Artwork Style Recognition Using Vision Transformers and MLP Mixer

Through the extensive study of transformers, attention mechanisms have emerged as potentially more powerful than sequential recurrent processing and convolution. In this realm, Vision Transformers have gained much research interest, since their architecture changes the dominant paradigm in Computer Vision. An interesting and difficult task in this field is the classification of artwork styles, since the artistic style of a painting is a descriptor that captures rich information about the painting. In this paper, two different Deep Learning architectures—Vision Transformer and MLP Mixer (Multi-layer Perceptron Mixer)—are trained from scratch in the task of artwork style recognition, achieving over 39% prediction accuracy for 21 style classes on the WikiArt paintings dataset. In addition, a comparative study between the most common optimizers was conducted obtaining useful information for future studies.

DISCUSSÕES SOBRE GÊNERO NAS DANÇAS DE SALÃO: VAMOS DIALOGAR?

Resumo: O presente ensaio tem como objetivo discorrer sobre a importância de expandir os horizontes comunicacionais nas danças de salão, também conhecidas em sua origem por danças sociais, propondo uma forma de dançar que seja mais flexível, trazendo mais liberdade para os corpos e suas movimentações, sugerindo o desenvolvimento da escuta corporal mútua que possibilitará a condução compartilhada e o consequente diálogo entre corpos. A condução compartilhada surge especialmente para dar visibilidade à ação das mulheres, para que possam expressar uma postura mais ativa na dança. Esse trabalho adotou como método a pesquisa bibliográfica, com o objetivo de correlacionar as bases históricas das principais configurações das danças a dois, bem como as construções sociais dos papéis de mulheres e homens na sociedade, na época em que surgiram essas danças. O propósito é investigar o paradigma dominante, em que existem papéis distintos a serem desempenhados por damas e cavalheiros e o corpo acaba sendo compreendido apenas como um executor de passos. É também objetivo deste ensaio instigar professoras e professores a questionarem suas práticas de ensino e aprendizagem, para que proponham alterações em suas formas metodológicas de ensinar, a fim de que a prática da dança de salão não aconteça descontextualizada dos acontecimentos sociais de ordem contemporânea.Palavras-chave: Danças de salão. Igualdade de gênero. Diálogo corporal. Ensino da dança.Abstract: This essay aims to discuss the importance of expanding communicational horizons in ballroom dances, also known in its origins as social dances, proposing a way of dancing that is more flexible, bringing more freedom to bodies and their movements, suggesting the development of mutual bodily listening that will enable shared conduct and the consequent dialogue between bodies. Shared driving emerges especially for to give visibility to women's actions, so that they can express a more active posture in dance. This work adopted bibliographical research as a method, with the objective of correlating the historical bases of the main configurations of the two dances, as well as the social constructions of the roles of women and men in society, at the time these dances emerged. The purpose is to investigate the dominant paradigm, in which there are distinct roles to be played by ladies and gentlemen and the body ends up being understood only as a performer of steps. It is also the objective of this essay to instigate teachers and teachers to question their teaching and learning practices, so that they propose changes in their methodological ways of teaching, so that the practice of ballroom dancing does not happen out of context from contemporary social events.Keywords: Salon dances. Gender equality. Body dialogue. Dance teaching.

Invasion genomics uncover contrasting scenarios of genetic diversity in a widespread marine invader

Invasion rates have increased in the past 100 y irrespective of international conventions. What characterizes a successful invasion event? And how does genetic diversity translate into invasion success? Employing a whole-genome perspective using one of the most successful marine invasive species world-wide as a model, we resolve temporal invasion dynamics during independent invasion events in Eurasia. We reveal complex regionally independent invasion histories including cases of recurrent translocations, time-limited translocations, and stepping-stone range expansions with severe bottlenecks within the same species. Irrespective of these different invasion dynamics, which lead to contrasting patterns of genetic diversity, all nonindigenous populations are similarly successful. This illustrates that genetic diversity, per se, is not necessarily the driving force behind invasion success. Other factors such as propagule pressure and repeated introductions are an important contribution to facilitate successful invasions. This calls into question the dominant paradigm of the genetic paradox of invasions, i.e., the successful establishment of nonindigenous populations with low levels of genetic diversity.

Guiding Hand

The emergence of imaginative children’s music in the second half of the nineteenth century reframed the relationship between children and music in revolutionary ways. The dominant paradigm had been for children to repetitiously practice mechanistic exercises, a time-consuming occupation that the German composer Robert Schumann considered particularly wasteful and tasteless. In response he composed Album für die Jugend in 1848, a collection of children’s pieces that utilised a combination of text, picture and music to appeal to the interests of children, and to inspire their enthusiasm for musical play. Schumann envisioned his music as an extension of familial nurturance, which played a powerful role in directing children towards a musically and spiritually rich adulthood. As the tradition of imaginative children’s music developed during the nineteenth century, the dual themes of entertainment and education remained central to its generic identity, and continued to speak to the significance of piano music as a tool for the socialisation of children. The work of Jacqueline Rose offers a lens through which to explore this music’s manipulative influence upon children. The multimodal and performative characteristics of these musical pieces demonstrate the hidden influence of the adult’s guiding hand and the dire consequences that come to those who transgress musical and social boundaries.

