Jüri Okas’ ‘specific objects’: diverging discourses in Estonian Art in the 1970s.

OpenAIRE

Kurg, Andres.

2003-01-01

Previously in the University eprints HAIRST pilot service at http://eprints.st-andrews.ac.uk/archive/00000367/ Article 3 of 6 in issue devoted to the visual culture of the Scandinavian and Baltic region. This article will look at the early works of Estonian architect and artist Jüri Okas and will try to work between diverging languages and interpretations, reading works by Okas against the background of Anglo-american conceptualism and minimalism of the same period. The first part of th...

SAS tahab Estonian Airi liita lätlaste firmaga airBaltic / Andres Eilart

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Eilart, Andres

2007-01-01

SAS plaanib Estonian Airi ja Läti firma airBalticu liitmisega luua uue lennufirma. Autori hinnangul viitavad Estonian Airi laienemisplaanidele kriipsu peale tõmbamine ja SAS-i investeeringud airBalticusse sellele, et ühendamise käigus "neelab" Läti firma Estonian Airi

Stocks of organic carbon in Estonian soils

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Kõlli, Raimo

2009-06-01

Full Text Available The soil organic carbon (SOC stocks (Mg ha–1 ofautomorphic mineral (9 soil groups, hydromorphic mineral (7, and lowland organic soils (4 are given for the soil cover or solum layer as a whole and also for its epipedon (topsoil layer. The SOC stocks for forest, arable lands, and grasslands and for the entire Estonian soil cover were calculated on the basis of the mean SOC stock and distribution area of the respective soil type. In the Estonian soil cover (42 400 km2, a total of 593.8 ± 36.9 Tg of SOC is retained, with 64.9% (385.3 ± 27.5 Tg in the epipedon layer (O, H, and A horizons and 35.1% in the subsoil (B and E horizons. The pedo-ecological regularities of SOC retention in soils are analysed against the background of the Estonian soil ordination net.

Estonian horticultural peat marketing: sales promotion and price formation. 2. part

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hammer, Hele

1999-01-01

When forming prices, Estonian peat companies' decisions should be based on marginal cost analysis. Unfortunately most Estonian companies sell peat to intermediaries and cannot influence its price. Estonian peat producers have to choose between either selling peat directly or selling through a central marketing organization. Both systems have their pros and cons. Direct selling gives more freedom to individual producers but is more risky. Central marketing makes cost saving possible and is more effective and stable, but may alienate producers from clients and markets. Whichever marketing system Estonian peat companies choose, the most important elements in their marketing strategy should be: careful market analysis, personal sales, attending trade shows, catalogues, quality service and offering transportation services. (author)

Noor-Eesti enesekoloniseerimisprojekt. Teine osa Olulised kirjandusmõtteviisid . The Self-Colonization Project of Young Estonia. Part II. Modes of Literary Thinking and Relations with Colonialism in Estonian Literature of the beginning of the 20th century

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Tiit Hennoste

2012-04-01

Full Text Available The topic of this article is the literary discourse of Young Estonia; its relations with other important Estonian literary discourses from the beginning of the 20th century, and its relations with colonial cultural discourse. First, I give an overview of the basic positions of the Young Estonians’ literary discourse, the main shapers of which were Friedebert Tuglas, Gustav Suits, later on Johannes Semper as well. Next, I present the basic principles of three Estonian literary discourses from the beginning of the 20th century, which were also important to the Young Estonians: nationalist-naturalistic (close-to-life; socialist/ class-based, and 20th century modernist. The Young Estonians began as nationalists and/or socialists. During the formation of Young Estonia’s discourse at the end of the first and beginning of the second decade of the 20th century, 20th century modernism began, which the Young Estonians regarded first and foremost with irony. The Young Estonians’ literary discourse is a mixture of aestheticism, decadence, symbolism, romanticism, and classicism. The point of departure for the Young Estonian approach to literature was eurocentrism. They took a superior and negative view of existing Estonian literature, which they regarded as having fallen drastically behind Europe. Since it was unable to build on its own foundation, it had to borrow from Europe. The discourse’s understandings of cultural values – theory, reading, knowledge, ready-made culture, derive from the centrality of the dynamic of borrowing. New culture could be created freely, without the support of previous local tradition; it was to be an elite culture, while the writer remained an individualist. Literature was to follow the principle of art for art’s sake; aesthetics and the form of the work of art were basic criteria. The formal ideals of the work of art were classicist: unity, integrity (wholeness, harmony, order, logic, etc. Thirdly, I outline the

Transformational Leadership in the Estonian Defence Forces

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Antek Kasemaa

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Purpose – The study is a contribution to the validation of the 15 items and 5 subscales Transformational Leadership Scale (TLS proposed by Rafferty and Griffin (2004. Design/methodology/approach – The sample includes participants from different levels of the Estonian Defence Forces (EDF military hierarchy (N=2570. The structure of the TLS was examined by using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Additionally ANOVA was used to compare the results between different subsamples. Findings – TLS showed satisfactory reliability. Confirmatory factor analyses found TLS as valid five dimensions instrument to measure transformational leadership in the Estonian military context. Different management levels showed different emphases among the dimensions of transformational leadership. Research and practical limitations/implications – TLS will be an important tool to use in transformational leadership research in the Estonian military context and beyond. Additionally, the current research contributes to the development of alternative measurement tools besides the most commonly used MLQ. The limitation of the work will be the rather homogenous sample from the Estonian military, however it will open the door for the subsequent research using different samplings. Originality/value – The current research found TLS to be a reliable and valid instrument, very short and therefore easy to administrate, having the possibility to use it with five dimensional and as one general transformational instrument as well.

Uniting the Divided Continent. The Estonian National Committee of the European Movement

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Pauli Heikkilä

2010-12-01

Full Text Available The article examines the exiled Estonian politicians in the European Movement in the early Cold War period. The ultimate goal of exiled Estonians was to restore their state’s independence. In order to promote this, Estonian leaders sought connections with Western leaders. The European Movement was the only organisation involving actors from both the East and the West, and this corresponded to the Estonian discourse on Europe as a whole. Therefore, the European Movement was appreciated, although its limited opportunities for decisive actions were also recognised. East and West European interest in the European Movement declined as West European integration rapidly intensified through the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC and particularly after the January 1952 Eastern European Conference in London. By 1957, disappointment in the inability of European unification to help regain Estonian independence became evident.

Estonian Airi uued soodsad pakkumised

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

2010-01-01

Estonian Airi kodulehelt on võimalik osta lennupileteid koostööpartnerite poolt pakutavatele mandritevahelistele lendudele ning broneerida internetis hotellituba Euroopa suurima hotelli broneerimise teenust pakkuva ettevõtte Booking.com kaudu

Bernhard Linde. Noor-Eesti vooriülem. Bernhard Linde. Leader of the Young Estonian Pack

OpenAIRE

Jaanus Kulli

2012-01-01

Bernhard Linde (1886–1954) was a recognized and prolific Estonian theatre critic of the first quarter of the 20th century, who mediated and propagated western as well as eastern European theatrical innovations. In addition, he was active as a literary and art critic, publisher, and proponent of libraries, to a modest extent he was a prose writer and poet. Unquestionably, however, Bernhard Linde’s most prominent role was as one of the founding members of the literary movement Young Estonia. He...

The ART of CSI: An augmented reality tool (ART) to annotate crime scenes in forensic investigation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Streefkerk, J.W.; Houben, M.; Amerongen, P. van; Haar, F. ter; Dijk, J.

2013-01-01

Forensic professionals have to collect evidence at crime scenes quickly and without contamination. A handheld Augmented Reality (AR) annotation tool allows these users to virtually tag evidence traces at crime scenes and to review, share and export evidence lists. In an user walkthrough with this

Cresco sai lahti võlast SASile ja osalusest Estonian Airis / Rivo Sarapik, Alyona Stadnik

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Sarapik, Rivo, 1981-

2010-01-01

Majandus- ja kommunikatsiooniminister Juhan Parts ning SAS-i asepresident Benny Zakrisson kirjutasid alla Estonian Airi ostu-müügitehingule. Investeerimispank Cresco, millele kuulus 17% Estonian Airist, jääb välja Estonian Airi omanikeringist ning SAS-i nõue Crescole tühistatakse

On the System of Place Name Signs in Estonian Sign Language

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Liina Paales

2011-05-01

Full Text Available A place name sign is a linguistic-cultural marker that includes both memory and landscape. The author regards toponymic signs in Estonian Sign Language as representations of images held by the Estonian Deaf community: they reflect the geographical place, the period, the relationships of the Deaf community with hearing community, and the common and distinguishing features of the two cultures perceived by community's members. Name signs represent an element of signlore, which includes various types of creative linguistic play. There are stories hidden behind the place name signs that reveal the etymological origin of place name signs and reflect the community's memory. The purpose of this article is twofold. Firstly, it aims to introduce Estonian place name signs as Deaf signlore forms, analyse their structure and specify the main formation methods. Secondly, it interprets place-denoting signs in the light of understanding the foundations of Estonian Sign Language, Estonian Deaf education and education history, the traditions of local Deaf communities, and also of the cultural and local traditions of the dominant hearing communities. Both perspectives - linguistic and folkloristic - are represented in the current article.

Emission from Estonian oil shale power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Aunela, L.; Haesaenen, E.; Kinnunen, V.; Larjava, K.; Mehtonen, A.; Salmikangas, T.; Leskelae, J.; Loosaar, J.

1995-01-01

Flue gas emissions from pulverized oil shale fired boilers of Estonian and Baltic power plants have been studied. The concentrations of NO x , CO, C x H y , HCI, Hf and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in flue gases have been found to be relatively low and acceptable according to German emission limits, for instance. Desulphurization degree of flue gases by SO 2 absorption with ash has been found to vary defending on boiler type and operation conditions. In spite of significant sulphur capture (average values for different boilers in the range between 68 and 77 % of the initial sulphur content of the fuel), SO 2 concentrations in flue gases remain still very high (up to 2600 mg/m 3 , 10% O 2 ). Very high concentrations of particles, especially at Estonian Power Plant (up o 6250 mg/m 3 , 10 % 0 2 ) have been detected. Heavy metal emissions were too high by the reason of particle control insufficiency as well. Yearly emission estimates of this study support the former Estonian ones within the range of 10-15 %. (author)

The Representation of the Cold War in Three Estonian History Textbooks

Science.gov (United States)

Korbits, Keit

2015-01-01

The article looks at the discursive strategies different Estonian history textbooks employ to represent the Cold War period, and the "commonsense" ideologies instilled through these representations. The textbooks analysed include two history books dating back to the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic and, for contrast, one written during…

Estonian Language of Technology as a Factor Supporting the Evolution of Engineering Thinking

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Mägi, Vahur

2013-03-01

Full Text Available Casual mention of teaching technology subjects in Estonian schools dates back several centuries. Navigation and construction were amongthe earliest professional skills that were taught. As both of them required mathematical thinking skills, teaching the subjects was usually accompanied by explaining the principles of mathematics. The first technology book in Estonian was published about two centuries ago and it dealed with geodesy. The earliest Estonian glossaries of technological terminology were published in the fields of physics and chemistry. The rise of Estonian as a language of higher education and science in the country came about in the 1920s and 1930s. Faculty members of the Tallinn School of Technology then published the first textbooks composed in the Estonian language for students of technology. The Estonian Society for Technology and the Estonian Association of Engineers became seriously involved in linguistic activities. Together with the Vocational Teachers’ Assembly of Tartu they published an illustrated technology glossary for machinery and tools terms. It was followed by a glossary of construction and building terms, compiled under the lead of the University of Technology. In addition, journals of technology introducedinnovations in the lexicon of technology to the general public. The postwar period in the development of the lexicon of technical terms was of little significance at first. A surge in language creativity could be detected in the 1960s, when terminology became a target of constantly growing attention to the development of technology lexicon. Series of technology glossaries were published. This tendency has continued to this day.

A view not to be missed: Salient scene content interferes with cognitive restoration

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van der Jagt, A.P.N.; Craig, Tony; Brewer, Mark J.; Pearson, David G.

2017-01-01

Attention Restoration Theory (ART) states that built scenes place greater load on attentional resources than natural scenes. This is explained in terms of "hard" and "soft" fascination of built and natural scenes. Given a lack of direct empirical evidence for this assumption we propose that

Estonian Tax Structure

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Viktor Trasberg

2014-08-01

Full Text Available The paper analyses Estonian tax structure changes during the last decade and critically assesses the current situation. The country’s tax mix is rather unique among EU countries – it has one of the highest proportions of consumption taxes in total taxes and the lowest level of capital and profit taxes. Such an unbalanced tax structure creates risks for public finances, limits revenue collection and distorts the business environment.

Estonian Golf & Country Club / Urmas Oja

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Oja, Urmas, 1981-2012

2005-01-01

Konkursil "Eesti parim puitehitis 2005" pälvis voodrilaua eripreemia Jõelähtme Estonian Golf & Country Club'i katus. Arhitekt Andres Siim. Sisearhitekt Juta Lember. Konstruktor: AS Resand. 11 värv. ill

Estonian Air / Kirsti Vainküla

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Vainküla, Kirsti, 1972-

2004-01-01

Estonian Air reklaamib end Taani linna Aalborgi raadiojaama ilmateates. Lennukompanii pressiesindaja Epp Alatalu sõnul on firma Taanis reklaamimise põhjus see, et liinil Tallinn-Kopenhaagen sõitjate hulgas ei ole peaaegu üldse taanlasi

Liberalism - Key to Entrepreneurial and Innovation Success: Estonian Case Study

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Augustin Ignatov

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Since its independence in 1991 Estonia has successfully overpassed the challenges of the transition period being in the present of one the most technologically developed nations of Europe. The present research is intended to evaluate the relationship between Estonian pro-market regulation, entrepreneurship and innovation. In order to reach relevant conclusions in this regard there have been used both qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis. In such a way, it could be comprehensively reviewed the process of Estonian economic development from a relatively underdeveloped USSR republic to an advanced innovation driven economy. The results show that pro-market governmental regulation has favourably influenced Estonian entrepreneurship, while it fostered country’s innovation capacities. It has been concluded that the economic “miracle” of Estonia has been at a great extent determined by proper government regulation oriented towards economic liberalisation.

Efficiency of Estonian grain farms in 2000 2004

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N. VASILIEV

2008-12-01

Full Text Available The aim of this study is to analyse the efficiency of Estonian grain farms after Estonia’s transition to a market economy and during the accession period to the European Union (EU. The non-parametric method Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA was used to estimate the total technical, pure technical and scale efficiency of Estonian grain farms in 2000–2004. Mean total technical efficiency varied from 0.70 to 0.78. Of the grain farms 62% are operating under increasing returns to scale. Solely based on the DEA model it is not possible to determine optimum farm scale and the range of Estonian farm sizes operating efficiently is extensive. The most pure technically efficient farms were the smallest and the largest but the productivity of small farms is low compared to larger farms because of their small scale. Therefore, they are the least competitive. Since pre-accession period to the EU, large input slacks of capital have replaced the former excessive use of labour and land. This raises the question about the effects on efficiency of the EU’s investment support schemes in new member states.;

The Category of Time in Fairy Tales: Searching for Folk Calendar Time in the Estonian Fairy Tale Corpus

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Mairi Kaasik

2011-03-01

Full Text Available The article examines how folk calendar holidays are represented in Estonian fairy tales. It introduces some views presented in folklore studies about the concept of time in fairy tales and finds parallels with them in the Estonian context. The analysis relies on the digital corpus of Estonian fairy tales (5400 variants, created from the texts found in the Estonian Folklore Archives by the Fairy Tale Project of the Department of Estonian and Comparative Folklore, University of Tartu. Folk calendar holidays occur in Estonian fairy tales relatively seldom; most often these are holidays that occupy a significant place in the Estonian folk calendar (Christmas, St. John’s Day, Easter, St. George’s Day. Calendar holidays are notably mentioned more often in tale types which remain on the borderline between the fairy tale and the legend or the fairy tale and the religious tale. In Estonian fairy tales, calendar holidays are used on three levels of meaning: (1 the holiday is organically associated with the tale type; it has an essential role in the plot of the tale; (2 to a certain extent, the holiday could be replaced by another holiday having an analogous meaning; (3 the holiday forms an unimportant or occasional addition to the tale.

Olev Schults : SAS vajab Estonian Airi rahvusliku lennufirmana / Olev Schults ; interv. Andres Reimer

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Schults, Olev

2008-01-01

Estonian Airi nõukogu esimees vastab küsimustele, kas SAS arendas Läti airBalticut Estonian SAS-i arvel, mis mõte on rahvuslikul lennukompaniil, kui riik ei tohi seda finantseerida, kuidas mõjutab investorite meeleolu SAS-i Eestis tabanud poliitikute kriitika tulv

Estonian Air to overhaul strategy / Matt Withers

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Withers, Matt

2008-01-01

Estonian Air on majanduslikes raskustes, mida aitaks leevendada riigipoolne toetus. Majandus- ja kommunikatsiooniminister Juhan Parts leiab, et riik peaks omama lennufirma juhatuses esimehe kohta, et mõjutada rohkem vastuvõetavaid otsuseid ja investeeringuid

Resource and utilization of Estonian hydropower

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Raesaar, P.

2005-01-01

An overview of the Estonian hydropower resources and their utilization at present as well as prospective for the future are presented in this paper. A short overview of advantages of small hydropower stations and related issues is given. Some technological aspects are treated briefly. (authors)

Revisiting the Estonian Cyber Attacks: Digital Threats and Multinational Responses

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Stephen Herzog

2011-01-01

Full Text Available In April 2007, the Estonian Government moved a memorial commemorating the Soviet liberation of the country from the Nazis to a less prominent and visible location in Tallinn. This decision triggered rioting among Russian-speaking minorities and cyber terrorism targeting Estonia's critical economic and political infrastructure. Drawing upon the Estonian cyber attacks, this article argues that globalization and the Internet have enabled transnational groups—such as the Russian diaspora—to avenge their grievances by threatening the sovereignty of nation-states in cyberspace. Sophisticated and virtually untraceable political "hacktivists" may now possess the ability to disrupt or destroy government operations, banking transactions, city power grids, and even military weapon systems. Fortunately, western countries banded together to effectively combat the Estonian cyber attacks and minimize their effects. However, this article concludes that in the age of globalization, interdependence, and digital interconnectedness, nation-states must engage in increased cooperative cyber-defense activities to counter and prevent devastating Internet attacks and their implications.

Compiling the Dictionary of Word Associations in Estonian: From scratch to the database

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Ene Vainik

2018-04-01

Full Text Available The present paper describes the project titled “The Dictionary of Word Associations in Estonian” undertaken by the author at the Institute of the Estonian Language. The general aim of the Dictionary is to provide insights into Estonians’ common-sense mind. It is meant to be a tool of self-reflection for Estonian native speakers and a guide for the foreigners who are eager enough to make themselves familiar with the Estonian cultural patterns of thought. The Dictionary will be published online. The number of keywords was initially limited to approximately 800. Specific emphasis is given to the stage of data collection by implementing the principles of citizen science.

Valued Estonian Music CDs / Igor Garshnek

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Garšnek, Igor, 1958-

2003-01-01

2002. aastal välja antud eesti muusika heliplaatidest Arvo Pärt "Summa", Lepo Sumera "Chamber Music", "Baltic Voices 1.", "Sequenzen - Europäische Orgelmusik des 20. Jahrhundrets mit...", "El silenco ئ Silence. Kuldar and Marje Sink. Songs of Mother and Son", "Riho Sibul. Estonian Dream Big Band", "Rull's Royce ئ Rull's Choice"

Moving through a multiplex holographic scene

Science.gov (United States)

Mrongovius, Martina

2013-02-01

This paper explores how movement can be used as a compositional element in installations of multiplex holograms. My holographic images are created from montages of hand-held video and photo-sequences. These spatially dynamic compositions are visually complex but anchored to landmarks and hints of the capturing process - such as the appearance of the photographer's shadow - to establish a sense of connection to the holographic scene. Moving around in front of the hologram, the viewer animates the holographic scene. A perception of motion then results from the viewer's bodily awareness of physical motion and the visual reading of dynamics within the scene or movement of perspective through a virtual suggestion of space. By linking and transforming the physical motion of the viewer with the visual animation, the viewer's bodily awareness - including proprioception, balance and orientation - play into the holographic composition. How multiplex holography can be a tool for exploring coupled, cross-referenced and transformed perceptions of movement is demonstrated with a number of holographic image installations. Through this process I expanded my creative composition practice to consider how dynamic and spatial scenes can be conveyed through the fragmented view of a multiplex hologram. This body of work was developed through an installation art practice and was the basis of my recently completed doctoral thesis: 'The Emergent Holographic Scene — compositions of movement and affect using multiplex holographic images'.

A view not to be missed: Salient scene content interferes with cognitive restoration

Science.gov (United States)

Van der Jagt, Alexander P. N.; Craig, Tony; Brewer, Mark J.; Pearson, David G.

2017-01-01

Attention Restoration Theory (ART) states that built scenes place greater load on attentional resources than natural scenes. This is explained in terms of "hard" and "soft" fascination of built and natural scenes. Given a lack of direct empirical evidence for this assumption we propose that perceptual saliency of scene content can function as an empirically derived indicator of fascination. Saliency levels were established by measuring speed of scene category detection using a Go/No-Go detection paradigm. Experiment 1 shows that built scenes are more salient than natural scenes. Experiment 2 replicates these findings using greyscale images, ruling out a colour-based response strategy, and additionally shows that built objects in natural scenes affect saliency to a greater extent than the reverse. Experiment 3 demonstrates that the saliency of scene content is directly linked to cognitive restoration using an established restoration paradigm. Overall, these findings demonstrate an important link between the saliency of scene content and related cognitive restoration. PMID:28723975

A view not to be missed: Salient scene content interferes with cognitive restoration.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alexander P N Van der Jagt

Full Text Available Attention Restoration Theory (ART states that built scenes place greater load on attentional resources than natural scenes. This is explained in terms of "hard" and "soft" fascination of built and natural scenes. Given a lack of direct empirical evidence for this assumption we propose that perceptual saliency of scene content can function as an empirically derived indicator of fascination. Saliency levels were established by measuring speed of scene category detection using a Go/No-Go detection paradigm. Experiment 1 shows that built scenes are more salient than natural scenes. Experiment 2 replicates these findings using greyscale images, ruling out a colour-based response strategy, and additionally shows that built objects in natural scenes affect saliency to a greater extent than the reverse. Experiment 3 demonstrates that the saliency of scene content is directly linked to cognitive restoration using an established restoration paradigm. Overall, these findings demonstrate an important link between the saliency of scene content and related cognitive restoration.

