Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Local color in literature'

Il presente lavoro si propone di iniziare a configurare un quadro unitario e sistematico della narrativa postverghiana sia sul piano letterario sia sul piano linguistico <>. Alla ricerca delle tracce di un vero o presunto “color locale” si sono scandagliate oltre centocinquanta novelle (Nicola Misasi, “In magna Sila”; Salvatore Di Giacomo, “Novelle Napolitane”; Matilde Serao, “Dal vero”; Domenico Ciampoli, “Trecce nere”; Gabriele D'Annunzio, “Terra vergine”; Mario Pratesi, “In Provincia”; Emilio De Marchi, “Sotto gli alberi”; Remigio Zena, “Le anime semplici. Storie umili”) la cui lingua è stata misurata sia rispetto agli strumenti normativi coevi sia rispetto all’uso corrente, ricostruito attraverso i lavori di studiosi che hanno focalizzato la loro attenzione su aspetti diversi dell’italiano del XIX secolo: dalla lingua letteraria a quella giornalistica passando attraverso l’ambito colloquiale/famigliare che emerge dallo studio degli epistolari. L'introduzione letteraria che precede il quadro appena descritto propone un'analisi comparativa dei tratti caratterizzanti il verismo verghiano secondo la declinazione che ne offrono, nelle varie raccolte prese in analisi, gli autori coinvolti in questo studio.
Our work aims at building a unitary, systematic tableau of the Italian narrative after Verga. We have focused on literary and language aspects <>. Tracing a real or presumed 'local color', we have examined over one hundred and fifty short stories ( 'In magna Sila' by Nicola Misasi; 'Novelle Napolitane' by Salvatore Di Giacomo; 'Dal vero' by Matilde Serao; 'Trecce nere' by Domenico Ciampoli; 'Terra vergine' by Gabriele D'Annunzio; 'In Provincia' by Mario Pratesi; 'Sotto gli alberi' by Emilio De Marchi; 'Le anime semplici. Storie umili' by Remigio Zena). The language has been studied based on norms and everyday usage of those times. The latter has been shaped through the works of scholars who have analyzed different aspects of the Italian language from the 19th century, in literature, journalism, and also in more colloquial, familiar letters. The section about literature preceding the portrait pictured above offers a comparative survey of the specific traits of Verga's Verismo according to the variations made, in the already mentioned collections of short stories, by the authors involved in this research.

Il presente lavoro si propone di iniziare a configurare un quadro unitario e sistematico della narrativa postverghiana sia sul piano letterario sia sul piano linguistico <>. Alla ricerca delle tracce di un vero o presunto “color locale” si sono scandagliate oltre centocinquanta novelle (Nicola Misasi, “In magna Sila”; Salvatore Di Giacomo, “Novelle Napolitane”; Matilde Serao, “Dal vero”; Domenico Ciampoli, “Trecce nere”; Gabriele D'Annunzio, “Terra vergine”; Mario Pratesi, “In Provincia”; Emilio De Marchi, “Sotto gli alberi”; Remigio Zena, “Le anime semplici. Storie umili”) la cui lingua è stata misurata sia rispetto agli strumenti normativi coevi sia rispetto all’uso corrente, ricostruito attraverso i lavori di studiosi che hanno focalizzato la loro attenzione su aspetti diversi dell’italiano del XIX secolo: dalla lingua letteraria a quella giornalistica passando attraverso l’ambito colloquiale/famigliare che emerge dallo studio degli epistolari. L'introduzione letteraria che precede il quadro appena descritto propone un'analisi comparativa dei tratti caratterizzanti il verismo verghiano secondo la declinazione che ne offrono, nelle varie raccolte prese in analisi, gli autori coinvolti in questo studio.
Our work aims at building a unitary, systematic tableau of the Italian narrative after Verga. We have focused on literary and language aspects <>. Tracing a real or presumed 'local color', we have examined over one hundred and fifty short stories ( 'In magna Sila' by Nicola Misasi; 'Novelle Napolitane' by Salvatore Di Giacomo; 'Dal vero' by Matilde Serao; 'Trecce nere' by Domenico Ciampoli; 'Terra vergine' by Gabriele D'Annunzio; 'In Provincia' by Mario Pratesi; 'Sotto gli alberi' by Emilio De Marchi; 'Le anime semplici. Storie umili' by Remigio Zena). The language has been studied based on norms and everyday usage of those times. The latter has been shaped through the works of scholars who have analyzed different aspects of the Italian language from the 19th century, in literature, journalism, and also in more colloquial, familiar letters. The section about literature preceding the portrait pictured above offers a comparative survey of the specific traits of Verga's Verismo according to the variations made, in the already mentioned collections of short stories, by the authors involved in this research.

Thesis (M.A.)--East Tennessee State University, 2003.
Title from electronic submission form. ETSU ETD database URN: etd-1109103-115555. Includes bibliographical references. Also available via Internet at the UMI web site.

