Personalizing image enhancement for critical visual tasks: improved legibility of papyri using color processing and visual illusions

This article develops theoretical, algorithmic, perceptual, and interaction aspects of script legibility enhancement in the visible light spectrum for the purpose of scholarly editing of papyri texts. Novel legibility enhancement algorithms based on color processing and visual illusions are compared to classic methods in a user experience experiment. (1) The proposed methods outperformed the comparison methods. (2) Users exhibited a broad behavioral spectrum, under the influence of factors such as personality and social conditioning, tasks and application domains, expertise level and image quality, and affordances of software, hardware, and interfaces. No single enhancement method satisfied all factor configurations. Therefore, it is suggested to offer users a broad choice of methods to facilitate personalization, contextualization, and complementarity. (3) A distinction is made between casual and critical vision on the basis of signal ambiguity and error consequences. The criteria of a paradigm for enhancing images for critical applications comprise: interpreting images skeptically; approaching enhancement as a system problem; considering all image structures as potential information; and making uncertainty and alternative interpretations explicit, both visually and numerically.

Multivariate analysis of medical and economic factors in the spread of socially significant diseases (on the example of the Khabarovsk Territory)

Methodological approaches to determining the possible social conditioning of certain diseases are considered. The method is based on studying the distribution of the disease under study in the population using factor analysis tools. The average annual population incidence of diseases in the administrative districts of the Khabarovsk Territory has been determined. The socio-economic characteristics of the districts of the remote region of Russia have been studied. The matrix obtained in the course of the study is used for regression analysis, which makes it possible to determine the degree of influence of social factors on the features of the territorial distribution of the disease under study. The use of the multiple regression method in a population-epidemiological study showed that socio-economic factors have a significant impact on the territorial spread of tuberculosis, sexually transmitted diseases, chronic alcoholism and drug addiction, but not on the spread of malignant neoplasms.

Vulnerability factors for mephedrone-induced conditioned place preference in rats—the impact of sex differences, social-conditioning and stress

Rationale Mephedrone is a frequently overused drug of abuse that belongs to the group of novel psychoactive substances. Although its mechanism of action, as well as toxic and psychoactive effects, has been widely studied, the role of different factors that could contribute to the increased vulnerability to mephedrone abuse is still poorly understood. Objectives The aim of the presented study was to assess the impact of several factors (sex differences, social-conditioning, and chronic mild unpredictable stress — CMUS) on the liability to mephedrone-induced reward in Wistar rats. Methods The rewarding effects of mephedrone in male and female rats were assessed using the conditioned place preference (CPP) procedure. Furthermore, the impact of social factor and stress was evaluated in male rats using social-CPP and CMUS-dependent CPP, respectively. Results Mephedrone induced classic-CPP in female (10 mg/kg), as well as in male (10 and 20 mg/kg) rats. However, the impact of mephedrone treatment during social-CPP was highly dose-dependent as the rewarding effects of low dose of mephedrone (5 mg/kg; non-active in classic-CPP) were potentiated when administered during social-conditioning. Interestingly, social-conditioning with a higher dose of 20 mg/kg (that induced classic-CPP) was able to reverse these effects. Finally, CMUS potentiated rewarding effects of a low dose of mephedrone (5 mg/kg) and increased the level of corticosterone in rats’ prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. Conclusions Altogether, the presented results give new insight into possible factors underlying the vulnerability to mephedrone abuse and can serve as a basis for further studies assessing mechanisms underlying observed effects.

Trash Stream: Social Conditioning of Criminalization

The social network as one of the digital technologies has not only creates a platform for communications, especially relevant during a pandemic, but also provokes the emergence of various types of deviant behavior, primarily due to the fact that many communicate on the Internet under fictitious names; it liberates a person, creates a feeling of impunity, control over the situation, etc. Recently, trash streams have become popular on the Web, but not funny and silly, but associated with violence, insult, humiliation of human dignity, causing a feeling of disgust and contrary to public morality. In December 2020, during such a live broadcast, another victim died, which launched a process in society to discuss the need to introduce criminal liability for such acts. The paper assesses the draft criminal law, as well as initiatives to supplement the list of aggravating circumstances and some corpus delicti with an appropriate qualifying feature, and formulates the author’s draft criminal law on responsibility for organizing, conducting, facilitating and participating in direct air in trash streams.

Filipinos front too! A sociophonetic analysis of Toronto English /u/-fronting

The fronting of the back vowel /u/ is an on-going sound change in many varieties of English. While /u/-fronting is argued to be primarily phonetically constrained, many studies report the significant role of various social factors including ethnicity. This paper investigates the linguistic and social conditioning of /u/-fronting in Toronto English. A sociophonetic analysis of /u/, extracted from spontaneous speech data of second-generation Filipinos and age-matched Anglos, was conducted to determine whether Filipinos exhibit /u/-fronting and to what extent coarticulatory and social factors affect degree of fronting. Results of a multivariate analysis show that male and female Filipinos produce fronted realizations of /u/ as their Anglo peers. However, Filipinos exhibit greater fronting than Anglos in coronal and palatal contexts, which may be explained by cross-language influence from Tagalog. Taken together, this study suggests that although Filipinos join other Torontonians in /u/-fronting, they nonetheless exhibit finer-grained differences when phonetic conditioning is taken into account.

is there a form of citizenship specific to philosophy for children?

