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Spatial Features (spatial + feature)
Selected AbstractsModeling human affective postures: an information theoretic characterization of posture featuresCOMPUTER ANIMATION AND VIRTUAL WORLDS (PREV: JNL OF VISUALISATION & COMPUTER ANIMATION), Issue 3-4 2004P. Ravindra De Silva One of the challenging issues in affective computing is to give a machine the ability to recognize the mood of a person. Efforts in that direction have mainly focused on facial and oral cues. Gestures have been recently considered as well, but with less success. Our aim is to fill this gap by identifying and measuring the saliency of posture features that play a role in affective expression. As a case study, we collected affective gestures from human subjects using a motion capture system. We first described these gestures with spatial features, as suggested in studies on dance. Through standard statistical techniques, we verified that there was a statistically significant correlation between the emotion intended by the acting subjects, and the emotion perceived by the observers. We used Discriminant Analysis to build affective posture predictive models and to measure the saliency of the proposed set of posture features in discriminating between 4 basic emotional states: angry, fear, happy, and sad. An information theoretic characterization of the models shows that the set of features discriminates well between emotions, and also that the models built over-perform the human observers. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Desmocollin 1 expression and desmosomal remodeling during terminal differentiation of human anagen hair follicle: an electron microscopic studyEXPERIMENTAL DERMATOLOGY, Issue 5 2004Elena Donetti Abstract:, The terminal differentiation (TD) program of keratinocytes of the human hair follicle (HF) occurs with specific temporal and spatial features in the various layers of the inner root sheath (IRS) and in the innermost layer of the outer root sheath (companion layer). This process is characterized by complex nuclear and cytoplasmic morphological changes, accompanied by profound modifications in intercellular junctions. As no correlation exists between the structure and the molecular composition of desmosomes during TD of the IRS/companion unit, the aim of our study was to investigate by transmission electron microscopy the remodeling of desmosomes in keratinizing cells of these compartments. By immunogold post embedding technique, we studied in anagen HFs the modulation of the synthesis of desmocollin 1 (Dsc1), a transmembrane glycoprotein specifically synthesized in the IRS and in the companion layer. Dsc1 immunoreactivity was actually confined to these compartments and tended to increase just before the level of TD, particularly in the Henle's layer and in the IRS cuticle. In Huxley's layer, the immunolabeling was patchy and in the companion layer Dsc1 synthesis was detected above the level of keratinization of Huxley's layer. In the whole IRS, concomitantly with TD, there was an abrupt and almost complete disappearance of Dsc1 synthesis. An asymmetric distribution of Dsc1 was noticed (i) between cells at different stages of differentiation and (ii) between cells belonging to layers with different spatial/temporal features of TD. Our results show that the ultrastructural modifications of desmosomes during TD of HF are paralleled by the modulation of the synthesis of desmocollin 1. [source] The Space of Local Control in the Devolution of us Public Housing PolicyGEOGRAFISKA ANNALER SERIES B: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, Issue 4 2000Janet L. Smith Sweeping changes in national policy aim to radically transform public housing in the United States. The goal is to reduce social isolation and increase opportunities for low income tenants by demolishing ,worst case' housing, most of which is modern, high-rise buildings with high vacancy and crime rates, and replacing it with ,mixed-income' developments and tenant based assistance to disperse current public housing families. Transformation relies on the national government devolving more decision-making power to local government and public housing authorities. The assumption here is that decentralizing the responsibility for public housing will yield more effective results and be more efficient. This paper explores the problematic nature of decentralization as it has been conceptualized in policy discourse, focusing on the underlying assumptions about the benefits of increasing local control in the implementation of national policy. As this paper describes, this conceived space of local control does not take into account the spatial features that have historically shaped where and how low income families live in the US, including racism and classism and a general aversion by the market to produce affordable rental units and mixed-income developments. As a result, this conceived space of local control places the burden on low income residents to make transformation a success. To make this case, Wittgenstein's (1958) post-structural view of language is combined with Lefebvre's view of space to provide a framework in which to examine US housing policy discourse as a ,space producing' activity. The Chicago Housing Authority's Plan for Transformation is used to illustrate how local efforts to transform public housing reproduce a functional space for local control that is incapable of generating many of the proposed benefits of decentralization for public housing tenants. [source] Seasonal march and its spatial difference of rainfall in the PhilippinesINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CLIMATOLOGY, Issue 6 2007I. Akasaka Abstract On the basis of the pentad rainfall data averaged from 1961 to 2000, the seasonal march of rainfall in the Philippines is analyzed in this study. The relation to the atmospheric circulation at the 850 hPa level is also discussed. To investigate the temporal and spatial features of rainfall, the Empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis was applied to rainfall data. The result showed two dominant modes in the seasonal march of rainfall. The first mode reveals the increase of rainfall amount in the