Algoritmos de detecção de linhas são usados em muitos campos de aplicação, tais como visão computacional e automação como base para análises mais complexas. Por exemplo, a informação de linha pode ser usada como dado de entrada para algoritmos de detecção de objetos ou mesmo para a estimativa da orientação espacial de robôs aéreos. Uma das formas de detectar linhas é através do uso de um processo de filtragem não linear chamado deWide Line Detector (WLD). Esse algoritmo é eficaz na marcação de pixels de linha em imagens em tons de cinza, separando linhas claras ou linhas escuras. Contudo, os algoritmos de detecção de linha não estão normalmente preocupados com a estimativa de largura local individual associada a um pixel. Se disponível, tal informação poderia ser explorada por algoritmos de visão computacional. Além do mais, a informação de cor também é extensivamente usada em visão computacional como um discriminante de objetos, mas o WLD não a usa. Neste Trabalho, nós propusemos a extensão do WLD para imagens em cores. Nós também desenvolvemos um novo kernel monotonicamente crescente que é mais eficiente e mais robusto para detectar linhas do que que os kernels monotonicamente decrescentes usados pelo WLD. Por fim, desenvolvemos uma maneira de obter uma estimativa de largura de linha partindo da densidade local associada a similaridade entre pixels, revertendo o processo usado pelo WLD para estimar qual kernel deve ser usado. Diversos experimentos foram realizados com o método proposto considerando diferentes parâmetros, além da comparação com o WLD tradicional, para analizar a eficácia do método.
Line detection algorithms are used by many application fields, such as computer vision and automation, as a basis for more complex analysis. For instance, line information can be used as input to object detection algorithms or even attitude estimation in flying robots. One way to detect lines is to use an isotropic nonlinear filtering procedure called the Wide Line Detector (WLD). This algorithm is effective to highlight the line pixels in gray scale images, separating dark or bright lines. However, line detection algorithms are not normally concerned with the pixel-wise estimation of thickness. If available, such information could be further explored by computer vision algorithms. Furthermore, color is extensively used in computer vision as an object discriminant, but not by the WLD. In this work, we propose the extension of the WLD to color images. We also develop a method that allows the estimation of the line width locally using only the density information and no border or center line information. Finally, we develop a new monotonically increasing kernel that is more efficient and yet effective to detect lines than the monotonically decreasing kernels used by the WLD. Finally, we devise a way ro obtain the wideline thickness from the density estimate obtained from the similarity between pixels, reverting the process used by the WLD to determine which kernel should be used. We perform several experiments with the proposed method, considering different parameters, and comparing it to the traditional WLD algorithm to assess the effectiveness of the method.

This thesis is an analysis of Ralph Ellison’s use of color terminology in his novel, Invisible Man. By taking an in depth look at the circumstances in which Ellison uses specific color terms, the reader can ascertain the author’s thoughts on various historical events, as well as the differences between characters in the novel such as Ras, Dr. Bledsoe, and Rinehart.

Color (sub)Conscious explores the African American female's experience with colorism. Divided into three distinct sections. The first section is a literary analysis of such works as Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, Gloria Naylor's The Women of Brewster Place, Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Alice Walker's "If the Present Looks Like the Past, What Does the Future Look Like?" an essay from her collection In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens. The second section is a research project based on data gathered from 12 African American females willing to share their own experiences and insights on colorism. The final section is a creative non-fiction piece of the author's own personal pain growing up and living with the lasting effects of colorism.

Cet ouvrage est basé sur l’analyse les quatre premiers romans de l’écrivain brésilien Machado de Assis (1839-1908) – Ressurreição (1872), A mão e a luva (1874), Helena (1876) et Iaiá Garcia (1978) – avec l’intention de comprendre la relation de ces livres avec le mouvement romantique brésilien. Bien qu’ils aient été écrits à une époque où le romantisme au Brésil touchait à sa fin, ces livres ont été considérés par les critiques du début du XXe siècle comme étant des romans romantiques étant donné la récurrence d’éléments narratifs qui ont structuré ce mouvement lequel a vu le jour au Brésil en 1836. Pourtant, bien que la présence de tels éléments dans l’œuvre de la jeunesse de Machado de Assis puisse être constatée, ils n’obéissent pas la démarche technique de ce mouvement littéraire. Il est donc nécessaire de discuter dans quelle mesure et sous quelle forme ces éléments sont présents dans les premiers romans de l’écrivain. Pour cela, la discussion sur le processus de création du mouvement romantique brésilien, directement lié à l’affirmation d’une identité nationale propre à l’Empire brésilien (1822-1889), représente un thème clé pour comprendre l’importance de la couleur locale, et plus particulièrement du paysage brésilien, dans le noyau esthétique du mouvement romantique dans ce pays. À partir des grandes lignes de ces éléments structurants du romantisme brésilien, l’analyse des premiers romans de Machado de Assis met au jour une révision critique de la tradition romantique par l’auteur, dans son projet de développer une littérature originale, créative, indépendante et universelle
This work analyzes the first four novels of the Brazilian writer Machado de Assis (1839-1908) – Ressurreição (1872), A mão e a luva (1874), Helena (1876), and Iaiá Garcia (1978) – aiming to understand the link between these books and the Brazilian romantic movement. Although the novels were written at a time when Romanticism in Brazil was coming to an end, they were classified by critics of the early 20th century as romantic works because they contained recurrent narrative elements based on that movement which began in Brazil in 1836. Nevertheless, although such elements can be observed in the early work of Machado de Assis, they do not meet the technical procedure of the overall romanticist literary movement. It is thus necessary to discuss the extent to which these elements are deployed in the writer's initial novels. In order to do that, this work analyzes the process of creation of the Brazilian romantic movement, which is directly associated with the Empire of Brazil (1822-1889). This is important to understand the role of the local color, and more specifically of the Brazilian landscape, in the aesthetic basis of the Brazilian romanticism. From the outline of this basic structure of Brazilian romanticism, the analysis of the early novels of Machado de Assis shows that the author critically reviewed the romantic tradition to develop an original, creative, independent and universal literature
Este trabalho analisa os quatro primeiros romances do escritor brasileiro Machado de Assis (1839-1908) – Ressurreição (1872), A mão e a luva (1874), Helena (1876) e Iaiá Garcia (1978) – com a intenção de compreender a relação destes livros com o movimento romântico brasileiro. Apesar de terem sido escritos na época em que o romantismo no Brasil chegava ao seu fim, esses livros foram classificados pela crítica do início do século XX como obras românticas dada a recorrência de elementos narrativos aparentados a este movimento que, no Brasil, teve início em 1836. No entanto, ainda que se possa observar a presença de tais elementos nas obras de juventude de Machado de Assis, eles não obedecem ao proceder técnico desse movimento literário. Então, cumpre-se discutir em que medida e de que maneira esses elementos estão presentes nos romances iniciais do escritor. Para tanto, a discussão sobre o processo de criação do movimento romântico brasileiro, diretamente associado à afirmação da identidade nacional e do Império brasileiro (1822-1889), consiste numa questão relevante a fim de se compreender a importância da cor local, e mais especificamente da paisagem brasileira, no cerne estético do romantismo nacional. A partir do delineamento desse elemento estrutural do romantismo no Brasil, a análise dos primeiros romances de Machado de Assis permite constatar de fato o seu intuito de revisitar de forma crítica a tradição romântica no intento de desenvolver uma literatura original, criativa, independente e universal