Due to the obvious and widely studied Deweyan foundations in the educational program elaborated by philosopher Mathew Lipman, Philosophy for Children (P4C) is often presented as a continuation of Dewey’s democratic ideal, as a mode of associated living. I argue that there is a democratic model specific to Lipman’s P4C, that cannot be reduced to Dewey’s theories. To do so, I propose to compare Dewey’s and Lipman’s educational models through the Bourdieusian notion of habitus, understood as a set of lasting mental dispositions, following a specific social conditioning, revealed by some practical habits. Studying in depth Dewey’s and Lipman’s educational recommendations concerning inquiry does not only reveal that they are structured according to different rationalities, it also highlights the fact that they tend to develop different habits and dispositions in the child, that ultimately form two distinct citizen habitus. Dewey’s habitus could be called experimental and Lipman’s habitus dialogical and they both correspond to their respective reflections on democracy and the role a citizen should be playing. I conclude by highlighting the interesting possibilities that stem from the analysis and comparison of educational models through the notion of habitus.Resumen: En razón de las indudables y ampliamente estudiadas fundaciones deweyana en la pedagogía elaborada por el filósofo Mathew Lipman, la filosofía para niños es generalmente presentada como una continuación del ideal democrático de John Dewey, como un modo de vida asociada. Sostengo que existe un modelo democrático específico a la filosofía para niños como la que fue elaborada por Lipman, que no se puede reducir a las teorías de Dewey. Para mostrar eso, propongo de comparar las pedagogías de Dewey y de Lipman a través de la noción bourdieusiana del habitus, entendida como un conjunto de disposiciones mentales duraderas, proveniente de un condicionamiento social específico, que se manifiesta por hábitos prácticos. Un estudio en profundidad de las recomendaciones educativas de Dewey y de Lipman en cuento a la encuesta no sólo revela que están organizadas por racionalidades diferentes, sino también que desarrollan hábitos y disposiciones diferentes en el niño, que últimamente forman dos habitus ciudadanos distintos. El habitus de Dewey se puede llamar experimental, y el de Lipman un habitus dialógico, los dos corresponden a sus reflexiones respectivas sobre la democracia y el rol del ciudadano. Concluyo subrayando las posibilidades interesantes que emerjan de la analiza y comparación de las pedagogías a través de la noción de habitus.

A study of fuzzy modeling analysis of factors influencing socially regulation of learning performance in an online environment

Investigating the factors influencing the performance of social conditioning in the network environment is the core issue for improving academic performance. Through the search of existing literature, the paper analyzes the main factors that influence social conditioning learning in current research, and through the questionnaire survey and in-depth processing of the raw data, the advanced behavioral indicators related to learning are obtained and analyzed by Spearman correlation coefficient and fuzzy modeling in machine learning. The results showed that the twelve dimensions of motivation regulation, trust building, efficacy management, cognitive strategy, time management, goal setting, task strategy, peer support, team assessment, help seeking, environment construction, and team supervision were significantly related to group performance, with team supervision having a significant negative relationship with group performance. In addition, trust building, team supervision and environment construction were the main factors for online social learning, effectiveness management, task strategy, peer support and help-seeking were the secondary factors, while motivation regulation, cognitive strategies, goal setting and team assessment had little impact on the final performance. The findings have some implications for the optimization of social conditioning learning support services and the improvement of social conditioning learning performance.

Writing for Change

This work outlines challenges to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in science. This contribution explores the authoring of accessible books of science for children with intentionally diverse characters and protagonists as a possible solution to social conditioning in terms of who scientists are perceived to be, and which may pose the early beginning of challenges to DEI among us all.

LINGUOCULTURAL NATURE OF MENTALITY

The article is devoted to the linguocultural explaining of the concept "mentality". The object of research is the concept of "mentality", which is used in modern linguistics in two semantic aspects: first, when talking about ethnic or social conditioning of our mind and, secondly, when they try to justify the origins of the spiritual unity and integrity of the people. The mental symptoms of the national consciousness are objectified in language, and in this regard the following categories of cognitive semantics are in demand in the linguistics of language in their synergistic and cognitive understanding: the value and meaning, the inner form of nominative units of language, means of secondary and indirect derivative nomination, cultural connotations etc. The author's aim is to explain the concept of linguocultural mentality. The author concludes that the mentality can be described as a synergistic perception of the world through the prism of the interaction of the language, consciousness and culture; linguoculture is a way of expressing ethnic mentality as a special vision of the world in concrete chronotopic terms of artistic and creative life of a people.