Estonian Air püüdis viimase hetkeni Top Toursi päästa / Mirko Ojakivi

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Ojakivi, Mirko

2010-01-01

Estonian Air kaalus Top Toursile appiminekut, sest reisifirma oli Estonian Airil üks olulisemaid koostööpartnereid. Abi oleks puudutanud ennekõike uutele lendudele allahindluse tegemist, räägiti ka võimalikust krediidist

Jäätmetega kimpus Estonian Cell annab muda põldudele kompostiks / Ulvar Käärt

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Käärt, Ulvar, 1982-

2007-01-01

Kundas asuv Estonian Celli tehas jagab ümberkaudsetele talunikele jäätmetest lahtisaamiseks kompostimissegu. Seadused ei sätesta, kuidas Estonian Cellis tekkivaid jäätmeid töödelda. Kommenteerib Peeter Eek: Aasta läbi ei saa muda põllule viia

3D Traffic Scene Understanding From Movable Platforms.

Science.gov (United States)

Geiger, Andreas; Lauer, Martin; Wojek, Christian; Stiller, Christoph; Urtasun, Raquel

2014-05-01

In this paper, we present a novel probabilistic generative model for multi-object traffic scene understanding from movable platforms which reasons jointly about the 3D scene layout as well as the location and orientation of objects in the scene. In particular, the scene topology, geometry, and traffic activities are inferred from short video sequences. Inspired by the impressive driving capabilities of humans, our model does not rely on GPS, lidar, or map knowledge. Instead, it takes advantage of a diverse set of visual cues in the form of vehicle tracklets, vanishing points, semantic scene labels, scene flow, and occupancy grids. For each of these cues, we propose likelihood functions that are integrated into a probabilistic generative model. We learn all model parameters from training data using contrastive divergence. Experiments conducted on videos of 113 representative intersections show that our approach successfully infers the correct layout in a variety of very challenging scenarios. To evaluate the importance of each feature cue, experiments using different feature combinations are conducted. Furthermore, we show how by employing context derived from the proposed method we are able to improve over the state-of-the-art in terms of object detection and object orientation estimation in challenging and cluttered urban environments.

The Woman as Wolf (AT 409: Some Interpretations of a Very Estonian Folk Tale

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Merili Metsvahi

2013-12-01

Full Text Available The article analyses tale type The Woman as Wolf, which is one of the most popular folk tales in the Estonian Folklore Archives and is represented there both in the form of a fairy tale and in the form of a legend. The vast majority of the versions of The Woman as Wolf were written down in the first part of the 20th century within Estonia and where recorded from Estonians. The article introduces the content of the tale, the origin of the first records from the early 19th century, and the dissemination area of the tale, which remains outside Western Europe: apart from the Estonian versions there are Sami, Karelian, Vepsian, Livonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian versions. While in almost all the Estonian versions the main protagonist is transformed into a wolf, in most of the versions written down in other areas and ethnic groups, another animal or bird replaces the wolf. The author is of the opinion that the Finnic area is central to the distribution of the folk tale The Woman as Wolf. The animal the woman is transformed into in the plot would not have been a wolf in earlier times. The article provides an explanation why the wolf is predominant in Estonian written sources. For that purpose the ways in which the wolf and werewolf were perceived in earlier Estonian folk belief are introduced. At the end of the article interpretation of the folk tale is provided. The author states that the plot and some of the motifs found in this folk tale reflect the difficulties women had in submitting to the norms and values of patriarchal order within their society.

Estonian Golf & Country Club / Liina Jänes

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Jänes, Liina, 1977-

2005-01-01

Estonian Golf & Country Club'i etnomodernistlik golfikeskus ja klubihoone Jõelähtmel. Projekteerija: Arhitektuuristuudio Siim & Kreis. Autor Andres Siim. Konstruktor: Resand. Sisekujundaja Juta Lember (SAB Lember & Padar). Projekt 2004, valmis 2005. Ill.: I ja II korruse plaan, 3 värv. välis ja 3 sisevaadet

Issues and Problems in Malaysian Contemporary Visual Arts

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Mohamad Faizuan Mat

2016-06-01

Full Text Available In Malaysia, there is a question in term of intellectualism activities in the context of visual epistemology. Therefore, this paper revealed the problems that linger in the Malaysian contemporary visual art scene. In fact, Malaysian contemporary artists appear to have insufficient intellectualism values and less discourse activities. The lacks of scholars in the field of visual arts create a gap in the visual arts scene in Malaysia. The question of this study was to uncover the main problems in Malaysian visual arts that led to the problem of art intellectual development. In addition, this paper presents the awareness of the valuable contributions in the intellectual development that able to enhance the communication in the art object.Keywords: art knowledge; art object; contemporary art; interpretation; perception;

Overt attention in natural scenes: objects dominate features.

Science.gov (United States)

Stoll, Josef; Thrun, Michael; Nuthmann, Antje; Einhäuser, Wolfgang

2015-02-01

Whether overt attention in natural scenes is guided by object content or by low-level stimulus features has become a matter of intense debate. Experimental evidence seemed to indicate that once object locations in a scene are known, salience models provide little extra explanatory power. This approach has recently been criticized for using inadequate models of early salience; and indeed, state-of-the-art salience models outperform trivial object-based models that assume a uniform distribution of fixations on objects. Here we propose to use object-based models that take a preferred viewing location (PVL) close to the centre of objects into account. In experiment 1, we demonstrate that, when including this comparably subtle modification, object-based models again are at par with state-of-the-art salience models in predicting fixations in natural scenes. One possible interpretation of these results is that objects rather than early salience dominate attentional guidance. In this view, early-salience models predict fixations through the correlation of their features with object locations. To test this hypothesis directly, in two additional experiments we reduced low-level salience in image areas of high object content. For these modified stimuli, the object-based model predicted fixations significantly better than early salience. This finding held in an object-naming task (experiment 2) and a free-viewing task (experiment 3). These results provide further evidence for object-based fixation selection--and by inference object-based attentional guidance--in natural scenes. Copyright © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Critical Success Factors and information needs in Estonian industry

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aiki Tibar

2002-01-01

Full Text Available The article reports the results of the study on the critical success factors and related information needs in Estonian industry conducted in 1999. Data were collected by interviews with 27 managers and engineers from 16 manufacturing companies in various industries. Most of the critical success factors taken up were related to marketing, information management, quality management, product development and technological innovations. The information needs of managers and engineers were related to competitors, customers, markets, technology, regulations, etc. Some identified CSFs expressed also priorities for development by Estonian economic authorities: to support the implementation of new technologies and introduction of quality management methods. The finding that information management was perceived as a very critical area supports the result of the recent Finnish study on CSFs.

Isamaalaulud ja okupatsioonirežiim – nostalgia, utoopia ja reaalsus. Estonian Patriotic Songs and the Occupational Regime – Nostalgia, Utopia and Reality

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kanni Labi

2012-04-01

certain aspects that help shed light on what followed can be pointed out. Through the events that took place during the national awakening, emphasis was placed on Russia’s role in the formation and development of the Estonian people, where cultural figures devoted to the people – such as Lydia Koidula - and their work were supported; patriotic songs were at the core of their activities. Formally, the patriotic repertoire was close to the characteristics of the only permitted art style in the Soviet Union – socialist realism : both are folksy, traditional, typical, historicist, pathetic and optimistic. At the same time it can be assumed that when the ruling power didn’t allow or tolerate even the most miniscule of deviances from the official line in no sphere of life, they had to make this official line concede in certain superficial manners to the real customs and endeavours of the people, in order to guarantee its own authority. So the patriotic repertoire remained, but the official treatment of its nostalgia and utopia was different than that of the people. The Soviet authorities’ strategy to achieve their aims – to level out and assimilate peoples and cultures – shaped the Estonian national identity and culture in a crucial manner: the patriotic songs were preserved because they were a permitted phenomenon through which the ideas forbidden in other areas could be expressed, and resistance to the ideological pressure helped preserve the Estonian people’s cultural memory. It can thus be claimed that the patriotic tinge which to this day can be sensed in the Estonian singing tradition is a result of Estonia’s political history.

Russian-Estonian Economic and Investment Cooperation During the Crisis: Dynamics and Possibilities

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Nevskaya Anastasia

2015-06-01

Full Text Available The article deals with the development in Russian-Estonian relations during the crises of 2007 and 2014, taking into consideration the balance between political and economic factors in the decision-making by Estonian government. A number of special aspects, trends and problems in trade and investment ties are detected. The aim of the study is to uncover key motivation behind the actions of both Russia and Estonia, to identify the drivers for economic and political development in the region, and to work out recommendations to adjust them. The questions put forward by the authors of this article could not be more topical at the time, when Russian economic situation is obviously getting worse and capital flight (to the neighboring EU Member States is likely to increase. The method of the study is comparative analysis of the impact on economic ties made by Russian-Estonian crisis of 2007 and the current international tension around Ukraine. The regional fossil fuel market and the possibilities of Gazprom involvement in its development are also analyzed. It is concluded that political motives are still important for Estonian decisionmaking, though they are balanced out by measures of business support (despite some of these measures being taken by the EU bodies. The role of political factor for the Russian side is increasing. It is acknowledged that there is a growing number of missed economic opportunities in the Russian Northwest.

Overview of the Estonian Biofuels Association activities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hueues, Meelis

2000-01-01

Due to global warming and environment pollution because of widespread use of fossil fuels there are already tendencies to stabilize and decrease the consumption of these energy resources and take into use more renewable energy resources. Estonian Biofuels Association (EBA) is a non-profit association, which was founded on 8. of May 1998 in Tallinn. The EBA is an independent and voluntary alliance of its members. Fields of activity of the EBA are by biofuels research, developing and evaluation to engage environmental, biofuels and energy saving. EBA members are: energy consultants, scientists, as well as fuel suppliers, DH-companies, technology suppliers, energy service companies etc. The members of EBA are involved in different projects in Estonia, where biomass are produced and used for heating, where wood, waste, peat, rape oil and biogas resources are examined and put into use, and also projects which deal with energy saving and environment friendly equipment production for using biofuels. During our short experience we have noticed that people in Estonia have become more aware of biomass and their use, so the development of environment friendly and sustainable energetics will continue in Estonia. Available biofuels in Estonia could compete with fossil fuels if burnt rationally with high technology equipment. EBA members are convinced that biomass have perspective and that they could play an important role in improving Estonian economic and environmental situation. Modem biomass combustion devices are taken into use more the faster general wealth increases and EBA can raise people's awareness of bio fuel subject through special, courses and media. We want Estonian energy policy to develop towards widespread use of renewable energy resources, which would save energy and environment improve nation's foreign trade balance and create jobs mainly in rural areas

Scene text recognition in mobile applications by character descriptor and structure configuration.

Science.gov (United States)

Yi, Chucai; Tian, Yingli

2014-07-01

Text characters and strings in natural scene can provide valuable information for many applications. Extracting text directly from natural scene images or videos is a challenging task because of diverse text patterns and variant background interferences. This paper proposes a method of scene text recognition from detected text regions. In text detection, our previously proposed algorithms are applied to obtain text regions from scene image. First, we design a discriminative character descriptor by combining several state-of-the-art feature detectors and descriptors. Second, we model character structure at each character class by designing stroke configuration maps. Our algorithm design is compatible with the application of scene text extraction in smart mobile devices. An Android-based demo system is developed to show the effectiveness of our proposed method on scene text information extraction from nearby objects. The demo system also provides us some insight into algorithm design and performance improvement of scene text extraction. The evaluation results on benchmark data sets demonstrate that our proposed scheme of text recognition is comparable with the best existing methods.

Integration of heterogeneous features for remote sensing scene classification

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Xin; Xiong, Xingnan; Ning, Chen; Shi, Aiye; Lv, Guofang

2018-01-01

Scene classification is one of the most important issues in remote sensing (RS) image processing. We find that features from different channels (shape, spectral, texture, etc.), levels (low-level and middle-level), or perspectives (local and global) could provide various properties for RS images, and then propose a heterogeneous feature framework to extract and integrate heterogeneous features with different types for RS scene classification. The proposed method is composed of three modules (1) heterogeneous features extraction, where three heterogeneous feature types, called DS-SURF-LLC, mean-Std-LLC, and MS-CLBP, are calculated, (2) heterogeneous features fusion, where the multiple kernel learning (MKL) is utilized to integrate the heterogeneous features, and (3) an MKL support vector machine classifier for RS scene classification. The proposed method is extensively evaluated on three challenging benchmark datasets (a 6-class dataset, a 12-class dataset, and a 21-class dataset), and the experimental results show that the proposed method leads to good classification performance. It produces good informative features to describe the RS image scenes. Moreover, the integration of heterogeneous features outperforms some state-of-the-art features on RS scene classification tasks.

Setting the scene: early writing on Australian Aboriginal art

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Susan Lowish

2011-06-01

Full Text Available This paper brings together some of the earliest writings on Australian Aboriginal art. It examines references to specific examples of this unique art in a range of sources including journals of early British and French explorers, the field reports of naturalists and ethnologists, early Royal Society papers and newspaper articles of the day. By tracing the impact of important texts and images, certain connections, collaborations and disagreements over the meaning, worth and ability of Australias first art and artists are revealed. An analysis of these previously unrelated accounts contributes to an understanding of early European perceptions and attitudes towards Aboriginal art.

Estonian Perceptions of Security: Not Only About Russia and the Refugees

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Veebel Viljar

2016-12-01

Full Text Available The current study focuses on the Estonian perceptions of security and on the defence situation both globally and locally. The dynamic results of the public opinion surveys on security risks conducted in Estonia over the last 10 years (2006-2016 will be presented. In addition, to understand whether some of the security risks could be over- or underestimated in Estonia, these results will be compared with the views expressed recently by the World Economic Forum, particularly the Global Risks Report 2016. Also, the arguments why some topics have played or are currently playing key role in the Estonian security perception will be presented and discussed.

The Rocky Road towards Professional Autonomy: The Estonian Journalists’ Organization in the Political Turmoil of the 20th Century

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Epp Lauk

2017-09-01

Full Text Available This article attempts to explain the relationships between journalists, politics and the state from the perspective of collective autonomy, that of the professional organization of journalists. The case of Estonian Journalists’ Union demonstrates the complexity and historical contingency of professional autonomy of journalism. The development of the Estonian journalists’ organization occurred as a sequence of transformations from the Estonian Journalists’ Association to the Estonian Journalists’ Union to the Soviet type journalists’ union, and lastly to an independent trade union. This sequence was disrupted by several fatal breakdowns that changed not only the character of the association, but also professional values, the whole occupational ideology and the conditions of the existence of journalism as a profession in Estonia.

The Estonian study of Chernobyl cleanup workers. I. Introduction

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rahu, Mati

1999-01-01

The most comprehensive epidemiological project ever performed in Estonia - The Estonian Study of Chernobyl Cleanup Workers - was the joint effort of researchers from Estonia, Finland and USA. Until September 1999, the results of this study were published in English only. To familiarize the readership of 'Eesti Arst' with the major study findings, the abridged versions of four original papers from 'Radiation Research' are presented in the current issue of the journal. For the Estonian epidemiologists, the work under this project that consists of eight sub projects was a real challenge. In the course of the study, skills were developed in writing a study protocol, preparing a questionnaire, progress reporting, documenting the structure of databases, record linkage, and problem solving. It was an exciting experience to work with top scientists like William Bigbee, John Boice, Timo Hakulinen, Ronald Jensen and Gayle Littlefield. (author)

Sustainable development outlooks of the Estonian energy sector for convergence with the European Union countries

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Laur, Anton; Tenno, Koidu; Soosaar, Sulev

2002-01-01

The article presents an overview of a research conducted in the Estonian Inst. of Economics and the Estonian Energy Research Inst. with the objectives to: analyse the dynamics of the main Estonian energy use indicators over the last 8-10 years with the background of general macroeconomics developments; compare these indicators with the respective energy indicators in the European Union Member States and Candidate Countries; evaluate Estonia's potential to catch up by the energy use efficiency (GDP energy intensity) of the average level of EU countries, modelling our possible development scenarios of GDP and TPES. The research results indicates several positive development tendencies (e.g. reduction of TPES and CO 2 emissions with the background of economic growth) in the Estonian energy sector, as well as convergence with the EU countries in terms of GDP energy intensity. Unfortunately, the model analysis results demonstrate that it takes a lot of time for Estonia to reach the current EU level - even under the most favourable GDP and TPES development conditions, 25-30 years. The primary reason is the very low level of our GDP per capita compared to the EU countries. (author)

Tabud ja reeglid. Sissevaateid eesti laagriromaani / Taboos and Rules. Insights into Prison Camp Novels by Estonian Writers

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Anneli Kõvamees

2013-12-01

Full Text Available The article concentrates on Estonian novels depicting Soviet prison camps in the 1940s and 1950s. The goal is to map themes, motifs and characteristics in such novels, concentrating on various taboos and rules in the prison camp environment. For a long time the Soviet prison camp theme was not publicly discussed in Estonia due to political reasons. Texts dealing with prison camps could appear in print only outside the Soviet Union; the way Estonians saw these historical events and hellish experiences were depicted mostly in exile novels. Most notable are the novels by Arved Viirlaid (b. 1922, e.g., Kes tappis Eerik Hormi? (Who Killed Eerik Horm? (1974, Surnud ei loe (The Dead do not Read (1975, Vaim ja ahelad (Mind and Chains (1961. Estonian prison camp novels can be seen as “the literature of testimony”, to use the term by Leona Toker. Dramatic historical events are written down to record the events and to show the inhumane nature of Soviet society. These records of the dramatic past follow certain patterns and create certain self- and hetero-images. A prison camp is a closed territory within a closed territory; prison camps can be seen as small models of Soviet society. Prison camp novels give a detailed view of the environment of the prison camp, its inhabitants and activities. Two central aspects are labour and food; the life of the prisoner whirls around these. The most important thing is to survive, which often leads to moral decline, e.g., stealing, cheating. However, there are lines Estonians do not cross, e.g., cannibalism or homosexual relationships with superiors. Estonians are always depicted as political prisoners (not common criminals and heterosexuals, while Russians are portrayed mainly as criminals and often also as homosexuals. Another important component of the image of the Estonians is their enterprising spirit and ability to manage even under very difficult conditions. Therefore, several oppositions can be identified, e

Narrative Collage of Image Collections by Scene Graph Recombination.

Science.gov (United States)

Fang, Fei; Yi, Miao; Feng, Hui; Hu, Shenghong; Xiao, Chunxia

2017-10-04

Narrative collage is an interesting image editing art to summarize the main theme or storyline behind an image collection. We present a novel method to generate narrative images with plausible semantic scene structures. To achieve this goal, we introduce a layer graph and a scene graph to represent relative depth order and semantic relationship between image objects, respectively. We firstly cluster the input image collection to select representative images, and then extract a group of semantic salient objects from each representative image. Both Layer graphs and scene graphs are constructed and combined according to our specific rules for reorganizing the extracted objects in every image. We design an energy model to appropriately locate every object on the final canvas. Experiment results show that our method can produce competitive narrative collage result and works well on a wide range of image collections.

Estonian Golf & Country Clubi klubihoone / Andres Siim, Alar Just

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Siim, Andres

2005-01-01

Harjumaal Jõelähtme vallas rajab Estonian Golf & Country Club uut Jägala-Jõesuu spordi- ja puhkekeskust, mille südameks saab puidust golgiklubi hoone, mida tutvustavad klubihoone arhitekt ja üks inseneridest. Ill.: vaade ehitusele, projekti kaks vaadet, lõige

Value Education in Estonian Preschool Child Care Institutions

Science.gov (United States)

Ülavere, Pärje; Tammik, Anu

2017-01-01

For systematic implementation of value education in educational institutions, the national programme "Values Development in Estonian Society 2009-2013" (Ministry of Education and Research 2009) was prepared in Estonia. However, it was launched only in 2010, and the authors intended to ascertain the values of the heads of preschool child…

Estonian energy forest project

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Koppel, A.; Kirt, E.; Kull, K.; Lasn, R.; Noormets, A.; Roostalu, H.; Ross, J.; Ross, V.; Sulev, M.

1994-04-01

In February 1993 an agreement of Swedish-Estonian scientific co-operation on energy forest was signed. In may five energy forest plantations (altogether 2 ha) were established in Estonia with Swedish selected clones of Salix viminalis and Salix dasyclados. The research within this project is carried out within three main directions. The studies of basic ecophysiological processes and radiation regime of willow canopy will be carried out in Toravere. The production ecology studies, comparison of the productivity of multiple clones on different soil types is based on the plantations as vegetation filter for wastewater purification is studied on the basis of plantations in Vaeike-Maarja and Valga (author)

A Two-Stream Deep Fusion Framework for High-Resolution Aerial Scene Classification

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Yunlong Yu

2018-01-01

Full Text Available One of the challenging problems in understanding high-resolution remote sensing images is aerial scene classification. A well-designed feature representation method and classifier can improve classification accuracy. In this paper, we construct a new two-stream deep architecture for aerial scene classification. First, we use two pretrained convolutional neural networks (CNNs as feature extractor to learn deep features from the original aerial image and the processed aerial image through saliency detection, respectively. Second, two feature fusion strategies are adopted to fuse the two different types of deep convolutional features extracted by the original RGB stream and the saliency stream. Finally, we use the extreme learning machine (ELM classifier for final classification with the fused features. The effectiveness of the proposed architecture is tested on four challenging datasets: UC-Merced dataset with 21 scene categories, WHU-RS dataset with 19 scene categories, AID dataset with 30 scene categories, and NWPU-RESISC45 dataset with 45 challenging scene categories. The experimental results demonstrate that our architecture gets a significant classification accuracy improvement over all state-of-the-art references.

Estonian wind climate

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kull, Ain

1999-01-01

Estonia is situated on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. This is a region with intensive cyclonic activity and therefore with a relatively high mean wind speed. Atmospheric circulation and its seasonal variation determine the general character of the Estonian wind regime over the Atlantic Ocean and Eurasia. However, the Baltic sea itself is a very important factor affecting wind climate, it has an especially strong influence on the wind regime in costal areas. The mean energy density (W/m 2 ) is a wind energy characteristic that is proportional to the third power of wind speed and describes energy available in a flow of air through a unit area. The mean energy density is a characteristic which has practical importance in regional assessment of snowdrift, storm damage and wind energy

Musical Practices and Methods in Music Lessons: A Comparative Study of Estonian and Finnish General Music Education

Science.gov (United States)

Sepp, Anu; Ruokonen, Inkeri; Ruismäki, Heikki

2015-01-01

This article reveals the results of a comparative study of Estonian and Finnish general music education. The aim was to find out what music teaching practices and approaches/methods were mostly used, what music education perspectives supported those practices. The data were collected using questionnaires and the results of 107 Estonian and 50…

Supporting learning skills in visual art classes: The benefits of teacher awareness

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Helen Arov

2017-09-01

Full Text Available This study focused on middle school art teachers supporting the development of students learning skills, specifically their awareness of the framework of learning skills. It also looked at the relations between the teaching practices teachers use for supporting learning skills and students' learning motivation in art classes. The study combined qualitative and quantitative research methods. The class observations and interviews were conducted with ten Estonian middle school art teachers. One hundred and forty-eight students from the observed classes filled out the learning motivation questionnaire about their interest and achievement goals in visual arts. The study draws attention to the importance of teachers being aware of and valuing learning skills alongside subject specific knowledge, as it could enhance students autonomous motivation and support adaptive goal setting.