This study examines Toni Morrison’s use of symbolism in Sula and The Bluest Eye, especially archetypal and color symbolism, in an effort to recover the culture that has been lost to Diasporic Africans. Moreover, the color symbolism and symbolic archetypes that Morrison employs in both novels, but to a greater extent Sula, are a direct reflection of her awareness of the African ancestral heritage and spirituality associated with those colors and archetypes. A vast majority of the literary critiques of Sula have focused on either Sula as a scapegoat for the community, Morrison’s use of race, gender, and sexual themes, or the characterizations throughout the novel. The literary criticism of The Bluest Eye has mainly focused on issues of race, class, and gender and the effects that these issues have upon black and white societies in America. Although these themes warrant the attention that has been given them, little or no focus has been given to the prevalence of color symbolism that Morrison employs in both novels. Therefore, this paper will attempt to provide a focus on color symbolism that has not been explored in other literary reviews.

Thesis advisor: Susan A. Michalczyk
Children's literature possesses the power to crumble walls of prejudice, open the mind to unlimited possibilities and perhaps most importantly, entertain children whatever their race, age or social status. Many people have such fond memories of the books they read as children that, should you demand of any American college student what his favorite book was as a child, and he will find it difficult to narrow his selection down to just one. Ask any American child what her favorite movie during childhood and inherently nine out of ten children will choose a movie made by Walt Disney. Indeed literature and the stories of childhood play an important role in the intellectual and psychological development of human beings. During childhood, the literature children read and have read to them often lay the seeds for their future views of themselves and the world. If this were the case, then how much caution should be taken with the themes of these books? Children's literature is defined as "books that are good for children, written with their general necessities and entertainment in mind." The “goodness” of these books is determined not only in their vivid creativity and wildly imaginative stories, but as well in the long lasting lessons they impart upon the children who read them. These books give a child a glimpse into distant lands far away from the suburb they live in or the city in whose parks they play every day. As well, literature can also cultivate cultural prejudices and stereotypes that can either damage a child's developing psyche or improve it. From its inception, children's literature has always been meant to shape and mold children to the will of society. The questions remains to be answered, if literature holds such power over us, then what control should responsible publishers, teachers, librarians and parents exercise in determining what their children should be reading? Where does one draw the line between education and politics in the world of children's literature? In order to fully examine this question and comprehend its implications, one must first examine the history of children's literature and what it originally desired to achieve. Then, once the evolution has been traced, one can analyze the future and determine where the shifts that have occurred in children's literature throughout the eras are leading us in the years to follow
Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2003
Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences
Discipline: Education, Lynch School of
Discipline: College Honors Program

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2003.
Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 223-239). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

This dissertation offers a revisionist account of American regionalist fiction. In particular, it contests prevailing diagnoses of the genre as bourgeois nostalgia by locating within its content and form a radical utopian impulse. By drawing out their engagement with socialist, feminist, anti-racist, and environmental protection movements, this project shows how regionalist texts perform both the utopian work of envisioning progressive futures and the necessarily regionalist work of orienting and charting a path toward those futures on a localized scale. Although our historical understanding of social movements during the Long Gilded Age is largely framed in the Nationalist and (proto-)Progressive politics of much overtly utopian fiction, comparative readings of William Dean Howells, Sarah Orne Jewett, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Charles W. Chesnutt, Sutton E. Griggs, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Kate Chopin reveal within regionalist fiction a more radically democratic model for social change. This suggests, in part, that regionalist writers of the 1870s through the 1910s imagined the local rather than the national as the scale on which social change could and should be carried out.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Tufts University, 2001.
Adviser: Elizabeth Ammons. Submitted to the Dept. of English. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 181-189). Access restricted to members of the Tufts University community. Also available via the World Wide Web;

Abstract This thesis presents extensions to the local binary pattern (LBP) texture analysis operator. The operator is defined as a gray-scale invariant texture measure, derived from a general definition of texture in a local neighborhood. It is made invariant against the rotation of the image domain, and supplemented with a rotation invariant measure of local contrast. The LBP is proposed as a unifying texture model that describes the formation of a texture with micro-textons and their statistical placement rules. The basic LBP is extended to facilitate the analysis of textures with multiple scales by combining neighborhoods with different sizes. The possible instability in sparse sampling is addressed with Gaussian low-pass filtering, which seems to be somewhat helpful. Cellular automata are used as texture features, presumably for the first time ever. With a straightforward inversion algorithm, arbitrarily large binary neighborhoods are encoded with an eight-bit cellular automaton rule, resulting in a very compact multi-scale texture descriptor. The performance of the new operator is shown in an experiment involving textures with multiple spatial scales. An opponent-color version of the LBP is introduced and applied to color textures. Good results are obtained in static illumination conditions. An empirical study with different color and texture measures however shows that color and texture should be treated separately. A number of different applications of the LBP operator are presented, emphasizing real-time issues. A very fast software implementation of the operator is introduced, and different ways of speeding up classification are evaluated. The operator is successfully applied to industrial visual inspection applications and to image retrieval.

