A Graph Retrieval Architecture and System for Online Sign Language Dictionary- with an application to Taiwanese Sign Language

Emerging applications for an online sign language dictionary require that retrieval systems retrieve a target vocabulary through visual symbols. However, when people encounter an unknown vocabulary in sign language during communication, they require the online dictionary to retrieve the vocabulary with higher recall-rate and smaller-sized graph through a mobile device. Still, three situations show that the current online dictionary needs an extension. First, previous works lack of retrieving the target graph of a vocabulary through its complete visual symbol-portfolio. Secondly, they often respond a large number of possible images; however, their precisions and recall rates remain very low. Thirdly, previous works of sign language gloves can convert the visual symbols into the graphic features, but only part of the symbols, ignoring the symbols of expression and relative direction. Therefore, the aim of this study is, based on Taiwanese Sign Language, to design a new graph retrieval architecture for sign-language (GRAS), and to implement a new graph retrieval system for sign-language (GRSS) based on this architecture. Finally, we invite users to evaluate GRSS. The experimental results show that GRSS gets convincing performance. And, GRSS adopting RDF technology can improve the performance of GRSS without adopting RDF technology.

The Cross-Cultural Background and Modern Transformations of Religious and Spiritual Symbols of Lithuanian Identity

Traditional symbols and codes are very powerful elements of culture. In modernity they have become connected with the paradigm of intertextuality: being actual because of their modern and contemporary treatment, at the same time they are associated with intracultural communication, the national historical background and ethnic traditionalism, as well as having a lot of intercultural features. Paradoxically serving to define cultural boundaries and uniqueness, they also can testify to historical processes of cultural globalization. The aim of this research is to contextualize the iconicity and contemporary meaning of modern national visual symbols (a rue, a six-petal rosette; a sun with wavy rays) and uncover the main differences and similarities between their ancient historical and folkloric meaning and actual modern interpretations based on art, folk art and art-historical, historical, archaeological and folkloric data. This interdisciplinary approach is based on semiotic (i.e. ethnosemiotic), ethnological interpretation and contextual analysis of the function and meaning of visual symbols as elements of culture. The study clarifies how these ornamental signs of national identity, which are related to cultural heritage, but with intercultural historical origins, come alive and come to be newly interpreted by the social imaginary, influenced by scientific concepts in modern religious, spiritual and cultural life and their representations, and how these signs are prevalent internationally. It also analyses how, as logos in highly symbolic forms relating to mythical paradigms, these visual signs are involved in processes of the auto-communication of culture, its transmission, creation and memory, and how they are related to the boundaries of semiotic space or the semiosphere (Lotman 2005: 210; 2009: 131-142).

Emergence of Third-Order Conditional Discriminations from Learning Discriminations with Unrelated Stimuli

This study explored learning and generalization of a third-order conditional discrimination. Two 8-year-old children learned two auditory–visual conditional discriminations in which they selected visual Japanese syllabic symbols in response to syllables spoken by the experimenter. Then, they learned a third-order conditional discrimination in which they selected between two visual symbols after being exposed to two spoken syllables and one visual symbol. Thereafter, we probed generalization with novel symbols and names by teaching two additional conditional discriminations with Nahuatl symbols and spoken words and probing without reinforcement a new third-order conditional discrimination in which they had to select between two visual Nahuatl symbols after being exposed to two spoken Nahuatl words and one visual Nahuatl symbol. The two children responded in a predicted way to the novel third-order conditional discrimination. The emergent performance was possible because the set of relations established among the stimuli of the third-order conditional discrimination with Japanese syllables was analogous to the set of relations established among the stimuli of the third-order conditional discriminations with Nahuatl words. These results demonstrated a novel type of emergent responding in third-order conditional discrimination with arbitrary relations.

Visual symbols, democracy and memory: The monument of Ivan Stepanovich Konev and the memory of communism in the Czech Republic

The article discusses a conflict surrounding the removal of the Soviet Marshal Ivan Stepanovich Konev monument in Prague in 2020. The text begins by presenting different narratives associated with the statue and proceeds to demonstrate how the monument became entangled in a battle between opposing political factions, both in the Czech Republic and on an international scale. The aim of the article is to examine this example in the context of memory studies and to indicate that the situation in the Czech Republic arises from different cultural, social and historical contexts, especially the legacy of communism and the complex Czech Russian relations, but is in many ways similar to the situation in the United States and other places around the world lately experiencing monument struggles.