Top 10 Estonian albums of 2004 / Igor Garshnek

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Garšnek, Igor, 1958-

2004-01-01

Heliplaatidest: Arvo Pärt "Pro et contra", Various composers "Baltic Voices 2", Raimo Kangro "Displays", Toivo Tulev "Be Lost in the Call", Indrek Vau and Mati Mikalai "Estonian Trumpet Music", Erdmann/Sooäär "Dessert Time, Peer Gynt & Other Stories", Alo Mattiisen "50 parimat laulu", Riho Sibul "Must", Rein Rannap "Tantsib klaveril", Eesti Keeled "Kella tiksumist..."

Installation Art

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Petersen, Anne Ring

. In Installation Art: Between Image and Stage, Anne Ring Petersen aims to change that. She begins by exploring how installation art developed into an interdisciplinary genre in the 1960s, and how its intertwining of the visual and the performative has acted as a catalyst for the generation of new artistic......Despite its large and growing popularity – to say nothing of its near-ubiquity in the world’s art scenes and international exhibitions of contemporary art –installation art remains a form whose artistic vocabulary and conceptual basis have rarely been subjected to thorough critical examination...... phenomena. It investigates how it became one of today’s most widely used art forms, increasingly expanding into consumer, popular and urban cultures, where installation’s often spectacular appearance ensures that it meets contemporary demands for sense-provoking and immersive cultural experiences. The main...

Installation Art

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Petersen, Anne Ring

Despite its large and growing popularity – to say nothing of its near-ubiquity in the world’s art scenes and international exhibitions of contemporary art –installation art remains a form whose artistic vocabulary and conceptual basis have rarely been subjected to thorough critical examination....... In Installation Art: Between Image and Stage, Anne Ring Petersen aims to change that. She begins by exploring how installation art developed into an interdisciplinary genre in the 1960s, and how its intertwining of the visual and the performative has acted as a catalyst for the generation of new artistic...... phenomena. It investigates how it became one of today’s most widely used art forms, increasingly expanding into consumer, popular and urban cultures, where installation’s often spectacular appearance ensures that it meets contemporary demands for sense-provoking and immersive cultural experiences. The main...

Explaining scene composition using kinematic chains of humans: application to Portuguese tiles history

Science.gov (United States)

da Silva, Nuno Pinho; Marques, Manuel; Carneiro, Gustavo; Costeira, João P.

2011-03-01

Painted tile panels (Azulejos) are one of the most representative Portuguese forms of art. Most of these panels are inspired on, and sometimes are literal copies of, famous paintings, or prints of those paintings. In order to study the Azulejos, art historians need to trace these roots. To do that they manually search art image databases, looking for images similar to the representation on the tile panel. This is an overwhelming task that should be automated as much as possible. Among several cues, the pose of humans and the general composition of people in a scene is quite discriminative. We build an image descriptor, combining the kinematic chain of each character, and contextual information about their composition, in the scene. Given a query image, our system computes its similarity profile over the database. Using nearest neighbors in the space of the descriptors, the proposed system retrieves the prints that most likely inspired the tiles' work.

[Marge Rennit. Eesti muuseumid / Estonian museums] / Tapio Mäkeläinen

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Mäkeläinen, Tapio

2009-01-01

Tutvustus: Eesti muuseumid = Estonian museums / [Eesti Muuseumiühing ; koostaja Marge Rennit ; tõlkija Tiina Mällo ; toimetaja Ivi Tammaru ; eessõna: Piret Õunapuu ; kujundaja Marek Allvee]. Tallinn : Oomen, 2008

Learning object-to-class kernels for scene classification.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Lei; Zhen, Xiantong; Shao, Ling

2014-08-01

High-level image representations have drawn increasing attention in visual recognition, e.g., scene classification, since the invention of the object bank. The object bank represents an image as a response map of a large number of pretrained object detectors and has achieved superior performance for visual recognition. In this paper, based on the object bank representation, we propose the object-to-class (O2C) distances to model scene images. In particular, four variants of O2C distances are presented, and with the O2C distances, we can represent the images using the object bank by lower-dimensional but more discriminative spaces, called distance spaces, which are spanned by the O2C distances. Due to the explicit computation of O2C distances based on the object bank, the obtained representations can possess more semantic meanings. To combine the discriminant ability of the O2C distances to all scene classes, we further propose to kernalize the distance representation for the final classification. We have conducted extensive experiments on four benchmark data sets, UIUC-Sports, Scene-15, MIT Indoor, and Caltech-101, which demonstrate that the proposed approaches can significantly improve the original object bank approach and achieve the state-of-the-art performance.

Multimodal computational attention for scene understanding and robotics

CERN Document Server

Schauerte, Boris

2016-01-01

This book presents state-of-the-art computational attention models that have been successfully tested in diverse application areas and can build the foundation for artificial systems to efficiently explore, analyze, and understand natural scenes. It gives a comprehensive overview of the most recent computational attention models for processing visual and acoustic input. It covers the biological background of visual and auditory attention, as well as bottom-up and top-down attentional mechanisms and discusses various applications. In the first part new approaches for bottom-up visual and acoustic saliency models are presented and applied to the task of audio-visual scene exploration of a robot. In the second part the influence of top-down cues for attention modeling is investigated. .

Contemporary Art and Rock, some relations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Leonardo Felipe

2011-12-01

Full Text Available This article investigates some relations between contemporary art and rock, from a collection of examples of the involvement between artists and rockers through history. Notably Pop Art, punk, Conceptual Art and the figure of Hélio Oiticica. The article detaches geographical aspects in this relation, with special attention to the New York and London scenes between 1960-1980.

Special effects used in creating 3D animated scenes-part 1

Science.gov (United States)

Avramescu, A. M.

2015-11-01

In present, with the help of computer, we can create special effects that look so real that we almost don't perceive them as being different. These special effects are somehow hard to differentiate from the real elements like those on the screen. With the increasingly accesible 3D field that has more and more areas of application, the 3D technology goes easily from architecture to product designing. Real like 3D animations are used as means of learning, for multimedia presentations of big global corporations, for special effects and even for virtual actors in movies. Technology, as part of the movie art, is considered a prerequisite but the cinematography is the first art that had to wait for the correct intersection of technological development, innovation and human vision in order to attain full achievement. Increasingly more often, the majority of industries is using 3D sequences (three dimensional). 3D represented graphics, commercials and special effects from movies are all designed in 3D. The key for attaining real visual effects is to successfully combine various distinct elements: characters, objects, images and video scenes; like all these elements represent a whole that works in perfect harmony. This article aims to exhibit a game design from these days. Considering the advanced technology and futuristic vision of designers, nowadays we have different and multifarious game models. Special effects are decisively contributing in the creation of a realistic three-dimensional scene. These effects are essential for transmitting the emotional state of the scene. Creating the special effects is a work of finesse in order to achieve high quality scenes. Special effects can be used to get the attention of the onlooker on an object from a scene. Out of the conducted study, the best-selling game of the year 2010 was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. This way, the article aims for the presented scene to be similar with many locations from this type of games, more

Cancer incidence and thyroid disease among Estonian Chernobyl clean-up workers

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Auvinen, A; Salomaa, S [eds.; Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, Helsinki (Finland); Rahu, M; Veidebaum, T; Tekkel, M [eds.; Inst. of Experimental and Clinical Medicine, Tallinn (Estonia); Hakulinen, T [ed.; Finnish Cancer Registry, Helsinki (Finland); Boice, Jr, J D [ed.; Int. Epidemiology Inst., MD (United States)

1998-09-01

The report describes the development and summarizes the results of the project Cancer incidence and thyroid disease among Estonian Chernobyl clean-up workers. One of the goals of the report is to give research protocols and questionnaires for researchers involved in other studies. Eight previously published articles are also included summarizing the results. The development of the collaboration work of the project is described in the introduction of the report. Epidemiological methods are described in an article complemented by the protocol and English version of the questionnaire administered to all cleanup workers, as well as the data collection form of the thyroid study. The results from biological biodosimetry using both glycophorin A and FISH methods have shown that the radiation doses received by the Chernobyl cleanup workers were relatively low. Thyroid nodularity was not associated with any radiation exposure characteristic in the thyroid screening study. Estonian Chernobyl cleanup workers were followed up for cancer incidence through the Estonian Cancer Registry. No cases of leukemia or thyroid cancer were observed by the end of 1993. It is too early to observe possible effect on other types of cancer. However, mortality from suicides was increased compared with general population. Further follow-up and the extension to other Baltic countries in the future will undoubtedly strengthen the study. There are also plans for future projects covering areas from psychosocial factors to radiation biology

MINORITY LANGUAGES IN ESTONIAN SEGREGATIVE LANGUAGE ENVIRONMENTS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Elvira Küün

2011-01-01

Full Text Available The goal of this project in Estonia was to determine what languages are spoken by students from the 2nd to the 5th year of basic school at their homes in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. At the same time, this problem was also studied in other segregated regions of Estonia: Kohtla-Järve and Maardu. According to the database of the population census from the year 2000 (Estonian Statistics Executive Office's census 2000, there are representatives of 142 ethnic groups living in Estonia, speaking a total of 109 native languages. At the same time, the database doesn’t state which languages are spoken at homes. The material presented in this article belongs to the research topic “Home Language of Basic School Students in Tallinn” from years 2007–2008, specifically financed and ordered by the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research (grant No. ETF 7065 in the framework of an international study called “Multilingual Project”. It was determined what language is dominating in everyday use, what are the factors for choosing the language for communication, what are the preferred languages and language skills. This study reflects the actual trends of the language situation in these cities.

Street art - vandalismus nebo umění?

OpenAIRE

Grabmüllerová, Eva

2012-01-01

The diploma thesis ‚Street Art - Vandalism or Art?' deals with a world-wide phenomenon of contemporary art. The thesis focuses on the characterization of street art and history of street art (its origin and development) and analyzes the difference between street art and graffiti. The thesis presents street art techniques as well as notable street artists. The thesis also observes street art scene in the Czech Republic and depicts features that street art has in common with other art movements...

Problems of contemporary ecology. Temporal changes in Estonian nature and environment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Frey, T.

1997-01-01

This conference was held 8-9 May 1997 at Tartu, Estonia. The proceedings of the 7. Estonian Conference in Ecology contain the results of mostly original research in environmental science, conservation and natural philosophy

Strategies for Estonian rural family enterprises. Eesti maapiirkonna pereettevõtete strateegia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maret Kirsipuu

2013-01-01

Full Text Available The paper seeks to analyse family businesses in rural areas, family business strategies and re-registration of sole proprietors with the Centre of Registers and Information Systems (hereinafter Commercial Register in 2009, and to provide an overview of entrepreneurship policies targeted at Estonian rural businesses. Layoffs have increased the number of unemployed; some of those who have lost employment opt for social assistance benefits, but some others decide to become entrepreneurs. Many enterprising people in Estonia have set up a family enterprise, mainly in the sphere of services, agriculture and tourism. The Estonian entrepreneurship policy supports enterprising people and approves of entrepreneurship as a promoter of national economic development. One of the most positive qualities of family enterprises is their short decision-making chain, which ensures rapid implementation of the strategy.

Saksa kirjandus Noor-Eesti ajal. Young Estonia and German Literature

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Liina Lukas

2012-04-01

Full Text Available Impelled by a desire to free themselves from the German influence that had dominated the development of Estonian literature, and from the one-sided relation of cultural dependence that had lasted several hundred years, the Young Estonia movement sought to modernize Estonian literature through borrowing from other European literatures, in particular from French, Scandinavian, and Finnish. This article seeks to clarify the relative importance and selection criteria of translations from German literature for the literary field of the Young Estonia era. Further, I seek to elucidate Young Estonia’s contribution to the renewal of these selection criteria in the first, but more importantly the second decade of the 20th century. The long list of translations from German to Estonian at the beginning of the century speaks of the ”light Muse” of German family newspapers, with an admixture of the following: naturalist light fiction with a social theme and social drama; the historical novel (great favourite of the era of historicism, trendy fiction for both feminine and masculine audiences, and an overwhelming proportion of ”Heimatskunst” (literature of local colour. In the first and second decade of the new century, new names appear on the Estonian literary scene that signal a change in taste. For example, naturalist authors (Kretzer, Hauptmann, Halbe, Dehmel crop up sporadically amidst texts meant for leisure reading. Although the first translations of Nietzsche only appeared in 1901, already in 1902 critics had reason to speak of ”Nietzsche in Estonian literature”. 1910 marked the breakthrough of Viennese modernism in the Estonian literary field (Schnitzler, Altenberg, Bahr. Under the influential protection of the Young Estonians (Suits, Kallas, and published by the Young Estonia Publishing House, Baltic German novellawriter Eduard Keyserling enters the Estonian literary scene. Though ”mass consumption” literature from Germany continued

Utilisation of Estonian energy wood resources

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Muiste, P.; Tullus, H.; Uri, V. [Estonian Agricultural University, Tartu (Estonia)

1996-12-31

In the end of the Soviet period in the 1980s, a long-term energy programme for Estonia was worked out. The energy system was planned to be based on nuclear power and the share of domestic alternative sources of energy was low. The situation has greatly changed after the re-establishment of the Estonian independence, and now wood and peat fuels play an important role in the energy system. Energy consumption in Estonia decreased during the period 1970-1993, but this process has less influenced the consumption of domestic renewable fuels - peat and wood. It means that the share of these fuels has grown. The investment on substitution of imported fossil fuels and on conversion of boiler plants from fossil fuels to domestic fuels has reached the level of USD 100 million. The perspectives of the wood energy depend mainly on two factors; the resources and the price of wood energy compared with other fuels. The situation in wood market influences both the possible quantities and the price. It is typical that the quickly growing cost of labour power in Estonia is greatly affecting the price of energy wood. Though the price level of fuel peat and wood chips is lower than the world market price today, the conditions for using biofuels could be more favourable, if higher environmental fees were introduced. In conjunction with increasing utilisation of biofuels it is important to evaluate possible emissions or removal of greenhouse gases from Estonian forests 3 refs.

Utilisation of Estonian energy wood resources

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Muiste, P; Tullus, H; Uri, V [Estonian Agricultural University, Tartu (Estonia)

1997-12-31

In the end of the Soviet period in the 1980s, a long-term energy programme for Estonia was worked out. The energy system was planned to be based on nuclear power and the share of domestic alternative sources of energy was low. The situation has greatly changed after the re-establishment of the Estonian independence, and now wood and peat fuels play an important role in the energy system. Energy consumption in Estonia decreased during the period 1970-1993, but this process has less influenced the consumption of domestic renewable fuels - peat and wood. It means that the share of these fuels has grown. The investment on substitution of imported fossil fuels and on conversion of boiler plants from fossil fuels to domestic fuels has reached the level of USD 100 million. The perspectives of the wood energy depend mainly on two factors; the resources and the price of wood energy compared with other fuels. The situation in wood market influences both the possible quantities and the price. It is typical that the quickly growing cost of labour power in Estonia is greatly affecting the price of energy wood. Though the price level of fuel peat and wood chips is lower than the world market price today, the conditions for using biofuels could be more favourable, if higher environmental fees were introduced. In conjunction with increasing utilisation of biofuels it is important to evaluate possible emissions or removal of greenhouse gases from Estonian forests 3 refs.

The problems and development potential of revenue autonomy in Estonian municipalities. Kohalike omavalitsuste tuluautonoomia probleemid ja arenguvõimalused Eestis

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Janno Reiljan

2013-01-01

Full Text Available In a regionally heterogeneous country like Estonia, it is a difficult task to create a local government revenue structure that guarantees even supply of public services across the entire country and, at the same time, revenue autonomy for the municipalities. In the theoretical part of the current article the suitability of different sources of own revenues are analysed in the context of Estonian municipalities. The empirical part of the article compares the financing principles of Estonian municipalities with other EU countries. Finally, the proportions of different own sources of revenues in the budgets of Estonian local governments are examined and suggestions are made for changing the current system

Alberta's Estonians 1899 - Present TLÜ Akadeemilises Raamatukogus / Sander Jürisson

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Jürisson, Sander

2014-01-01

Tallinna Ülikooli Akadeemilises Raamatukogus on üleval näitus "Alberta's Estonians 1899 - Present", mis annab ülevaate Kanada Alberta provintsi eestlaste loost. Näitus valmis Alberta Eesti Kultuuripärandi Seltsi koostöös Alberta Provintsi Arhiivi Kultuuripärandi Osakonnaga Edmontonis

Estonian Leader's Freedom Call Creates Storm / Anna Smolchenko

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Smolchenko, Anna

2008-01-01

President Toomas Hendrik Ilvese esinemisest soome-ugri rahvaste maailmakongressil Hantõ-Mansiiskis, kohtumisest Venemaa presidendi Dmitri Medvedeviga, Eesti delegatsiooni saalist väljamarssimisest Venemaa riigiduuma väliskomisjoni esimehe Konstantin Kossatshovi sõnavõtu ajal. Ilmunud ka: St. Petersburg Times 1. juuli 2008, pealk.: Estonian Leader's Freedom Call Creates Controversy (lüh.). Vabariigi President töövisiidil Venemaal 27.-30.06.2008

TESSITURA OF A CREATIVE PROCESS: AUTOBIOGRAPHY ON SCENE

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Daniel Santos Costa

2015-04-01

Full Text Available This text presents weavings of a way to make the arts scene using the autobiographical support the creative process. Thus, we elucidate some of these weavings process while legitimizing the production of knowledge through artistic praxis, of sensitive experience. Introducing the concept of autobiography in analogy to the artistic and sequentially present the possibility of a laboratory setting amalgamated into reality/fiction. Keywords: creative process; autobiography; body.

Smoking habits and attitudes towards smoking among Estonian physicians.

Science.gov (United States)

Pärna, K; Rahu, K; Rahu, M

2005-05-01

This study examined the smoking habits and attitudes towards smoking among Estonian physicians. Cross-sectional data for 2668 physicians were gathered by a self-administered postal survey. The current smoking prevalence was 24.9% for male physicians and 10.8% for female physicians. The percentages of ex-smokers were 32.9 and 16.8%, respectively. Smoking prevalence among physicians was below the levels reported for the highest educational bracket of the total population in Estonia. Non-smoking physicians had more unfavourable views towards smoking than those who smoked. The majority of physicians were aware of the association between smoking and various diseases, with significant differences between smokers and non-smokers. Non-smoking physicians were more active in asking patients about smoking habits than those who smoked. Most Estonian physicians, especially those who smoked, failed to perceive themselves as positive role models. This study found a lower prevalence of smoking among physicians compared with the general population, and demonstrated the impact of personal smoking on physicians' attitudes towards smoking. The results provide an important challenge to medical education in Estonia.

Morality and exchange in the Mumbai contemporary art world

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Sooudi, O.K.; Velthuis, O.; Baia Curioni, S.

2015-01-01

The Indian contemporary art market developed dramatically over the 1990s and 2000s. More buyers and increased prices for, as well as new attention on, Indian contemporary art, both domestically and abroad, also entailed the maturation of local art scenes, especially in Mumbai and Delhi, as new

Exhibition of photography from the Estonian diaspora / Ellu Maar

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Maar, Ellu, 1982-

2010-01-01

Näitus "Photography from the Estonian Diaspora / Väliseesti foto" Kumu Kunstimuuseumis 8.10.-19.11.2010, kuraatorid Eha Komissarov ja Ellu Maar. Näitus tutvustas 1944. a. Eestist lahkunud või juba võõrsil sündinud fotograafide (Eric Soovere, Karl Hintzer, Priit Vesilind, Rein Välme jt.) loomingut ja valikut väliseesti fotoarhiividest

Estonian Airi ümber käib lehmakauplemine / Tõnu Lilleorg

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Lilleorg, Tõnu

2008-01-01

Skandinaavia lennukompanii SAS saatis Eesti valitsusele kirja, milles teatab, et on nõus raskustes Estonian Airile lisainvesteeringuid tegema vaid siis, kui riik müüb SAS-ile oma osaluse, 34%. Vt. samas: SAS ei taha lennufirma eest maksta üle 150 miljoni. Diagramm: Majandusnäitajad, omanikud

Spatial patterns of soil organic carbon stocks in Estonian arable soils

Science.gov (United States)

Suuster, Elsa; Astover, Alar; Kõlli, Raimo; Roostalu, Hugo; Reintam, Endla; Penu, Priit

2010-05-01

Soil organic carbon (SOC) determines ecosystem functions, influencing soil fertility, soil physical, chemical and biological properties and crop productivity. Therefore the spatial pattern of SOC stocks and its appropriate management is important at various scales. Due to climate change and the contribution of carbon store in the soils, the national estimates of soil carbon stocks should be determined. Estonian soils have been well studied and mapped at a scale 1:10,000. Previous studies have estimated SOC stocks based on combinations of large groups of Estonian soils and the mean values of the soil profile database, but were not embedded into the geo-referenced databases. These studies have estimated SOC stocks of Estonian arable soils 122.3 Tg. Despite of available soil maps and databases, this information is still very poorly used for spatial soil modelling. The aim of current study is to assess and model spatial pattern of SOC stocks of arable soils on a pilot area Tartu County (area 3089 sq km). Estonian digital soil map and soil monitoring databases are providing a good opportunity to assess SOC stocks at various scales. The qualitative nature of the initial data from a soil map prohibits any straightforward use in modelling. Thus we have used several databases to construct models and linkages between soil properties that can be integrated into soil map. First step was to reorganize the soil map database (44,046 mapping units) so it can be used as an input to modelling. Arable areas were distinguished by a field layer of Agricultural Registers and Information Board, which provides precise information of current land use as it is the basis of paying CAP subsidies. The estimates of SOC content were found by using the arable land evaluation database of Tartu from the Estonian Land Board (comprising 950 sq km and 31,226 fields), where each soil type was assessed separately and average SOC content grouped by texture was derived. SOC content of epipedon varies in

Single-View 3D Scene Reconstruction and Parsing by Attribute Grammar.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Xiaobai; Zhao, Yibiao; Zhu, Song-Chun

2018-03-01

In this paper, we present an attribute grammar for solving two coupled tasks: i) parsing a 2D image into semantic regions; and ii) recovering the 3D scene structures of all regions. The proposed grammar consists of a set of production rules, each describing a kind of spatial relation between planar surfaces in 3D scenes. These production rules are used to decompose an input image into a hierarchical parse graph representation where each graph node indicates a planar surface or a composite surface. Different from other stochastic image grammars, the proposed grammar augments each graph node with a set of attribute variables to depict scene-level global geometry, e.g., camera focal length, or local geometry, e.g., surface normal, contact lines between surfaces. These geometric attributes impose constraints between a node and its off-springs in the parse graph. Under a probabilistic framework, we develop a Markov Chain Monte Carlo method to construct a parse graph that optimizes the 2D image recognition and 3D scene reconstruction purposes simultaneously. We evaluated our method on both public benchmarks and newly collected datasets. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed method is capable of achieving state-of-the-art scene reconstruction of a single image.

Comparison of knowledge, attitudes and behaviour regarding smoking among Estonian and Finnish physicians.