[ES] La visión artificial es uno de los campos en mayor crecimiento en la actualidad que, junto con otras tecnologías como la Biometría o el Big Data, se ha convertido en el foco de interés de numerosas investigaciones y es considerada como una de las tecnologías del futuro. Este amplio campo abarca diversos métodos entre los que se encuentra el procesamiento y análisis de imágenes digitales. El éxito del análisis de imágenes y otras tareas de procesamiento de alto nivel, como pueden ser el reconocimiento de patrones o la visión 3D, dependerá en gran medida de la buena calidad de las imágenes de partida. Hoy en día existen multitud de factores que dañan las imágenes dificultando la obtención de imágenes de calidad óptima, esto ha convertido el (pre-) procesamiento digital de imágenes en un paso fundamental previo a la aplicación de cualquier otra tarea de procesado. Los factores más comunes son el ruido y las malas condiciones de adquisición: los artefactos provocados por el ruido dificultan la interpretación adecuada de la imagen y la adquisición en condiciones de iluminación o exposición deficientes, como escenas dinámicas, causan pérdida de información de la imagen que puede ser clave para ciertas tareas de procesamiento. Los pasos de (pre-)procesamiento de imágenes conocidos como suavizado y realce se aplican comúnmente para solventar estos problemas: El suavizado tiene por objeto reducir el ruido mientras que el realce se centra en mejorar o recuperar la información imprecisa o dañada. Con estos métodos conseguimos reparar información de los detalles y bordes de la imagen con una nitidez insuficiente o un contenido borroso que impide el (post-)procesamiento óptimo de la imagen. Existen numerosos métodos que suavizan el ruido de una imagen, sin embargo, en muchos casos el proceso de filtrado provoca emborronamiento en los bordes y detalles de la imagen. De igual manera podemos encontrar una enorme cantidad de técnicas de realce que intentan combatir las pérdidas de información, sin embargo, estas técnicas no contemplan la existencia de ruido en la imagen que procesan: ante una imagen ruidosa, cualquier técnica de realce provocará también un aumento del ruido. Aunque la idea intuitiva para solucionar este último caso será el previo filtrado y posterior realce, este enfoque ha demostrado no ser óptimo: el filtrado podrá eliminar información que, a su vez, podría no ser recuperable en el siguiente paso de realce. En la presente tesis doctoral se propone un modelo basado en teoría de grafos para el procesamiento de imágenes en color. En este modelo, se construye un grafo para cada píxel de tal manera que sus propiedades permiten caracterizar y clasificar dicho pixel. Como veremos, el modelo propuesto es robusto y capaz de adaptarse a una gran variedad de aplicaciones. En particular, aplicamos el modelo para crear nuevas soluciones a los dos problemas fundamentales del procesamiento de imágenes: suavizado y realce. Se ha estudiado el modelo en profundidad en función del umbral, parámetro clave que asegura la correcta clasificación de los píxeles de la imagen. Además, también se han estudiado las posibles características y posibilidades del modelo que nos han permitido sacarle el máximo partido en cada una de las posibles aplicaciones. Basado en este modelo se ha diseñado un filtro adaptativo capaz de eliminar ruido gaussiano de una imagen sin difuminar los bordes ni perder información de los detalles. Además, también ha permitido desarrollar un método capaz de realzar los bordes y detalles de una imagen al mismo tiempo que se suaviza el ruido presente en la misma. Esta aplicación simultánea consigue combinar dos operaciones opuestas por definición y superar así los inconvenientes presentados por el enfoque en dos etapas.
[CAT] La visió artificial és un dels camps en major creixement en l'actualitat que, junt amb altres tecnlogies com la Biometria o el Big Data, s'ha convertit en el focus d'interés de nombroses investigacions i és considerada com una de les tecnologies del futur. Aquest ampli camp comprén diversos m`etodes entre els quals es troba el processament digital d'imatges i anàlisis d'imatges digitals. L'èxit de l'anàlisis d'imatges i altres tasques de processament d'alt nivell, com poden ser el reconeixement de patrons o la visió 3D, dependrà en gran manera de la bona qualitat de les imatges de partida. Avui dia existeixen multitud de factors que danyen les imatges dificultant l'obtenció d'imatges de qualitat òptima, açò ha convertit el (pre-) processament digital d'imatges en un pas fonamental previa la l'aplicació de qualsevol altra tasca de processament. Els factors més comuns són el soroll i les males condicions d'adquisició: els artefactes provocats pel soroll dificulten la inter- pretació adequada de la imatge i l'adquisició en condicions d'il·luminació o exposició deficients, com a escenes dinàmiques, causen pèrdua d'informació de la imatge que pot ser clau per a certes tasques de processament. Els passos de (pre-) processament d'imatges coneguts com suavitzat i realç s'apliquen comunament per a resoldre aquests problemes: El suavitzat té com a objecte reduir el soroll mentres que el real se centra a millorar o recuperar la informació imprecisa o danyada. Amb aquests mètodes aconseguim reparar informació dels detalls i bords de la imatge amb una nitidesa insuficient o un contingut borrós que impedeix el (post-)processament òptim de la imatge. Existeixen nombrosos mètodes que suavitzen el soroll d'una imatge, no obstant això, en molts casos el procés de filtrat provoca emborronamiento en els bords i detalls de la imatge. De la mateixa manera podem trobar una enorme quantitat de tècniques de realç que intenten combatre les pèrdues d'informació, no obstant això, aquestes tècniques no contemplen l'existència de soroll en la imatge que processen: davant d'una image sorollosa, qualsevol tècnica de realç provocarà també un augment del soroll. Encara que la idea intuïtiva per a solucionar aquest últim cas seria el previ filtrat i posterior realç, aquest enfocament ha demostrat no ser òptim: el filtrat podria eliminar informació que, al seu torn, podria no ser recuperable en el seguënt pas de realç. En la present Tesi doctoral es proposa un model basat en teoria de grafs per al processament d'imatges en color. En aquest model, es construïx un graf per a cada píxel de tal manera que les seues propietats permeten caracteritzar i classificar el píxel en quëstió. Com veurem, el model proposat és robust i capaç d'adaptar-se a una gran varietat d'aplicacions. En particular, apliquem el model per a crear noves solucions als dos problemes fonamentals del processament d'imatges: suavitzat i realç. S'ha estudiat el model en profunditat en funció del llindar, paràmetre clau que assegura la correcta classificació dels píxels de la imatge. A més, també s'han estudiat les possibles característiques i possibilitats del model que ens han permés traure-li el màxim partit en cadascuna de les possibles aplicacions. Basat en aquest model s'ha dissenyat un filtre adaptatiu capaç d'eliminar soroll gaussià d'una imatge sense difuminar els bords ni perdre informació dels detalls. A més, també ha permés desenvolupar un mètode capaç de realçar els bords i detalls d'una imatge al mateix temps que se suavitza el soroll present en la mateixa. Aquesta aplicació simultània aconseguix combinar dues operacions oposades per definició i superar així els inconvenients presentats per l'enfocament en dues etapes.
[EN] Computer vision is one of the fastest growing fields at present which, along with other technologies such as Biometrics or Big Data, has become the focus of interest of many research projects and it is considered one of the technologies of the future. This broad field includes a plethora of digital image processing and analysis tasks. To guarantee the success of image analysis and other high-level processing tasks as 3D imaging or pattern recognition, it is critical to improve the quality of the raw images acquired. Nowadays all images are affected by different factors that hinder the achievement of optimal image quality, making digital image processing a fundamental step prior to the application of any other practical application. The most common of these factors are noise and poor acquisition conditions: noise artefacts hamper proper image interpretation of the image; and acquisition in poor lighting or exposure conditions, such as dynamic scenes, causes loss of image information that can be key for certain processing tasks. Image (pre-) processing steps known as smoothing and sharpening are commonly applied to overcome these inconveniences: Smoothing is aimed at reducing noise and sharpening at improving or recovering imprecise or damaged information of image details and edges with insufficient sharpness or blurred content that prevents optimal image (post-)processing. There are many methods for smoothing the noise in an image, however in many cases the filtering process causes blurring at the edges and details of the image. Besides, there are also many sharpening techniques, which try to combat the loss of information due to blurring of image texture and need to contemplate the existence of noise in the image they process. When dealing with a noisy image, any sharpening technique may amplify the noise. Although the intuitive idea to solve this last case would be the previous filtering and later sharpening, this approach has proved not to be optimal: the filtering could remove information that, in turn, may not be recoverable in the later sharpening step. In the present PhD dissertation we propose a model based on graph theory for color image processing from a vector approach. In this model, a graph is built for each pixel in such a way that its features allow to characterize and classify the pixel. As we will show, the model we proposed is robust and versatile: potentially able to adapt to a variety of applications. In particular, we apply the model to create new solutions for the two fundamentals problems in image processing: smoothing and sharpening. To approach high performance image smoothing we use the proposed model to determine if a pixel belongs to a at region or not, taking into account the need to achieve a high-precision classification even in the presence of noise. Thus, we build an adaptive soft-switching filter by employing the pixel classification to combine the outputs from a filter with high smoothing capability and a softer one to smooth edge/detail regions. Further, another application of our model allows to use pixels characterization to successfully perform a simultaneous smoothing and sharpening of color images. In this way, we address one of the classical challenges within the image processing field. We compare all the image processing techniques proposed with other state-of-the-art methods to show that they are competitive both from an objective (numerical) and visual evaluation point of view.
Pérez Benito, C. (2019). Color Image Processing based on Graph Theory [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/123955
TESIS

