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Background: Psychological research has consistently demonstrated the importance of cognitions in the form of thoughts and images on an individual’s wellbeing. Having pain-related verbal cognitions has been shown to lead to poorer outcomes for patients (McCracken & Turk, 2002). Research in other conditions has shown mental images have a more powerful impact on emotion than verbal cognitions (Holmes & Matthews, 2005). To date however, little work has explored the role of mental imagery in adjustment to chronic pain. Methods Fourteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with individuals with chronic pain. Interview transcripts were analysed according to grounded theory methods to construct a substantive theory of the impact spontaneously-invoked images of pain have on functioning. Results Eight participants reported pain-related imagery and three reported mental images associated with related symptoms. In line with previous findings (Gillanders et al., 2012; Gosden, 2008) the frequency and intensity of pain-related images influenced the degree of distress experienced. There was a distinction made between intrusive mental images and visual descriptions or metaphors of pain. The former being conceptualised as a visual cognition and playing a role in the aetiology and maintenance of distress in chronic pain and therefore an adverse impact on functioning. Conclusion Enhancing our understanding of pain related imagery and its impact on functioning could inform the design of interventions in clinical practice. Working systematically with patients’ idiosyncratic pain related images and the beliefs that are associated with them could be a helpful specific target for therapy.

In recent years, art education has started an on-going discussion on the issue of visual culture. In the past few years this issue also becomes topical due to the necessity to improve art education in Taiwan. Currently, art education based on visual culture has become a very important concern in Taiwan. However, the concept of visual culture has its origin in foreign theories. In order for our art professional to remain independent, it is essential that Taiwanese art teachers begin to address the issue of how to properly incorporate the concept of visual culture into the design of our art curriculum, by applying an educational method entirely based on the unique experiences of Taiwan. Responding to this need, I have tried in my current research to investigate the curriculum design model that is based on visual culture theories, and to combine it with a concept of cultural education that is uniquely Taiwanese. My hope is to provide a curriculum model that is based on native Taiwanese visual culture, which might ease the educators' efforts of turning theory into practice.Therefore, in the present study I will: (1) investigate the importance of applying visual culture to art education; (2) explore the suitability of applying the theory of visual culture to the design of art curriculum in Taiwan; (3) derive from this research a set of curriculum design principles based on the ideas of visual culture art education, which can be applied and linked to the cultural characteristics of Taiwan.

In recent decades, more types and quantities of medical data have been collected due to advanced technology. A large number of significant and critical information is contained in these medical data. High efficient and automated computational methods are urgently needed to process and analyze all available medical data in order to provide the physicians with recommendations and predictions on diagnostic decisions and treatment planning. Traumatic pelvic injury is a severe yet common injury in the United States, often caused by motor vehicle accidents or fall. Information contained in the pelvic Computed Tomography (CT) images is very important for assessing the severity and prognosis of traumatic pelvic injuries. Each pelvic CT scan includes a large number of slices. Meanwhile, each slice contains a large quantity of data that may not be thoroughly and accurately analyzed via simple visual inspection with the desired accuracy and speed. Hence, a computer-assisted pelvic trauma decision-making system is needed to assist physicians in making accurate diagnostic decisions and determining treatment planning in a short period of time. Pelvic bone segmentation is a vital step in analyzing pelvic CT images and assisting physicians with diagnostic decisions in traumatic pelvic injuries. In this study, a new hierarchical segmentation algorithm is proposed to automatically extract multiplelevel bone structures using a combination of anatomical knowledge and computational techniques. First, morphological operations, image enhancement, and edge detection are performed for preliminary bone segmentation. The proposed algorithm then uses a template-based best shape matching method that provides an entirely automated segmentation process. This is followed by the proposed Registered Active Shape Model (RASM) algorithm that extracts pelvic bone tissues using more robust training models than the Standard ASM algorithm. In addition, a novel hierarchical initialization process for RASM is proposed in order to address the shortcoming of the Standard ASM, i.e. high sensitivity to initialization. Two suitable measures are defined to evaluate the segmentation results: Mean Distance and Mis-segmented Area to quantify the segmentation accuracy. Successful segmentation results indicate effectiveness and robustness of the proposed algorithm. Comparison of segmentation performance is also conducted using both the proposed method and the Snake method. A cross-validation process is designed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the training models. 3D pelvic bone models are built after pelvic bone structures are segmented from consecutive 2D CT slices. Automatic and accurate detection of the fractures from segmented bones in traumatic pelvic injuries can help physicians detect the severity of injuries in patients. The extraction of fracture features (such as presence and location of fractures) as well as fracture displacement measurement, are vital for assisting physicians in making faster and more accurate decisions. In this project, after bone segmentation, fracture detection is performed using a hierarchical algorithm based on wavelet transformation, adaptive windowing, boundary tracing and masking. Also, a quantitative measure of fracture severity based on pelvic CT scans is defined and explored. The results are promising, demonstrating that the proposed method not only capable of automatically detecting both major and minor fractures, but also has potentials to be used for clinical applications.