Science.gov (United States)

Pärna, Kersti; Rahu, Kaja; Barengo, Noël C; Rahu, Mati; Sandström, Patrick H; Jormanainen, Vesa J; Myllykangas, Markku T

2005-01-01

To compare smoking behaviour, attitudes and opinions towards smoking and smoking cessation among Estonian and Finnish physicians. A cross-sectional postal survey using a self-administered questionnaire was carried out among 2,480 Estonian and 2,075 Finnish physicians. Daily smoking prevalence was higher among Estonian physicians than among their Finnish counterparts in both male (18.6% and 6.7%) and female (6.6% and 3.6%). Compared to Estonia, physicians in Finland more often agreed that smoking is very harmful to their health, that trying to convince people to stop smoking is their responsibility and that smoking prevention should be part of the normal and special training of health professionals. In both countries, non-smoking physicians held more unfavourable attitudes towards smoking than those who were smoking. Physicians' own smoking patterns and quitting behaviour are important because physicians serve as models for their patients and play a key role in the reinforcement of smoke-free health facilities. These results remain a challenge to medical educators, especially in Estonia. Estonia needs to improve medical education in terms of motivating physicians to ask about the smoking patterns of their patients and of training medical students and resident physicians to counsel their patients to stop smoking.

The Computer Generated Art/Contemporary Cinematography And The Remainder Of The Art History. A Critical Approach

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Modesta Lupașcu

2016-11-01

Full Text Available The paper analyses the re-conceptualization of the intermedial trope of computer generated images/VFX in recent 3D works/cinema scenes through several examples from art history, which are connected with. The obvious connections between art history and images are not conceived primarily as an embodiment of a painting, the introduction of the real into the image, but prove the reconstructive tendencies of contemporary post-postmodern art. The intellectual, the casual, or the obsessive interaction with art history shown by the new film culture, is already celebrated trough 3D computer generated art, focused to a consistently pictorialist cinematography.

The Computer Generated Art/Contemporary Cinematography And The Remainder Of The Art History. A Critical Approach

OpenAIRE

Modesta Lupașcu

2016-01-01

The paper analyses the re-conceptualization of the intermedial trope of computer generated images/VFX in recent 3D works/cinema scenes through several examples from art history, which are connected with. The obvious connections between art history and images are not conceived primarily as an embodiment of a painting, the introduction of the real into the image, but prove the reconstructive tendencies of contemporary post-postmodern art. The intellectual, the casual, or the obsessive interacti...

Statistical regularities in art: Relations with visual coding and perception.

Science.gov (United States)

Graham, Daniel J; Redies, Christoph

2010-07-21

Since at least 1935, vision researchers have used art stimuli to test human response to complex scenes. This is sensible given the "inherent interestingness" of art and its relation to the natural visual world. The use of art stimuli has remained popular, especially in eye tracking studies. Moreover, stimuli in common use by vision scientists are inspired by the work of famous artists (e.g., Mondrians). Artworks are also popular in vision science as illustrations of a host of visual phenomena, such as depth cues and surface properties. However, until recently, there has been scant consideration of the spatial, luminance, and color statistics of artwork, and even less study of ways that regularities in such statistics could affect visual processing. Furthermore, the relationship between regularities in art images and those in natural scenes has received little or no attention. In the past few years, there has been a concerted effort to study statistical regularities in art as they relate to neural coding and visual perception, and art stimuli have begun to be studied in rigorous ways, as natural scenes have been. In this minireview, we summarize quantitative studies of links between regular statistics in artwork and processing in the visual stream. The results of these studies suggest that art is especially germane to understanding human visual coding and perception, and it therefore warrants wider study. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Baptism and the interpretation of early Quistian art

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The aim of this article is to stress the necessity of interpreting early. Christian art in its ... the superficial features of a work of art, but they fail to understand the notion which ... will be illustrated by examples of particularly baptismal scenes. It will.

Efficient 3D scene modeling and mosaicing

CERN Document Server

Nicosevici, Tudor

2013-01-01

This book proposes a complete pipeline for monocular (single camera) based 3D mapping of terrestrial and underwater environments. The aim is to provide a solution to large-scale scene modeling that is both accurate and efficient. To this end, we have developed a novel Structure from Motion algorithm that increases mapping accuracy by registering camera views directly with the maps. The camera registration uses a dual approach that adapts to the type of environment being mapped.   In order to further increase the accuracy of the resulting maps, a new method is presented, allowing detection of images corresponding to the same scene region (crossovers). Crossovers then used in conjunction with global alignment methods in order to highly reduce estimation errors, especially when mapping large areas. Our method is based on Visual Bag of Words paradigm (BoW), offering a more efficient and simpler solution by eliminating the training stage, generally required by state of the art BoW algorithms.   Also, towards dev...

Az észt névtervezés az észt nyelvpolitikai modell tükrében [The name management in the mirror of the Estonian LPP-model

OpenAIRE

Pomozi, Péter; Földesi, Eszter

2016-01-01

The Estonian model of language planning and policy, which has been serving the development and protection of the Estonian language in its current form since 2004, is one of the most successful of such strategies in Europe. It owes it success to the broad social and scientific consensus reached in questions of language policy, regardless of changes in government. The Development Plan of the Estonian Language divides Estonian language planning and policy into three parts: status planning, corpu...

Identity and Othering in Past and Present: Representations of the Soviet Era in Estonian Post-Soviet Textbooks

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Katrin Kello

2018-02-01

Full Text Available This paper analyses representations of the ‘core Soviet era’ (1945-1985 in Estonian post-Soviet history textbooks (1989-2016. Attitudes towards the Soviet system have been a rich resource for identity building, and hence a powerful political tool across the whole of the post-Soviet block. Based on an analysis of sections about the Soviet era in Estonia in 21 textbooks, the paper takes a look at how textbooks reflect broader processes of social meaning making, identity building and othering after a profound social and political turn. In 1989 and during the early 1990s, perspectives and narratives in Estonian history textbooks were closely related to social memory and national politics, enacting a specific social representation of the Soviet era that dominated the Estonian-speaking public space during the 1990s. The Soviet era, Russia and local Russians became the main Others for Estonia and Estonians. Over time, public discourse has diversified. The national curriculum and textbooks, however, still maintain the canon that formed in 1990s and thus reflect earlier sentiments. Apart from the increasing salience of Soviet-era daily life in more recent textbooks, the thematic choices and emphases have changed little since the 1990s. Therefore, even if the style of writing has ‘cooled down’, issues of identity preservation, resistance and accommodation, together with a saliently negative representation of wrongdoings by the Soviet system, still prevail. On the one hand, this testifies to the resilience of an established tradition in the textbook genre in general. On the other hand, it reflects the dominance of an ethnocentric tradition in Estonian history textbook writing. The paper discusses the implications of these findings for interethnic relations in Estonia.

Aina Onabolu and Naturalism in Nigerian Visual Arts | Irivwieri ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

GO Irivwieri. Abstract. This paper focuses on Aina Onabolu's creative exploits in the Nigerian Art Scene. ... that his astute commitment to his work culminated in the integration of Art into the school curriculum as a subject to be recon with.

Development of a breeding objective for Estonian Holstein cattle

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E. PÄRNA

2008-12-01

Full Text Available Economic weights for milk carrier (water plus lactose, fat and protein yields, calving interval, age at first service, interval between the first service and conception of heifers and length of productive life of Estonian Holsteins were estimated under assumed milk production quota and for non-quota conditions. A bio-economic model of an integrated production system of a closed herd was used. Economic values of milk carrier yield and length of productive life differed between quota and non-quota conditions, but there were only minor differences between those marketing systems in economic values for functional traits. The standardised economic values of the most important traits varied in magnitude between18 to 81% of the economic value for milk yield. Discounting had a substantial impact on the economic value of length of productive life. When defining the breeding objective for Estonian Holstein, the interval between the first service and conception of heifers, and the length of productive life should be included in the breeding goal along with the traits with the highest economic value, milk, fat and protein yield. In the optimum breeding objective, relative weights of production vs. functional traits were 79 and 21%, respectively.;

Trends in smoking behaviour among Estonian physicians in 1982-2014.

Science.gov (United States)

Pärna, Kersti; Põld, Mariliis; Ringmets, Inge

2017-07-25

Smoking surveys among physicians have proved useful in highlighting the importance of physicians as healthy life style exemplars and role models in tobacco control and smoking cessation. The aim of this study was to give an overview of smoking behaviour among Estonian physicians from 1982 to 2014. Three cross-sectional postal surveys using a self-administered questionnaire were carried out among all practising physicians in Estonia. The number of physicians participating in this study was 3786 in 1982, 2735 in 2002, and 2902 in 2014. Data analysis involved calculating the age-standardized prevalences of smoking, prevalences of smoking by age group and mean age of smoking initiation. A non-parametric test for trend was used to assess significant changes in smoking over time. Age-standardized prevalence of current smoking among men was 39.7% in 1982, 20.9% in 2002, and 14.3% in 2014 and among women 12.2%, 8.0%, and 5.2%, respectively (p smoking among men and women was in age groups under 35 (from 55.2% to 16.7% and from 16.7% to 2.8%, respectively) and 35-44 (from 47.1% to 8.3% and from 19.5% to 5.1%, respectively) (p smoking initiation decreased from 20.4 to 19.3 among men and from 24.5 to 20.4 among women over the study period. In 1982-2014, smoking prevalence among Estonian physicians declined substantially. This may influence the willingness of society to recognize the health consequences of smoking which could give a support to the decline of the smoking epidemic in the country. Differences between smoking among male and female physicians persisted over the study period, but mean age of smoking initiation decreased. A further decline in smoking among Estonian physicians should be encouraged by special efforts targeted at physicians.

Land-use Scene Classification in High-Resolution Remote Sensing Images by Multiscale Deeply Described Correlatons

Science.gov (United States)

Qi, K.; Qingfeng, G.

2017-12-01

With the popular use of High-Resolution Satellite (HRS) images, more and more research efforts have been placed on land-use scene classification. However, it makes the task difficult with HRS images for the complex background and multiple land-cover classes or objects. This article presents a multiscale deeply described correlaton model for land-use scene classification. Specifically, the convolutional neural network is introduced to learn and characterize the local features at different scales. Then, learnt multiscale deep features are explored to generate visual words. The spatial arrangement of visual words is achieved through the introduction of adaptive vector quantized correlograms at different scales. Experiments on two publicly available land-use scene datasets demonstrate that the proposed model is compact and yet discriminative for efficient representation of land-use scene images, and achieves competitive classification results with the state-of-art methods.

Field trial on glucose-induced insulin and metabolite responses in Estonian Holstein and Estonian Red dairy cows in two herds

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Kaart Tanel

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Insulin secretion and tissue sensitivity to insulin is considered to be one of the factors controlling lipid metabolism post partum. The objective of this study was to compare glucose-induced blood insulin and metabolite responses in Estonian Holstein (EH, n = 14 and Estonian Red (ER, n = 14 cows. Methods The study was carried out using the glucose tolerance test (GTT performed at 31 ± 1.9 days post partum during negative energy balance. Blood samples were obtained at -15, -5, 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 min relative to infusion of 0.15 g/kg BW glucose and analysed for glucose, insulin, triglycerides (TG, non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA, cholesterol and β-hydroxybutyrate (BHB. Applying the MIXED Procedure with the SAS System the basal concentration of cholesterol, and basal concentration and concentrations at post-infusion time points for other metabolites, area under the curve (AUC for glucose and insulin, clearance rate (CR for glucose, and maximum increase from basal concentration for glucose and insulin were compared between breeds. Results There was a breed effect on blood NEFA (P P P P P P th min nadir (P th min postinfusion (P Conclusion Our results imply that glucose-induced changes in insulin concentration and metabolite responses to insulin differ between EH and ER dairy cows.

Organizational Commitment in Estonian University Libraries: A Review and Survey

Science.gov (United States)

Kont, Kate-Riin; Jantson, Signe

2014-01-01

The data used in this article is based on the reviewing of relevant literature to provide an overview of the concepts of organizational commitment, job security, and interpersonal relations, as well as on the results of the original online survey, conducted by the article's authors, held in 2012 in Estonian university libraries governed by public…

Estonian folk traditional experiences on natural anticancer remedies: from past to the future.

Science.gov (United States)

Sak, Katrin; Jürisoo, Kadi; Raal, Ain

2014-07-01

Despite diagnostic and therapeutic advancements, the burden of cancer is still increasing worldwide. Toxicity of current chemotherapeutics to normal cells and their resistance to tumor cells highlights the urgent need for new drugs with minimal adverse side effects. The use of natural anticancer agents has entered into the area of cancer research and increased efforts are being made to isolate bioactive products from medicinal plants. To lead the search for plants with potential cytotoxic activity, ethnopharmacological knowledge can give a great contribution. Therefore, the attention of this review is devoted to the natural remedies traditionally used for the cancer treatment by Estonian people over a period of almost 150 years. Two massive databases, the first one stored in the Estonian Folklore Archives and the second one in the electronic database HERBA ( http://herba.folklore.ee/ ), containing altogether more than 30 000 ethnomedicinal texts were systematically reviewed to compile data about the Estonian folk traditional experiences on natural anticancer remedies. As a result, 44 different plants with potential anticancer properties were elicited, 5 of which [Angelica sylvestris L. (Apiaceae), Anthemis tinctoria L. (Asteraceae), Pinus sylvestris L. (Pinaceae), Sorbus aucuparia L. (Rosaceae), and Prunus padus L. (Rosaceae)] have not been previously described with respect to their tumoricidal activities in the scientific literature, suggesting thus the potential herbal materials for further investigations of natural anticancer compounds.

Scene incongruity and attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Mack, Arien; Clarke, Jason; Erol, Muge; Bert, John

2017-02-01

Does scene incongruity, (a mismatch between scene gist and a semantically incongruent object), capture attention and lead to conscious perception? We explored this question using 4 different procedures: Inattention (Experiment 1), Scene description (Experiment 2), Change detection (Experiment 3), and Iconic Memory (Experiment 4). We found no differences between scene incongruity and scene congruity in Experiments 1, 2, and 4, although in Experiment 3 change detection was faster for scenes containing an incongruent object. We offer an explanation for why the change detection results differ from the results of the other three experiments. In all four experiments, participants invariably failed to report the incongruity and routinely mis-described it by normalizing the incongruent object. None of the results supports the claim that semantic incongruity within a scene invariably captures attention and provide strong evidence of the dominant role of scene gist in determining what is perceived. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

HIV testing and counselling in Estonian prisons, 2012 to 2013: aims, processes and impacts.

Science.gov (United States)

Kivimets, K; Uuskula, A

2014-11-27

We present data from an observational cohort study on human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevention and control measures in prisons in Estonia to assess the potential for HIV transmission in this setting. HIV testing and retesting data from the Estonian prison health department were used to estimate HIV prevalence and incidence in prison. Since 2002, voluntary HIV counselling and testing has routinely been offered to all prisoners and has been part of the new prisoners health check. At the end of 2012, there were 3,289 prisoners in Estonia, including 170 women: 28.5% were drug users and 15.6% were infected with HIV. Of the HIV-positive inmates, 8.3% were newly diagnosed on prison entry. In 2012, 4,387 HIV tests (including retests) were performed in Estonian prisons. Among 1,756 initially HIV-negative prisoners who were in prison for more than one year and therefore tested for HIV twice within 12 months (at entry and annual testing), one new HIV infection was detected, an incidence of 0.067 per 100 person-years (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.025–5.572). This analysis indicates low risk of HIV transmission in Estonian prisons. Implementation of HIV management interventions could impact positively on the health of prisoners and the communities to which they return.

PC Scene Generation

Science.gov (United States)

Buford, James A., Jr.; Cosby, David; Bunfield, Dennis H.; Mayhall, Anthony J.; Trimble, Darian E.

2007-04-01

AMRDEC has successfully tested hardware and software for Real-Time Scene Generation for IR and SAL Sensors on COTS PC based hardware and video cards. AMRDEC personnel worked with nVidia and Concurrent Computer Corporation to develop a Scene Generation system capable of frame rates of at least 120Hz while frame locked to an external source (such as a missile seeker) with no dropped frames. Latency measurements and image validation were performed using COTS and in-house developed hardware and software. Software for the Scene Generation system was developed using OpenSceneGraph.

Improving Remote Sensing Scene Classification by Integrating Global-Context and Local-Object Features

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dan Zeng

2018-05-01

Full Text Available Recently, many researchers have been dedicated to using convolutional neural networks (CNNs to extract global-context features (GCFs for remote-sensing scene classification. Commonly, accurate classification of scenes requires knowledge about both the global context and local objects. However, unlike the natural images in which the objects cover most of the image, objects in remote-sensing images are generally small and decentralized. Thus, it is hard for vanilla CNNs to focus on both global context and small local objects. To address this issue, this paper proposes a novel end-to-end CNN by integrating the GCFs and local-object-level features (LOFs. The proposed network includes two branches, the local object branch (LOB and global semantic branch (GSB, which are used to generate the LOFs and GCFs, respectively. Then, the concatenation of features extracted from the two branches allows our method to be more discriminative in scene classification. Three challenging benchmark remote-sensing datasets were extensively experimented on; the proposed approach outperformed the existing scene classification methods and achieved state-of-the-art results for all three datasets.

[Pärtel Lippus. The acoustic features and perception of the Estonian quantity system] / Stefan Werner

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Werner, Stefan

2012-01-01

Arvustus: Pärtel Lippus. The acoustic features and perception of the Estonian quantity system. Tartu : Tartu University Press, 2011. (Dissertationes philologiae estonicae Universitatis Tartuensis ; 29)

Knowledge Guided Disambiguation for Large-Scale Scene Classification With Multi-Resolution CNNs

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Limin; Guo, Sheng; Huang, Weilin; Xiong, Yuanjun; Qiao, Yu

2017-04-01

Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) have made remarkable progress on scene recognition, partially due to these recent large-scale scene datasets, such as the Places and Places2. Scene categories are often defined by multi-level information, including local objects, global layout, and background environment, thus leading to large intra-class variations. In addition, with the increasing number of scene categories, label ambiguity has become another crucial issue in large-scale classification. This paper focuses on large-scale scene recognition and makes two major contributions to tackle these issues. First, we propose a multi-resolution CNN architecture that captures visual content and structure at multiple levels. The multi-resolution CNNs are composed of coarse resolution CNNs and fine resolution CNNs, which are complementary to each other. Second, we design two knowledge guided disambiguation techniques to deal with the problem of label ambiguity. (i) We exploit the knowledge from the confusion matrix computed on validation data to merge ambiguous classes into a super category. (ii) We utilize the knowledge of extra networks to produce a soft label for each image. Then the super categories or soft labels are employed to guide CNN training on the Places2. We conduct extensive experiments on three large-scale image datasets (ImageNet, Places, and Places2), demonstrating the effectiveness of our approach. Furthermore, our method takes part in two major scene recognition challenges, and achieves the second place at the Places2 challenge in ILSVRC 2015, and the first place at the LSUN challenge in CVPR 2016. Finally, we directly test the learned representations on other scene benchmarks, and obtain the new state-of-the-art results on the MIT Indoor67 (86.7\\%) and SUN397 (72.0\\%). We release the code and models at~\\url{https://github.com/wanglimin/MRCNN-Scene-Recognition}.

epartment of Theatre Arts, niversity of ort Harcourt, Nigeria The ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Tracie1

The assumption that films are works of arts that basically create illusion of .... arable in Bible and Film: A Case of Intersecting Connection. Case of .... scene in one of the Shakespearean plays entitled Henry to buttress the pejorative thrust of this word, thus: iscuss unto me; art thou officer. Or art thou base, common, and ...

Eesti autobiograafilise kirjutuse kujunemisest 18. sajandist Teise maailmasõjani. The Development of Estonian Autobiographical Writing from the 18th Century to the Second World War

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rutt Hinrikus

2012-04-01

Full Text Available In this article I examine the development of Estonian autobiographical writing from its first manifestations to published memoirs, and the development of life writing and its diversification. The beginnings of life writing can be traced back to Estonian folk song and Estonian incidental poetry. The Moravian Brethren movement in Estonia in the 18th century promoted the spread of canonical autobiography. The Moravian Brethren offered alternative opportunities for self-realisation for Estonians who were serfs, and were therefore popular with the people. The practice of the Moravian Brethren made use of retelling and writing about the life of the congregation members, which sometimes became suitable biographies in print, especially stories of awakening. Several manuscript biographies have survived from the Brethren times, such as the biographies of Mäletu Jaan and Mihkel Sarapuu. In addition to the history of the Moravian Brethren movement, these biographies give information about the educational situation and living conditions of the people of the time. The Estonian life writing tradition emerged within the reigning Baltic German cultural space thanks to the Estophiles among the Baltic Germans (J. H. Rosenplänter and the first Estonian men of letters; from the early 19th century we have the diary by Rosenplänter, an estophile pastor from Pärnu, and the diary by the Estonian poet, the then-student Kristjan Jaak Peterson, both in the Estonian language. Johann Voldemar Jannsen, the founder of Estonian-language journalism, kept a diary in the German language for a longer period of time; it was usual that the first Estonian intellectuals (Lilli Suburg, and others in the late 19th century wrote in German. Admittedly, the first Estonian-language life history was written by a forward-looking 19th century peasant named Märt Mitt (1833-1912, who was conscious of himself as a historical subject and gave his memoirs, begun in the 1880s, a memorable title

The murmuring of the artistic mulitude Global Art, Memory and Post-Fordism

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pascal Gielen

2009-01-01

Art sociologist Pascal Gielen defends the hypothesis that global art scene is an ideal production entity for economic exploitation. These days the workethic of the art world with its ever-present young dynamic, flexible working hours, thematic approach, short-term contracts or lack of contracts and

Estonian Cell peab suu kasumist puhtaks pühkima / Kaisa Tahlfeld, Katre Pilvinski

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Tahlfeld, Kaisa

2008-01-01

Estonian Cell saatis valitsusele pöördumise, milles palutakse teha parandusi elektrienergiaga seonduvates seadustes, mis aitaksid ettevõtet energia hinnatõusu ajal. Elektri hinnatõusu tõttu on muutunud küsitavaks ka Nitroferti tehase edasine eksisteerimine

Serological evidence of exposure to globally relevant zoonotic parasites in the Estonian population

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lassen, Brian; Janson, Marilin; Viltrop, Arvo

2016-01-01

We investigated Estonian population and its selected subgroups for serological evidence of exposure to Ascaris lumbricoides, Echinococcus spp., Taenia solium, Toxocara canis, Toxoplasma gondii, and Trichinella spiralis. Serum samples from 999 adults representing general population, 248 children a...

Acquisition of noun derivation in Estonian and Russian L1

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Reili Argus

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Acquisition of derivation is not a well-studied area in first language research and a comparative approach to the acquisition of derivation in different languages doesn’t exist. There is no information on how a child acquires derivation in a language with a rich and regular system of derivational patterns, or in a language where derivation is productive, but the system of derivational patterns is opaque. According to general ideas of complexity in a language, the child should start to use simplex stems first and, only after that, complex ones, that is, complexity should increase in the course of acquisition. Our paper is intended to address these issues, based on longitudinal child data from typologically different languages, Estonian and Russian. The results revealed significant differences in the acquisition of noun derivation in the two languages under observation. The system of noun derivation is acquired at a faster pace in Russian, while Estonian children have far fewer noun derivatives in their speech and they use different derivation suffixes with less regularity. Even so, the so-called building block model may be applied for both languages only partially.

