The Power of Perception: Exploring the Depth of Wisdom
Throughout history, the eyes have been regarded as windows to the soul, offering glimpses into the essence of a person’s being. From the ancient Greeks who believed in the concept of the “divine gaze” to modern-day psychologists studying the nuances of eye contact, there is a universal fascination with the messages conveyed through our gaze.
But what does it mean to have “wisdom” in one’s eyes? Is wisdom something that can truly be perceived through a simple gaze? This article delves into the complexities of perception, exploring how our eyes can communicate depth, knowledge, and insight.
Ancient Philosophical Roots
In ancient philosophy, the eyes were often seen as symbols of inner knowledge and enlightenment. The Greek philosopher Plato famously described the eyes as “the windows of the soul,” suggesting that through our gaze, our true selves are revealed to the world. Similarly, in Eastern philosophies such as Buddhism and Hinduism, the concept of the “third eye” represents inner vision and spiritual insight.
Modern Psychological Perspectives
Modern psychology offers a different lens through which to view the power of perception. Studies have shown that eye contact plays a crucial role in human communication, influencing perceptions of trust, empathy, and intelligence. Eye movements and expressions can convey a wealth of information about a person’s thoughts and feelings, shaping our interactions and relationships.
“The eyes are the mirror of the soul, revealing the depths of our being with a single glance.”
So when we are told that we have “wisdom” in our eyes, perhaps it is a reflection of the depth of our experiences, the richness of our insights, and the authenticity of our presence. Our gaze, subtle yet profound, offers a glimpse into the wisdom that lies within us, waiting to be discovered and shared with the world.
A friend I’ve known for eight years told me I have “wisdom” in my eyes recently,
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A few years ago, the R community started using ORCID (“Open Researcher and Contributor ID”) to persistently and uniquely identify individual authors of packages in DESCRIPTION.
The idea is the following: you enter authors’ ORCID as a specially named comment in their person() object.
For instance I can be represented by:
Although anyone could use your ORCID, maliciously or inadvertently1, you definitely benefit from using your ORCID in your work.
In the case of R packages, CRAN pages and pkgdown websites feature a pretty icon linking to your ORCID profile that in turn can link to your favorite online presence.
Recognition! Personal branding!
This year, the exact same idea was applied to organizations using ROR (“Research Organizations Registry”) IDs.
Any organization, be it a research organization, an initiative or a company, can request to be listed in the registry.
A few months ago, it became possible to list ROR IDs in DESCRIPTION, which a few dozen CRAN packages currently do –
although this is still far from the thousands of CRAN packages adopting ORCIDs.
Thanks to R Core for adding the feature2 and to Achim Zeileis for spreading the news.
A package maintainer might need to list organizations in DESCRIPTION: for instance a company that owns the copyright to the package (“cph” role), an entity that funded work on the software (“fnd” role).
Adding the organization’s ROR ID to its person() object identifies it even more clearly.
As an illustration, rOpenSci can be represented by:
person("rOpenSci", role = "fnd",
comment = c("https://ropensci.org/", ROR = "019jywm96"))
The ROR icon, although less striking than the bright green ORCID icon, appears on the CRAN page of the package and links to the organization’s ROR page that in turn can link to the organization’s website:
In 2018 we had reported about tooling for using ORCID.
This year, we’d like to explain the tooling for including ROR IDs.
ROR support in the {devtools} ecosystem
Once ROR IDs were supported by base R, a next technical step was for them to be supported by Posit’s “devtools ecosystem” too.
Even if devtools is not strictly necessary for developing packages, many package developers, including some in the rOpenSci community, do use devtools.
The code supporting ROR in desc, roxygen2 and pkgdown follows the code supporting ORCID in those packages.
It is very fortunate that ORCID support was added before ROR because “orcid” is a better string to search for than “ror” that comes up in, say, “error”.
ROR IDs support in {desc}
The desc package, maintained by Gábor Csárdi, helps you manipulate DESCRIPTION files programmatically.
In its current development version, all functions handling authors (adding, searching or complementing entries) now feature a ror argument.
Furthermore, a new function, desc_add_ror(), was created.
For instance you can add a ROR ID to an author entry:
desc::desc_add_ror("019jywm96", given = "rOpenSci")
You can add an author entry including its ROR ID:
desc::desc_add_author(given = "rOpenSci", ror = "019jywm96", role = "fnd")
These functions can be handy to update a bunch of packages at once.
Even if packages are updated one by one, it is shorter to share and apply the instructions as a code snippet.
ROR support in {roxygen2}
The roxygen2 package, maintained by Hadley Wickham, generates your package’s NAMESPACE and manual pages using specially formatted comments.
Among those manual pages, your package might (and should, according to our dev guide) contains a package-level one.
You can create such a page using usethis::use_package_doc().
The following content will be added to R/package-name-package.R, for instance R/usethis-package.R.
The pkgdown package, maintained by Hadley Wickham, creates a documentation website for your package based on its metadata and documentation.