My mixed media paintings explore the concept of home. I showcase topics regarding what a home is and how it connects to one’s identity. My desire to find home, emotionally and literally, has always preoccupied my mind. I have never been able to set deep roots, and that is a very unsettling feeling. My obsession with homes focuses on abandoned houses. These dwellings that people once took so much pride in are now left to rot and decay. The dilapidated state makes me see them as symbolic lost souls. I find similarities between houses and the human experience; houses have a history in the same way that people do. My process begins by taking photographs of these homes and creating image transfers that I apply to old wooden planks. The wooden planks are salvaged from the home because they have a physical connection to the space. I layer my transfers onto the planks with paint, objects, dirt, and wallpaper from the homes. I seal the paintings with encaustic wax or resin to preserve the objects, as a tribute to the things that once held value. By using multiple media and objects, I create textured surfaces that help tell a story about the house. By telling a story, I want to create a second life for these places.

• Abstract Integrated digital imaging systems are widely used in consumer electronics today. Current digital image sensors have a linear respeiiSt. The limited dynamic range of linear digital image sensors results in saturation when the input dynamic range of the scene is larger than that of the camera. This limitation could be overcome using pixels with an output that is proportional to the logarithm of the detected photocurrent. Conventional CMOS pixels with a logarithmic response, using a transistor operating in the sub-threshold region, are capable of capturing wide dynamic range scenes with more than six decades of illumination intensity. But these pixels suffer from fixed pattern noise, slow response and low sensitivity. A five transistor (5T) pixel circuit for a standard 0.35-fLm CMOS process which integrates the photocurrent linearly and capable of a logarithmic response is described in the thesis. A key component of the 5T pixel is a time-dependent reference voltage. This voltage is applied to the gate of one of the transistors inside each pixel in the array for the duration of the exposure to generate a logarithmic response. A model derived to generate the reference voltage is described. Improvements were made to the reference voltage model to take into consideration the non-ideal effects such as charge feedthrough and threshold voltage variations. A potential problem associated with successfully tonemapping low photo currents with the 5T pixel has been described and a method to calculate the optimal value of reference current Iret proposed. This was shown to lead to an optimum photoresponse. Measurement results from fabricated 1-D and 2-D arrays of 5T pixels are presented and analysed. An overall DR of 97-dB (almost 5 decades) has been achieved from 100 mlux to 6.7 Klux. The slope of the logarithmic photoresponse was shown to be adjustable and controlled by the slope parameter S in the reference voltage model. A large output swing of over 1 V due to the large photoresponse slope in the logarithmic region results in greater signal-to-noise ratio compared to the conventional logarithmic pixel based on the subthreshold transistor operation (60 m V/decade). Digital and analogue reference voltage generating techniques are described with circuits implemented in 0.35-fLm CM OS process. Finally, a 5T NMOS pixel that is capable of WDR imaging with superior low-light performance (23 mlux) and greater DR (1l0-dB) than the 5T PMOS pixel is described. [ a

Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / eaders and governments using mechanisms to maintain national interest, power, and security. One such instrument is the use of coercive force or compellence. Compellence is a strategy of control designed to impose change, using limited military or non-military methods, upon an opponent. The United States implements compellence policy through a mixture of key actors who portray powerful images to the rest of the world. Its leaders reinforce these images internally (with self, local, regional, cultural ties) and externally (with others based, foreign perception on a larger international scope). As U.S.-led forces in Iraq affect America's image throughout the Middle East and the world, its image of Iraq remains opaque due to U.S. perception and misperception. Is compellence policy conducive to future U.S.-Iraqi relations? How effective is it? And why did U.S. compellence policy in Iraq succeed on some levels and not on others? This thesis examines the effectiveness of U.S. compellence policy as a viable method in U.S.-Iraqi relations from 1990 to 2003. Key operations and players will be evaluated and an analysis will explore political, social and economic levels of effectiveness of compellence policy in Iraq. / Civilian, Department of Navy

The Karhunen-Loeve Transform (KLT) is a popular transform used in multiple image processing scenarios. Sometimes, the application of the KLT is not carried out as a single transform over an entire image Rather, the image is divided into smaller spatial regions (segments), each of which is transformed by a smaller dimensional KLT. Such a situation may penalize the transform efficiency. An improvement for the segmented KLT, aiming at mitigating discontinuities arising on the edge of adjacent regions, is proposed in this paper. In the case of moderately varying image regions, discontinuities occur as the consequence of disregarded similarity between transform domains, as the order and sign of eigenvectors in the transform matrices are mismatched. In the proposed method, the KLT is adjusted to guarantee the best achievable similarity via the optimal assignment and sign correspondence for eigenvectors. Experimental results indicate that the proposed transform improves the similarity between transform domains, and reduces RMSE on the edge of adjacent regions. In consequence, images processed by the adjusted KLT present better cohesion and continuity between independently transformed regions.

M.Sc. (Computer Science) / A challenge faced when simulating the complex behaviour of cloth, especially at interactive frame rates, is maintaining an acceptable level of realism while keeping computation time to a minimum. A common method used to increase the performance is to decrease the number of nodes controlling the cloth's movement. This results in a significant decrease in the time taken to calculate each frame of the animation, but at the cost of sacrificing detail that can only be obtained using a dense discretisation of the cloth. A simple, efficient and popular method to simulate cloth is the mass-spring system, which utilises a regular grid of vertices representing discrete points along the cloth's surface. The structure of geometry images is similar, which makes them an ideal choice for representing arbitrary surface meshes in a cloth simulator whilst retaining the effciency of a mass-spring system. This dissertation presents a novel method of applying geometry images to cloth simulation in order to obtain cloth motion for surface meshes while retaining the simplicity of a massspring model. By adapting an implicit/explicit integration scheme, and utilising the regular structure of geometry images, an improvement in performance is achieved. Additionally, the cloth is able to drape over other objects, also represented as geometry images. The proposed method is efficient enough to allow fairly dense cloth meshes to be simulated in real-time.

Dissertation in fulfilment of the degree of Master of Arts in Fine Arts by coursework and research report at the University of the Witwatersrand 2014 / My research intends to appropriate and recast Jacques Derrida’s ideas by seeking to interpret the written text as supplementary to photographic images. I use a close reading of Judith Coullie’s introductory text to Selves in Question: Interviews on Southern African Auto/biography (2006) to explore Santu Mofokeng’s representation of his biography and autobiography. Through selected works by Mofokeng, I highlight photographic ways and writing modes of expressing and locating his voice, drawing on the artist’s own subjective reality, memory and metaphor. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in conjunction with the introductory text to Selves in Question serve to provide much historical evidence and contexts to the complexities of writing a personal narrative in an exploration of freedom within the confines of oppression. I nevertheless acknowledge that some narratives are heavily dependent on a collaborative relationship. The negotiated different moments and perspectives that make up various presented narratives are born from spaces and places that act as intersections within the private and public in a constant state of stasis and movement..