“Conducted Properly,Published Incorrectly”: The Evolving Status of Gel Electrophoresis Images Along Instrumental Transformations in Times of Reproducibility Crisis

For the last ten years, within molecular life sciences, the reproducibility crisis discourse has been embodied as a crisis of trust in scientific images. Beyond the contentious perception of “questionable research practices” associated with a digital turn in the production of images, this paper highlights the transformations of gel electrophoresis as a family of experimental techniques. Our aim is to analyze the evolving epistemic status of generated images and its connection with a crisis of trust in images within that field. From the 1980s to the 2000s, we identify two key innovations (precast gels and gel docs) leading to a “two-tiered” gel electrophoresis with different standardization procedures, different epistemic statuses of the produced images and different ways of generating (dis)trust in images. The first tier, exemplified by differential gel electrophoresis (DIGE), is characterized by specialized devices processing images as quantitative data. The second tier, exemplified by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE), is described as a routine technique making use of image as qualitative “virtual witnessing.” The difference between these two tiers is particularly apparent in the ways images are processed, even though both tiers involve image digitization. Our account thus highlights different views on reproducibility within the two tiers. Comparability of images is insisted upon in the first tier while traceability is expected in the second tier. It is striking that these differences occur not only within the same scientific field, but even within the same family of experimental techniques. In the second tier, digitization entails distrust, whereas it implies a collective sentiment of trust in the first tier.     

Images as institution builders: Metropolitan planning in Madrid

This article chronicles recent changes in planning practice. It documents the rise of strategic planning and the move toward proactive planning centered on strategy, marketing, publicity and images. The author studies two cases. One is sub‐regional, of the ‘Great South’ of metropolitan Madrid. The other is regional, of the program ‘Madrid Metropolitan Region’. Planners created physical designs and rhetoric that encapsulated new images for the south and the entire metro area. The planners used the evoking image to craft the strategy, implement it, and build the institutions of regional planning and government. These cases suggest that external images (plans, photos) and internal images (in the mind's eye) are key to understanding how planning processes worked. It reveals the role images played in planning and political discourse, and how discourse was based on the image.     

Active use of panoramic mobile mapping systems for as built surveying and heritage documentation

Mobile mapping systems (MMS) are widely used technology nowadays for spatial data collection of large scale projects like for city and highway mapping. The systems are mainly equipped with laser scanning sensors and/or imaging sensors mounted on a moving vehicle during the scene capture. Imaging sensors are normally cameras which either capture perspective or panoramic images covering the whole horizon of the vehicle. The orientation of the captured panoramic images is accurate to centimeters’ level because of the precise positioning and navigation systems equipped with these mapping systems. However, the positioning accuracy of mobile mapping systems can be degraded in city centers or urban canyons because of the satellite signal disturbances.

In this article, we discuss the following objectives: (1) the possibility to use the mobile mapping images for cultural heritage documentation and as built surveying and how accurate the mapping can be; (2) the concept of using the mobile mapping images as a tool of georeferencing the crowdsource images; and (3) the efficiency of using the multi-temporal mobile mapping images for occluded free cultural heritage facade orthophotos. The mobile mapping systems of CycloMedia with two panoramic products of Cyclorama images (12 MP) and HD Cycloramas (100 MP) are used for the experimental tests in this research article.     

铜川耀州西部的石窟与摩崖造像

2008年我们在陕西省铜川市耀州区西部的小坵镇和照金镇调查了6处石窟与摩崖造像,其中柳家湾摩崖造像、前咀子摩崖造像此前都有记载,其余4处为新发现。柳家湾摩崖造像和前咀子摩崖造像以前被认为是北朝时期的作品,此次根据发愿文及相关特征判断,认为柳家湾摩崖造像为唐代造像,前咀子摩崖造像为北宋造像。新发现的4处均为金代造像。另外还对这6处石窟与摩崖造像的性质作了初步探讨。     

图绘中的雁意象与诗人对画图的解读——以宋代题画诗为例

雁意象受传统文化影响而形成的符号意义影响着观画者对画图的解读及感受,最容易牵扯出观者内心深处的羁旅和乡思之情愁。表现在题画诗中,雁意象多与羁旅和思乡之情相联系。     

陕南出土的摇钱树佛教图像

陕西南部城固和汉中的东汉砖室墓中出土的摇钱树枝和树干上面分别发现佛像以及莲花图案,这是陕西省目前发现的最早的佛像,也是我国发现的最早的佛像之一,对于探讨陕西省佛教艺术的起源具有重要意义.     