Tiger in Focus--A National Survey of ICT in Estonian Schools

Science.gov (United States)

Toots, Anu; Laanpere, Mart

2004-01-01

Estonia has not participated in international studies of ICT in education, nor have there been any similar studies at the national level up until the year 2000. The first survey of ICT in Estonian schools was conducted after completion of the national school computerization programme called Tiger Leap. This paper focuses on the targeted responses…

Consumer Socialisation and Value Orientations among Estonian and Chinese Young People

Science.gov (United States)

Waerdahl, Randi; Kalmus, Veronika; Keller, Margit

2011-01-01

This paper asks if Estonian and Chinese tweens' access to pocket money influences their brand valuation, as well as value orientations in the context of perceived peer popularity and personal well-being. Surveys conducted in autumns 2006 (China n = 188) and 2007 (Estonia n = 111) show an inherent cultural resistance among tweens in both countries…

Az észt névtervezés az észt nyelvpolitikai modell tükrében [The name management in the mirror of the Estonian LPP-model

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Pomozi, Péter

2016-12-01

Full Text Available The Estonian model of language planning and policy, which has been serving the development and protection of the Estonian language in its current form since 2004, is one of the most successful of such strategies in Europe. It owes it success to the broad social and scientific consensus reached in questions of language policy, regardless of changes in government. The Development Plan of the Estonian Language divides Estonian language planning and policy into three parts: status planning, corpus planning and prestige planning. Name management is a part of corpus planning, although certain aspects are also connected to legal and prestige planning. Name management strategies are present in all components of the Estonian model of language planning and policy, as linguistically appropriate name use is not only a socio-cultural, but economic question, as informative and easy to understand names contribute to measurable economic advantages. The paper mainly demonstrates the dilemmas and answers of Estonian name management through examples from personal name giving practices, but questions concerning the problems of name use in a multicultural environment and the difficulties of place name and firm name management are also discussed.

Väärikas Estonian Air jäi kampaaniaga hätta / Alyona Stadnik

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Stadnik, Alyona

2010-01-01

Estonian Air müüs veebikaupluse cherry.ee kaudu soodsaid kinkekaarte. Vastuolu tekkis asjaolust, et nõudlus kinkekaartide järele oli suurem kui pakkumine. Lennukompanii katkestas soodsate kinkekaartide müügi

Field of genes: the politics of science and identity in the Estonian Genome Project.

Science.gov (United States)

Fletcher, Amy L

2004-04-01

This case study of the Estonian Genome Project (EGP) analyses the Estonian policy decision to construct a national human gene bank. Drawing upon qualitative data from newspaper articles and public policy documents, it focuses on how proponents use discourse to link the EGP to the broader political goal of securing Estonia's position within the Western/European scientific and cultural space. This dominant narrative is then situated within the analytical notion of the "brand state", which raises potentially negative political consequences for this type of market-driven genomic research. Considered against the increasing number of countries engaging in gene bank and/or gene database projects, this analysis of Estonia elucidates issues that cross national boundaries, while also illuminating factors specific to this small, post-Soviet state as it enters the global biocybernetic economy.

Estonian Business Schooli magistriharidus nüüd ka koju kätte / Madis Habakuk

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Habakuk, Madis

2007-01-01

Sügisest hakkab Estonian Business School koos Mainori Kõrgkooliga pakkuma magistriõpet majandushariduseta inimestele, kus soovijatel on võimalus õppida EBSi Master of Business Administration programmi järgi

The Role of Language in (Recreating Tatar Diaspora Identity: The Case of the Estonian Tatars

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Maarja Klaas

2015-06-01

Full Text Available This paper focuses on the meanings assigned to Tatar language among the Tatar diaspora in Estonia. According to interviews with Estonian Tatars as well as descriptions of field material from Tatarstan, language is an important aspect of Tatar ethnic identity. This paper will track common discourses about the Tatar language and the way it is connected to Tatar ethnic identity. Issues concerning Tatar language are used to demonstrate various ways of enacting Tatarness in Estonia. It is shown that Estonian Tatars worry about the vitality and purity of Tatar language, but for some, marginalization of dialects is also an issue. People categorized with the same identity labels by self and others can experience and enact their Tatarness in a variety of different ways.

Categorization of natural dynamic audiovisual scenes.

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Olli Rummukainen

Full Text Available This work analyzed the perceptual attributes of natural dynamic audiovisual scenes. We presented thirty participants with 19 natural scenes in a similarity categorization task, followed by a semi-structured interview. The scenes were reproduced with an immersive audiovisual display. Natural scene perception has been studied mainly with unimodal settings, which have identified motion as one of the most salient attributes related to visual scenes, and sound intensity along with pitch trajectories related to auditory scenes. However, controlled laboratory experiments with natural multimodal stimuli are still scarce. Our results show that humans pay attention to similar perceptual attributes in natural scenes, and a two-dimensional perceptual map of the stimulus scenes and perceptual attributes was obtained in this work. The exploratory results show the amount of movement, perceived noisiness, and eventfulness of the scene to be the most important perceptual attributes in naturalistically reproduced real-world urban environments. We found the scene gist properties openness and expansion to remain as important factors in scenes with no salient auditory or visual events. We propose that the study of scene perception should move forward to understand better the processes behind multimodal scene processing in real-world environments. We publish our stimulus scenes as spherical video recordings and sound field recordings in a publicly available database.

Scene Integration Without Awareness: No Conclusive Evidence for Processing Scene Congruency During Continuous Flash Suppression.

Science.gov (United States)

Moors, Pieter; Boelens, David; van Overwalle, Jaana; Wagemans, Johan

2016-07-01

A recent study showed that scenes with an object-background relationship that is semantically incongruent break interocular suppression faster than scenes with a semantically congruent relationship. These results implied that semantic relations between the objects and the background of a scene could be extracted in the absence of visual awareness of the stimulus. In the current study, we assessed the replicability of this finding and tried to rule out an alternative explanation dependent on low-level differences between the stimuli. Furthermore, we used a Bayesian analysis to quantify the evidence in favor of the presence or absence of a scene-congruency effect. Across three experiments, we found no convincing evidence for a scene-congruency effect or a modulation of scene congruency by scene inversion. These findings question the generalizability of previous observations and cast doubt on whether genuine semantic processing of object-background relationships in scenes can manifest during interocular suppression. © The Author(s) 2016.

E-Banking: Risk Management Practices of the Estonian Banks

OpenAIRE

Dmitri Sokolov

2007-01-01

During the last years the development of e-banking in Estonia has been very significant. According to the report of the World Economic Forum, the Estonian IT-development has been substantial. The success of e-banking in Estonia can be compared to the corresponding success of the Nordic countries. According to the Deutsche Bank Research, around 70-80% of the Internet users in Estonia use Internet banking and in this respect, Estonia could be compared to Finland, Norway and Iceland. Despite of ...

Scene construction in schizophrenia.

Science.gov (United States)

Raffard, Stéphane; D'Argembeau, Arnaud; Bayard, Sophie; Boulenger, Jean-Philippe; Van der Linden, Martial

2010-09-01

Recent research has revealed that schizophrenia patients are impaired in remembering the past and imagining the future. In this study, we examined patients' ability to engage in scene construction (i.e., the process of mentally generating and maintaining a complex and coherent scene), which is a key part of retrieving past experiences and episodic future thinking. 24 participants with schizophrenia and 25 healthy controls were asked to imagine new fictitious experiences and described their mental representations of the scenes in as much detail as possible. Descriptions were scored according to various dimensions (e.g., sensory details, spatial reference), and participants also provided ratings of their subjective experience when imagining the scenes (e.g., their sense of presence, the perceived similarity of imagined events to past experiences). Imagined scenes contained less phenomenological details (d = 1.11) and were more fragmented (d = 2.81) in schizophrenia patients compared to controls. Furthermore, positive symptoms were positively correlated to the sense of presence (r = .43) and the perceived similarity of imagined events to past episodes (r = .47), whereas negative symptoms were negatively related to the overall richness of the imagined scenes (r = -.43). The results suggest that schizophrenic patients' impairments in remembering the past and imagining the future are, at least in part, due to deficits in the process of scene construction. The relationships between the characteristics of imagined scenes and positive and negative symptoms could be related to reality monitoring deficits and difficulties in strategic retrieval processes, respectively. Copyright 2010 APA, all rights reserved.

Far-infrared pedestrian detection for advanced driver assistance systems using scene context

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Guohua; Liu, Qiong; Wu, Qingyao

2016-04-01

Pedestrian detection is one of the most critical but challenging components in advanced driver assistance systems. Far-infrared (FIR) images are well-suited for pedestrian detection even in a dark environment. However, most current detection approaches just focus on pedestrian patterns themselves, where robust and real-time detection cannot be well achieved. We propose a fast FIR pedestrian detection approach, called MAP-HOGLBP-T, to explicitly exploit the scene context for the driver assistance system. In MAP-HOGLBP-T, three algorithms are developed to exploit the scene contextual information from roads, vehicles, and background objects of high homogeneity, and we employ the Bayesian approach to build a classifier learner which respects the scene contextual information. We also develop a multiframe approval scheme to enhance the detection performance based on spatiotemporal continuity of pedestrians. Our empirical study on real-world datasets has demonstrated the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed method. The performance is shown to be better than that of state-of-the-art low-level feature-based approaches.

Estonian Vocational Teachers' Attitudes towards Inclusive Education for Students with Special Educational Needs

Science.gov (United States)

Rose, Richard; Kaikkonen, Leena; Koiv, Kristi

2007-01-01

This paper presents the findings from research conducted with two samples of teachers from Estonian Vocational Schools. The first sample comprised a group of teachers who had received professional development directly related to the management of students with special educational needs in vocational education settings. Their attitudes and…

Re-imagining Western Art History in an Age of Globalization : Finding Blind Spots and Shifting Frontiers

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bavelaar, H.|info:eu-repo/dai/nl/073157813

Nowadays art biennials are organized in the farthest corners of the world. Everywhere in Europe and America we see surveys emerging that include art works stemming from countries that were formerly excluded from the modern art scene: in addition to art from Europe and the United States we see

The PST Project, Willie Herron's Street Mural Asco East of No West (2011 and the Mural Remix Tour: Power Relations on the Los Angeles Art Scene

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eva Zetterman

2014-06-01

Full Text Available This article departs from the huge art-curating project Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A., 1945-1980, a Getty funded initiative running in Southern California from October 2011 to April 2012 with a collaboration of more than sixty cultural institutions coming together to celebrate the birth of the L.A. art scene. One of the Pacific Standard Time (PST exhibitions was Asco: Elite of the Obscure, A Retrospective, 1972-1987, running from September to December 2011 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA. This was the first retrospective of a conceptual performance group of Chicanos from East Los Angeles, who from the early 1970s to the mid 1980s acted out critical interventions in the politically contested urban space of Los Angles. In conjunction with the Asco retrospective at LACMA, the Getty Foundation co-sponsored a new street mural by the Chicano artist Willie Herron, paying homage to his years in the performance group Asco. The PST exhibition program also included so-called Mural Remix Tours, taking fine art audiences from LACMA to Herron's place-specific new mural in City Terrace in East Los Angeles. This article analyze the inclusion in the PST project of Herron's site-specific mural in City Terrace and the Mural Remix Tours to East Los Angeles with regard to the power relations of fine art and critical subculture, center and periphery, the mainstream and the marginal. As a physical monument dependent on a heavy sense of the past, Herron's new mural, titled Asco: East of No West, transforms the physical and social environment of City Terrace, changing its public space into an official place of memory. At the same time, as an art historical monument officially added to the civic map of Los Angeles, the mural becomes a permanent reminder of the segregation patterns that still exist in the urban space of Los Angeles.

Noor-Eesti ja kunstnikud. Young Estonia’s Artists

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Tiiu Talvistu

2012-04-01

Full Text Available In Estonian art history, the beginning of the 20th century is the era of the birth of nationalist art. This is the time when the first artists to study abroad, the brothers Paul and Kristjan Raud, and Ants Laikmaa return home from their studies in Düsseldorf and Munich. In the homeland, these artists’ cultural and political spirit brought them into contact with the Young Estonians, one generation younger than they were, whose overall world-view and artistic views they came to shape. The program of the Young Estonians included the furthering of cultural life as a whole; therefore they participated enthusiastically in discussions about the visual arts, and ways in which to advance art in the homeland. Through the mediation of Ants Laikmaa, they made contact with Nikolai Triik, an artist of their own generation, who in turn engaged his former fellow students from the Stieglitz School of Applied Arts in St. Petersburg – Aleksander Tassa, Jaan Koort, and Konrad Mägi. The interests and travel destinations of writers and artists were similar: they found themselves drawn primarily to Scandinavia, then Paris. Young Estonia’s almanacs and magazines were illustrated and adorned by reproductions of these same artists’ works, and artists contributed their writings on art to the publication. Nikolai Triik was artistic editor for the Young Estonia magazine, thanks to his stronger ties with the homeland and his greater authority. In the years 1909 and 1914 Young Estonia organized art exhibits, in which several artists studying abroad found their first reception among a homeland public. Young Estonia created a new standard in Estonian book design. Discussions began around the question of ”nationalism” in art. The Young Estonia period 1905–1915 was an era of great change in Estonian art, and the artists connected with the movement played a major role in subsequent developments. Together they established the art association ”Pallas” in 1918

Underwater Scene Composition

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Nanyoung

2009-01-01

In this article, the author describes an underwater scene composition for elementary-education majors. This project deals with watercolor with crayon or oil-pastel resist (medium); the beauty of nature represented by fish in the underwater scene (theme); texture and pattern (design elements); drawing simple forms (drawing skill); and composition…

Scene-Based Contextual Cueing in Pigeons

Science.gov (United States)

Wasserman, Edward A.; Teng, Yuejia; Brooks, Daniel I.

2014-01-01

Repeated pairings of a particular visual context with a specific location of a target stimulus facilitate target search in humans. We explored an animal model of such contextual cueing. Pigeons had to peck a target which could appear in one of four locations on color photographs of real-world scenes. On half of the trials, each of four scenes was consistently paired with one of four possible target locations; on the other half of the trials, each of four different scenes was randomly paired with the same four possible target locations. In Experiments 1 and 2, pigeons exhibited robust contextual cueing when the context preceded the target by 1 s to 8 s, with reaction times to the target being shorter on predictive-scene trials than on random-scene trials. Pigeons also responded more frequently during the delay on predictive-scene trials than on random-scene trials; indeed, during the delay on predictive-scene trials, pigeons predominately pecked toward the location of the upcoming target, suggesting that attentional guidance contributes to contextual cueing. In Experiment 3, involving left-right and top-bottom scene reversals, pigeons exhibited stronger control by global than by local scene cues. These results attest to the robustness and associative basis of contextual cueing in pigeons. PMID:25546098

Doing language: Narratives from an activist world in the Austrian art-world of the 1990s: the Art Activism of WochenKlausur, Martin Krenn, Oliver Ressler and maiz

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Fotiadi, E.

2012-01-01

The article refers to the political art scene in Austria during the 1990s and early 2000s. Participatory art-activism projects by the group WochenKlausur and by Martin Krenn and Oliver Ressler are juxtaposed to artistic work used for political activism by the women migrants' organization maiz. All

A hybrid multiview stereo algorithm for modeling urban scenes.

Science.gov (United States)

Lafarge, Florent; Keriven, Renaud; Brédif, Mathieu; Vu, Hoang-Hiep

2013-01-01

We present an original multiview stereo reconstruction algorithm which allows the 3D-modeling of urban scenes as a combination of meshes and geometric primitives. The method provides a compact model while preserving details: Irregular elements such as statues and ornaments are described by meshes, whereas regular structures such as columns and walls are described by primitives (planes, spheres, cylinders, cones, and tori). We adopt a two-step strategy consisting first in segmenting the initial meshbased surface using a multilabel Markov Random Field-based model and second in sampling primitive and mesh components simultaneously on the obtained partition by a Jump-Diffusion process. The quality of a reconstruction is measured by a multi-object energy model which takes into account both photo-consistency and semantic considerations (i.e., geometry and shape layout). The segmentation and sampling steps are embedded into an iterative refinement procedure which provides an increasingly accurate hybrid representation. Experimental results on complex urban structures and large scenes are presented and compared to state-of-the-art multiview stereo meshing algorithms.

HDR IMAGING FOR FEATURE DETECTION ON DETAILED ARCHITECTURAL SCENES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

G. Kontogianni

2015-02-01

Full Text Available 3D reconstruction relies on accurate detection, extraction, description and matching of image features. This is even truer for complex architectural scenes that pose needs for 3D models of high quality, without any loss of detail in geometry or color. Illumination conditions influence the radiometric quality of images, as standard sensors cannot depict properly a wide range of intensities in the same scene. Indeed, overexposed or underexposed pixels cause irreplaceable information loss and degrade digital representation. Images taken under extreme lighting environments may be thus prohibitive for feature detection/extraction and consequently for matching and 3D reconstruction. High Dynamic Range (HDR images could be helpful for these operators because they broaden the limits of illumination range that Standard or Low Dynamic Range (SDR/LDR images can capture and increase in this way the amount of details contained in the image. Experimental results of this study prove this assumption as they examine state of the art feature detectors applied both on standard dynamic range and HDR images.

Mutational analysis of COL1A1 and COL1A2 genes among Estonian osteogenesis imperfecta patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhytnik, Lidiia; Maasalu, Katre; Reimann, Ene; Prans, Ele; Kõks, Sulev; Märtson, Aare

2017-08-15

Osteogenesis imperfecta (OI) is a rare bone disorder. In 90% of cases, OI is caused by mutations in the COL1A1/2 genes, which code procollagen α1 and α2 chains. The main aim of the current research was to identify the mutational spectrum of COL1A1/2 genes in Estonian patients. The small population size of Estonia provides a unique chance to explore the collagen I mutational profile of 100% of OI families in the country. We performed mutational analysis of peripheral blood gDNA of 30 unrelated Estonian OI patients using Sanger sequencing of COL1A1 and COL1A2 genes, including all intron-exon junctions and 5'UTR and 3'UTR regions, to identify causative OI mutations. We identified COL1A1/2 mutations in 86.67% of patients (26/30). 76.92% of discovered mutations were located in the COL1A1 (n = 20) and 23.08% in the COL1A2 (n = 6) gene. Half of the COL1A1/2 mutations appeared to be novel. The percentage of quantitative COL1A1/2 mutations was 69.23%. Glycine substitution with serine was the most prevalent among missense mutations. All qualitative mutations were situated in the chain domain of pro-α1/2 chains. Our study shows that among the Estonian OI population, the range of collagen I mutations is quite high, which agrees with other described OI cohorts of Northern Europe. The Estonian OI cohort differs due to the high number of quantitative variants and simple missense variants, which are mostly Gly to Ser substitutions and do not extend the chain domain of COL1A1/2 products.

Radon in Estonian buildings. Establishment of a measurement system and obtained results

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pahapill, L.; Rulkov, A.; Swedjemark, G.A.

1996-12-01

One purpose of this project was the establishment of a radon monitoring programme inside the state environmental monitoring programme. Another purpose was to investigate regions, expected to have high radon levels indoors. A new method for the long-term measurement of indoor radon was established and the staff for these measurements was trained. The results of the measurement can be used by Estonian decision-makers to work out rules and standards. There is no legislative act in the field of radiation in Estonian at this time. To summarize the results of the measurements we can say that indoor radon concentrations vary by region. The radon investigations must be continued to identify the risk areas and types of housing construction. The results of the state radon monitoring are provided to the municipalities, who advice the owners of planned new houses to select the right construction for the house. A new project will follow with an investigation of radon in randomly selected dwellings, training and equipment for radon measurement in soil, and general advice with regard to radon, as well as assistance in preparing information about radon. 7 refs, 5 figs

Joint Multi-scale Convolution Neural Network for Scene Classification of High Resolution Remote Sensing Imagery

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

ZHENG Zhuo

2018-05-01

Full Text Available High resolution remote sensing imagery scene classification is important for automatic complex scene recognition, which is the key technology for military and disaster relief, etc. In this paper, we propose a novel joint multi-scale convolution neural network (JMCNN method using a limited amount of image data for high resolution remote sensing imagery scene classification. Different from traditional convolutional neural network, the proposed JMCNN is an end-to-end training model with joint enhanced high-level feature representation, which includes multi-channel feature extractor, joint multi-scale feature fusion and Softmax classifier. Multi-channel and scale convolutional extractors are used to extract scene middle features, firstly. Then, in order to achieve enhanced high-level feature representation in a limit dataset, joint multi-scale feature fusion is proposed to combine multi-channel and scale features using two feature fusions. Finally, enhanced high-level feature representation can be used for classification by Softmax. Experiments were conducted using two limit public UCM and SIRI datasets. Compared to state-of-the-art methods, the JMCNN achieved improved performance and great robustness with average accuracies of 89.3% and 88.3% on the two datasets.

The Perceived Impact of External Evaluation: The System, Organisation and Individual Levels-Estonian Case

Science.gov (United States)

Seema, Riin; Udam, Maiki; Mattisen, Heli; Lauri, Liia

2017-01-01

The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of how the employees of higher education institutions perceive the impact of external evaluations. The study was conducted using the concurrent mixed method and involved 361 employees from Estonian universities and professional higher education institutions. The results indicated that…

Binary patterns encoded convolutional neural networks for texture recognition and remote sensing scene classification

Science.gov (United States)

Anwer, Rao Muhammad; Khan, Fahad Shahbaz; van de Weijer, Joost; Molinier, Matthieu; Laaksonen, Jorma

2018-04-01

Designing discriminative powerful texture features robust to realistic imaging conditions is a challenging computer vision problem with many applications, including material recognition and analysis of satellite or aerial imagery. In the past, most texture description approaches were based on dense orderless statistical distribution of local features. However, most recent approaches to texture recognition and remote sensing scene classification are based on Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs). The de facto practice when learning these CNN models is to use RGB patches as input with training performed on large amounts of labeled data (ImageNet). In this paper, we show that Local Binary Patterns (LBP) encoded CNN models, codenamed TEX-Nets, trained using mapped coded images with explicit LBP based texture information provide complementary information to the standard RGB deep models. Additionally, two deep architectures, namely early and late fusion, are investigated to combine the texture and color information. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to investigate Binary Patterns encoded CNNs and different deep network fusion architectures for texture recognition and remote sensing scene classification. We perform comprehensive experiments on four texture recognition datasets and four remote sensing scene classification benchmarks: UC-Merced with 21 scene categories, WHU-RS19 with 19 scene classes, RSSCN7 with 7 categories and the recently introduced large scale aerial image dataset (AID) with 30 aerial scene types. We demonstrate that TEX-Nets provide complementary information to standard RGB deep model of the same network architecture. Our late fusion TEX-Net architecture always improves the overall performance compared to the standard RGB network on both recognition problems. Furthermore, our final combination leads to consistent improvement over the state-of-the-art for remote sensing scene classification.

