This study aims to accomplish two tasks: First, it is argued that an &lsquo / ethical transcendental philosophy&rsquo / is possible with Levinas. Second, the concepts that bear this possibility to a philosophically acceptable level of cogency can be clarified. Philosopher&rsquo / s position in history of philosophy suggests a kind of &lsquo / externality&rsquo / in the sense that he is not within the realm of very tradition. Levinas&rsquo / predisposition is rather to employ what he calls &lsquo / peri-phrases&rsquo / that hinder the philosopher to settle in the existing structure of concepts (read as Greek language). This position can also be read as a resistance to dominating forms of knowledge. Levinas takes this attitude as an important point of resistance against Western metaphysics that puts the ontology at the center. Against this tradition, he celebrates both the &lsquo / encounter with the Other&rsquo / as a pilot point in ethics, one that all rest of which follows from, and the priority of &lsquo / the Good&rsquo / . In such a way, &lsquo / I&rsquo / has been put into question in its gay independence without any reference to self contained totality, of the kind which is &lsquo / self intelligible&rsquo / . This attachment that is infinition, of infinity helps us experience not a totality, but &lsquo / otherwise than being&rsquo / . This attitute might resonate with the Kantian attempt displacing knowledge in order to make room for morality. However, a closer reading would notice that there is another agenda here, one that attempts to go to a status of pre-rationality, beyond rationality, so to speak an agenda that radicalizes the Kantian attempt. Derrida, a philosopher who showed that this attempt was just impossible, impossible in the sense that it was contaminated at the very beginning, skillfully benefits from the very inspiration Levinas has provided with. All these attempts and conceptual suggestions have been examined and analyzed, and the Levinasian inspiration has been tried to be elucidated.

This thesis analyzes Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari&#039 / s &quot / faciality&quot / , which is not handled in a Deleuzian sense. The opposition between pop philosophy and the face has been studied in order to draw Deleuzian as well as non Deleuzian connections between pop philosophy, literature, theather, painting and advertising. Since Deleuze calls philosophy as the &quot / art of surfaces&quot / , each concept has been taken as a surface to walk on. Not only the author of this thesis but also the face itself takes a walk on &quot / a thousand plateaus&quot / , breaks into pop philosophy and reverses Deleuzian concepts such as &quot / difference&quot / and &quot / repetition&quot / . Deleuzian concepts and non Deleuzian concepts face each other &quot / in/on&quot / faciality. Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Lewis Carroll, Herman Melville, Antonin Artaud, Francis Bacon, Nikolai Gogol, Edmond Rostand, Carlo Collodi, Franz Kafka, Oscar Wilde, Guiseppe Arcimbolde and Commedia dell&#039 / Arte shed light on this thesis in order to reveal the faciality in &quot / faciality&quot / .

臨床上我們觀察到：自閉症患者在社會互動上有明顯障礙。因此，我們企圖在這個大問題下，以社會互動中最主要的訊息來源—臉部表情為出發點，探討自閉症者所知覺的世界中，他們如何處理臉部表情所展現的情緒訊息及社會意義。 根據文獻回顧，我們知道：臉孔辨識歷程與一般物體辨識歷程不盡相同而有其特性。相較於一般物體，臉孔辨識更需依賴對輪廓構型訊息的有效掌握。因此，本研究企圖回答以下問題：「自閉症患者在辨識他人臉部表情上是否有所缺陷」？如果是的話，（1）「自閉症患者在辨識他人臉部表情上的缺陷係因臉孔辨識的機制上有所缺陷嗎」？還是（2）「自閉症患者在辨識他人臉部表情上的缺陷是因從他人臉部表情讀取情緒訊息上有所困難」？本研究試圖以人臉辨識與表情辨識的差異性，並改良過去研究在方法學上的爭議以回答這兩個問題。 實驗一「人臉辨識」作業以立即比對作業與延宕配對作業，檢驗自閉症組、發展遲緩組、一般兒童組及成人組其在物體與臉孔之倒立效果。研究結果顯示：除了自閉症組外，三組受試者在人臉辨識的作業表現上，都有相當穩定的臉孔倒立效果，自閉症組的臉孔倒立效果顯著地較其它三組小，而在物體辨識上與常人無異，此與「中樞連貫缺陷」假設相符應：自閉症患者在高層次知覺的困難在於他們無法從環境中將訊息加以整合，擅於以局部特徵來理解，並認為這是使他們產生較小的臉孔倒立效果之因。實驗一顯示：自閉症患者的確「在辨識他人臉部表情上有所困難」，卻「並非因其在臉孔辨識的機制上有所缺陷」。 因此，我們第二個研究問題即是：「自閉症患者在辨識他人臉部表情上的缺陷是因從他人臉部表情讀取情緒訊息上有所困難嗎」？因此，實驗二以同一組臉孔刺激材料，以人臉辨識與情緒辨識作業，以探討自閉症組、一般兒童組與發展遲緩組的作業表現。從實驗二所得到的結果也支持這樣的看法。在實驗二的「人臉辨識」作業中，要求受試者對目標人臉進行辨識時，三組受試者所受到的「臉部表情干擾效果」並無顯著差異。但在實驗二的「表情辨識」作業中，當要求受試者對目標情緒進行辨識時便發現：自閉症組在辨識臉部表情上的缺陷，極大部分是發生在辨識不同人的表情變化情境下。而之所以自閉症患者在辨識同一人的表情相同與否表現較佳，依據「中樞連貫缺陷」假設的看法則認為，自閉症患者使用他們擅長以局部特徵瞭解整體的能力克服在他們在處理作業上的困難。此外，實驗二對兩作業表現的比較結果亦支持：大腦對於辨識人臉以及辨識情緒顯示是由不同的系統進行處理。 因此從本研究的兩個實驗，我們可以清楚地回答：自閉症患者在辨識他人臉部表情上的困難確實非因臉孔辨識的機制上有所缺陷而是從他人臉部表情讀取並理解情緒訊息上有所困難，尤其是發生在辨識不同人的表情變化情境下。而之所以自閉症患者在辨識同一人的表情表現較佳，是因為自閉症患者使用其擅長以局部特徵瞭解整體的能力克服在他們在處理作業上的困難。而自閉症患者在這些作業中的種種行為表現，都可以運用「中樞連貫缺陷」假設得到不錯的解釋。