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Riverside, 2009.
Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 224-238). Issued in print and online. Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations.

In this thesis, the writer examines the color imagery in three Margaret Atwood novels: Surfacing, Cat's Eye, and The Handmaid's Tale. Atwood uses color in unconventional ways by forcing colors to symbolize the opposite of their common meanings, by allowing colors to represent simultaneously two opposing ideas, and by disregarding traditional color meanings by creating her own unique associations. Atwood's color imagery supports her thematic concerns in that through her themes--as with her use of color--she challenges the reader's expectations by throwing into question many conventional ideas about progress, religion, and the sex-gender system.

Este trabalho estuda os conteúdos socioculturais presentes na obra literária de Cora Coralina e a sua relevância para o desenvolvimento socioeconômico da Cidade de Goiás nas últimas décadas. A temporalidade deste estudo compreende o período que se estende entre os anos de 1937 a 2001. A pesquisa se inscreve parcialmente no quadro dos Estudos Culturais, tomados como base para o desenvolvimento de um novo tratamento acadêmico do conceito desenvolvimento sustentável. Além disso, ela se vale de aportes do campo da análise literária, incluindo uma discussão sobre a literatura feminina no cânone literário brasileiro. Os conceitos fundamentais para o seu desenvolvimento são o de intelectual orgânico - do pensamento gramsciano -, capitais social e cultural - provenientes das discussões recentes sobre desenvolvimento social - esferas pública e privada - tomadas da reflexão de Hannah Arendt e complementadas pela discussão sobre o lócus do feminino na sociedade brasileira, que emana da obra de Roberto Da Matta, através dos conceitos casa e rua e, finalmente, do conceito identidade cultural - de acordo com a reflexão de Denise Fonseca. O tratamento deste tema obriga um novo olhar sobre a questão local e uma nova valorização do patrimônio cultural, em resposta ao esvaziamento das identidades nacionais, ao declínio do papel social do Estado e a busca de novas formas de superação das desigualdades sociais, a partir dos legados das identidades culturais locais.
This work deals with the socio-cultural contents of Cora Coralina s literary work and its relevance to the social and economic development of the Goi s City during the last decades. The timeframe comprehends the period that spread from 1937 to 2001. The research is partially inscribed within the frame of the Cultural Studies, taken as a base for the departure of a new academic approach to the concept sustainable development. Furthermore, the approach adopted benefits from inputs taken from the field of literary analysis, including a discussion about feminine literature within the Brazilian literary cannon. The main concepts used in the development of this work were: organic intellectual - taken from Gramsci s work - social and cultural capitals - taken from the most recent debate about social development - public and private spheres - taken from the work of Hannah Arendt and complemented by the discussion about the female locus within Brazilian society, taken from Roberto Da Matta s work, who put forward the concepts house and street and, finally, the concept cultural identity - as conceived by Denise Fonseca. The approaching of such a theme demanded an innovative perspective and a new valorization of the local question and the cultural legacy, as a response for the weakening of the national identities, the decline of the social role of the State and the search for new means to surpass social inequalities, based on local cultural identities legacy.

