The Analysis of the Spatial Production Mechanism and the Coupling Coordination Degree of the Danwei Compound Based on the Spatial Ternary Dialectics

With the gradual deepening of the development of high-quality urban transformation, the “Danwei Compound” urban space production method constitutes the basis of Chinese current urban spatial transformation. The transformation plan of the original danwei compound “stock” to promote the healthy development of urban society has become the focus of research. First, with the help of Lefebvre’s space production theory, combined with the spatial transformation characteristics of its own structural form experienced by the Chinese urban danwei compound, the space production is divided into three stages, namely, the diversity-orderly type average space of the danwei compound system period, dispersed type abstract space of the commercial enclosed community period, and the integrated differential space of a livable community undergoing regeneration and transformation. At each stage, the government, market, and residents have different influences on time-space production. Secondly, using Hefei’s typical danwei compound as the research carrier, according to the space ternary dialectics, a multi-level analysis of “representations of space-representational space-spatial practice” is carried out on the production mechanism, and the logic of different types of spaces in different periods are described. Among them, the representations of space of the change of the danwei compound are the interrelationship of multiple governance subjects in different periods, such as changes in the implementation degree of governance strategies, the degree of residents’ community governance participation, residents’ satisfaction with community governance, etc. The representational space is the residents’ community perception and interpersonal relationship at different transition stages, Interpersonal trust, and other social relations’ changes. Spatial practice is manifested in changes in the support of public service facilities, public space, per capita living area, building quality, architectural style, and illegal building area. Finally, the three-dimensional space dialectical coupling coordination degree model is used to analyze and compare the representations of space of typical settlements in the three stages and the coupling characteristics of the representational space and the practice of space. On this basis, we provide innovative ideas and put forward relevant measures and suggestions for the regeneration, transformation, and development of livable areas.

Distributed Feedforward and Feedback Processing across Perisylvian Cortex Supports Human Speech

Speech production is a complex human function requiring continuous feedforward commands together with reafferent feedback processing. These processes are carried out by distinct frontal and posterior cortical networks, but the degree and timing of their recruitment and dynamics remain unknown. We present a novel deep learning architecture that translates neural signals recorded directly from cortex to an interpretable representational space that can reconstruct speech. We leverage state-of-the-art learnt decoding networks to disentangle feedforward vs. feedback processing. Unlike prevailing models, we find a mixed cortical architecture in which frontal and temporal networks each process both feedforward and feedback information in tandem. We elucidate the timing of feedforward and feedback related processing by quantifying the derived receptive fields. Our approach provides evidence for a surprisingly mixed cortical architecture of speech circuitry together with decoding advances that have important implications for neural prosthetics.

Clustering and enhanced classification using a hybrid quantum autoencoder

Quantum machine learning (QML) is a rapidly growing area of research at the intersection of classical machine learning and quantum information theory. One area of considerable interest is the use of QML to learn information contained within quantum states themselves. In this work, we propose a novel approach in which the extraction of information from quantum states is undertaken in a classical representational-space, obtained through the training of a hybrid quantum autoencoder (HQA). Hence, given a set of pure states, this variational QML algorithm learns to identify – and classically represent – their essential distinguishing characteristics, subsequently giving rise to a new paradigm for clustering and semi-supervised classification. The analysis and employment of the HQA model are presented in the context of amplitude encoded states – which in principle can be extended to arbitrary states for the analysis of structure in non-trivial quantum data sets.

A Projective Site: Inhabiting the Metaphorical Interval between the Instrumental and Symbolic Meanings of Architecture