No description available.

The mammalian visual system has a remarkable capacity of processing a large amount of information within milliseconds under widely varying conditions into invariant representations. Recently a model of the primary visual system exploited the unique feature of dense local excitatory connectivity of the neo-cortex to match these criteria. The model rapidly generates invariant representations integrating the activity of spatially distributed modeled neurons into a so-called Temporal Population Code (TPC). In this thesis, we first investigate an issue that has persisted TPC since its introduction: to extend the concept to a biologically compatible readout stage. We propose a novel neural readout circuit based on wavelet transform that decodes the TPC over different frequency bands. We show that, in comparison with pure linear readouts used previously, the proposed system provides a robust, fast and highly compact representation of visual input. We then generalized this optimized encoding-decoding paradigm to deal with a number of robotics application in real-world tasks to investigate its robustness. Our results show that complex stimuli such as human faces, hand gestures and environmental cues can be reliably encoded by TPC which provides a powerful biologically plausible framework for real-time object recognition. In addition, our results suggest that the representation of sensory input can be built into a spatial-temporal code interpreted and parsed in series of wavelet like components by higher visual areas. / El sistema visual dels mamífers té una remarcable capacitat per processar informació en intervals de temps de mili-segons sota condicions molt variables i adquirir representacions invariants d'aquesta informació. Recentment un model del còrtex primari visual explota les característiques d'alta connectivitat excitatriu local del neocortex per modelar aquestes capacitats. El model integra ràpidament l'activitat repartida espaialment de les neurones i genera codificacions invariants que s'anomenen Temporal Population Codes (TPC). Aquí investiguem una qüestió que ha persistit des de la introducció del TPC: estudiar un procés biològicament possible capaç de fer la lectura d'aquestes codificacions. Nosaltres proposem un nou circuit neuronal de lectura basat en la Wavelet Transform que decodifica la senyal TPC en diferents intervals de freqüència. Monstrem que, comparat amb lectures purament lineals utilitzades previament, el sistema proposat proporciona una representació robusta, ràpida i compacta de l'entrada visual. També presentem una generalització d'aquest paradigma de codificació-decodificació optimitzat que apliquem a diferents tasques de visió per computador i a la visió dins del context de la robòtica. Els resultats del nostre estudi suggereixen que la representació d'escenes visuals complexes, com cares humanes, gestos amb les mans i senyals del medi ambient podrien ser codificades pel TPC el qual es pot considerar un poderós marc biològic per reconeixement d'objectes en temps real. A més a més, els nostres resultats suggereixen que la representació de l'entrada sensorial pot ser integrada en un codi espai-temporal interpretat i analitzat en una serie de components Wavelet per àrees visuals superiors.