In practice, graphs often occur as perturbed product structures, so-called approximate graph products. The practical application of the well-known prime factorization algorithms is therefore limited, since most graphs are prime, although they can have a product-like structure. This work is concerned with the strong graph product. Since strong product graphs G contain subgraphs that are itself products of subgraphs of the underlying factors of G, we follow the idea to develop local approaches that cover a graph by factorizable patches and then use this information to derive the global factors. First, we investigate the local structure of strong product graphs and introduce the backbone B(G) of a graph G and the so-called S1-condition. Both concepts play a central role for determining the prime factors of a strong product graph in a unique way. Then, we discuss several graph classes, in detail, NICE, CHIC and locally unrefined graphs. For each class we construct local, quasi-linear time prime factorization algorithms. Combining these results, we then derive a new local prime factorization algorithm for all graphs. Finally, we discuss approximate graph products. We use the new local factorization algorithm to derive a method for the recognition of approximate graph products. Furthermore, we evaluate the performance of this algorithm on a sample of approximate graph products.

This dissertation explores the ways by which reading and writing mediated the experience of place and the meaning of community in the nineteenth-century United States. Drawing on the literary productions of well-known authors like Frederick Douglass and Rebecca Harding Davis, the project shows how imaginative representations of real American places came to simultaneously challenge and make use of the expanding networks and institutions of a national print culture. Through its study of local cultures of print in Trenton, New Jersey, Bennington, Vermont, Chicago, Illinois, and Johnstown, Pennsylvania, this dissertation also examines the societal and cultural reshaping that sprang from confrontations between the frontiers of local and national identity, attachments to the old and new places of the nation, and divergent beliefs regarding the importance of face-to-face communities in the lives of everyday Americans.

In each of its four chapters, the dissertation studies the consumption and production of what it calls "local literature," an oft-overlooked literary category comprised of texts written about a specific place by a resident of that place. This intentionally broad definition allows the project to study many diverse genres and texts, including diaries, unpublished letters, congressional testimony, national periodicals, melodramas, factory ledgers, pamphlets, autobiographies, short stories, speeches, memoirs, newspapers, toasts, slave narratives, poems, event programs, popular songs, and public art inscriptions. The vast array of materials considered by this dissertation offers a different angle on the diversity of print culture in the nineteenth-century United States, while also drawing attention to the ways that reading and writing affected how Americans thought of themselves in relation to the many local and distant places they encountered during this period in the nation's history.

By paying close attention to the local dynamics and contexts of nineteenth-century American literature, this dissertation sheds new light on the related issues of identity and attachment. To some degree, cultural historians have grown accustomed to viewing identity through the prisms of race, gender, nationality, and class; building off of these works, this project shows how the attachment to place - and the expression of this attachment through literary production - figures in the construction of identity.

Set in a Finnish-American community in Upper Michigan, How Many Tears, a novel, represents the tears of pain, anger, and frustration that the protagonist, Ann T'oivonen, has shed merely because of the circumstances of her birth. It is a story of success, since she moves toward the ability to choose, toward some primitive level of autonomy, and it is a story that tries to represent the real problems of real people caught in an abusive, alcoholic world, a brutal world, where the characters find themselves neither by choice, nor by intention. Ann's struggle is made more difficult by her lack of education and support and her inability to define for herself what she wants from life. She moves from an abusive childhood to marrying an alcoholic whom she leaves only after her life has been physically threatened. Adrift in the world, she accepts charity from another man, who will be her second lover, but he too is an alcoholic, and she leaves him, finally in search of something for herself. How Many Tears is a story, not of Ann's struggle for enrichment--it is her struggle for survival.
Department of English

The purpose of this project was to demonstrate usage of the criteria important in writing an adolescent novel. My main effort with this project was to write something that was both educational and entertaining.To prepare this novel, I discussed my subject with people in the fields of medicine and psychiatry. I also used several books and articles relating to the experience of adolescent depression.By the time I completed the work, I felt that I had designed something that displayed my knowledge of adolescent literature, and something that was very entertaining as well as education. The manuscript was sent to Farrar, Straus, and Giroux in April, 1988.In preparation for submitting the work, I followed standard guidelines for manuscripts as outlined in Writer’s Market and as recommended by workshop advisors.My conclusions from this project are that I feel very satisfied that Dancing In The Dark is an encouraging, interesting piece of contemporary literature for adolescents.
Department of English

Odds and Ids is a satirical novel of 419 pages that ridicules the tenets of psychotherapy and the beliefs and behaviors of psychotherapists. There are two story lines which overlap and converge at the end. Odd chapters tell the story of semi-sane Clinical Psychologist Nicholas K. Mavros and his alcoholic dog, Misty, the melancholy collie. Disillusioned by life, and in particular by the sham of psychotherapy, Nick decides to commit suicide in seven days by driving his burgundy van off the Billy Bopplemeyer Pier at sunset.He and Misty form a sacred pact to achieve that gallant end. Knowing that he will be dead in one week frees Nick at work and play to say what he is thinking and to act as he is feeling. He simply does not care any longer what others--friends, staff, and clients--think of his behavior. The odd chapters follow him day by day until he and Misty plunge or do not plunge into the cold waters of Puget Sound.The even chapters trace the rise and fall of the fictional Rumanian Bithwanians, a strange family that personifies postFreudian psychotherapy. Three generations of odd Bithwanians bungle through the bizarre world of mental health, seldom knowing the first thing about how to help another human being. Each Bithwanian is so enmeshed in the intricacies of his own theory that he's;fails to see his clients as animate human beings.The last Bithwanian, whose suicide opens the second friend of Nicholas Mavros, the errant protagonist, whose intent to commit suicide 3efines the central plot of the odd chapters.Their relationship, seen in retrospect, ties the two story lines together.The guiding idea throughout the novel is that the right to label others, and this alone, separates therapists and clients.The following are shot at in the novel: A) Therapists and their illusions.B) Clients and their unrealistic expectations.C) The non-training of future clinicians.D) Therapy, insurance companies, the union of psychologists,sex, love, religion, tradition, and existentialism.
Department of English