Assessment of the Estonian Research Development Technology and Innovation Funding System

OpenAIRE

Nedeva, Maria; Georghiou, Luke

2003-01-01

The objectives of the assessment of the RDTI funding system in Estonia as specified by the Terms of Reference are as follows: 1) to conduct a review of the current R&D funding system in Estonia; 2) to review the objectives of the Estonian R&D Strategy 2002-2006; 3) to review best practice in R&D funding elsewhere; and 4) to propose an efficient, transparent and accountable R&D funding system.

Gender Advantages and Gender Normality in the Views of Estonian Secondary School Students

Science.gov (United States)

Kuurme, Tiiu; Kasemaa, Gertrud

2015-01-01

The aim of the study on Estonian secondary school students was to obtain an overview of the gender-related views and experiences of the everyday school life by students, and to analyse the school-related factors in the development of gender roles and gender-related expectations. We view gender equality as a central condition for social…

Planarity constrained multi-view depth map reconstruction for urban scenes

Science.gov (United States)

Hou, Yaolin; Peng, Jianwei; Hu, Zhihua; Tao, Pengjie; Shan, Jie

2018-05-01

Multi-view depth map reconstruction is regarded as a suitable approach for 3D generation of large-scale scenes due to its flexibility and scalability. However, there are challenges when this technique is applied to urban scenes where apparent man-made regular shapes may present. To address this need, this paper proposes a planarity constrained multi-view depth (PMVD) map reconstruction method. Starting with image segmentation and feature matching for each input image, the main procedure is iterative optimization under the constraints of planar geometry and smoothness. A set of candidate local planes are first generated by an extended PatchMatch method. The image matching costs are then computed and aggregated by an adaptive-manifold filter (AMF), whereby the smoothness constraint is applied to adjacent pixels through belief propagation. Finally, multiple criteria are used to eliminate image matching outliers. (Vertical) aerial images, oblique (aerial) images and ground images are used for qualitative and quantitative evaluations. The experiments demonstrated that the PMVD outperforms the popular multi-view depth map reconstruction with an accuracy two times better for the aerial datasets and achieves an outcome comparable to the state-of-the-art for ground images. As expected, PMVD is able to preserve the planarity for piecewise flat structures in urban scenes and restore the edges in depth discontinuous areas.

Re-conceptualizing mother tongue tuition of Estonian abroad as a transnational phenomenon

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Maarja Siiner

2017-05-01

Full Text Available The governmental initiative called the Compatriots Programme, which supports language tuition in Estonian schools and societies abroad, reveals an increased interest in developing intergenerational language transmission in the growing Estonian diaspora. This transnational language political activity signals a new era in language policy, where nation states are increasingly decentralized by migration. The evaluation of the program furthermore reveals that organizing such schools requires a willingness to take language political agency, typically conducted by well-educated and well-integrated resourceful transnational multilingual parents. The present article outlines the results of an ethnographic study of the process of establishing the Estonian School in Copenhagen. This step has demanded a change in the mindset still prevailing in Estonia that language political activities, such as planning language acquisition, are solely the responsibility of the state. Since the prevailing language ideology in Denmark is not favorable towards multilingualism in migrant languages, intergenerational language transmission furthermore presupposes a feeling of ownership of the language and high language self-esteem. "Hargmaise keelepoliitika sünd. Eesti keeleõppe korraldamise võimalikkusest välismaal Taani näitel" Hargmaisus, kasvav väljarändajate arv ja sellega ka eesti keele rääkijate hulk välismaal on jätnud oma jälje eesti keelepoliitikale. Kui varem uuriti peamiselt seda, kuidas eesti keel muukeelses kontekstis muutub, siis viimasel kümnendil on riik asunud aktiivselt toetama eesti keele jätkuvat kasutamist välismaal, rahastades rahvuskaaslaste programmi abil haridusprogramme. Kuid millised faktorid määravad selle, kas uus eestlaste põlvkond oskab ja tahab eesti keelt rääkida? Artikkel hindab etnograafilises ja sotsiolingvistilises võtmes Kopenhaagenis kolm aastat tegutsenud Eesti Kooli ja Lasteklubi näitel, millised on keelekasutust

DSI--Dance Scene Investigation: Exploring a Time in Dance History as Dancer, Choreographer, Historian, and Critic

Science.gov (United States)

Spear-Jones, Gwen

2008-01-01

This article provides a brief description of a dance program at the Old Donation Center Dance Education Program in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The mission of DSI--Dance Scene Investigation--is to nurture the full development of each student's dance potential through intense involvement in every aspect of the art. The program provides differentiated…

Interpretative approaches for the Levantine rock art according to the study of Arquero de los Callejones Cerrados shelter (Albarracín, Teruel

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Manuel BEA

2016-07-01

Full Text Available The study on the rock art shelter of Arquero de los Callejones Cerrados, in the mountain range of Albarracín, is presented. We combined different methods on its documentation, attending to photography, geometric techniques, image digital enhancement and digital tracings. According to the analysis of the naturalistic decorated panels, depicted in red and white colour, it has been documented a wide group of animal species, some of them forming symbolic scenes together with human figures. The main focus of the study was to establish a better knowledge of the rock art on a regional scale. The analysis carried out allows us to point out a close relationship between female motifs and a feasible mating scene between two bovines, which invite to make new theoretical and interpretative evaluations. So it is possible to note a scene with already tamed animals and also to highlight the symbolic value of a fertility scene, with all those chrono-cultural implications it has out of those traditionally used for the so-called Levantine rock art. In this hand, we also set out the necessity to address a general redefinition of the Levantine rock art concept.

Deep Salient Feature Based Anti-Noise Transfer Network for Scene Classification of Remote Sensing Imagery

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Xi Gong

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Remote sensing (RS scene classification is important for RS imagery semantic interpretation. Although tremendous strides have been made in RS scene classification, one of the remaining open challenges is recognizing RS scenes in low quality variance (e.g., various scales and noises. This paper proposes a deep salient feature based anti-noise transfer network (DSFATN method that effectively enhances and explores the high-level features for RS scene classification in different scales and noise conditions. In DSFATN, a novel discriminative deep salient feature (DSF is introduced by saliency-guided DSF extraction, which conducts a patch-based visual saliency (PBVS algorithm using “visual attention” mechanisms to guide pre-trained CNNs for producing the discriminative high-level features. Then, an anti-noise network is proposed to learn and enhance the robust and anti-noise structure information of RS scene by directly propagating the label information to fully-connected layers. A joint loss is used to minimize the anti-noise network by integrating anti-noise constraint and a softmax classification loss. The proposed network architecture can be easily trained with a limited amount of training data. The experiments conducted on three different scale RS scene datasets show that the DSFATN method has achieved excellent performance and great robustness in different scales and noise conditions. It obtains classification accuracy of 98.25%, 98.46%, and 98.80%, respectively, on the UC Merced Land Use Dataset (UCM, the Google image dataset of SIRI-WHU, and the SAT-6 dataset, advancing the state-of-the-art substantially.

Scene text detection by leveraging multi-channel information and local context

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Runmin; Qian, Shengyou; Yang, Jianfeng; Gao, Changxin

2018-03-01

As an important information carrier, texts play significant roles in many applications. However, text detection in unconstrained scenes is a challenging problem due to cluttered backgrounds, various appearances, uneven illumination, etc.. In this paper, an approach based on multi-channel information and local context is proposed to detect texts in natural scenes. According to character candidate detection plays a vital role in text detection system, Maximally Stable Extremal Regions(MSERs) and Graph-cut based method are integrated to obtain the character candidates by leveraging the multi-channel image information. A cascaded false positive elimination mechanism are constructed from the perspective of the character and the text line respectively. Since the local context information is very valuable for us, these information is utilized to retrieve the missing characters for boosting the text detection performance. Experimental results on two benchmark datasets, i.e., the ICDAR 2011 dataset and the ICDAR 2013 dataset, demonstrate that the proposed method have achieved the state-of-the-art performance.

Seltsi muuseumist riigi keskmuuseumiks: ikka ajutiste lahendustega / Changes in the Estonian National Museum from 1909 to the present.

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Krista Aru

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Changes in the Estonian National Museum from 1909 to the presentThe Estonian National Museum was founded in Tartu in 1909 as part of the national movement. With its activities and connections in society, the ENM helped create Estonian society, the nation’s collective memory and identity.The ENM has always been – despite the changing locations, names, and content – one of the symbols of national identity. But at the same time, ENM has never had its own building designed specially for the museum’s purposes.Since 1909 there have been several attempts to establish a home for the ENM. At first (1909–1923, Estonian society wanted to establish the museum in the center of Tartu. The museum was intended to become a key institution of the growing nation and establishing the nation’s identity.At last in 1923 the ENM secured the Raadi manor, outside the center of the city, in a beautiful park, near the lake with its boats and water attractions. In this manor the first permanent exhibition of mainly 19th century Estonian peasant life was compiled, and the ENM operated in the Raadi manor from 1923–1940 as the “Estonian’s own museum” The years of alternating occupations, World War II, and political terror damaged and destroyed the whole society. The Raadi manor was destroyed in the war too, and the ENM itself was divided into two parts – the State Ethnographic Museum and the State Literary Museum. The collections of the ENM were given to Tallinn and to many different places inside and outside Tartu. Then began “the period of temporary location” that continues today. The museum is located in several places in the city of Tartu.In 1988, the prior name of the State Ethnographic Museum – the Estonian National Museum – was reinstated. Since the 1990s there have been many attempts to secure a special building for the ENM. Now, at last, as a result of serious economic pressure, we are closer to this goal than ever. During the last five

Food for Thought: Of Tables, Art and Women in Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse

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Ciobanu Estella Antoaneta

2017-12-01

Full Text Available This article examines art as it is depicted ekphrastically or merely suggested in two scenes from Virginia Woolf’s novel To the Lighthouse, to critique its androcentric assumptions by appeal to art criticism, feminist theories of the gaze, and critique of the en-gendering of discursive practices in the West. The first scene concerns Mrs Ramsay’s artinformed appreciation of her daughter’s dish of fruit for the dinner party. I interpret the fruit composition as akin to Dutch still life paintings; nevertheless, the scene’s aestheticisation of everyday life also betrays visual affinities with the female nude genre. Mrs Ramsay’s critical appraisal of ways of looking at the fruit - her own as an art connoisseur’s, and Augustus Carmichael’s as a voracious plunderer’s - receives a philosophical slant in the other scene I examine, Lily Briscoe’s nonfigurative painting of Mrs Ramsay. The portrait remediates artistically the reductive thrust of traditional philosophy as espoused by Mr Ramsay and, like the nature of reality in philosophical discourse, yields to a “scientific” explication to the uninformed viewer. Notwithstanding its feminist reversal of philosophy’s classic hierarchy (male knower over against female object, coterminous with Lily’s early playful grip on philosophy, the scene ultimately fails to offer a viable non-androcentric outlook on life.

Depicting Occlusion in Early Renaissance Art

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Barbara Gillam

2011-05-01

Full Text Available The artist attempting to give the impression of three-dimensional relationships must convey somehow that one surface is in front of another. There is a large and venerable literature in Psychology on this subject, showing how figure-ground, border ownership and amodal completion and continuation are determined but there is almost no discussion of how artist's have recruited these and other principles to create convincing impressions of occlusion. Even Gombrich (Art & Illusion 1960 only considers the situation in which a figure has to be imagined from very partial cues, not how juxtaposed elements in art are parsed perceptually into occluding and occluded surfaces. In this paper I shall discuss approaches to occlusion present in early Renaissance art and the degree to which the principles now well-known to Psychologists were discovered and used, as artists increasingly depicted naturalistic scenes. Among the preoccupations of these artists, as indicated by their work, were whether and how much to occlude faces (and the related issue of the management of haloes, occlusion of and by architectural features, and the importance or otherwise of transitivity in occlusion relationships within the scene. They also clearly used the ground plane, high viewpoints and arrangements of contour terminations, as well as more conventional figural cues, to disambiguate perceived occlusion or to avoid the confusion of multiple surfaces.

Vene kirjandus venestusaja eesti koolides. Russian Literature in the Estonian Schools of the Russification Era

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Ülle Pärli

2012-04-01

Full Text Available This article aims to give an overview of literary instruction in schools of the russification era at the beginning of the 20th century in Estonia; this was likewise the curriculum of literary study offered to the generation of educated youth which included the Young Estonians. Based on official documents, archival materials, and memoirs, and through analyses of anthologies, literary histories, and teaching methods in use at the time, we attempt to reconstruct the outlines of literary reading and requirements for students in various types of schools. When, as a result of school reform, Russian became the language of instruction; lessons in Russian became central in the curriculum, alongside the word of God; selections from Russian literature were read in the original language. In the lower grades, teaching was by the so-called ”natural method”, intended to guarantee swift achievement of fluency in ”living Russian language”; this was later replaced by systematic textual analysis, which distinguished between belles lettres and other types of texts. However, the study of literature was always subordinated to the goals of language instruction. In institutions of secondary education, study of Russian literature was separate from language instruction. Indeed, Russian literature was the only literature systematically studied in high schools (though one must keep in mind that not all schools completely followed the official program. Private schools were especially noticeable for their greater freedom, though all of them had to take general curriculum directives into account. Reading of literary texts connected with other languages thus had to remain almost purely illustrative. In view of the above, in the upper grades of elementary school and high school, students obtained a thorough introduction to the Russian classics. According to the official school curriculum, Russian literary history ended with Nikolai Gogol. Attempts were made to ignore

[Encapsulated voices : Estonian sound recordings from the German prisoner-of-war camps in 1916-1918] / Tõnu Tannberg

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Tannberg, Tõnu, 1961-

2013-01-01

Arvustus: Encapsulated voices : Estonian sound recordings from the German prisoner-of-war camps in 1916-1918 (Das Baltikum in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 5). Hrsg. von Jaan Ross. Böhlau Verlag. Köln, Weimar und Wien 2012

Associative Processing Is Inherent in Scene Perception

Science.gov (United States)

Aminoff, Elissa M.; Tarr, Michael J.

2015-01-01

How are complex visual entities such as scenes represented in the human brain? More concretely, along what visual and semantic dimensions are scenes encoded in memory? One hypothesis is that global spatial properties provide a basis for categorizing the neural response patterns arising from scenes. In contrast, non-spatial properties, such as single objects, also account for variance in neural responses. The list of critical scene dimensions has continued to grow—sometimes in a contradictory manner—coming to encompass properties such as geometric layout, big/small, crowded/sparse, and three-dimensionality. We demonstrate that these dimensions may be better understood within the more general framework of associative properties. That is, across both the perceptual and semantic domains, features of scene representations are related to one another through learned associations. Critically, the components of such associations are consistent with the dimensions that are typically invoked to account for scene understanding and its neural bases. Using fMRI, we show that non-scene stimuli displaying novel associations across identities or locations recruit putatively scene-selective regions of the human brain (the parahippocampal/lingual region, the retrosplenial complex, and the transverse occipital sulcus/occipital place area). Moreover, we find that the voxel-wise neural patterns arising from these associations are significantly correlated with the neural patterns arising from everyday scenes providing critical evidence whether the same encoding principals underlie both types of processing. These neuroimaging results provide evidence for the hypothesis that the neural representation of scenes is better understood within the broader theoretical framework of associative processing. In addition, the results demonstrate a division of labor that arises across scene-selective regions when processing associations and scenes providing better understanding of the functional

Beyond scene gist: Objects guide search more than scene background.

Science.gov (United States)

Koehler, Kathryn; Eckstein, Miguel P

2017-06-01

Although the facilitation of visual search by contextual information is well established, there is little understanding of the independent contributions of different types of contextual cues in scenes. Here we manipulated 3 types of contextual information: object co-occurrence, multiple object configurations, and background category. We isolated the benefits of each contextual cue to target detectability, its impact on decision bias, confidence, and the guidance of eye movements. We find that object-based information guides eye movements and facilitates perceptual judgments more than scene background. The degree of guidance and facilitation of each contextual cue can be related to its inherent informativeness about the target spatial location as measured by human explicit judgments about likely target locations. Our results improve the understanding of the contributions of distinct contextual scene components to search and suggest that the brain's utilization of cues to guide eye movements is linked to the cue's informativeness about the target's location. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Estonian Perceptions of Security: Not Only About Russia and the Refugees

OpenAIRE

Veebel Viljar; Ploom Illimar

2016-01-01

The current study focuses on the Estonian perceptions of security and on the defence situation both globally and locally. The dynamic results of the public opinion surveys on security risks conducted in Estonia over the last 10 years (2006-2016) will be presented. In addition, to understand whether some of the security risks could be over- or underestimated in Estonia, these results will be compared with the views expressed recently by the World Economic Forum, particularly the Global Risks R...

How to Improve the Supportive Role of Estonian Innovation System toward Launching New Products by High Technology Companies?

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Liisi Sepp

2013-01-01

Full Text Available The purpose of the study is to evaluate how supportive is Estonian national innovation system toward the launching of new innovative products by high technology firms. The article intends to combine two broad areas of research – national innovation system approach and the different models of the new product launching. Based on the literature review and in-depth analysis of three case studies of Estonian high-tech company’s major barriers as well success factors of highly innovative product launches were identified. The barriers of the new product launching were linked with the systemic failures of the national innovation system. The most relevant failures of Estonian national innovation system inhibiting the new product development are capability and networking failures. The sources of innovation of high-technology firms are too narrow, linkages with domestic firms and higher education institutions as well with foreign firms are poorly developed. High-tech firms have also serious capacity problems due to the extremely weak support mechanism by national innovation system on the seed funding stage of product development and prototype building stage as well. Paper argues that resources needed for the innovation should not be looked too narrowly following linear innovation model approach. Instead interactive approach is needed, which combines capability building, network development, interactive learning with direct investments into fundamental research.

Tõlkepärl eesti ilukirjanduse algusaegadest – esimene eestikeelne robinsonaad / A Translation Gem from the Beginnings of Estonian Literature - the First Robinsonade

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Ave Mattheus

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Teesid: Artiklis uuritakse Eesti Kirjandusmuuseumis asuvat mahukat, ligi 800 lk tõlkekäsikirja „Norem Robinson“, mida võib pidada esimeseks eesti kirjanduse täiemahuliseks robinsonaadiks. Selle valmistas Pärnu koolmeister Heinrich Gottlieb Lorenzsonn saksa pedagoogi ja koolikirjaniku Joachim Heinrich Campe menukast noorsooromaanist „Robinson der Jüngere“ (1779–1780. Tõlge valmis 1822.–1823. aastal, kuid jõudis trükki alles 1842. aastal tugevasti kärbitud ja mugandatud kujul. Toetudes deskriptiivse tõlkeuurimuse analüüsikategooriatele, vaadeldakse artiklis, millised tegurid tõlkeprotsessi suunasid ja milline oli kultuuriruum, kuhu tõlge omal ajal paigutus. SU M M A R Y This article discusses a voluminous manuscript translation of almost 800 pages entitled Norem Robinson (Engl. Robinson the Younger, from the collections of the Estonian Literary Museum. This manuscript can be considered as the first complete Robinsonade in Estonian literature. Its author is a schoolteacher from Pärnu, Heinrich Gottlieb Lorenzsonn (1803–1847, who translated it from the youth novel Robinson der Jüngere(1779–1780, Engl. Robinson the Younger, a bestseller by the educator, writer and a major representative of German Enlightenment, Heinrich Joachim Campe. Lorenzsonn’s translation was completed in 1822–1823, but not printed until 1842 in a strongly adapted version titled Norema Robinsoni ello ja juhtumised ühhe tühja sare peäl (Engl. The Life and Adventures of Robinson the Younger on a deserted island. The print version of the Robinsonade lacks a pedagogical frame story, where the father tells children about the adventures of Robinson and takes the opportunity to discuss and imitate with children all the actions taken by Robinson the Younger. Due to this and other extirpated parts, the possible target audience was enlarged – besides children and youth, the text was now addressed to adults as well. In accordance with the

Stages As Models of Scene Geometry

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nedović, V.; Smeulders, A.W.M.; Redert, A.; Geusebroek, J.M.

2010-01-01

Reconstruction of 3D scene geometry is an important element for scene understanding, autonomous vehicle and robot navigation, image retrieval, and 3D television. We propose accounting for the inherent structure of the visual world when trying to solve the scene reconstruction problem. Consequently,

When Does Repeated Search in Scenes Involve Memory? Looking at versus Looking for Objects in Scenes

Science.gov (United States)

Vo, Melissa L. -H.; Wolfe, Jeremy M.

2012-01-01

One might assume that familiarity with a scene or previous encounters with objects embedded in a scene would benefit subsequent search for those items. However, in a series of experiments we show that this is not the case: When participants were asked to subsequently search for multiple objects in the same scene, search performance remained…

Short outlines of books by Estonian authors : [annotations] / Rutt Hinrikus, Janika Kronberg

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Hinrikus, Rutt, 1946-

1998-01-01

Laretei, Käbi. Eksiil; Toona, Elin. Lotukata; Park, Eeva. Naeru õpilane; Luik, Viivi. Inimese kapike; Laaman, Ilona. Vesi ahjus; Viiding, Juhan (Üdi, Jüri). Kogutud luuletused; Paju, Juhan. Katkenud romaan; Paju, Juhan. Hõõguv rist; Estonian short stories / toim. Kajar Pruul ja Darlene Reddaway; Traat, Mats. Kartaago kiirrong; Kauksi Ülle. Säng; Kross, Jaan. Paigallend; Puhvel, Madli. Symbol of dawn; Kaplinski, Jaan. Võimaluste võimalikkus; Kaplinski, Jaan. Usk on uskmatus

Forensic 3D Scene Reconstruction

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

LITTLE, CHARLES Q.; PETERS, RALPH R.; RIGDON, J. BRIAN; SMALL, DANIEL E.