Fractals are popular because of their ability to create complex images using only several simple codes. This is possible by capturing image redundancy and presenting the image in compressed form using the self similarity feature. For many years fractals were used for image compression. In the last few years they have also been used for face recognition. In this research we present new fractal methods for recognition, especially human face recognition. This research introduces three new methods for using fractals for face recognition, the use of fractal codes directly as features, Fractal image-set coding and Subfractals. In the first part, the mathematical principle behind the application of fractal image codes for recognition is investigated. An image Xf can be represented as Xf = A x Xf + B which A and B are fractal parameters of image Xf . Different fractal codes can be presented for any arbitrary image. With the defnition of a fractal transformation, T(X) = A(X - Xf ) + Xf , we can define the relationship between any image produced in the fractal decoding process starting with any arbitrary image X0 as Xn = Tn(X) = An(X - Xf ) + Xf . We show that some choices for A or B lead to faster convergence to the final image. Fractal image-set coding is based on the fact that a fractal code of an arbitrary gray-scale image can be divided in two parts - geometrical parameters and luminance parameters. Because the fractal codes for an image are not unique, we can change the set of fractal parameters without significant change in the quality of the reconstructed image. Fractal image-set coding keeps geometrical parameters the same for all images in the database. Differences between images are captured in the non-geometrical or luminance parameters - which are faster to compute. For recognition purposes, the fractal code of a query image is applied to all the images in the training set for one iteration. The distance between an image and the result after one iteration is used to define a similarity measure between this image and the query image. The fractal code of an image is a set of contractive mappings each of which transfer a domain block to its corresponding range block. The distribution of selected domain blocks for range blocks in an image depends on the content of image and the fractal encoding algorithm used for coding. A small variation in a part of the input image may change the contents of the range and domain blocks in the fractal encoding process, resulting in a change in the transformation parameters in the same part or even other parts of the image. A subfractal is a set of fractal codes related to range blocks of a part of the image. These codes are calculated to be independent of other codes of the other parts of the same image. In this case the domain blocks nominated for each range block must be located in the same part of the image which the range blocks come from. The proposed fractal techniques were applied to face recognition using the MIT and XM2VTS face databases. Accuracies of 95% were obtained with up to 156 images.

