that appear on a document is a crucial requirement while digitizing any document. This paper presents a Deep Learning based approach to detect input fields from a form or document which consists of text, images and input fields like textbox, checkbox. The forms have been crawled and labelled manually to generate a dataset for training Deep Learning models. The YOLO V3 model is trained on the labelled dataset having four classes (static text, static image, input text, checkbox) with 1500 instances. We used bounding box techniques to label the dataset. The paper presents detection of limited types of input fields generally appearing on printed forms. We also discussed how such detection models can scale and sustain higher loads. If given the labelled dataset for other types of input fields, the existing YOLO V3 can be trained for them as well. The model is trained for 3500 iterations and the accuracy achieved is 71 percent.

VISUAL CUES AND RATER PERCEPTIONS OF SECOND LANGUAGE COMPREHENSIBILITY, ACCENTEDNESS, AND FLUENCY

This study examined the role of visual cues (facial expressions and hand gestures) in second language (L2) speech assessment. University students (N = 60) at English-medium universities assessed 2-minute video clips of 20 L2 English speakers (10 Chinese and 10 Spanish speakers) narrating a personal story. They rated the speakers’ comprehensibility, accentedness, and fluency using 1,000-point sliding scales. To manipulate access to visual cues, the raters were assigned to three conditions that presented audio along with (a) the speaker’s static image, (b) a static image of a speaker’s torso with dynamic face, or (c) dynamic torso and face. Results showed that raters with access to the full video tended to perceive the speaker as more comprehensible and significantly less accented compared to those who had access to less visually informative conditions. The findings are discussed in terms of how the integration of visual cues may impact L2 speech assessment.

Living the Experience Before You Go . . . but Did It Meet Expectations? The Role of Virtual Reality during Hotel Bookings

Virtual reality (VR) is considered an important technological development to impact the tourism industry. Hotels are constantly attempting to overcome the challenges they face in the presentation of their facilities in the virtual environment. This research has made one of the first attempts to understand VR’s ability to influence tourism consumers’ attitudes and behavioral intentions during the prepurchase phase and postpurchase phase of their purchase journey across three hotel preview styles, namely, (1) VR immersive headsets, (2) 360° VR tour, and (3) a static image website. Through a lab-based experiment with 270-participants, study 1 outlined the positive role of VR on learning about the hotel and visit intentions. Through a questionnaire with 409 actual tourism consumers following a hotel stay, study 2 detailed that VR plays a significant role in managing tourism consumers’ expectations through providing an authentic experience and stimulating the development of detailed mental imagery prior to their visit.