Teaching visualised geographies: towards a methodology for the interpretation of visual materials

Abstract

This paper suggests a number of questions which can be used to structure a small‐group discussion about the interpretation of visual images. As many geographers now are demonstrating, geographical knowledges are very often visualised. However, there is currently little on offer methodologically to help students approach the interpretation of visual images critically. This paper hopes to start to remedy this situation. It begins by sketching a theoretical understanding of the meanings of visual images. It then suggests a number of questions that flow from that understanding, which can be addressed to a particular visual image in order to facilitate a discussion about its possible meanings.     

UAV and RPV systems for photogrammetric surveys in archaelogical areas: two tests in the Piedmont region (Italy)

Aerial photogrammetric surveys are usually expensive and the resolution of the acquired images is often limited. For this reason, different innovative systems have been developed and tested in order to perform a photogrammetric survey in an inexpensive way, with high-resolution images. In this context, one of the most promising acquisition techniques is represented by the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) equipped with a digital camera.     

伏虎罗汉、行脚僧、宝胜如来与达摩多罗——11至13世纪中国多民族美术关系史个案分析

本文从分析宁夏贺兰山山嘴沟所见伏虎罗汉入手,梳理了汉藏罗汉图像的差异,重点考察了藏传佛教罗汉中伏虎罗汉、布袋和尚与达摩多罗图像的来源。作者认为,达摩多罗名号与图像的形成与吐蕃禅宗、禅宗保唐派、唐五代行脚僧及其变化的宝胜如来信仰密切相关,并与佛陀波利以及流行于两宋的布袋和尚信仰相互交织。论文解释了新罗僧与宝胜如来的信仰如何引发藏传罗汉达摩多罗与宁夏贺兰山之间特殊的联系,这些错综复杂的信仰与图像演变是中国11—13世纪多民族美术关系史的集中映现。     

中原北方宋辽金时期涅槃图像考察

中原北方宋辽金时期涅槃图像,具有时代共通性的一面,同时呈现东部地区与西部地区的地域差异。在图像表现方面,两地区涅槃图像不同程度地继承了唐代因素,相对来说,东部地区沿用的唐代因素较多;西部地区在唐代基础上又部分地吸收了东部地区宋代因素,并获得新发展。在图像内涵方面,东部地区表现为涅槃与弥勒佛组合,延续了传统图像的做法,着意表述佛法传承的意图。涅檗与三身佛组合是这一时期的新现象,反映了大乘佛教权道、化现思想。西部地区表现为涅槃、罗汉、横三世佛(释迦·弥勒·阿弥陀)组合,一方面强调了罗汉守护和传承佛法的作用,另一方面凸显信徒向往并期望将来往生净土世界的心态。东西两地区有关摩耶夫人画面的流行,与当时社会大力倡导孝行的情况密切关联。涅槃升仙图像则是佛教进一步世俗化的表现。     

再论四川的菩提瑞像

本文通过四川菩提瑞像的组合形式及国内其它地区同期遗存的相同造像的状况,论述了此类像之定名应称作菩提瑞像为宜,并指出它的流行是唐代瑞像崇拜的结果,同时分析了其与佛顶佛和大日如来像之关系。     

An investigation of the fractal properties of flint microwear images

This paper reports on an investigation into the fractal dimensions of flint microwear images which has been carried out in an attempt to resolve the existing controversy over the possibility of identifying microwear types from visual inspection of high magnification images, and describes a new method for flint microwear image analysis based on fractal geometry. Fractal dimensions of surface images, which are known to relate well to human visual perception of roughness, have been computed for various types of microwear. No significant correlations have been found between the fractal properties of the digital flint images and the contacted materials.     

Circulation as a Visual Practice**

This special issue looks at some of the ways that images are adopted, co-opted, and adapted in the life sciences and beyond. It brings together papers that investigate the role of visualization in scientific knowledge-production with contributions that focus on the distribution and dissemination of knowledge to a broader audience. A commentary provides a critical perspective. In this editorial we introduce circulation as a practice to better understand scientific images. Along two themes, we highlight connections across the papers. First, the social life of scientific representation follows the contexts, settings, and spaces through which images circulate. Second, authorship, expertise, and trust inform the capacity and the failure of images to circulate. Altogether, this volume raises a set of new questions about circulation as practice in the historiography of images in the life sciences.     