Mental-state and emotion understanding are important constructs for successful interpretation of behaviour and interaction with others. While false-belief understanding has been the main focus of investigations into children�s mentalising over the past 30 years, we now have tasks available that allow assessment of a broader range and more advanced set of mentalising skills amongst older age groups of typically developing young people (Baron-Cohen, Jolliffe, Mortimore, & Robertson, 1997a; Baron-Cohen, O�Riordan, Stone, Jones, & Plaisted, 1999; Happé, 1994). A recent trend has seen a shift away from investigating when children attain these skills towards examining individual differences in their performance. This has included consideration of both the factors that contribute to (Carlson & Moses, 2001; Hughes & Dunn, 1997; Meins et al., 2002; Milligan, Astington, & Dack, 2007; Ruffman, Slade, & Crowe, 2002), and the factors that are influenced by (Astington & Jenkins, 2000; Cassidy, Werner, Rourke, Zubernis, & Balaraman, 2003; Diesendruck & Ben-Eliyahu, Repacholi, Slaughter, Pritchard, & Gibbs, 2003) individual differences in mental-state understanding. One of the interesting questions in this area is what are the subsequent benefits or harm that individual differences in mentalising and emotion skills hold for children�s social competence? The current study investigates young people�s growing socioemotional understanding and how it is related to their social abilities, both prosocial and antisocial. The aims were to provide information on the relations amongst advanced mental-state skills, to investigate how these skills were related to emotion understanding, and, further, to investigate how socioemotional skills were related to social competence. The current study also extended the literature by addressing these aims amongst older children. Two studies were conducted, involving children (4- to 7-years) seen on four occasions in a three-year longitudinal study, and adolescents (13- to 17-years) in a cross-sectional study. There were a number of key findings. Individual differences in children�s advanced mental-state understanding are relatively stable across time, and the relations which they show with emotion skills are more consistent when examining tasks that shared skill sets. Language plays an important mediating role in the relation between socioemotional skills, although this influence appears to decrease with age. Mental-state and emotion understanding are both important for children and adolescents� social competence. It seems that greater socioemotional abilities influence prosocial behaviours, and poorer socioemotional abilities influence antisocial behaviours. Overall, the current study provides evidence that socioemotional skills are overlapping but distinct constructs, that they show varied interactions in social settings, and that future investigations of how children come to understand and interact with others will be best served by careful consideration of appropriate measures and by including multiple aspects of children�s social cognition.

As a fundamental concept in communication in general and intercultural communication in particular, politeness has become a central topic in the research literature. The critical review of the relevant literature shows that the existing theories of politeness do not satisfactorily explain politeness behaviour across cultures, especially politeness behaviour of people in Asian Confucian cultures. Influential theories of politeness have so far focused primarily on the linguistic presentation of politeness (i.e., linguistics politeness) and viewed the individual desire to be free from imposition as the main motivation for politeness, whereas other social and interpersonal motivational concerns for politeness behaviour and the cultural values underlying politeness behaviour are marginalised in the current literature. Additionally, existing theories of politeness are more centred on Anglo-cultural language, particularly English and English-speaking cultures. Intercultural contexts where misunderstandings most probably occur as a result of the differences in cultural values are under-represented in the literature on communication and politeness. Given the widely recognized influence of Confucianism on communication in major Asian cultures, the present study aims to explore how well Confucian theory and principles are able to describe and elucidate Vietnamese politeness in Vietnamese – Anglo-cultural interactions. The goal of the study is to show how an alternative value system can operate in politeness in intercultural communication contexts. It helps bridge the gap in the literature by exploring Vietnamese politeness motivational concerns and their (non)imposition acts in their interactions with Anglo-culturals in intercultural workplace contexts in non-governmental organizations in Vietnam. The results show that the politeness behaviour of Vietnamese working in intercultural contexts is more influenced by their Confucian orientation to interpersonal harmony rather than by their desire to be free from imposition. In addition, the Vietnamese decision to perform an imposition act on their Anglo-cultural colleagues, and about the level of imposition, is significantly influenced by their perception of the potential benefit of their act toward the Anglo-cultural, and by their perception of the social distance between themselves and the Anglo-cultural with whom they are interacting. On the basis of its findings, the present study supports the need for major amendments to the current literature on politeness. It also proposes further implications for more effective communication between Vietnamese and Anglo-culturals in intercultural workplace contexts, and for language teaching.

