Recognizing both the potential of biblical prohibition of images for causing religious conflict and the promise of a more nuanced appreciation of the role of images in human experience, this book constructs a framework for understanding the place of images, and their prohibition, within the biblical text and Christian religious practice.

Matthias Smalbrugge compares modern images to plays without a script: while they appear to refer to a deeper identity or reality, it is ultimately the image itself that truly matters. He argues that our modern society of images is the product of a destructive tendency in the Christian notion of the image in general, and Augustine of Hippo's in particular. This insight enables him to decode our current 'scripts' of image. As we live in an increasingly visual culture, we are constantly confronted with images that seem to exist without a deeper identity or reality – but did this referential character really get lost over time? Smalbrugge first explores the roots of the modern image by analysing imagery, what it represents, and its moral state within the framework of Platonic philosophy. He then moves to the Augustinian heritage, in particular the Soliloquies, the Confessions and the Trinity, where he finds valuable insights into images and memory. He explores within the trinitarian framework the crossroads of a theology of grace and a theology based on Neoplatonic views. Smalbrugge ultimately answers two questions: what happened to the referential character of the image, and can it be recovered?

Image algebra is a comprehensive, unifying theory of image transformations, image analysis, and image understanding. In 1996, the bestselling first edition of the Handbook of Computer Vision Algorithms in Image Algebra introduced engineers, scientists, and students to this powerful tool, its basic concepts, and its use in the concise representation

La Celestina, a Spanish literary masterpiece second only in importance to Don Quixote in Spanish literature, has been shaped by the inclusion of images from its very first edition in 1499. The subsequent five centuries were punctuated by many illustrated editions; imaginary portraits of the eponymous procuress Celestina by painters such as Murillo, Goya, and Picasso; and, more recently, screen and stage adaptations. Celestina became the prototype from which later representations of procuresses and bawds derived. The Image of Celestina sheds light on the visual culture that developed around La Celestina, including paintings, illustrations, and advertisements. Enrique Fernández examines La Celestina as a mixed-media text, incorporating methods from disciplines such as art history and women’s and cinema studies, and considers a variety of images including promotional posters, lobby pictures, and playbills of theatrical and cinematic adaptations of the book. Using a visual studies approach, The Image of Celestina ultimately illuminates the culture of Celestina, a mythical figure, who surpasses the literary text in which she originated.

Brain Imaging: A Guide for Clinicians is designed to provide a foundation of information necessary to those wishing to integrate brain imaging into their practice, or to those that currently review brain scans but have minimal formal training in neuroimaging. The guide covers a range of topics important to those using brain imaging, such as the strengths and weaknesses of the many different techniques currently available, the factors that may influence the use of imaging data, common pitfalls or artifacts that may be misleading to the clinician, the most appropriate techniques to use given a specific clinical question or condition, how to interpret information presented on a brain image, and also how many pathological conditions appear on a variety of brain scanning techniques or sequences. This guide also provides detailed information regarding the identification of primary brain regions, anatomical structures, systems or pathways using both two-dimensional and three-dimensional imaging techniques. A brain atlas is included using both CT and MRI sequences to facilitate the reader's ability to identify most primary brain structures. A novel color-coded system is used throughout this guide to assist the reader in identifying slice locations and orientations. Images with green borders are displayed in the axial plane, with the slice location being shown on other orthogonal image planes by a green line. Similarly, images with a red border are displayed in the coronal plane and those with a blue border are displayed using a sagittal plane; red and blue reference lines are displayed on orthogonal slices to identify the slice location. The crosshairs formed by the color-coded reference lines optimize the reader's ability to identify primary anatomical structures or pathological markers and processes. This book is written in a manner to progress from a general description of the clinical use of brain images and the interpretation of brain scans, to more complex chapters involving neuroanatomy and imaging technology. Real life examples of clinical cases are integrated into all chapters of this guide. Brain Imaging: A Guide for Clinicians provides hundreds of images derived from traumatic and non-traumatic pathologies to provide the reader with examples of conditions most often seen in the clinic. PEARL-PERIL sections outline critical information for the clinician, along with many tables and charts designed to provide general information required when interpreting brain images.

Redeeming Beauty explores the richness of orthodox Christian tradition, both Western and Eastern, in matters of 'sacral aesthetics' - a term used to denote the foundations, production and experience of religiously relevant beauty. Aidan Nichols investigates five principal themes: the foundation of beauty in the natural order through divine creative action; explicitly 'evangelical' beauty as a quality of biblical revelation and notably at its climax in Christ; the legitimacy of making and venerating artworks; qualities of the self in relation to objective presentation of the religiously beautiful; and the difficulties of practising a sacral aesthetic, whether as producer or consumer, in an epoch when the visual arts themselves have left behind not only Church but for the greater part the public as well. The thought of theologians such as Augustine, Aquinas, Balthasar, Ratzinger, Bulgakov, Maritain and others is explored.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 10th International Workshop on Digital-forensics and Watermarking (IWDW 2011) held in Atlantic City, NJ, USA, during October 23-26, 2011. The 37 revised full papers presented were carefully selected from 59 submissions. Conference papers are organized in 6 technical sessions, covering the topics of steganography and steganalysis, watermarking, visual cryptography, forensics, anti-forensics, fingerprinting, privacy and security.

 The elite French Zouaves, with their distinctive, colorful uniforms, set an influential example for volunteer soldiers during the Civil War and continued to inspire American military units for a century. Hundreds of militia companies adopted the flamboyant uniform to emulate the gallantry and martial tradition of the Zouaves. Drawing on fifty years of research, this volume provides a comprehensive state-by-state catalog of American Zouave units, richly illustrated with rare and previously unpublished photographs and drawings. The author dispels many misconceptions and errors that have persisted over the last 150 years.

An analysis of the role of Muslims from South Africa’s founding to the present and points to the resonance of these discussions beyond South Africa. How do Muslims fit into South Africa's well-known narrative of colonialism, apartheid and post-apartheid? South Africa is infamous for apartheid, but the country's foundation was laid by 176 years of slavery from 1658 to 1834, which formed a crucible of war, genocide and systemic sexual violence that continues to haunt the country today. Enslaved people from East Africa, India and South East Asia, many of whom were Muslim, would eventually constitute the majority of the population of the Cape Colony, the first of the colonial territories that would eventually form South Africa. Drawing on an extensive popular and official archive, Regarding Muslims analyses the role of Muslims from South Africa?s founding moments to the contemporary period and points to the resonance of these discussions beyond South Africa. It argues that the 350-year archive of images documenting the presence of Muslims in South Africa is central to understanding the formation of concepts of race, sexuality and belonging. In contrast to the themes of extremism and alienation that dominate Western portrayals of Muslims, Regarding Muslims explores an extensive repertoire of picturesque Muslim figures in South African popular culture, which oscillates with more disquieting images that occasionally burst into prominence during moments of crisis. This pattern is illustrated through analyses of etymology, popular culture, visual art, jokes, bodily practices, oral narratives and literature. The book ends with the complex vision of Islam conveyed in the post-apartheid period.