The author seeks to discern the distinctive character of photography as an art, asking why similar images affect us differently and how our reaction to a photograph of a painting is different to the response to the painting. She demonstrates "perceived realism" and the transformation of images.

Contemporary social and cultural life is increasingly organised around a logic of self-transformation, where changing the body is seen as key. Transforming Images examines how the future functions within this transformative logic to indicate the potential of a materially better time. The book explores the crucial role that images have in organising an imperative for transformation and in making possible, or not, the materialisation of a better future. Coleman asks the questions: which futures are appealing and to whom? How do images tap into and reproduce wider social and cultural processes of inequality? Drawing on the recent ‘turns’ to affect and emotion and to understanding life in terms of vitality, intensity and ‘liveness’ in social and cultural theory, the book develops a framework for understanding images as felt and lived out. Analysing different screens across popular culture – the screens of shopping, makeover television programmes, online dieting plans and government health campaigns – it traces how images of self-transformation bring the future into the present and affectively ‘draw in’ some bodies more than others. Transforming Images will be of interest to students and scholars working in sociology, media studies, cultural studies and gender studies.

Contemporary social and cultural life is increasingly organised around a logic of self-transformation, where changing the body is seen as key. Transforming Images examines how the future functions within this transformative logic to indicate the potential of a materially better time. The book explores the crucial role that images have in organising an imperative for transformation and in making possible, or not, the materialisation of a better future. Coleman asks the questions: which futures are appealing and to whom? How do images tap into and reproduce wider social and cultural processes of inequality? Drawing on the recent ‘turns’ to affect and emotion and to understanding life in terms of vitality, intensity and ‘liveness’ in social and cultural theory, the book develops a framework for understanding images as felt and lived out. Analysing different screens across popular culture – the screens of shopping, makeover television programmes, online dieting plans and government health campaigns – it traces how images of self-transformation bring the future into the present and affectively ‘draw in’ some bodies more than others. Transforming Images will be of interest to students and scholars working in sociology, media studies, cultural studies and gender studies.

Winner of the ACE / Mercers' Book Award 2014 Spectacular Miracles confronts an enduring Western belief in the supernatural power of images: that a statue or painting of the Madonna can fly through the air, speak, weep, or produce miraculous cures. Although contrary to widely held assumptions, the cults of particular paintings and statues held to be miraculous have persisted beyond the middle ages into the present, even in a modern European city such as Genoa, the primary focus of this book. Drawing upon rich documentation from northwest Italy and elsewhere, Spectacular Miracles shows how these images “work” in a range of historical contexts. Jane Garnett and Gervase Rosser vividly evoke ritual animation of the image and the phenomenology of the beholder’s experience. These images, they demonstrate, have the subversive potential of the miraculous image to bypass clerical and secular authority, a power enhanced by reproducibility—devotion is hard to control when a copy of a venerated image is held to carry the same supernatural potential as the original, even when in a digital form mediated by the Internet. Engaging with the history, anthropology, and visual culture of images and religion, Spectacular Miracles is a convincing study of the continuing power of faith and art.

This book first introduces classic as well as recent computational models for just-noticeable-difference (JND) applications. Since the discrete cosine transform (DCT) is applied in many image and video standards (JPEG, MPEG-1/2/4, H.261/3), the book also includes a comprehensive survey of computational models for JND that are based on DCT. The visual factors used in these computational models are reviewed in detail. Further, an extensive comparative analysis of these models using quantitative and qualitative performance criteria is presented, which compares the noise shaping performance of these models with subjective evaluation and the accuracy between the estimated JND thresholds and subjective evaluation. There are many surveys available on computational models for JND; however, these surveys seldom compare the performance of computational models that are based on DCT. The authors’ survey of the computational models and their in-depth review of the visual factors used in them will help readers understand perceptual image coding based on DCT. The book also provides a comparative analysis of several perceptual image coders that are based on DCT, which are compatible with the highly popular and widely adopted JPEG standard.

The essays collected here explore the Catholic instruments of religious devotion produced in New Mexico from around 1760 until the radical transformation of the tradition in the twentieth century. The writers in this volume make three key arguments. First, they make a case for bringing new theoretical perspectives and research strategies to bear on the New Mexican materials and other colonial contexts. Second, they demonstrate that the New Mexican materials provide an excellent case study for rethinking many of the most fundamental questions in art-historical and anthropological study. Third, the authors collectively argue that the New Mexican images had, and still have, importance to diverse audiences and makers.

Break open this ancient contemplative practice of listening deeply for God's voice in sacred texts. Drawing on her own experience as a monk in the world, Christine Valters Paintner introduces the foundations for a practice of lectio divina. She closely examines each of the four movements of lectio divina as well as the rhythm they create when practiced as a process.

Focusing on mathematical methods in computer tomography, Image Processing: Tensor Transform and Discrete Tomography with MATLAB® introduces novel approaches to help in solving the problem of image reconstruction on the Cartesian lattice. Specifically, it discusses methods of image processing along parallel rays to more quickly and accurately reconstruct images from a finite number of projections, thereby avoiding overradiation of the body during a computed tomography (CT) scan. The book presents several new ideas, concepts, and methods, many of which have not been published elsewhere. New concepts include methods of transferring the geometry of rays from the plane to the Cartesian lattice, the point map of projections, the particle and its field function, and the statistical model of averaging. The authors supply numerous examples, MATLAB®-based programs, end-of-chapter problems, and experimental results of implementation. The main approach for image reconstruction proposed by the authors differs from existing methods of back-projection, iterative reconstruction, and Fourier and Radon filtering. In this book, the authors explain how to process each projection by a system of linear equations, or linear convolutions, to calculate the corresponding part of the 2-D tensor or paired transform of the discrete image. They then describe how to calculate the inverse transform to obtain the reconstruction. The proposed models for image reconstruction from projections are simple and result in more accurate reconstructions. Introducing a new theory and methods of image reconstruction, this book provides a solid grounding for those interested in further research and in obtaining new results. It encourages readers to develop effective applications of these methods in CT.

This book synthesizes theoretical perspectives, empirical evidence and practical strategies for improving teacher education in chemistry. Many chemistry lessons involve mindless “cookbook” activities where students and teachers follow recipes, memorise formulae and recall facts without understanding how and why knowledge in chemistry works. Capitalising on traditionally disparate areas of research, the book investigates how to make chemistry education more meaningful for both students and teachers. It provides an example of how theory and practice in chemistry education can be bridged. It reflects on the nature of knowledge in chemistry by referring to theoretical perspectives from philosophy of chemistry. It draws on empirical evidence from research on teacher education, and illustrates concrete strategies and resources that can be used by teacher educators. The book describes the design and implementation of an innovative teacher education project to show the impact of an intervention on pre-service teachers. The book shows how, by making use of visual representations and analogies, the project makes some fairly abstract and complex ideas accessible to pre-service teachers.