Katherine Mansfield's short stories include numerous visual images, many of which contribute significantly to the stories' moods and themes. Her visual imagery has been linked with literary devices such as symbolism and irony. This study, however, emphasizes three major principles of the visual arts apparent in her imagery—line, color, and composition—that also play important roles in imbuing a substantial number of her images with possible meaning. The prominence and skillful handling of these artistic techniques suggest that she purposely wove them into her works to produce psychological effects that induce moods or support themes. As a result, Mansfield successfully merged verbal and visual languages to promote a greater sensitivity to her characters' perceptions and feelings. Mansfield's ability to see and creatively imitate reality as painters do, her friendship with painters (particularly Dorothy Brett), and other documented evidence of a fascination with the visual arts point to an apparent dependence on artistic techniques and theories that add an essential dimension to many of her stories. The most compelling evidence, however, exists within the many visual images themselves.

This study examines the role gender plays in The Third Life of Grange Copeland and The Color Purple. The study shows how and why the main male characters are attributed traditionally feminine traits and the leading female characters given traditionally masculine traits. The male characters' common disrespect for women and their fear of their own femininity foreground their abuse of women. Because women are believed to be socially inferior to men, the main characters take on masculine roles to compensate for the missing elements needed to obtain a balanced personality. The conclusions of this examination suggest that Alice Walker believes that the characteristics that define both male and female roles work together to produce a balanced disposition within an individual.

Passing, both standard and reverse, is the process of changing ethnicity. The methodology of reverse passing varies, but claiming "no color" is ineffective in fact and fiction as can be seen in James McBride's The Color of Water, Shirlee Taylor Haizlip's The Sweeter the Juice, Danzy Senna's Caucasia, and Rosellen Brown's Half a Heart. The characters in these texts attempt indefinite ethnicity by denying color and are prone to restlessness and failure until they accept racial duality.

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Dentro da área de concentração “Literatura e Vida Social”, sob o prisma da linha de pesquisa “Poéticas do texto literário: cultura e representação (PTL)”, pretende este trabalho, antes, tomando-se como base o romance póstumo El color del verano (1991), do escritor cubano exilado Reinaldo Arenas (1943-1990), analisar a(s) construção(ões) identitária(s) homoerótica(s) masculina(s). Partimos, para tanto, nesse percurso, de teóricos como Jacob Stockinger (1978) e David William Foster (2000), dentre outros, cujos textos apontam na direção de uma ars poetica homotextual consciente, sobretudo, a partir da segunda metade do século XX, diferente do pensamento de muitos para os quais se trata tão somente de um leitmotiv e esteja mais para o conteúdo e menos para a forma. A pesquisa, por fim, não deixa de vislumbrar, outrossim, os mecanismos narrativos que estruturam a referida obra do autor holguineiro, dentre eles, destacamos a intertextualidade, isto é, o diálogo com outros textos e autores alheios, a intratextualidade, ou seja, o diálogo constante consigo mesmo e com seus próprios textos bem como, também, por derradeiro, a extratextualidade, isto é, o diálogo constante e as referências, dentro do texto, à cultura e história cubanas e latinoamericanas
In the area of concentration “Literature and Social Life”, under the aspect of the line of search “Poetics of the literary text: culture and representation (PLT)”, intends this work, before, having as a base the posthumous novel El color del verano (1991), by the exilian cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas (1943-1990), to analyze the male homoerotic identity construction. We started, therefore, in this trajectory, of theorists as Jacob Stockinger (1978) and David William Foster (2000), among others, which texts point to the direction of a conscious homotextual ars poetica, specially, from the second half of the twentieth century, against of the thoughts of many people who things this is just a leitmovit and is more to the content than to the form. So, this search discerns indistinctly, besides, the narrative mechanisms which structure this narrated work of the holguinerian author, among them, we detach the intertextuality, that is, the dialogue with other foreign texts and authors, the intratextuality, that is, the constant dialogue with themselves and with their own texts, as well as conclusive, the extratextuality, that is, the constant dialogue and the references, inside the text, to the culture and Cuban and Latin-American history.

The changing dynamics of international communication in English have led to a intense questioning of the relevance of native-speaker pronunciation models in language teaching and testing. In addition, the World Englishes approach to local varieties has increased their level of recognition. Both of these developments suggest that English pronunciation models need to be reviewed, and Hong Kong represents an interesting case study. Although it has been claimed that Hong Kong English is at the ‘nativization’ stage, the existence of exonormative attitudes towards English is also well known. Two important questions arise from this inherent tension, neither of which has been intensively addressed in previous studies. Firstly, although many of the features of Hong Kong English pronunciation have been described, patterns of inter-speaker variation have not been investigated in detail. Secondly, the attitudes of Hong Kong English users towards the phonological features of their own variety have not been studied in ways that take account of such variation. This dissertation addresses both of these questions by being features-based in approach and using local listeners to evaluate accent samples. After an initial review of the features of Hong Kong English pronunciation, a preliminary study surveys the occurrence of consonantal phonological features within a mini-corpus of speech samples taken from local television programmes. Its findings are presented in the form of an implicational scale, which not only shows the relative frequencies with which different features occurred, but also indicates the existence of implicational patterns of co-occurrence. In the main study, twelve authentic accent samples (eleven Hong Kong speakers and one British speaker) were presented to 52 first-year undergraduate students for evaluation as to their acceptability, defined here as acceptability for pedagogical purposes. Multivariate statistical analysis discovered firstly that phonological ‘errors’, as marked by the student listeners, were the most important measured factor in determining the acceptability scores, and secondly that only certain types of ‘error’ or ‘feature’ had significant effects. These features were either related to L1 transfer or involved other salient phenomena such as idiosyncratic alterations to syllable structure. The explanatory part of the study includes acceptability as one of the factors determining feature persistence, in an ‘ecological’ or ‘evolutionary’ model of L2 phonology acquisition and development that combines the findings of the preliminary and main studies. Among the other factors that determine feature persistence or disappearance, salience, intelligibility and markedness are invoked as important influences. The acceptability data also has pedagogical implications, in that local listeners did not give the British accent the highest acceptability rating. This contrasts with the findings of previous studies regarding the pedagogical acceptability of the Hong Kong English accent. However, the features-based approach indicates that only certain types of local accent were acceptable to these listeners, and that these accents were more, rather than less, ‘native-like’. In various ways, the study contributes to an understanding of accent variation and acceptability within a new variety of English.