Relational alterity: Constructing dungan (hui), uygur,and Kazakh identities across china,central Asia,and Turkey

Reaching wide and diverse audiences, magic lantern shows and postcards played an important role in the dissemination of visual knowledge of other cultures in the British colonial era. Fakirs were a popular subject of postcards and lantern slides representing India. This reflected the official attention paid to religious ascetics who were seen as representative of everything that was problematic and in need of improvement in the country in colonial texts. Images of fakirs stood in a tradition of the representation of the “type”. However, following Barthes, it is important to analyse the connection between image and text. Lantern shows came with readings, which were more often preserved than images, but specific examples of images and texts together are taken from Harold Mackinder's and John Stoddard's lectures on India. The lectures are evidently anchored in the colonial discourse, while the images of postcards and slides evade the boundaries set by the text.     

Images of the third world: teaching a geography of the third world

Abstract

This paper focuses on how to teach undergraduate students to analyse critically various received images of the Third World. This is achieved through the use of a detailed practical exercise which is based on poster, newspaper and map representation of the Third World. The concepts of identity, positionality and representation are reviewed and there is a discussion of how an awareness of these concepts should help students understand the influencing power of stereotypical images of distant others.     

PHOTOGRAPHS, SYMBOLIC IMAGES, AND THE HOLOCAUST: ON THE (IM)POSSIBILITY OF DEPICTING HISTORICAL TRUTH

Photography has often been scrutinized regarding its relationship to reality or historical truth. This includes not only the indexicality of photography, but also the question of how structures and processes that comprise history and historical events can be depicted. In this context, the Holocaust provides a particular challenge to photography. As has been discussed in numerous publications, this historic event marks the "limits of representation." Nevertheless there are many photographs "showing" the Holocaust that have been produced in different contexts that bespeak the photographers' gaze and the circumstances of the photographs' production. Some of the pictures have become very well known due to their frequent reproduction, even though they often do not show the annihilation itself, but situations different from that; their interpretation as Holocaust pictures results rather from a metonymic deferral. When these pictures are frequently reproduced they are transformed into symbolic images, that is, images that can be removed from their specific context, and in this way they come to signify abstract concepts such as "evil." Despite being removed from their specific context these images can, as this essay argues, refer to historical truth. First, I explore the arguments of some key theorists of photography (Benjamin, Kracauer, Sontag, Barthes) to investigate the relationship between photography and reality in general, looking at their different concepts of reality, history, and historical truth, as well as the question of the meaning of images. Second, I describe the individual circumstances in which some famous Holocaust pictures were taken in order to analyze, by means of three examples, the question what makes these specific pictures so particularly suitable to becoming symbolic images and why they may—despite their abstract meaning—be able to depict historical truth.     

莫高窟第172窟北壁建筑图像的三维数字化呈现

莫高窟第172窟北壁的建筑图像是敦煌壁画中最具盛唐建筑风格的典型代表作。本研究以探索敦煌壁画中二维建筑图像三维数字化呈现的方法为目标,以第172窟北壁中央的前殿图像为例,综合利用史料文献和实证材料,进行基于有限数据资料与结构逻辑推导的推测性研究,并集成运用图像处理软件(Adobe PhotoShop、Adobe Illustrator)和三维建模软件(SketchUp、Rhino),建立了第172窟北壁中央前殿的三维彩色模型,实现了壁画中的建筑图像从二维到三维的虚拟转变,相对科学、客观地再现了壁画中的建筑形象。通过3D打印等快速成型技术和虚拟投屏等展示利用手段,深度挖掘技术成果价值,扩展了壁画遗产的价值阐释与展示深度,带给观者超现实的空间体验。     

The brains in Brain: the coevolution of localization and its images

Images of brain localization from Brain's inception to the present are analyzed. Textual representations and their accompanying images are shown to coevolve; that is, the technological and conceptual development of the research program of localization is shown to evolve simultaneously with the exploitation of visual resources that support these developments. The semiotics of Peirce, the social semiotics of Kress and van Leeuwen, and the insights of Gestalt psychology provide a critical vocabulary with which to describe and to analyze these visual resources. I conclude that brain images evolve in a manner that reflects the uniformity in measuring instruments and the increase in their precision in the localization of brain functions; at the same time, they draw attention away from a persistent constraint: the brain functions so precisely localized are just those that are not constitutive of our humanity.