Estuarine ecosystems are under enormous stress due to rapid coastal developments and climate change. Proper management of these important ecosystems requires a good understanding of their key processes. In this thesis, riparian groundwater-surface water interaction is explored for an aquifer-estuary system primarily by a series of numerical experiments. The work focuses on riparian-scale groundwater flow and salinization. The overall aim of the study was to extend our understanding of aquifer-estuary exchange, which is currently centered on the lower marine estuarine reach, to middle estuaries (i.e., the estuary reach that has variable salinity). The numerical experiments were guided by previous studies and observations made from an exploratory field investigation conducted in and next to Sandy Creek, a macro-tidal estuary incised in the alluvial aquifer of the Pioneer Valley, North-eastern Australia (Longitude 49.11°, Latitude -21.27°). The following observations were made from the field investigation: Sandy Creek estuary experiences a variable salinity regime in its mid reaches that consists of periods of 1) freshwater flushing due to up catchment-derived flooding, 2) persistent freshwater conditions for at least 2 months following the flooding, 3) tidal salinity fluctuations and 4) constant near-seawater salinity; laterally extensive and disconnected aquitards were found to occur at the field site; Sandy Creek had an essentially ‘vertical’ bank slope. Numerical simulations were conducted using the finite element modeling code FEFLOW for saturated unsaturated, variable-density groundwater flow and solute transport, to examine the influence of the following factors on aquifer-estuary exchange: a tidally varying estuarine salinity and hydraulic head, a seasonal freshwater flush (i.e., estuary with freshwater and an elevated stage due to an up catchment sourced flood), near estuary aquitard layers, lateral asymmetry (about the estuary centerline) in hydraulic conductivity and regional hydraulic gradients. The simulations neglected seepage face development after numerical experiments showed that for a vertical bank estuary interacting with a sandy loam aquifer, seepage face effects on groundwater flow and associated salinity distribution were minimal. The following observations were drawn from the range of numerical experiments considered. Tidal salinity fluctuations in the estuary (varying between 0 and 1 - i.e., using a relative salinity scale where a salinity of 1 is seawater) produced flow paths and residence times that were distinctly different to the constant seawater salinity case. While the constant average 0.5 salinity case and the corresponding tidally-varying salinity case (i.e., salinity varying between 0 and 1) produced somewhat comparable results in terms of RUC and RLC (RUC represents groundwater discharge to the estuary that originated from recharge to the estuary bank and RLC groundwater discharge to the estuary that originated from recharge through the estuary bed), whereas flow paths and the total salt mass in the aquifer differed. Freshwater flushing simulations indicated that the near-estuary aquifer responds rapidly to a 2-day ‘wet season’ flushing event with a short-lived freshwater lens created through freshening of the hyporheic zone. Annual cycling of the seasonal flushing led to significant disruption of the estuary water circulation in the aquifer thereby impacting on residence times, transport pathways, and RUC and RLC, and acting to potentially remobilize groundwater and contaminants previously trapped in continuous and semi-continuous re-circulation cells. Although groundwater flow paths determined using tide-averaged velocity vectors were representative of flow paths from transient tidally driven flow vector field, residence times calculated from the two flow fields were markedly different. The influence of riparian scale aquitards and lateral asymmetry (about the estuary centreline) in hydraulic gradients and hydraulic conductivity on groundwater flow and associated salinity distribution was also found to be sensitive to estuarine salinity conditions. The results indicate that observations made about aquifer-estuary interaction in the lower estuary may not be directly applicable to the middle estuary. According to the simulations, tidal salinity variations in the estuary are important factors that affect hyporheic-riparian salt transport processes and that the use of a time averaged estuarine salinity as an approximation to variable salinity conditions is unsuitable for the accurate prediction of the near-estuary dynamics in middle estuaries. This study was based on a two dimensional representation of the riparian scale interaction and it is clear that future research needs to focus on the three-dimensionality of the aquifer-estuary system, incorporating spatially and temporally varying flow and transport characteristics. That is, many estuaries are tortuous and the aquifer geology spatially complex such that assumptions required for the two-dimensional section will most likely restrict application to the field. The tidal dynamics in the middle estuary is also expected to generate three dimensional aspects to the aquifer-estuary interaction. Thus further investigation that explicitly models the hydrodynamics and salt transport in the estuary and estuarine morphology is required to refine the insight provided by the simple conceptual model adopted in this study.