Research on the Teaching of Visual Communication Design Based on Digital Technology

In the era of big data, the rapid development of information technology has made the sharing of data and information more free, bringing convenience to the public, but at the same time, the massive amount of data also brings “information anxiety.” In this paper, we use the knowledge of design discipline, combined with psychological cognitive science, statistics, and communication discipline, and analyze a large number of excellent cases to effectively combine “information visualization-visual representation-design.” The purpose of this study is to enable audiences to efficiently access information through visual symbols in a large amount of data and to increase their interest in reading and satisfaction in accessing information. As a carrier of communication between designers and audiences in the process of visual representation of information visualization, visual symbols can effectively convey information content and emotional concepts to audiences. Finally, based on the theoretical support of the previous paper, combined with our own practical experience, we conduct a systematic study on the application of design thinking and the construction of design methods for the design of visual representations of information visualization. A comparative study on the aesthetics of different categories of APP interface design is conducted, and it is believed that different categories of APP can create distinctive and different categories of APP interface aesthetics through the differentiated design of interface layout, content expression, and visual form, which is considered as the ultimate goal that APP interface design must pursue. Visual representation is a method and means to realize information visualization as a representation practice that expresses the meaning of information in the form of visual symbols. The visual representation of information visualization uses visual symbols as a medium, and the audience interprets the visual symbols based on cognitive experience to obtain information, which helps to maximize the dissemination of information.

O tym, jak dzieciom opowiedzieć o wszystkim. Moc metafory w norweskiej książce obrazkowej „Blekkspruten” Gro Dahle i Sveina Nyhusa

The article discusses how the taboo theme of incest is narrated both visually and verbally in the controversial Norwegian picturebook Blekkspruten (The Squid) from 2016, authored by the famous Norwegian artists Gro Dahle, a writer, and Svein Nyhus, an illustrator. The duo had previously tackled numerous contentious themes in their books, such as domestic abuse, gender disparity and mental illness, but this time the subject seems particularly problematic to present in a children’s book. Since both Dahle and Nyhus explicitly advocate a concept of allalderlitteratur (literature for all age groups), the implied readership of Blekkspruten includes young, inexperienced readers, too. The analysis focused on the mode in which the artists acquainted children with incest, and the answer was the intricate metaphorical message rendered both in the text and in the images. Their pregnant, yet subtle imagery and sophisticated interaction made it possible to narrate the difficult, challenging theme for children. Furthermore, the investigation responds to Dorte Karrebæk’s suggestion to devote more reflection to the illustrators’ work as a continuum. It juxtaposes Nyhus’ illustrations from Blekkspruten with his previous works, showing both his new artistic solutions (different lines, shapes and colours) and references to some visual symbols employed before (open or closed containers, a monkey toy, a key). They recur in an intervisual, self-referential play, often participating in construction of open endings and implying the impossibility of giving unequivocal answers.

Mixed selectivity in the cerebellar Purkinje-cell response during visuomotor association learning

Although the cerebellum has been traditionally considered to be exclusively involved in motor control, recent anatomical and clinical studies show that it also has a role in reward processing. However, the way in which the movement related and the reward related neural activity interact at the level of the cerebellar cortex and contribute towards learning is still unclear. Here, we studied the simple spike activity of Purkinje cells in the mid-lateral cerebellum when monkeys learned to associate a right or left hand movement with one of two visual symbolic cues. These cells had distinctly different discharge patterns between an overtrained symbol-hand association and a novel symbol hand association, responding in association with the movement of both hands, although the kinematics of the movement did not change between the two conditions. The activity change was not related to the pattern of the visual symbols, the movement kinematics, the monkeys' reaction times or the novelty of the visual symbols. The simple spike activity changed with throughout the learning process, but the concurrent complex spikes did not instruct that change. Although these neurons also have reward related activity, the reward-related and movement related signals were independent. We suggest that this mixed selectivity may facilitate the flexible learning of difficult reinforcement learning problems.

Archetypal Aspects of Visual Intertextuality in Digital Advertising

The semiotic decodification of advertising signs through a col- lective unconscious in the digital era is a reflection of previous individual consumption of popular culture. As a result, advertising is an impure image that contains preexisting replicated visual symbols. This visual intertextu- ality will be at the core of our archetypal approach in advertising. Based on Discourse Analysis research methodology, we have opted for a corpus of digital ads that not only showcase recent creativity in the field, but also witness the development of what we shall encapsulate under the syntagma of ‘the second generation of archetypes’. Our main aim is to demonstrate that the collective unconscious as described by Jung has changed since the apparition of infinitely replicated objects of representation through media. The Discourse Analysis will provide an interpretation residing in three in- tertextual thematic archetypes touching literature, politics and art.