Since its 2.1.2 version, ROR IDs in DESCRIPTION are transformed into icons, similar to ORCID IDs.
The sidebar of tinkr’s website includes a ROR icon near rOpenSci name.
Support for ROR icons?
As of today, ROR icons like those on the CRAN pages, pkgdown websites and our website’s footer come from files. We have however opened an icon request for ROR in the Font Awesome repository, that you can upvote by using thumbs up. This strategy worked for ORCID. There’s already a ROR icon in the more specialized academicons library.
Conclusion: go forth, register and use ROR IDs!
In this tech note, we explained what ROR IDs are: persistent IDs for organizations.
They are to organizations what ORCIDs are to individuals.
We’ve shown ROR IDs are supported in the base R and devtools ecosystems.
ROR IDs can help identify more clearly an entity you list in your package’s DESCRIPTION because it, say, funded the work or owns the copyrights to it.
We encourage you to register your organization to the Research Organization Registry and to use the resulting ID in your package’s DESCRIPTION.
Such a task could be tackled during a package spring cleaning.
Don’t we all resort to copy-pasting formatting from others’ metadata files? ︎
Currently, packages on CRAN with a ROR ID in DESCRIPTION get a NOTE in CRAN checks, that can be ignored. Example︎
The R community uses special identifiers such as ORCID (“Open Researcher and Contributor ID”) and ROR (“Research Organizations Registry”) to uniquely and persistently identify individual authors and organizations involved in the creation of R packages. These identifiers offer recognition, a personal and organization brand element and can be linked to online profiles or websites.
Long-Term Implications
If used consistently and appropriately, ORCID and ROR IDs can greatly support the open science movement by ensuring clear attributions of contributions to scientific packages and results. This can foster transparency and collaboration within the scientific community, stimulating research and development. In the future, these IDs could become a standard tool for recognizing the work of researchers and organizations involved in the creation of scientific packages. It could also enhance the mobility and recognition of individual contributors across multiple projects.
Possible Future Developments
We may witness an expansion of these unique identifiers in other areas of open-source development, reaching beyond the scientific community. As these identifiers grow in popularity, they could integrate with other digital tools used by researchers, such as digital repositories, lab notebooks and bibliographic management tools. This would allow for a seamless tracking and crediting of research contributions, while also promoting open science practices.
Actionable Advice
If you’re a part of the R community or if you’re engaged with open source development, consider adopting the use of ORCID and ROR IDs. Registering your organization with the Research Organization Registry and using these IDs consistently can enhance visibility and recognition for your work. Also, take advantage of the tooling available for including ROR IDs such as in ‘devtools’, ‘desc’, ‘roxygen2’ and ‘pkgdown’ packages.
If you’re already using these identifiers, explore further how you can integrate them with other tools and platforms you use. And lastly, contribute to further enhancement of the system by submitting and voting for icon requests.
Tired of rewriting boilerplate code? These copy-ready custom decorators are reusable patterns that belong in every developer’s toolkit.
Long-term Implications and Future Developments
The long-term implications of using custom decorators in coding are profound. With the advancements in different programming paradigms, a trend towards less redundancy and complexity is becoming more evident. As custom decorators enable developers to avoid rewriting the same code over and over again, they are an incredible tool to simplify and accelerate the coding process significantly.
Less Redundancy and More Efficiency
Implementing copy-ready custom decorators in your code brings efficiency to a whole new level. This means that you save time and resources, which can be spent on researching new features or sorting out bugs in your projects. This increase in productivity might even lead to shorter delivery times, creating a faster and more streamlined workflow.
Readability and Maintainability
With custom decorators, you make your code more readable and maintainable. This is a valuable property, especially in larger codebases or when working in a team. The reuse of decorators minimizes code complexity, which in turn reduces the chance of errors and makes the code more understandable to other developers.
Future Developments
As software development evolves, the use of such tools is likely to become an industry standard. By that time, developers who do not adopt these practices may struggle to keep up with the pace of the industry, especially as client and user expectations continue to rise.
Actionable Advice
Start Now: Start using custom decorators for your projects now. If you’re still writing boilerplate code, it’s time to change and build up a toolkit of reusable code.
Learn and Understand: Make sure to take the time to learn and understand how these patterns work. Custom decorators can be powerful, but they can also be confusing if used incorrectly.
Don’t Overuse Them: As with any tool, custom decorators should not be overused. Remember to only use them when necessary. Creating decorators for tasks that can be done simply without them can lead to unnecessary complexity.
Keep Up with the Latest: Technology is always evolving, so constantly keep an eye on the latest practices and trends. This can help ensure that you’re staying on top of your game.
Taking the willingness to learn, understand, and implement custom decorators is a game-changer for developers, striving for efficiency and productivity. Custom decorators have a considerable potential to transform the way we approach coding by reducing redundancy, improving readability and maintainability, and increasing efficiency.