Estuarine ecosystems are under enormous stress due to rapid coastal developments and climate change. Proper management of these important ecosystems requires a good understanding of their key processes. In this thesis, riparian groundwater-surface water interaction is explored for an aquifer-estuary system primarily by a series of numerical experiments. The work focuses on riparian-scale groundwater flow and salinization. The overall aim of the study was to extend our understanding of aquifer-estuary exchange, which is currently centered on the lower marine estuarine reach, to middle estuaries (i.e., the estuary reach that has variable salinity). The numerical experiments were guided by previous studies and observations made from an exploratory field investigation conducted in and next to Sandy Creek, a macro-tidal estuary incised in the alluvial aquifer of the Pioneer Valley, North-eastern Australia (Longitude 49.11°, Latitude -21.27°). The following observations were made from the field investigation: Sandy Creek estuary experiences a variable salinity regime in its mid reaches that consists of periods of 1) freshwater flushing due to up catchment-derived flooding, 2) persistent freshwater conditions for at least 2 months following the flooding, 3) tidal salinity fluctuations and 4) constant near-seawater salinity; laterally extensive and disconnected aquitards were found to occur at the field site; Sandy Creek had an essentially ‘vertical’ bank slope. Numerical simulations were conducted using the finite element modeling code FEFLOW for saturated unsaturated, variable-density groundwater flow and solute transport, to examine the influence of the following factors on aquifer-estuary exchange: a tidally varying estuarine salinity and hydraulic head, a seasonal freshwater flush (i.e., estuary with freshwater and an elevated stage due to an up catchment sourced flood), near estuary aquitard layers, lateral asymmetry (about the estuary centerline) in hydraulic conductivity and regional hydraulic gradients. The simulations neglected seepage face development after numerical experiments showed that for a vertical bank estuary interacting with a sandy loam aquifer, seepage face effects on groundwater flow and associated salinity distribution were minimal. The following observations were drawn from the range of numerical experiments considered. Tidal salinity fluctuations in the estuary (varying between 0 and 1 - i.e., using a relative salinity scale where a salinity of 1 is seawater) produced flow paths and residence times that were distinctly different to the constant seawater salinity case. While the constant average 0.5 salinity case and the corresponding tidally-varying salinity case (i.e., salinity varying between 0 and 1) produced somewhat comparable results in terms of RUC and RLC (RUC represents groundwater discharge to the estuary that originated from recharge to the estuary bank and RLC groundwater discharge to the estuary that originated from recharge through the estuary bed), whereas flow paths and the total salt mass in the aquifer differed. Freshwater flushing simulations indicated that the near-estuary aquifer responds rapidly to a 2-day ‘wet season’ flushing event with a short-lived freshwater lens created through freshening of the hyporheic zone. Annual cycling of the seasonal flushing led to significant disruption of the estuary water circulation in the aquifer thereby impacting on residence times, transport pathways, and RUC and RLC, and acting to potentially remobilize groundwater and contaminants previously trapped in continuous and semi-continuous re-circulation cells. Although groundwater flow paths determined using tide-averaged velocity vectors were representative of flow paths from transient tidally driven flow vector field, residence times calculated from the two flow fields were markedly different. The influence of riparian scale aquitards and lateral asymmetry (about the estuary centreline) in hydraulic gradients and hydraulic conductivity on groundwater flow and associated salinity distribution was also found to be sensitive to estuarine salinity conditions. The results indicate that observations made about aquifer-estuary interaction in the lower estuary may not be directly applicable to the middle estuary. According to the simulations, tidal salinity variations in the estuary are important factors that affect hyporheic-riparian salt transport processes and that the use of a time averaged estuarine salinity as an approximation to variable salinity conditions is unsuitable for the accurate prediction of the near-estuary dynamics in middle estuaries. This study was based on a two dimensional representation of the riparian scale interaction and it is clear that future research needs to focus on the three-dimensionality of the aquifer-estuary system, incorporating spatially and temporally varying flow and transport characteristics. That is, many estuaries are tortuous and the aquifer geology spatially complex such that assumptions required for the two-dimensional section will most likely restrict application to the field. The tidal dynamics in the middle estuary is also expected to generate three dimensional aspects to the aquifer-estuary interaction. Thus further investigation that explicitly models the hydrodynamics and salt transport in the estuary and estuarine morphology is required to refine the insight provided by the simple conceptual model adopted in this study.