entire Philippines during summer monsoon while the second mode represents the contrast between the west and east coasts in the seasonal march of rainfall. The rainy season starts simultaneously over the entire west coast in the middle of May and withdraws gradually from northern stations around November. And on the east coast, the rainfall amount increases in autumn and winter rather than in summer. These regional differences between west and east coasts are considered to correspond to the seasonal change of Asian summer monsoon and orographic effect. The seasonal march of rainfall in the Philippines is characterized by the sudden change of atmospheric circulation around the Philippines. Particularly, the onset and peak of rainy season on the west coast are influenced by the eastward shift of the subtropical high and the evolution of the monsoon trough with southwesterly, respectively. The increase of rainfall on the east coast is related with the weakened monsoon trough around early September. Copyright © 2006 Royal Meteorological Society [source] On estimation of the number of image principal colors and color reduction through self-organized neural networksINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF IMAGING SYSTEMS AND TECHNOLOGY, Issue 3 2002A. Atsalakis A new technique suitable for reduction of the number of colors in a color image is presented in this article. It is based on the use of the image Principal Color Components (PCC), which consist of the image color components and additional image components extracted with the use of proper spatial features. The additional spatial features are used to enhance the quality of the final image. First, the principal colors of the image and the principal colors of each PCC are extracted. Three algorithms were developed and tested for this purpose. Using Kohonen self-organizing feature maps (SOFM) as classifiers, the principal color components of each PCC are obtained and a look-up table, containing the principal colors of the PCC, is constructed. The final colors are extracted from the look-up table entries through a SOFM by setting the number of output neurons equal to the number of the principal colors obtained for the original image. To speed up the entire algorithm and reduce memory requirements, a fractal scanning subsampling technique is employed. The method is independent of the color scheme; it is applicable to any type of color images and can be easily modified to accommodate any type of spatial features. Several experimental and comparative results exhibiting the performance of the proposed technique are presented. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol 12, 117,127, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ima.10019 [source] Metastable anion fragmentations after resonant attachment: Deoxyribosic structures from quantum electron dynamicsINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF QUANTUM CHEMISTRY, Issue 11 2008I. Baccarelli Abstract This work is focussed on the theoretical investigation of the observed fragmentation after the resonant electron attachment to gas-phase ,- D -deoxyribose. The collision energy of the incident electron is kept below 20 eV and both the furanosic and the pyranosic forms of the gaseous target are analyzed. All the transient negative ions associated to shape resonances are characterized in their energetics and spatial features, all pointing to highly selective bond-breaking resonant processes. The present results, when compared with the available experiments on gas-phase ,- D -deoxyribose and with the findings on the analogous conformers from the previously studied ,- D -ribose, offer new insights into the manifold fragmentation pathways occurring in biomolecules after electron attachment. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2008 [source] Analytical models for the mean flow inside dense canopies on gentle hilly terrainTHE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY, Issue 634 2008D. Poggi Abstract Simplifications and scaling arguments employed in analytical models that link topographic variations to mean velocity perturbations within dense canopies are explored using laboratory experiments. Laser Doppler anemometry (LDA) measurements are conducted in a neutrally-stratified boundary-layer flow within a large recirculating flume over a train of gentle hills covered by a dense canopy. The hill and canopy configuration are such that the mean hill slope is small and the hill is narrow in relation to the canopy (H/L , 1 and Lc/L , 1, where H is the hill height, L the half-length, and Lc the canopy adjustment length-scale). The LDA data suggest that the often-criticized linearizations of the advective terms, turbulent-shear-stress gradients and drag force appear reasonable except in the deep layers of the canopy. As predicted by a previous analytical model, the LDA data reveal a recirculation region within the lower canopy on the lee slope. Adjusting the outer-layer pressure perturbations by a virtual ground that accounts for the mean streamline distortions induced by this recirculation zone improves this model's performance. For the velocity perturbations in the deeper layers of the canopy, a new analytical model, which retains a balance between mean horizontal advection, mean pressure gradient and mean drag force but neglects the turbulent-shear-stress gradient, is developed. The proposed model reproduces the LDA measurements better than the earlier analytical model, which neglected advection but retained the turbulent-shear-stress gradient in the lower layers of the canopy and near the hill top. This finding is consistent with the fact that the earlier model was derived for tall hills in which advection inside the canopy remains small. In essence, the newly-proposed model for the narrow hill studied here assumes that in the deeper layers of the canopy the spatial features of the mean flow perturbations around their background state can be approximated by the inviscid mean-momentum equation. We briefly discuss how to integrate all these findings with recent advances in canopy lidar remote-sensing measurements of general topography and canopy height. Copyright © 2008 Royal Meteorological Society [source] | |||||||||||||