Ours is the age of the picture. Pictures abound in our newspapers and magazines, in storybooks and on the glossy pages of instruction manuals. We find them on billboards and postage stamps, on the television screen and in the cinema. And in all of these cases pictures inform us: they explain, they clarify, they elucidate - and at times, too, they entertain and delight us. Images on the television screen have all but replaced the printed word as a source of information about the world; and nowadays, too, picture books and comic strips are consulted much more readily, and with much less intellectual effort, than the printed word. There can be little doubt but that pictures have come to play a very important role in communication. It strikes me as odd that, in what is nothing less than a visual age, philosophers have had so little to say about the visual image and its use in communication. Hardly anything has been done to explain the way in which pictures are used to inform us; the way in which they influence our thinking, our attitudes and our perception of the world. My aim in this work is to fill this gap, and in so doing to provide a viable account of pictorial communication.

Ours is the age of the picture. Pictures abound in our newspapers and magazines, in storybooks and on the glossy pages of instruction manuals. We find them on billboards and postage stamps, on the television screen and in the cinema. And in all of these cases pictures inform us: they explain, they clarify, they elucidate - and at times, too, they entertain and delight us. Images on the television screen have all but replaced the printed word as a source of information about the world; and nowadays, too, picture books and comic strips are consulted much more readily, and with much less intellectual effort, than the printed word. There can be little doubt but that pictures have come to play a very important role in communication. It strikes me as odd that, in what is nothing less than a visual age, philosophers have had so little to say about the visual image and its use in communication. Hardly anything has been done to explain the way in which pictures are used to inform us; the way in which they influence our thinking, our attitudes and our perception of the world. My aim in this work is to fill this gap, and in so doing to provide a viable account of pictorial communication.

This book presents an updated description of The Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS). It begins with a discussion of the "big picture," or the authors view on the importance of laying the foundation for communication training by systematically structuring the learning environment (be it in the home, community or school). This approach, The Pyramid Approach to Education, embraces the principals of broad-spectrum applied behavior analysis and emphasizes the development of functional communication skills, independent of communication modality. The Pyramid Approach is one of the few approaches that encourages creativity and innovation on the teacher's part through databased decision making.

Whether it’s in emails, documents, presentations, meetings or tweets, we’re all being bombarded by millions of words every day. So, how do you make your message stand out and stick amongst all this chatter? The answer is simple – just get visual! With a straightforward doodle or a quick illustration you’ll revolutionise how your message impacts your audience. And The Art of Business Communication will show you how to do it. Can’t draw? No Picasso? No problem! You’ll be amazed at how easy it is to add a simple yet powerful visual dimension to any message or business communication so that all your ideas, presentations, documents and meetings are brought to life and make a meaningful and memorable impact. Everything becomes easier to say, problems are explained and solved in a flash and the complex quickly becomes clear. So, to make your point and make it matter – make it visual. The full text downloaded to your computer With eBooks you can: search for key concepts, words and phrases make highlights and notes as you study share your notes with friends eBooks are downloaded to your computer and accessible either offline through the Bookshelf (available as a free download), available online and also via the iPad and Android apps. Upon purchase, you'll gain instant access to this eBook. Time limit The eBooks products do not have an expiry date. You will continue to access your digital ebook products whilst you have your Bookshelf installed.

Communicating Pictures starts with a unique historical perspective of the role of images in communications and then builds on this to explain the applications and requirements of a modern video coding system. It draws on the author's extensive academic and professional experience of signal processing and video coding to deliver a text that is algorithmically rigorous, yet accessible, relevant to modern standards, and practical. It offers a thorough grounding in visual perception, and demonstrates how modern image and video compression methods can be designed in order to meet the rate-quality performance levels demanded by today's applications, networks and users.With this book you will learn: Practical issues when implementing a codec, such as picture boundary extension and complexity reduction, with particular emphasis on efficient algorithms for transforms, motion estimators and error resilience Conflicts between conventional video compression, based on variable length coding and spatiotemporal prediction, and the requirements for error resilient transmission How to assess the quality of coded images and video content, both through subjective trials and by using perceptually optimised objective metrics Features, operation and performance of the state-of-the-art High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard Covers the basics of video communications and includes a strong grounding in how we perceive images and video, and how we can exploit redundancy to reduce bitrate and improve rate distortion performance Gives deep insight into the pitfalls associated with the transmission of real-time video over networks (wireless and fixed) Uses the state-of- the-art video coding standard (H.264/AVC) as a basis for algorithm development in the context of block based compression Insight into future video coding standards such as the new ISO/ITU High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) initiative, which extends and generalizes the H.264/AVC approach