<p>Historically, there have been two ways of perceiving space that have been considered opposed to one another and that have significant implications for the way in which architecture is understood. The first is real space, which relates to the direct, sensory and embodied perceptions of architecture as built. This space generates the symbolic meanings of architecture and is understood as our primary way of understanding space. The Second is the analytical, measured space of representation - the drawings and models architects make, which have historically been called the instrumental as they are instruments in the description of architecture. This work challenges that these are independent and oppositional ways of understanding space. I argue that this perceived separation perpetuates the notion of the instrumental and symbolic meanings of architecture to be held in a dichotomous relationship. The aim of this research is to reorient the instrumental and symbolic meanings of architecture toward a reciprocal relationship by examining their presence within both real and representational space. The research first explores the distinct characteristics of real and representational space that have perpetuated the notion they are distinct entities. Once these characteristics are identified, two central case studies explore ways in which they are translated through real and representational space in order to engender a more meaningful reciprocity. Referencing Michael Webb’s Temple Island (1966 - ongoing) and Guarino Guarini’s Santissima Sindone in Turin (1667-1694) as revealing examples, this thesis argues that the qualities of real and representational space are constantly permeating the assumed boundaries of each other, and that consequently, an architectural space exists between them. Indeed, this thesis aims to examine the existence of a metaphorical interval between a physical building, and its representation in drawings and modeling. This research proposes that pure instrumentality is an illusion, maintaining its legitimacy through a self-imposed autonomy. The research concludes in a design project that suggests a more complex form of inhabiting architecture may challenge the gap between real and representational space, and by extension the separation of the instrumental and symbolic meanings of architecture. It sets out to achieve this through an allegorical investigation exploring a more complex way to occupy architecture - where both real space and the space of representation can be occupied simultaneously. The design research seeks to dissolve the distinctions between how architecture is designed and represented, and how it is understood experientially as built. The thesis concludes that by collapsing the sensory, embodied complexities of real space, with the abstract, analytical characteristics of representational space, the instrumental and symbolic meanings of architecture can be understood in a reciprocal relationship, where one gives structure and meaning to the other.</p>

A Projective Site: Inhabiting the Metaphorical Interval between the Instrumental and Symbolic Meanings of Architecture

<p>Historically, there have been two ways of perceiving space that have been considered opposed to one another and that have significant implications for the way in which architecture is understood. The first is real space, which relates to the direct, sensory and embodied perceptions of architecture as built. This space generates the symbolic meanings of architecture and is understood as our primary way of understanding space. The Second is the analytical, measured space of representation - the drawings and models architects make, which have historically been called the instrumental as they are instruments in the description of architecture. This work challenges that these are independent and oppositional ways of understanding space. I argue that this perceived separation perpetuates the notion of the instrumental and symbolic meanings of architecture to be held in a dichotomous relationship. The aim of this research is to reorient the instrumental and symbolic meanings of architecture toward a reciprocal relationship by examining their presence within both real and representational space. The research first explores the distinct characteristics of real and representational space that have perpetuated the notion they are distinct entities. Once these characteristics are identified, two central case studies explore ways in which they are translated through real and representational space in order to engender a more meaningful reciprocity. Referencing Michael Webb’s Temple Island (1966 - ongoing) and Guarino Guarini’s Santissima Sindone in Turin (1667-1694) as revealing examples, this thesis argues that the qualities of real and representational space are constantly permeating the assumed boundaries of each other, and that consequently, an architectural space exists between them. Indeed, this thesis aims to examine the existence of a metaphorical interval between a physical building, and its representation in drawings and modeling. This research proposes that pure instrumentality is an illusion, maintaining its legitimacy through a self-imposed autonomy. The research concludes in a design project that suggests a more complex form of inhabiting architecture may challenge the gap between real and representational space, and by extension the separation of the instrumental and symbolic meanings of architecture. It sets out to achieve this through an allegorical investigation exploring a more complex way to occupy architecture - where both real space and the space of representation can be occupied simultaneously. The design research seeks to dissolve the distinctions between how architecture is designed and represented, and how it is understood experientially as built. The thesis concludes that by collapsing the sensory, embodied complexities of real space, with the abstract, analytical characteristics of representational space, the instrumental and symbolic meanings of architecture can be understood in a reciprocal relationship, where one gives structure and meaning to the other.</p>

Shared neural codes for visual and semantic information about familiar faces in a common representational space

Processes evoked by seeing a personally familiar face encompass recognition of visual appearance and activation of social and person knowledge. Whereas visual appearance is the same for all viewers, social and person knowledge may be more idiosyncratic. Using between-subject multivariate decoding of hyperaligned functional magnetic resonance imaging data, we investigated whether representations of personally familiar faces in different parts of the distributed neural system for face perception are shared across individuals who know the same people. We found that the identities of both personally familiar and merely visually familiar faces were decoded accurately across brains in the core system for visual processing, but only the identities of personally familiar faces could be decoded across brains in the extended system for processing nonvisual information associated with faces. Our results show that personal interactions with the same individuals lead to shared neural representations of both the seen and unseen features that distinguish their identities.