Analyzing the Untapped Potential of Expired Domains for Small Businesses and Start-ups
In today’s cutthroat digital economy, start-ups and small businesses are in an unending battle to carve out a niche for themselves. With limited resources, they must deploy innovative strategies to stand out and catch the attention of their target audience. Expired domains have brewed a quiet revolution in how these businesses can gain a competitive edge. However, leveraging this resource effectively requires a nuanced understanding of their benefits and pitfalls. This article offers a critical examination of expired domains as a strategic asset, paving the way for businesses to harness their full potential.
The Strategic Value of Expired Domains
Typically overlooked in favor of conventional digital marketing tactics, expired domains are more than just dormant web addresses. They are repositories of history, backlinks, and established audiences that, when analyzed and utilized correctly, can provide a significant boost in search engine optimization (SEO), brand visibility, and even instant credibility. By critiquing the best practices for identifying and capitalizing on these digital properties, we unlock insights into how they can serve as the secret weapon for business growth.
Uncovering the Underlying Caveats
Despite their potential, the world of expired domains is fraught with pitfalls. Without due diligence, businesses risk inheriting domains that have been penalized by search engines or are burdened with a questionable backlink profile. In this comprehensive overview, we delve into the meticulous process of due diligence required before investing in an expired domain. We balance the discourse by discussing not only the appealing aspects but also the inherent risks and how to mitigate them.
Navigating the Technological and Ethical Landscape
The acquisition and use of expired domains also touch upon technical intricacies and ethical considerations. For instance, the technical challenge of ensuring a smooth transition in ownership and seamlessly integrating the domain into one’s digital strategy is often underrated. Equally important are the ethics of re-purposing domains, particularly those with a storied past. This segment of the article initiates a reflection on the responsibilities and implications of reviving expired domains.
Final Thoughts Before Digging for Digital Gold
Understanding the inherent value of expired domains for SEO and online authority.
Recognizing and avoiding the risks of acquiring domains with a problematic history.
The due diligence checklist before making any commitments.
Strategizing the integration of expired domains into overall business and marketing efforts.
Ethical considerations and best practices for leveraging this untapped resource.
As we prepare to delve into the multifaceted landscape of expired domains, it is crucial to approach this subject with a critical mindset. The integration of these dormant digital assets into one’s business portfolio, when executed with due care and strategy, could indeed be a defining move for up-and-coming enterprises seeking to establish a foothold in the digital domain. Armed with the insights provided herein, readers are poised to discover whether expired domains can truly serve as the hidden gold mines they are purported to be.
Expired domains represent a hidden gold mine for small businesses and start-ups willing to think beyond traditional methods.
arXiv:2505.05088v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Visible watermark removal is challenging due to its inherent complexities and the noise carried within images. Existing methods primarily rely on supervised learning approaches that require paired datasets of watermarked and watermark-free images, which are often impractical to obtain in real-world scenarios. To address this challenge, we propose SSH-Net, a Self-Supervised and Hybrid Network specifically designed for noisy image watermark removal. SSH-Net synthesizes reference watermark-free images using the watermark distribution in a self-supervised manner and adopts a dual-network design to address the task. The upper network, focused on the simpler task of noise removal, employs a lightweight CNN-based architecture, while the lower network, designed to handle the more complex task of simultaneously removing watermarks and noise, incorporates Transformer blocks to model long-range dependencies and capture intricate image features. To enhance the model’s effectiveness, a shared CNN-based feature encoder is introduced before dual networks to extract common features that both networks can leverage. Our code will be available at https://github.com/wenyang001/SSH-Net.
Expert Commentary: Self-Supervised and Hybrid Network for Noisy Image Watermark Removal
Visible watermark removal is a significant challenge in image processing due to the complexities inherent in the process and the noise that is often present in images. Existing methods for watermark removal typically rely on supervised learning approaches that require paired datasets of watermarked and watermark-free images. However, obtaining such datasets in real-world scenarios is often impractical.
In this context, the SSH-Net proposed in this study offers a novel solution to the problem of noisy image watermark removal. By synthesizing reference watermark-free images in a self-supervised manner, SSH-Net avoids the need for paired datasets. The network architecture consists of two components: an upper network focused on noise removal using a lightweight CNN-based design, and a lower network that tackles the more complex task of removing watermarks and noise simultaneously through the use of Transformer blocks.
One interesting aspect of the SSH-Net model is the incorporation of a shared CNN-based feature encoder before the dual networks. This feature encoder helps extract common features that are beneficial for both the noise removal and watermark removal tasks, enhancing the overall effectiveness of the model.
Multimedia information systems, animations, artificial reality, augmented reality, and virtual realities are all fields that could benefit from advancements in image processing techniques such as watermark removal. The multi-disciplinary nature of this study highlights the importance of integrating different approaches and technologies to address complex challenges in image processing.
Overall, the SSH-Net presents a promising approach to noisy image watermark removal that has the potential to offer practical solutions in real-world scenarios where paired datasets are not readily available.
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