1999-01-01

Traditionally law enforcement agencies have relied on basic measurement and imaging tools, such as tape measures and cameras, in recording a crime scene. A disadvantage of these methods is that they are slow and cumbersome. The development of a portable system that can rapidly record a crime scene with current camera imaging, 3D geometric surface maps, and contribute quantitative measurements such as accurate relative positioning of crime scene objects, would be an asset to law enforcement agents in collecting and recording significant forensic data. The purpose of this project is to develop a feasible prototype of a fast, accurate, 3D measurement and imaging system that would support law enforcement agents to quickly document and accurately record a crime scene

The dominance of indirect taxes in Estonian state budget. Summary:Kaudsete maksude dominant Eesti riigieelarve tuludes

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Olev Raju

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Recession has sharply erected the question of tax burden and the optimal proportion of different kinds of taxes among the incomes of the budget. Indirect taxes and consumption taxes, which proportion is different according to different methodologies, dominate in Estonian state budget. The buoyancy of a tax system based on taxes of that kind is especially weak during the recession. The purpose of Estonian government’s economic policy during the highest peak of crisis was to keep the budget in balance. Instead of recovering economy the taxes were arisen and costs were reduced. The results of such a policy aren’t still clear. Difficulties concerning the incomes of budget have arisen the necessity for lifting taxes, which is possible as the tax burden is low now. But a sharp question of the optimal level of taxes is going to be raised. A formula for indirect tax optimum according to Ramsey taxes and Slutski decomposition has been proposed in the article

Scenes of the self, and trance

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Jan M. Broekman

2014-02-01

Full Text Available Trance shows the Self as a process involved in all sorts and forms of life. A Western perspective on a self and its reifying tendencies is only one (or one series of those variations. The process character of the self does not allow any coherent theory but shows, in particular when confronted with trance, its variability in all regards. What is more: the Self is always first on the scene of itself―a situation in which it becomes a sign for itself. That particular semiotic feature is again not a unified one but leads, as the Self in view of itself does, to series of scenes with changing colors, circumstances and environments. Our first scene “Beyond Monotheism” shows semiotic importance in that a self as determining component of a trance-phenomenon must abolish its own referent and seems not able to answer the question, what makes trance a trance. The Pizzica is an example here. Other social features of trance appear in the second scene, US post traumatic psychological treatments included. Our third scene underlines structures of an unfolding self: beginning with ‘split-ego’ conclusions, a self’s engenderment appears dependent on linguistic events and on spoken words in the first place. A fourth scene explores that theme and explains modern forms of an ego ―in particular those inherent to ‘citizenship’ or a ‘corporation’. The legal consequences are concentrated in the fifth scene, which considers a legal subject by revealing its ‘standing’. Our sixth and final scene pertains to the relation between trance and commerce. All scenes tie together and show parallels between Pizzica, rights-based behavior, RAVE music versus disco, commerce and trance; they demonstrate the meaning of trance as a multifaceted social phenomenon.

The Estonian diaspora in South-West Russia in the 1920—30s: migration results

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Stupin Yuri

2010-11-01

Full Text Available This article analyses the spatial features of the settling of Russian Estonians in the Northwest region at the “zenith” of diaspora on the basis of 1920, 1926, and 1939 censuses. The author identifies the principal settling areas and points out the geographical preconditions for the rapid decline of the diaspora.

Lateralized discrimination of emotional scenes in peripheral vision.

Science.gov (United States)

Calvo, Manuel G; Rodríguez-Chinea, Sandra; Fernández-Martín, Andrés

2015-03-01

This study investigates whether there is lateralized processing of emotional scenes in the visual periphery, in the absence of eye fixations; and whether this varies with emotional valence (pleasant vs. unpleasant), specific emotional scene content (babies, erotica, human attack, mutilation, etc.), and sex of the viewer. Pairs of emotional (positive or negative) and neutral photographs were presented for 150 ms peripherally (≥6.5° away from fixation). Observers judged on which side the emotional picture was located. Low-level image properties, scene visual saliency, and eye movements were controlled. Results showed that (a) correct identification of the emotional scene exceeded the chance level; (b) performance was more accurate and faster when the emotional scene appeared in the left than in the right visual field; (c) lateralization was equivalent for females and males for pleasant scenes, but was greater for females and unpleasant scenes; and (d) lateralization occurred similarly for different emotional scene categories. These findings reveal discrimination between emotional and neutral scenes, and right brain hemisphere dominance for emotional processing, which is modulated by sex of the viewer and scene valence, and suggest that coarse affective significance can be extracted in peripheral vision.

Exploring Constructivist Social Learning Practices in Aiding Russian-Speaking Teachers to Learn Estonian: An Action Research Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Kiilo, Tatjana; Kutsar, Dagmar

2012-01-01

Based on appreciative inquiry and threshold concepts from an intercultural learning perspective, the article makes insights into the constructivist social learning practice of Estonian language learning amongst Russian-speaking teachers in Estonia. The application of educational action research methodology, more specifically that of Bridget…

Stages as models of scene geometry.

Science.gov (United States)

Nedović, Vladimir; Smeulders, Arnold W M; Redert, André; Geusebroek, Jan-Mark

2010-09-01

Reconstruction of 3D scene geometry is an important element for scene understanding, autonomous vehicle and robot navigation, image retrieval, and 3D television. We propose accounting for the inherent structure of the visual world when trying to solve the scene reconstruction problem. Consequently, we identify geometric scene categorization as the first step toward robust and efficient depth estimation from single images. We introduce 15 typical 3D scene geometries called stages, each with a unique depth profile, which roughly correspond to a large majority of broadcast video frames. Stage information serves as a first approximation of global depth, narrowing down the search space in depth estimation and object localization. We propose different sets of low-level features for depth estimation, and perform stage classification on two diverse data sets of television broadcasts. Classification results demonstrate that stages can often be efficiently learned from low-dimensional image representations.

3D Aware Correction and Completion of Depth Maps in Piecewise Planar Scenes

KAUST Repository

Thabet, Ali Kassem

2015-04-16

RGB-D sensors are popular in the computer vision community, especially for problems of scene understanding, semantic scene labeling, and segmentation. However, most of these methods depend on reliable input depth measurements, while discarding unreliable ones. This paper studies how reliable depth values can be used to correct the unreliable ones, and how to complete (or extend) the available depth data beyond the raw measurements of the sensor (i.e. infer depth at pixels with unknown depth values), given a prior model on the 3D scene. We consider piecewise planar environments in this paper, since many indoor scenes with man-made objects can be modeled as such. We propose a framework that uses the RGB-D sensor’s noise profile to adaptively and robustly fit plane segments (e.g. floor and ceiling) and iteratively complete the depth map, when possible. Depth completion is formulated as a discrete labeling problem (MRF) with hard constraints and solved efficiently using graph cuts. To regularize this problem, we exploit 3D and appearance cues that encourage pixels to take on depth values that will be compatible in 3D to the piecewise planar assumption. Extensive experiments, on a new large-scale and challenging dataset, show that our approach results in more accurate depth maps (with 20 % more depth values) than those recorded by the RGB-D sensor. Additional experiments on the NYUv2 dataset show that our method generates more 3D aware depth. These generated depth maps can also be used to improve the performance of a state-of-the-art RGB-D SLAM method.

Iconic memory for the gist of natural scenes.

Science.gov (United States)

Clarke, Jason; Mack, Arien

2014-11-01

Does iconic memory contain the gist of multiple scenes? Three experiments were conducted. In the first, four scenes from different basic-level categories were briefly presented in one of two conditions: a cue or a no-cue condition. The cue condition was designed to provide an index of the contents of iconic memory of the display. Subjects were more sensitive to scene gist in the cue condition than in the no-cue condition. In the second, the scenes came from the same basic-level category. We found no difference in sensitivity between the two conditions. In the third, six scenes from different basic level categories were presented in the visual periphery. Subjects were more sensitive to scene gist in the cue condition. These results suggest that scene gist is contained in iconic memory even in the visual periphery; however, iconic representations are not sufficiently detailed to distinguish between scenes coming from the same category. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Non-market value of Estonian seminatural grasslands: a contingent valuation study. Eesti poolloodusliku rohumaa turuväline väärtus: tingliku hindamise uuring

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Helli Lepasaar

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Seminatural grasslands i.e. the floodplain meadows, seashore meadows, wooded meadows, dry meadows, wooded pastures are the very traditional part of Estonian landscapes, which play an important role in the appearance of the landscape in general and also serve as an important habitat for many plant and animal species. In order to preserve the seminatural grasslands continuous annual mowing and/or pasturing is needed. This activity is not economically profitable and needs subsidizing. The authors of the work raise a hypothesis that the Estonian seminatural grasslands could be viewed as a valuable non-market environmental good for which a significant public demand exists. In order to find out the non-market value of the seminatural grasslands a contingent valuation study was carried out among the Estonian working-age population (size of the sample 1061 individuals. The average individual willingness to pay was 11.3 euros. During the study, the authors constructed the total demand function and discovered that the total annual demand for seminatural grasslands was 17.9 million euros.

Statistics of high-level scene context.

Science.gov (United States)

Greene, Michelle R

2013-01-01

CONTEXT IS CRITICAL FOR RECOGNIZING ENVIRONMENTS AND FOR SEARCHING FOR OBJECTS WITHIN THEM: contextual associations have been shown to modulate reaction time and object recognition accuracy, as well as influence the distribution of eye movements and patterns of brain activations. However, we have not yet systematically quantified the relationships between objects and their scene environments. Here I seek to fill this gap by providing descriptive statistics of object-scene relationships. A total of 48, 167 objects were hand-labeled in 3499 scenes using the LabelMe tool (Russell et al., 2008). From these data, I computed a variety of descriptive statistics at three different levels of analysis: the ensemble statistics that describe the density and spatial distribution of unnamed "things" in the scene; the bag of words level where scenes are described by the list of objects contained within them; and the structural level where the spatial distribution and relationships between the objects are measured. The utility of each level of description for scene categorization was assessed through the use of linear classifiers, and the plausibility of each level for modeling human scene categorization is discussed. Of the three levels, ensemble statistics were found to be the most informative (per feature), and also best explained human patterns of categorization errors. Although a bag of words classifier had similar performance to human observers, it had a markedly different pattern of errors. However, certain objects are more useful than others, and ceiling classification performance could be achieved using only the 64 most informative objects. As object location tends not to vary as a function of category, structural information provided little additional information. Additionally, these data provide valuable information on natural scene redundancy that can be exploited for machine vision, and can help the visual cognition community to design experiments guided by statistics

Semantic Reasoning for Scene Interpretation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, Lars Baunegaard With; Baseski, Emre; Pugeault, Nicolas

2008-01-01

In this paper, we propose a hierarchical architecture for representing scenes, covering 2D and 3D aspects of visual scenes as well as the semantic relations between the different aspects. We argue that labeled graphs are a suitable representational framework for this representation and demonstrat...

The scene and the unseen: manipulating photographs for experiments on change blindness and scene memory: image manipulation for change blindness.

Science.gov (United States)

Ball, Felix; Elzemann, Anne; Busch, Niko A

2014-09-01

The change blindness paradigm, in which participants often fail to notice substantial changes in a scene, is a popular tool for studying scene perception, visual memory, and the link between awareness and attention. Some of the most striking and popular examples of change blindness have been demonstrated with digital photographs of natural scenes; in most studies, however, much simpler displays, such as abstract stimuli or "free-floating" objects, are typically used. Although simple displays have undeniable advantages, natural scenes remain a very useful and attractive stimulus for change blindness research. To assist researchers interested in using natural-scene stimuli in change blindness experiments, we provide here a step-by-step tutorial on how to produce changes in natural-scene images with a freely available image-processing tool (GIMP). We explain how changes in a scene can be made by deleting objects or relocating them within the scene or by changing the color of an object, in just a few simple steps. We also explain how the physical properties of such changes can be analyzed using GIMP and MATLAB (a high-level scientific programming tool). Finally, we present an experiment confirming that scenes manipulated according to our guidelines are effective in inducing change blindness and demonstrating the relationship between change blindness and the physical properties of the change and inter-individual differences in performance measures. We expect that this tutorial will be useful for researchers interested in studying the mechanisms of change blindness, attention, or visual memory using natural scenes.

The 2011 Estonian High School Language Reform in the Context of Critical Language Policy and Planning

Science.gov (United States)

Skerrett, Delaney Michael

2014-01-01

This paper seeks to situate Estonian language use and policy within the emerging field of critical language policy and planning (CLPP) by investigating the discourses that frame linguistic behaviour. This done by way of an analysis of a series of interviews carried out with key actors in language policy in Estonia. The discourses framing language…

The Challenges Organic Food Processors Meet at Small Emerging Market – Estonian Case

OpenAIRE

Sarapuu, Kerttu; Pehme, Sirli; Peetsmann, Elen; Matt, Darja

2014-01-01

Organic farming and demand for organic products is continually a growing trend all over the world (Willer et al., 2013). In Estonia the share of organic land is 15% of all agricultural land and the number of organic farmers is also growing (Vetemaa, Mikk 2013). Estonian organic food market is still in forming stage being affected by local organic farming development, marketing situation, economic situation and consumer attitudes. Organic processing has clearly not kept up with organic farming...

Transferring Deep Convolutional Neural Networks for the Scene Classification of High-Resolution Remote Sensing Imagery

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fan Hu

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Learning efficient image representations is at the core of the scene classification task of remote sensing imagery. The existing methods for solving the scene classification task, based on either feature coding approaches with low-level hand-engineered features or unsupervised feature learning, can only generate mid-level image features with limited representative ability, which essentially prevents them from achieving better performance. Recently, the deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs, which are hierarchical architectures trained on large-scale datasets, have shown astounding performance in object recognition and detection. However, it is still not clear how to use these deep convolutional neural networks for high-resolution remote sensing (HRRS scene classification. In this paper, we investigate how to transfer features from these successfully pre-trained CNNs for HRRS scene classification. We propose two scenarios for generating image features via extracting CNN features from different layers. In the first scenario, the activation vectors extracted from fully-connected layers are regarded as the final image features; in the second scenario, we extract dense features from the last convolutional layer at multiple scales and then encode the dense features into global image features through commonly used feature coding approaches. Extensive experiments on two public scene classification datasets demonstrate that the image features obtained by the two proposed scenarios, even with a simple linear classifier, can result in remarkable performance and improve the state-of-the-art by a significant margin. The results reveal that the features from pre-trained CNNs generalize well to HRRS datasets and are more expressive than the low- and mid-level features. Moreover, we tentatively combine features extracted from different CNN models for better performance.

Visual art in hospitals: case studies and review of the evidence.

Science.gov (United States)

Lankston, Louise; Cusack, Pearce; Fremantle, Chris; Isles, Chris

2010-12-01

In 2006 a Department of Health Working Group on Arts and Health reported that the arts have 'a clear contribution to make and offer major opportunities in the delivery of better health, wellbeing and improved experience for patients, service users and staff alike'. In this review we examine the evidence underpinning this statement and evaluate the visual art of three of Scotland's newest hospitals: the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, the new Stobhill Hospital, and the new Victoria Infirmary in Glasgow. We conclude that art in hospitals is generally viewed positively by both patients and staff, but that the quality of the evidence is not uniformly high. Effects may be mediated by psychological responses to colour hue, brightness and saturation. Colours that elicit high levels of pleasure with low levels of arousal are most likely to induce a state of calm, while those causing displeasure and high levels of arousal may provoke anxiety. The fact that patients frequently express a preference for landscape and nature scenes is consistent with this observation and with evolutionary psychological theories which predict positive emotional responses to flourishing natural environments. Contrary to a view which may prevail among some contemporary artists, patients who are ill or stressed about their health may not always be comforted by abstract art, preferring the positive distraction and state of calm created by the blues and greens of landscape and nature scenes instead.

Visual art in hospitals: case studies and review of the evidence

Science.gov (United States)

Lankston, Louise; Cusack, Pearce; Fremantle, Chris; Isles, Chris

2010-01-01

Summary In 2006 a Department of Health Working Group on Arts and Health reported that the arts have ‘a clear contribution to make and offer major opportunities in the delivery of better health, wellbeing and improved experience for patients, service users and staff alike’. In this review we examine the evidence underpinning this statement and evaluate the visual art of three of Scotland's newest hospitals: the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, the new Stobhill Hospital, and the new Victoria Infirmary in Glasgow. We conclude that art in hospitals is generally viewed positively by both patients and staff, but that the quality of the evidence is not uniformly high. Effects may be mediated by psychological responses to colour hue, brightness and saturation. Colours that elicit high levels of pleasure with low levels of arousal are most likely to induce a state of calm, while those causing displeasure and high levels of arousal may provoke anxiety. The fact that patients frequently express a preference for landscape and nature scenes is consistent with this observation and with evolutionary psychological theories which predict positive emotional responses to flourishing natural environments. Contrary to a view which may prevail among some contemporary artists, patients who are ill or stressed about their health may not always be comforted by abstract art, preferring the positive distraction and state of calm created by the blues and greens of landscape and nature scenes instead. PMID:21127332

Albedo estimation for scene segmentation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lee, C H; Rosenfeld, A

1983-03-01

Standard methods of image segmentation do not take into account the three-dimensional nature of the underlying scene. For example, histogram-based segmentation tacitly assumes that the image intensity is piecewise constant, and this is not true when the scene contains curved surfaces. This paper introduces a method of taking 3d information into account in the segmentation process. The image intensities are adjusted to compensate for the effects of estimated surface orientation; the adjusted intensities can be regarded as reflectivity estimates. When histogram-based segmentation is applied to these new values, the image is segmented into parts corresponding to surfaces of constant reflectivity in the scene. 7 references.

Pooling Objects for Recognizing Scenes without Examples

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kordumova, S.; Mensink, T.; Snoek, C.G.M.

2016-01-01

In this paper we aim to recognize scenes in images without using any scene images as training data. Different from attribute based approaches, we do not carefully select the training classes to match the unseen scene classes. Instead, we propose a pooling over ten thousand of off-the-shelf object

The Dominance of Indirect Taxes in Estonian State Budget

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Olev Raju

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Recession has sharply erected the question of tax burden and the optimal proportion of different kinds of taxes among the incomes of the budget. Indirect taxes and consumption taxes, which proportion is different according to different methodologies, dominate in Estonian state budget. The buoyancy of a tax system based on taxes of that kind is especially weak during the recession. Difficulties concerning the incomes of budget have arisen the necessity for lifting taxes, which is possible as the tax burden is low now. But a sharp question of the optimal level of taxes is going to be raised. A formula for indirect tax optimum according to Ramsey taxes and Slutski decomposition has been proposed in the article.

Public politcs of culture and the arts in Ceará: creation and consolidation of the center for visual arts- Casa Raimundo Cela

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anderson de Sousa Silva

2016-11-01

Full Text Available This article aims to discuss the creation and history of the Center for Visual Arts: Casa Raimundo Cela and the National Plastic Arts of Ceara Hall, as an affirmation mechanism of public politics culture and to official institutions of the arts in Ceara. It has been focused on reflecting in the relationship between the State and culture, which in the mid-1960s has intensified due to the creation of the Secretaria and the State Council of Culture, as well as the performance of artists and intellectuals in the organs linked to these institutions. In the meantime, the present study also aims to investigate the Ceara insertion project in the Brazilian art scene, through the creation of a Hall of National Art, either the emergence of a new generation of artists and new aesthetic figurations emerged in the local and national artistic dialogues.

Four vision of contemporary Estonian art : the series of exhibitions Estonian art / Heie Treier

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Treier, Heie, 1963-

2000-01-01

Neljast eesti kunsti näitusest 2000. a. märtsis-aprillis Tartus ja Tallinnas, nende kuraatoritest: Toomas Vint, Reet Varblane, Peeter Allik, Johannes Saar. Déj́-vu (Tallinn). Naturalism (Tallinn). AIDS kultuuris (Tallinn). Eneseksjäämine (Tartu)

Correlated Topic Vector for Scene Classification.

Science.gov (United States)

Wei, Pengxu; Qin, Fei; Wan, Fang; Zhu, Yi; Jiao, Jianbin; Ye, Qixiang

2017-07-01

Scene images usually involve semantic correlations, particularly when considering large-scale image data sets. This paper proposes a novel generative image representation, correlated topic vector, to model such semantic correlations. Oriented from the correlated topic model, correlated topic vector intends to naturally utilize the correlations among topics, which are seldom considered in the conventional feature encoding, e.g., Fisher vector, but do exist in scene images. It is expected that the involvement of correlations can increase the discriminative capability of the learned generative model and consequently improve the recognition accuracy. Incorporated with the Fisher kernel method, correlated topic vector inherits the advantages of Fisher vector. The contributions to the topics of visual words have been further employed by incorporating the Fisher kernel framework to indicate the differences among scenes. Combined with the deep convolutional neural network (CNN) features and Gibbs sampling solution, correlated topic vector shows great potential when processing large-scale and complex scene image data sets. Experiments on two scene image data sets demonstrate that correlated topic vector improves significantly the deep CNN features, and outperforms existing Fisher kernel-based features.

Mental health and alcohol problems among Estonian cleanup workers 24 years after the Chernobyl accident.

Science.gov (United States)

Laidra, Kaia; Rahu, Kaja; Tekkel, Mare; Aluoja, Anu; Leinsalu, Mall

2015-11-01

To study the long-term mental health consequences of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident among cleanup workers from Estonia. In 2010, 614 Estonian Chernobyl cleanup workers and 706 geographically and age-matched population-based controls completed a mail survey that included self-rated health, the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist (PCL), alcohol symptoms (AUDIT), and scales measuring depressive, anxiety, agoraphobia, fatigue, insomnia, and somatization symptoms. Respondents were dichotomized into high (top quartile) and low symptom groups on each measure. Logistic regression analysis detected significant differences between cleanup workers and controls on all measures even after adjustment for ethnicity, education, marital status, and employment status. The strongest difference was found for somatization, with cleanup workers being three times more likely than controls to score in the top quartile (OR = 3.28, 95% CI 2.39-4.52), whereas for alcohol problems the difference was half as large (OR = 1.52, 95% CI 1.16-1.99). Among cleanup workers, arrival at Chernobyl in 1986 (vs. later) was associated with sleep problems, somatization, and symptoms of agoraphobia. The toll of cleanup work was evident 24 years after the Chernobyl accident among Estonian cleanup workers indicating the need for focused mental health interventions.