Speaking for or about others has featured consistently in current feminist debates as it is becoming clear that the assumed homogeneity of women within social groups is not realistic. It has become clear that difference can no longer be analysed in terms of race, gender and sexuality alone. Other factors such as history, nationality, and culture demand more attention than they have been previously accorded, which makes many alliances across national boundaries subject to redefinition and reconceptualisation. This thesis looks at the attendant dangers of ignoring the differences within alliances based on race and gender. I analyse Alice Walker's representation of African women and female circumcision in her novels Possessing the Secret of Joy and The Color Purple and her documentary film Warrior Marks and its accompanying book of the same name the text, to argue that when national and cultural differences are sacrificed for sisterhood and solidarity based on a superficial universalisation of racial and gender oppression, the totalising, discursive tendencies that many critics objected to in second wave mainstream feminism are replicated. Walker differentiates between African women as objects of her discourse and the Western women as its audience. In her representation of Africa and Africans, particularly African women, she is not self-reflexive enough to explore the impact of her ideological location in the West on her identity. Thus, she does not create enough distance between her cultural and ideological upbringing to be able to escape the charge of ethnocentrism. Because she reads African women from her location in American culture, her work is best read within the African American literature on Africa and Africans dating back three centuries. That the sisterhood that Walker's work advances between African American and African women is informed by unequal power relations between the West and Third World is made clear by her deployment of her womanist ethic in two of her novels, The Color Purple and Possessing the Secret of Joy. A comparison of the two novels shows that Walker overemphasises the differences between Africans and African-Americans in order to assert the superiority of African American identity to African identity. From her politics in both these novels it becomes clear female circumcision provides Walker with an opportunity to air her Africanist/neo-colonialist attitudes. Her texts on African women, in Possessing the Secret of Joy in particular, evinces her indebtedness to the imperialist tradition of writing about Africa as it is a projection rather than a perception. And like most imperialist texts, it tells us more about her pathologies and obsessions as a representing subject than about the Africans she seeks to portray. The position that she creates for herself in the novel is problematic because it is predicated on the essentialist notion of race and gender, and on a slippery identification process that casts her as both subject and object. This thesis does not look at the practice of female circumcision in Africa, but at Walker's representation of the practice. This is mainly because Walker’s representation of Africans is part of a larger discourse on African women: for Walker female circumcision provides vehicle for her to participate in this discourse.

The group of six short stories is unified around a central theme of remembrance, as the title of the collection suggests. In all of the stories but one, the memories of a female character are evoked--a character who looks back in time, either to childhood or to the more recent past, to recall an event which was crucial in her life, an event which changed her. In each of these five stories, the speaker is a mature adult; however, in the sixth, "Fern James and the Kid," the story is told by an observer of the main character(s). The setting (and voice) in these stories is most often that of small-town southern Indiana.

Margin of Balance is a collection of seven short stories developed and published during the spring and summer sessions of 1993. This six-hour creative project was completed under the guidance of Ms. Margaret Dimoplon, Dr. Thomas Koontz, and Dr. Frances Rippy, all of the English department. Stories were written, workshopped by these committee members, then rewritten or revised; upon completion, the stories were paginated, printed, and perfect-bound for marketing on consignment in area bookstores.Numerous authors-Virginia Woolf, Allen Tate, Dylan Thomas, and William Blake, to name a few-have used self-publishing as a first step on a successful career path. This creative project, besides completing the requirements for my master's degree, becomes an initial opportunity to place my collected fiction in public.The stories "Knuckling Under," "Margin of Balance," "Run, Red Pony," and "A Man of Letters" were begun in fiction classes taught by Ms. Dimoplon. The three longest stories-"The Anointed," "Brooklyn Babes & Babbling Brooks," and "Strings Attached"-were written for this particular project. My professional experience as an editor and graphic designer made planning and producing the book possible. Six sixteen-page signatures and a separate cover were printed at Ball State University Printing Services and bound at Commercial Service in Anderson, Indiana.Although I have had extensive experience in journalistic and public relations writing, this project served as a professional introduction to the field of fiction writing. Also, it became a final opportunity to work with three accomplished professors, a last chance to gain insight concerning my work and writing methods through their guidance. Though the collection must stand on its own merits, the experience of working with three such distinguished literary academicians proved most valuable and unforgettable. I trust that, through this project, I carry some portion of their sagacity into my writing endeavors.
Department of English

This thesis examines the use of interior narrative techniques such as free indirect discourse and internal monologue in two of James McBride’s neo-slave narratives, Song Yet Sung (2008) and The Good Lord Bird (2013). Very limited critical attention has been given to these neo-slave narratives that illustrate McBrides attention to characterization and focalized narration. In these narratives McBride builds upon the revelations he explores in his bestselling memoir, The Color of Water (1996, 2006), where he learns to disassociate race and character. What he discovers about not only his mother, but also himself, inspires his re-imagination of the people who lived during the antebellum period. His use of interior narrative techniques deviates from his peers’ conventional approach to the neo-slave narrative. His exploration of the psyche demonstrates a focalized attention to the individual, rather than a characterization of the community, which is typically portrayed in neo-slave narratives. In conclusion, this thesis argues that James McBride’s neo-slave narratives reveal his interest in deconstructing the hierarchal positioning of whites and blacks during the antebellum period in order to communicate that although African Americans were the intended victims, slave masters and mistresses were oppressed by the ideologies of slavery as well.