The stream of life: from frozen babies to the birth of psychic life

This article describes the work with a flexible model having Esther Bick’s infant observation model in mind. Having to solve the problem of the many babies in orphanages who had been abandoned and were often sick, I worked out with the psychologist a model of intervention using the knowledge the psychologist had of the approach of infant observation, but adapting it to the context of the orphanage. I helped the psychologist observer to use her countertransference to contain the babies’ distress and interact with them in order to give them the possibility of feeling loved and understood, in order to make space in their minds for introjecting a good object. On behalf of the observations that the psychologist, whom I will call Ling, had with babies Bea and Sally, we can say that the dramatic distress of their being abandoned by their families has been worked through because the psychologist was able to give a loving space with significant interaction. The sessions reported in this article give a portrait of the inside world of despairing babies, and document the evolution towards being able to keep in mind a good enough object that can help them survive.

Oscillation of Gas Density in the Gas Filament Remained by a Streamer Discharge in Water

When a streamer discharge occurs in water, several luminous plasma filaments will be created in the water during the discharge. After the discharge, these plasma filaments turn into neutral gas phase and remain in water. The gas filament remained in water is a good object for studying the basic processes involved in the streamer propagation. We investigated the evolution of the gas filaments remained in water after a streamer discharge at different experimental conditions. We recorded eight successive images during one discharge pulse. The density of gas in the gas filament and the radius of the gas filament were measured from the obtained images. We found that the radius of the gas filament and the density of gas in the gas filament are almost not influenced by the impulse voltage within the range studied. While the conductivity of water has strong effect on the radius of the gas filament and the density of gas in the gas filament. The radius of the gas filament becomes thicker and expands faster as the conductivity of water becomes larger. The density of gas in the gas filament remained in water oscillates between 400 to 800 kg/m3 with an duration of ~10 μs during the expansion period of 4–39 μs after the HV pulse starts. Both the impulse voltage and the conductivity of water do not affect the oscillation duration of the density of gas in the gas filament.

The repudiation of femininity

Freud, in 1937, put forward the idea that the repudiation of femininity and the death instinct were factors contributing to the resistance to recovery in psychoanalysis, stimulating much contentious debate. I will illustrate how these ideas have been modified and expanded as both the repudiation of femininity and the death instinct are linked by their envy of the receptive dependence on the good object which lead to a feeling of humiliation and shame in both males and females. When the death instinct is formulated as an anti-life instinct the relationship with envy becomes clearer, the two may indeed turn out to be different aspects of the same thing. In this article I will use clinical material to try to show how the process of negotiating this receptive attitude by repudiating femininity in favour of phallic omnipotence is enacted with perverse behaviour and violence and how, with the help of analysis, the patient may be able to modify their destructive behaviour.

Design and sorting of an object identification on machine vision by using line scan camera

This paper illustrates the design of a system to identify objects on a conveyor belt using machine vision. In the present study, a machine vision based on one line scan sorting was developed, the purpose being to sort objects based on various stages of maturity. Many different methods are available for object identification. But we made design a system that separates and counting them. Different objects placed on the conveyor belt moves along, a camera placed above the belt takes real-time video and feeds it to the MATLAB software for processing the object to compare with the basic template object. The vision camera understands an object based on its physical attributes, such as shape and size for effectively controlling the hardware, which will use in this work. Besides, the number of objects of a particular section that cross the conveyor to demonstrate the identification of moving objects is counted and displayed. A low-speed conveyor belt is manufactured with various test objects that pass through it. For identifying a good object, the wavelength data is used, determining the way to match the geometric patterns and to identify the dimensions, and edge detection is applied. The ability to count specific attributes objects is testing different test paths. The sorting of objects using machine vision was performed using an algorithm of pattern matching of machine vision. A pattern image template was built and stored in a computer's memory. When the object is sorting the application run, the camera receives the image of the object into MATLAB. The vision application investigates the image and transfers it to the classifier if the received image matches the model image or not matches.

The Role of Public Parks in Telling the Nation's Story

In this paper, we discuss the role of public parks in telling the nation’s story via statues, memorials, and monuments. We ground our discussion in affect theory, which addresses the affective responses statues, memorials, and monuments elicit in visitors. Of particular note is affective dissonance, which suggests that a statue, memorial, or monument may evoke a variety of conflicting affective responses. The way in which visitors reconcile these conflicting affective responses shapes their public memory of significant events in our nation’s history. As more is learned about the checkered past of individuals venerated in statues, memorials, and monuments, how should public park administrators respond? We provide several examples of statues, memorials, and monuments that are controversial in nature, and discuss how public park administrators have responded to the challenge of telling the nation’s story through the reinterpretation of events. We also consider the complexity of the management implications, focusing in particular on who should be driving the decisions made. We then discuss the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, as a good object lesson in how to deal with the affective dissonance involved in recasting public spaces. In so doing, we underscore the importance of frame theory in educating visitors about the preservation, modification, or removal of existing statues, memorials, or monuments.

Creativity and Perversion: Waiting for the Muse

Although there is an extensive psychoanalytic literature on perversion, and numerous articles about creativity, few authors have explored relations between creativity and perversion. In particular, the role of childhood trauma and its impact on object relations has not been examined in patients with perversions whose creativity is blocked. In association with preoedipal anxieties and fantasies, childhood trauma can not only contribute to the development of perversion, but can also inhibit or distort the creative process by establishing an inner world characterized by the presence of a threatening internal bad object and the elusiveness of an internal good object. Though it is essential to help these patients establish an identification with the phallic father, an internal good maternal object, in the form of a muse, needs to be retrieved to bring inspiration and reduce the anxieties generated by an internal bad object, thereby facilitating the pursuit of authentic creative work. A detailed case report illustrates how this theoretical perspective guided the treatment approach to a male patient with macrophilia who was struggling to realize his creative potential.