A Grounded Theory Study of Major Gift Fundraising Relationships in U.S. Higher Education

Nurturing relationships with major donors is a priority for nonprofits, and “relationship fundraising” is the dominant paradigm. This grounded theory study addressed practical needs and a dearth of research by analyzing how fundraisers develop relationships. In a first-of-its-kind study, we interviewed 20 pairs of higher education fundraisers and major donors ( n = 40) from multiple U.S. institutions. We discovered five tiers of relationships from a basic connection, personalized association, confident relationship, purposeful partnership, to a consequential bond. Fundraisers initiated the progression until the final tier; the theoretical model shows their intentionality in the relationships’ development. Major gifts occurred in all tiers. The model illustrates how fundraisers build relationships, explores donors’ expectations, and affirms the relational nature of major gift fundraising. It provides some of the only empirical evidence regarding major donors, and the relationship fundraising philosophy touted in practitioner literature. The analysis reveals connections to theories from social psychology and relationship marketing.

Ludic Unreliability and Deceptive Game Design

Drawing from narratology and design studies, this article makes use of the notions of the ‘implied designer’ and ‘ludic unreliability’ to understand deceptive game design as a specific subset of transgressive game design. More specifically, in this text we present deceptive game design as the deliberate attempt to misguide players’ inferences about the designers’ intentions. Furthermore, we argue that deceptive design should not merely be taken as a set of design choices aimed at misleading players in their efforts to understand the game, but also as decisions devised to give rise to experiential and emotional effects that are in the interest of players. Finally, we propose to introduce a distinction between two varieties of deceptive design approaches based on whether they operate in an overt or a covert fashion in relation to player experience. Our analysis casts light on expressive possibilities that are not customarily part of the dominant paradigm of user-centered design, and can inform game designers in their pursuit of wider and more nuanced creative aspirations.

THE ANGEL OF HISTORY AND THE RUINS OF PARIS: WALTER BENJAMIN IN FRANCE OR THE PROGRESS AS CATASTROPHE

If Walter Benjamin's writings have been mostly interpreted in the fields of art and literature critique, we would like here to take his philosophy of history more seriously, despite its acknowledged lack of unity (Habermas 1988: 32) and systematicity (Arendt 1960: 248). Drawing from the well-known allegory of the “Angel” developed in his theses on the concept of history written at the beginning of the Second World War and just before his death in Port-Bou, we will further analyze his genealogical critique of Parisian modernity contained in the Arcades Project, a work undertook more than a decade before, during his exile in France. In echo with the imagination of prospective ruins which florished during the modernization of the French capital after the 1850's, Benjamin's conception of progress, understood as a catastrophe submitting industrial capitalist societies to a permanent “state of emergency”, is thus combined with the theorization of a “Copernician revolution in the field of historical method” (Benjamin 1999: 348). Beyond Benjamin's phenomenological enterprise of a physiognomy of material modernity, and the romantic and surrealistic sensibility of his “anthropological materialism”, his philosophy of progress inscribes itself in a radical paradigm rendering its centrality to the idea of catastrophe (Anders 1972; Dupuy 2004; Stengers 2009), against the accidental role it holds in the principles of precaution and “responsibility” (Jonas 1979) and in the nowadays dominant paradigm of “risk” (Beck 1986); furthermore, “our” catastrophes would have in a Benjaminian perspective to be diagnosed in the past and the present rather than anticipated for the future. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0793/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Going cold turkey!: An autoethnographic exploration of digital disengagement

As the dust of society-wide digitalisation settles, the search for meaningful technological encounters is becoming more urgent. While the Nordic countries embrace digitalisation, recent concerns regarding technology overuse have been gaining increased attention. This tendency is exemplified in practices of limiting digital use, called digital disengagement – an apparent paradox in Nordic societies where digital is the dominant paradigm. In this article, we explore the emergence of disconnection-centred devices called “dumbphones”, which cater to individuals wishing to escape hyperconnected lifestyles. Drawing on a new materialist perspective, we present a content analysis of dumbphones’ advertising material, followed by a collaborative autoethnographic study in which we replace our smartphones with dumbphones. We critically weigh the promises of the dumbphones against the actual experience of digital disengagement in Sweden. Our findings illustrate a struggle with digital technologies, even despite their absence, due to emerging workarounds and societal expectations of use.

Virtuous Engineers

Modern approaches to engineering ethics typically involve the systematic application of universal abstract principles, reflecting the culturally dominant paradigm of technical rationality. By contrast, virtue ethics recognizes that sensitivity to context and practical judgment are indispensable in particular concrete situations, and therefore focuses on the person who acts, rather than the action itself. Moral and intellectual virtues are identified within a specific social practice in accordance with its proper purpose, its societal role and associated responsibilities, and the internal goods that are unique to it. As a result, ethics is recognized as something integral to engineering, rather than supplemental to it. This is necessary and appropriate, since engineers are often the decision-makers in contexts where the potential beneficiaries and harm-bearers are not the same, such that even their routine technical choices have ethical ramifications.

The principles of evidence-based medicine

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) has transformed clinicians’ approach to the practice of medicine. In most disciplines, EBM is the fundamental component of decision-making driving expectations of the care received by patients and families. To improve outcomes, EBM blends science and compassion to provide personalized, effective treatments, and consistent application of interventions. The ever-increasing demand for palliative care will continue unabated due to longer lifespans and a shift in the approach to disease from primarily acute illnesses to predominantly chronic conditions. The adoption of EBM by palliative care providers will advance the knowledge and practice base, elevating its position among other medical disciplines that have adopted EBM as the dominant paradigm. The framework of EBM informs a systematic and manageable approach to the overwhelming amount of available evidence. Patients will benefit from EBM practices when palliative care practitioners provide the most effective and personalized care tailored each patient’s needs, characteristics, and preferences.