Painting historiography: Meleko Mokgosi's Democratic Intuition

This interview focuses particularly on Democratic Intuition (2013-20), Meleko Mokgosi's epic, eight-chapter painting cycle, the title of which references Gayatri Spivak's lecture on the necessary relationship between education and democracy. Education, reflection on theory and practice and engagement with young practitioners are all important parts of Mokgosi's work. The interview discusses the way the chapter format of Democratic Intuition is influenced by film processes, and the research and critical analysis on which his work is based; this includes historiography; the western genre of history painting; narrative tropes and the work of Hayden White; and painting techniques that more accurately construct Black skin tones. It also discusses discourses of race and assumptions about whiteness in the western canon; and whether there is a possibility for the Black subject to inhabit allegorical representational space without being overdetermined by histories of Blackness and race discourse. Stuart Hall's work has been important to Mokgosi because of its analysis of the complexities of the discourses within which cultural production and consumption is located. This has been helpful for reflecting on the location of the western art tradition within discourses of the Enlightenment and western humanism, which provide specific rules of circulation and consumption, and structures of authority. Such discourses assume that the viewer has the necessary tools or literacies to read in order to arrive at the meanings proposed in cultural objects. Mokgosi is engaged in continuous reflection on the extent to which, in spite of this, he, as a particular subject from Botswana, has managed to locate meaning within the narrow practice of painting.

Global Shinqīṭ: Mauritania’s Islamic Knowledge Tradition and the Making of Transnational Religious Authority (Nineteenth to Twenty-First Century)

Today, Bilād-Shinqīṭ or Mauritania is often portrayed as an unparalleled center of classical Islamic tradition supposedly untouched by modernity. While previous scholarship has concerned itself mostly with Mauritania’s local intellectual history on one hand and its recent global fame on the other, in this paper, I document instead how, in less than two centuries, Mauritania has become not only a point of scholarly reference and symbolic/representational space of excellence in Islamic knowledge, but also one with an astonishing amount of global reach. Thus, I explore the ways in which Mauritania has continued to asserts its relevance and scholarly authority on a global scale. Drawing on a variety of historical, literary, and anthropological sources, I historicize the rise and mythologization of Mauritania as a peerless center of traditional sacred scholarship. I specifically examine how a number of widely different Muslim actors under changing circumstances continue to invoke, perform and re-invent Shinqīṭ/Mauritania. In documenting what I call Global Shinqīt over the longue durée, rather than simply illustrate how the so-called Muslim peripheries shape central traits of transnational normative Islamic authority, I argue instead that mobility, historical circumstances, and scholarly performance combined are at least as instrumental in the credible articulation of authoritative Islamic knowledge as normative discourses issued by supposedly central institutions, personalities, and religious bodies located in the so-called “heartland of Islam.” In so doing, I destabilize the center/periphery framework altogether in order to explore how Islamic religious authority is actually construed and operates under shifting cultural and political conditions.

TOURISM VERSUS MINING: CONTESTED SPACE IN TANJUNG PUTAT BEACH AND LEPAR BEACH, BELINYU DISTRICT, BANGKA REGENCY

Tourism is one the sustainable income sectors that is predicted as a post-mining sector. Thus, the area of tourism activities, especially beaches are minimized to be damaged, including juxtaposing it with mining. The aim of the research is to ellaborate spatial contestation that occurred at Tanjung Putat Beach and Lepar Beach, Belinyu District, Bangka Regency. The theoretical basis used in this research is using the concept of spatial production from Henri Lefebvre which consists of 3 concepts related to the production of space, namely spatial practice, representational space, and spatial representation. The method of the research research is qualitative with a descriptive method. In collecting the data, in-depth interviews were used to the informants who were closely related to the research being studied. The spatial contestation has indeed occurred in Tanjung Putat Beach and Lepar Beach, Belinyu District, Bangka Regency. However, the impact of mining activities has an impact on tourism in the vicinity, this is reinforced by protests against these mining activities.