Proficiency Assessment of Male Volleyball Teams of the 13-15-Year Age Group at Estonian Championships

Science.gov (United States)

Stamm, Meelis; Stamm, Raini; Koskel, Sade

2008-01-01

Study aim: Assessment of feasibility of using own computer software "Game" at competitions. Material and methods: The data were collected during Estonian championships in 2006 for male volleyball teams of the 13-15-years age group (n = 8). In all games, the performance of both teams was recorded in parallel with two computers. A total of…

Hunting Motifs in Situla Art

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Andrej Preložnik

2013-07-01

Full Text Available Situla art developed as an echo of the toreutic style which had spread from the Near East through the Phoenicians, Greeks and Etruscans as far as the Veneti, Raeti, Histri, and their eastern neighbours in the region of Dolenjska (Lower Carniola. An Early Iron Age phenomenon (c. 600—300 BC, it rep- resents the major and most arresting form of the contemporary visual arts in an area stretching from the foot of the Apennines in the south to the Drava and Sava rivers in the east. Indeed, individual pieces have found their way across the Alpine passes and all the way north to the Danube. In the world and art of the situlae, a prominent role is accorded to ani- mals. They are displayed in numerous representations of human activities on artefacts crafted in the classic situla style – that is, between the late 6th  and early 5th centuries BC – as passive participants (e.g. in pageants or in harness or as an active element of the situla narrative. The most typical example of the latter is the hunting scene. Today we know at least four objects decorat- ed exclusively with hunting themes, and a number of situlae and other larger vessels where hunting scenes are embedded in composite narratives. All this suggests a popularity unparallelled by any other genre. Clearly recognisable are various hunting techniques and weapons, each associated with a particu- lar type of game (Fig. 1. The chase of a stag with javelin, horse and hound is depicted on the long- familiar and repeatedly published fibula of Zagorje (Fig. 2. It displays a hound mauling the stag’s back and a hunter on horseback pursuing a hind, her neck already pierced by the javelin. To judge by the (so far unnoticed shaft end un- der the stag’s muzzle, the hunter would have been brandishing a second jave- lin as well, like the warrior of the Vače fibula or the rider of the Nesactium situla, presumably himself a hunter. Many parallels to his motif are known from Greece, Etruria, and

Bernhard Linde. Noor-Eesti vooriülem. Bernhard Linde. Leader of the Young Estonian Pack

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jaanus Kulli

2012-04-01

Full Text Available Bernhard Linde (1886–1954 was a recognized and prolific Estonian theatre critic of the first quarter of the 20th century, who mediated and propagated western as well as eastern European theatrical innovations. In addition, he was active as a literary and art critic, publisher, and proponent of libraries, to a modest extent he was a prose writer and poet. Unquestionably, however, Bernhard Linde’s most prominent role was as one of the founding members of the literary movement Young Estonia. He was the group’s first general manager; later on, he was the secretary of the Estonian Writers’ Association Young Estonia, and the chairman of the board of the Young Estonia Publishing House. Linde’s formal education culminated in graduation from Tartu University as a Slavic philologist; he was the only member of the Young Estonia group to demonstrate serious and sustained interest toward Slavic cultures and peoples. Linde was a contradictory figure, evoking a range of responses from his contemporaries: on the one hand, there was the unbelievably broad range of his participation in cultural life, his organizing skills and business instincts in directing publishing houses; on the other hand, a superficiality in his writings, his often rash and subjective style as a critic, and his financial intrigues. If one adds in Linde’s stubbornness, egocentrism, and intense spirit of protest, which often led to lawsuits, the outcome is the portrait of an extremely complicated, fascinating, and passionate man—both in his creative work and his personal life Linde guaranteed a place for himself in literary history through a small catch of texts: a few foundational essays (for example, on August Kitzberg, a translation of Balzac’s Le père Goriot, the essay collection Omad ja võõrad (Own and Foreign and a travel book focusing on the literature and theatre of eastern Europe (Loova Kesk-Euroopa Poole (Toward A Creative Central Europe. The prominent public

Neural Scene Segmentation by Oscillatory Correlation

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Wang, DeLiang

2000-01-01

The segmentation of a visual scene into a set of coherent patterns (objects) is a fundamental aspect of perception, which underlies a variety of important tasks such as figure/ground segregation, and scene analysis...

A hierarchical inferential method for indoor scene classification

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jiang Jingzhe

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Indoor scene classification forms a basis for scene interaction for service robots. The task is challenging because the layout and decoration of a scene vary considerably. Previous studies on knowledge-based methods commonly ignore the importance of visual attributes when constructing the knowledge base. These shortcomings restrict the performance of classification. The structure of a semantic hierarchy was proposed to describe similarities of different parts of scenes in a fine-grained way. Besides the commonly used semantic features, visual attributes were also introduced to construct the knowledge base. Inspired by the processes of human cognition and the characteristics of indoor scenes, we proposed an inferential framework based on the Markov logic network. The framework is evaluated on a popular indoor scene dataset, and the experimental results demonstrate its effectiveness.

Multi-view 3D scene reconstruction using ant colony optimization techniques

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chrysostomou, Dimitrios; Gasteratos, Antonios; Nalpantidis, Lazaros; Sirakoulis, Georgios C

2012-01-01

This paper presents a new method performing high-quality 3D object reconstruction of complex shapes derived from multiple, calibrated photographs of the same scene. The novelty of this research is found in two basic elements, namely: (i) a novel voxel dissimilarity measure, which accommodates the elimination of the lighting variations of the models and (ii) the use of an ant colony approach for further refinement of the final 3D models. The proposed reconstruction procedure employs a volumetric method based on a novel projection test for the production of a visual hull. While the presented algorithm shares certain aspects with the space carving algorithm, it is, nevertheless, first enhanced with the lightness compensating image comparison method, and then refined using ant colony optimization. The algorithm is fast, computationally simple and results in accurate representations of the input scenes. In addition, compared to previous publications, the particular nature of the proposed algorithm allows accurate 3D volumetric measurements under demanding lighting environmental conditions, due to the fact that it can cope with uneven light scenes, resulting from the characteristics of the voxel dissimilarity measure applied. Besides, the intelligent behavior of the ant colony framework provides the opportunity to formulate the process as a combinatorial optimization problem, which can then be solved by means of a colony of cooperating artificial ants, resulting in very promising results. The method is validated with several real datasets, along with qualitative comparisons with other state-of-the-art 3D reconstruction techniques, following the Middlebury benchmark. (paper)

Where Do Dead Books Go? The Problem of the Soviet Canon Today, on the Example of Johannes Becher's Work in Estonian

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Katre Talviste

2013-06-01

Full Text Available The article describes the conception and editing process of an anthology of Johannes Becher’s poems (Unistades täiusest, 1962 in Estonian, and discusses its status in the Soviet and contemporary literary canon. The work on the Becher anthology was led by an already outstanding literary scholar Nigol Andresen and a young poet and translator Ain Kaalep, who later became one of the most prolific and wellknown poetry translators in Estonia. An important part was also played by another poet-translator, August Sang, who already had achieved such a standing in the Estonian literary field. Several other translators contributed to the anthology, making it a common project for intellectuals otherwise very differently positioned vis-à-vis the Soviet political authorities and cultural agendas. Becher’s work was strongly promoted by these instances, but his poetry was also read with genuine enthusiasm by the main contributors to the anthology (whose own poetry has certain parallels to some aspects of Becher’s, as well as the general public, at that time. After the fall of the Soviet regime it has been forgotten, mostly for the same contextual reasons that once granted its success. The case of his poetry in Estonian explores the question of this new invisibility of now politically irrelevant, but still voluminous and aesthetically intriguing literary works in the post-Soviet canon.

With or without articles? A comparison of article-like determiners in Estonian and Finnish

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Helen Hint

2017-10-01

Full Text Available In this paper, we compare the use and functions of definite and indefinite article-like determiners in Estonian and Finnish. Our main aim is to explore whether the factors that explain the choice of particular determiner forms are similar in Estonian and Finnish. We use a picture-sequence based elicitation experiment to collect spoken narratives from adult native speakers of Estonian and Finnish, and apply non-parametric tree and forest models to analyze the data. Our findings indicate that number of mention and animacy are important predictor variables in both languages, but their exact effect is divergent. We also find that in Finnish, case of the determiner NP proves to be an important factor, while in Estonian, syntactic role of the NP explains some aspects of determiner form choice. Nevertheless, the overall usage frequency of determiners is modest in the Estonian and Finnish data, and the process of grammaticalizing articles is only in initial stages in both languages. *** Artikliga, artiklita? Eesti ja soome keele artiklilaadsete määratlejate võrdlus Siinses uurimuses analüüsime võrdlevalt artiklilaadseid definiitseid ja indefiniitseid määratlejaid eesti ja soome keeles. Eelkõige kõrvutame eesti keele definiitset määratlejat see ja soome keele definiitseid määratlejaid se ja tämä ning eesti ja soome indefiniitset määratlejat üks/yks(i. Samuti vaatleme eesti keele possessiivpronoomeni oma ning soome 3sg possessiivsufiksi (-nsa/-nsä, -Vn referentsiaalseid omadusi. Uurimuse põhieesmärgiks on selgitada, millised on peamised määratlejate kasutust mõjutavad keelelised faktorid eesti ja soome keeles ning kas need faktorid on keeliti sarnased või erinevad. Ühtlasi otsime vastust küsimusele, kas eesti ja soome keeles on põhjust rääkida määratlejate grammatisatsioonist artikliteks. Uuritav keelematerjal pärineb pildiseeria põhjal kogutud suulistest narratiividest. Uurimuses osales 20 eesti ja 20 soome keele

Visual search for arbitrary objects in real scenes

Science.gov (United States)

Alvarez, George A.; Rosenholtz, Ruth; Kuzmova, Yoana I.; Sherman, Ashley M.

2011-01-01

How efficient is visual search in real scenes? In searches for targets among arrays of randomly placed distractors, efficiency is often indexed by the slope of the reaction time (RT) × Set Size function. However, it may be impossible to define set size for real scenes. As an approximation, we hand-labeled 100 indoor scenes and used the number of labeled regions as a surrogate for set size. In Experiment 1, observers searched for named objects (a chair, bowl, etc.). With set size defined as the number of labeled regions, search was very efficient (~5 ms/item). When we controlled for a possible guessing strategy in Experiment 2, slopes increased somewhat (~15 ms/item), but they were much shallower than search for a random object among other distinctive objects outside of a scene setting (Exp. 3: ~40 ms/item). In Experiments 4–6, observers searched repeatedly through the same scene for different objects. Increased familiarity with scenes had modest effects on RTs, while repetition of target items had large effects (>500 ms). We propose that visual search in scenes is efficient because scene-specific forms of attentional guidance can eliminate most regions from the “functional set size” of items that could possibly be the target. PMID:21671156

Visual search for arbitrary objects in real scenes.

Science.gov (United States)

Wolfe, Jeremy M; Alvarez, George A; Rosenholtz, Ruth; Kuzmova, Yoana I; Sherman, Ashley M

2011-08-01

How efficient is visual search in real scenes? In searches for targets among arrays of randomly placed distractors, efficiency is often indexed by the slope of the reaction time (RT) × Set Size function. However, it may be impossible to define set size for real scenes. As an approximation, we hand-labeled 100 indoor scenes and used the number of labeled regions as a surrogate for set size. In Experiment 1, observers searched for named objects (a chair, bowl, etc.). With set size defined as the number of labeled regions, search was very efficient (~5 ms/item). When we controlled for a possible guessing strategy in Experiment 2, slopes increased somewhat (~15 ms/item), but they were much shallower than search for a random object among other distinctive objects outside of a scene setting (Exp. 3: ~40 ms/item). In Experiments 4-6, observers searched repeatedly through the same scene for different objects. Increased familiarity with scenes had modest effects on RTs, while repetition of target items had large effects (>500 ms). We propose that visual search in scenes is efficient because scene-specific forms of attentional guidance can eliminate most regions from the "functional set size" of items that could possibly be the target.

Scene analysis in the natural environment

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lewicki, Michael S; Olshausen, Bruno A; Surlykke, Annemarie

2014-01-01

The problem of scene analysis has been studied in a number of different fields over the past decades. These studies have led to important insights into problems of scene analysis, but not all of these insights are widely appreciated, and there remain critical shortcomings in current approaches th...... ill-posed problems, (2) the ability to integrate and store information across time and modality, (3) efficient recovery and representation of 3D scene structure, and (4) the use of optimal motor actions for acquiring information to progress toward behavioral goals....

The time course of natural scene perception with reduced attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Groen, Iris I A; Ghebreab, Sennay; Lamme, Victor A F; Scholte, H Steven

2016-02-01

Attention is thought to impose an informational bottleneck on vision by selecting particular information from visual scenes for enhanced processing. Behavioral evidence suggests, however, that some scene information is extracted even when attention is directed elsewhere. Here, we investigated the neural correlates of this ability by examining how attention affects electrophysiological markers of scene perception. In two electro-encephalography (EEG) experiments, human subjects categorized real-world scenes as manmade or natural (full attention condition) or performed tasks on unrelated stimuli in the center or periphery of the scenes (reduced attention conditions). Scene processing was examined in two ways: traditional trial averaging was used to assess the presence of a categorical manmade/natural distinction in event-related potentials, whereas single-trial analyses assessed whether EEG activity was modulated by scene statistics that are diagnostic of naturalness of individual scenes. The results indicated that evoked activity up to 250 ms was unaffected by reduced attention, showing intact categorical differences between manmade and natural scenes and strong modulations of single-trial activity by scene statistics in all conditions. Thus initial processing of both categorical and individual scene information remained intact with reduced attention. Importantly, however, attention did have profound effects on later evoked activity; full attention on the scene resulted in prolonged manmade/natural differences, increased neural sensitivity to scene statistics, and enhanced scene memory. These results show that initial processing of real-world scene information is intact with diminished attention but that the depth of processing of this information does depend on attention. Copyright © 2016 the American Physiological Society.

Digital Mayhem 3D machine techniques where inspiration, techniques and digital art meet

CERN Document Server

Evans, Duncan

2014-01-01

From Icy Tundras to Desert savannahs, master the art of landscape and environment design for 2D and 3D digital content. Make it rain, shower your digital scene with a snow storm or develop a believable urban scene with a critical eye for modeling, lighting and composition. Move beyond the limitations of gallery style coffee table books with Digital Mayhem: 3D Landscapes-offering leading professional techniques, groundbreaking inspiration, and artistic mastery from some of the greatest digital artists. More than just a gallery book - each artist has written a breakdown overview, with supporting

Interaction between scene-based and array-based contextual cueing.

Science.gov (United States)

Rosenbaum, Gail M; Jiang, Yuhong V

2013-07-01

Contextual cueing refers to the cueing of spatial attention by repeated spatial context. Previous studies have demonstrated distinctive properties of contextual cueing by background scenes and by an array of search items. Whereas scene-based contextual cueing reflects explicit learning of the scene-target association, array-based contextual cueing is supported primarily by implicit learning. In this study, we investigated the interaction between scene-based and array-based contextual cueing. Participants searched for a target that was predicted by both the background scene and the locations of distractor items. We tested three possible patterns of interaction: (1) The scene and the array could be learned independently, in which case cueing should be expressed even when only one cue was preserved; (2) the scene and array could be learned jointly, in which case cueing should occur only when both cues were preserved; (3) overshadowing might occur, in which case learning of the stronger cue should preclude learning of the weaker cue. In several experiments, we manipulated the nature of the contextual cues present during training and testing. We also tested explicit awareness of scenes, scene-target associations, and arrays. The results supported the overshadowing account: Specifically, scene-based contextual cueing precluded array-based contextual cueing when both were predictive of the location of a search target. We suggest that explicit, endogenous cues dominate over implicit cues in guiding spatial attention.

Semantic guidance of eye movements in real-world scenes.

Science.gov (United States)

Hwang, Alex D; Wang, Hsueh-Cheng; Pomplun, Marc

2011-05-25

The perception of objects in our visual world is influenced by not only their low-level visual features such as shape and color, but also their high-level features such as meaning and semantic relations among them. While it has been shown that low-level features in real-world scenes guide eye movements during scene inspection and search, the influence of semantic similarity among scene objects on eye movements in such situations has not been investigated. Here we study guidance of eye movements by semantic similarity among objects during real-world scene inspection and search. By selecting scenes from the LabelMe object-annotated image database and applying latent semantic analysis (LSA) to the object labels, we generated semantic saliency maps of real-world scenes based on the semantic similarity of scene objects to the currently fixated object or the search target. An ROC analysis of these maps as predictors of subjects' gaze transitions between objects during scene inspection revealed a preference for transitions to objects that were semantically similar to the currently inspected one. Furthermore, during the course of a scene search, subjects' eye movements were progressively guided toward objects that were semantically similar to the search target. These findings demonstrate substantial semantic guidance of eye movements in real-world scenes and show its importance for understanding real-world attentional control. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Superpixel-Based Feature for Aerial Image Scene Recognition

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Hongguang Li

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Image scene recognition is a core technology for many aerial remote sensing applications. Different landforms are inputted as different scenes in aerial imaging, and all landform information is regarded as valuable for aerial image scene recognition. However, the conventional features of the Bag-of-Words model are designed using local points or other related information and thus are unable to fully describe landform areas. This limitation cannot be ignored when the aim is to ensure accurate aerial scene recognition. A novel superpixel-based feature is proposed in this study to characterize aerial image scenes. Then, based on the proposed feature, a scene recognition method of the Bag-of-Words model for aerial imaging is designed. The proposed superpixel-based feature that utilizes landform information establishes top-task superpixel extraction of landforms to bottom-task expression of feature vectors. This characterization technique comprises the following steps: simple linear iterative clustering based superpixel segmentation, adaptive filter bank construction, Lie group-based feature quantification, and visual saliency model-based feature weighting. Experiments of image scene recognition are carried out using real image data captured by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV. The recognition accuracy of the proposed superpixel-based feature is 95.1%, which is higher than those of scene recognition algorithms based on other local features.

Radon in Estonian dwellings - Results from a National Radon Survey

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Pahapill, Lia; Rulkov, Anne; Rajamaee, Raivo [Estonian Radiation Protection Centre (Kiirguskeskus), Tallinn (Spain); Aakerblom, Gustav [Swedish Radiation Protection Authority, Stockholm (Sweden)

2003-10-01

A countrywide survey of radon concentrations in Estonian dwellings was carried out during the period 1998-2001. The survey formed a part of the cooperation program on radiation protection between the Estonian Radiation Protection (Kiirguskeskus) Centre and the Swedish Radiation Protection Authority (SSI). The survey included measurements in a number of dwellings representative for Estonia in detached houses and multifamily buildings (only dwellings on the bottom floor were included in the survey). Altogether, radon concentrations were measured in 515 dwellings, a number large enough to be statistically significant. All measurements were made with alphatrack film detectors of the same type that SSI uses in Sweden. The measurements were made during a 2-3 month period during the winter half-year. Two detectors were used in each dwelling. In Estonia there are 0.17 million dwellings in detached houses and 0.45 million in multi apartment buildings. Of the 1.26 million inhabitants in Estonia. 0.36 million live in detached houses and 0.90 million in multi apartment buildings. Most of the latter were built during the Soviet occupation. Of the dwellings in multifamily buildings 30 % are assumed to be situated on the first floor. The mean radon concentration in dwellings in detached hoses, according to the survey results, is 103 Bq/m{sup 3}, in dwellings on the bottom floor in multi apartment buildings it is 78 Bq/m{sup 3}. In 1% of the dwellings the radon concentration exceeded 400 Bq/m{sup 3}. The highest radon concentration found in the study was 1040 Bq/m{sup 3}. Based on the assumption that the average radon concentration in the dwellings in multi-apartment buildings that are not situated on the bottom floor is 30 Bq/m{sup 3}, and that these dwellings constitute 70% of all dwellings in multi apartment buildings, the mean radon concentration in dwellings in multi apartment buildings is calculated to be 44 Bq/m{sup 3}. The mean value for all Estonia dwellings is calculated

Radon in Estonian dwellings - Results from a National Radon Survey

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pahapill, Lia; Rulkov, Anne; Rajamaee, Raivo; Aakerblom, Gustav

2003-10-01

A countrywide survey of radon concentrations in Estonian dwellings was carried out during the period 1998-2001. The survey formed a part of the cooperation program on radiation protection between the Estonian Radiation Protection (Kiirguskeskus) Centre and the Swedish Radiation Protection Authority (SSI). The survey included measurements in a number of dwellings representative for Estonia in detached houses and multifamily buildings (only dwellings on the bottom floor were included in the survey). Altogether, radon concentrations were measured in 515 dwellings, a number large enough to be statistically significant. All measurements were made with alphatrack film detectors of the same type that SSI uses in Sweden. The measurements were made during a 2-3 month period during the winter half-year. Two detectors were used in each dwelling. In Estonia there are 0.17 million dwellings in detached houses and 0.45 million in multi apartment buildings. Of the 1.26 million inhabitants in Estonia. 0.36 million live in detached houses and 0.90 million in multi apartment buildings. Most of the latter were built during the Soviet occupation. Of the dwellings in multifamily buildings 30 % are assumed to be situated on the first floor. The mean radon concentration in dwellings in detached hoses, according to the survey results, is 103 Bq/m 3 , in dwellings on the bottom floor in multi apartment buildings it is 78 Bq/m 3 . In 1% of the dwellings the radon concentration exceeded 400 Bq/m 3 . The highest radon concentration found in the study was 1040 Bq/m 3 . Based on the assumption that the average radon concentration in the dwellings in multi-apartment buildings that are not situated on the bottom floor is 30 Bq/m 3 , and that these dwellings constitute 70% of all dwellings in multi apartment buildings, the mean radon concentration in dwellings in multi apartment buildings is calculated to be 44 Bq/m 3 . The mean value for all Estonia dwellings is calculated to be 60 Bq/m 3 . Using

Multi- and hyperspectral scene modeling

Science.gov (United States)

Borel, Christoph C.; Tuttle, Ronald F.

2011-06-01

This paper shows how to use a public domain raytracer POV-Ray (Persistence Of Vision Raytracer) to render multiand hyper-spectral scenes. The scripting environment allows automatic changing of the reflectance and transmittance parameters. The radiosity rendering mode allows accurate simulation of multiple-reflections between surfaces and also allows semi-transparent surfaces such as plant leaves. We show that POV-Ray computes occlusion accurately using a test scene with two blocks under a uniform sky. A complex scene representing a plant canopy is generated using a few lines of script. With appropriate rendering settings, shadows cast by leaves are rendered in many bands. Comparing single and multiple reflection renderings, the effect of multiple reflections is clearly visible and accounts for 25% of the overall apparent canopy reflectance in the near infrared.

The ancient art of laying rope

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bohr, Jakob; Olsen, Kasper

2011-01-01

We describe a geometrical property of helical structures and show how it accounts for the early art of rope-making. Helices have a maximum number of rotations that can be added to them — and it is shown that this is a geometrical feature, not a material property. This geometrical insight explains...... for the rope to be stretched while being laid, known from Egyptian tomb scenes, follows straightforwardly, as does the function of the top, an old tool for laying ropes....

Primal scene derivatives in the work of Yukio Mishima: the primal scene fantasy.

Science.gov (United States)

Turco, Ronald N

2002-01-01

This article discusses the preoccupation with fire, revenge, crucifixion, and other fantasies as they relate to the primal scene. The manifestations of these fantasies are demonstrated in a work of fiction by Yukio Mishima. The Temple of the Golden Pavillion. As is the case in other writings of Mishima there is a fusion of aggressive and libidinal drives and a preoccupation with death. The primal scene is directly connected with pyromania and destructive "acting out" of fantasies. This article is timely with regard to understanding contemporary events of cultural and national destruction.

Emotional and neutral scenes in competition: orienting, efficiency, and identification.

Science.gov (United States)

Calvo, Manuel G; Nummenmaa, Lauri; Hyönä, Jukka

2007-12-01

To investigate preferential processing of emotional scenes competing for limited attentional resources with neutral scenes, prime pictures were presented briefly (450 ms), peripherally (5.2 degrees away from fixation), and simultaneously (one emotional and one neutral scene) versus singly. Primes were followed by a mask and a probe for recognition. Hit rate was higher for emotional than for neutral scenes in the dual- but not in the single-prime condition, and A' sensitivity decreased for neutral but not for emotional scenes in the dual-prime condition. This preferential processing involved both selective orienting and efficient encoding, as revealed, respectively, by a higher probability of first fixation on--and shorter saccade latencies to--emotional scenes and by shorter fixation time needed to accurately identify emotional scenes, in comparison with neutral scenes.

Ärkamisaeg, Noor-Eesti ja miski nende vahel. Eesti kirjandusloo küsimusi Juhan Kunderi näitel / National Awakening , Young Estonia and Something In Between. Problems of Estonian Literary History in the Example of Juhan Kunder

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pille-Riin Larm

2013-12-01

Full Text Available According to the long-standing periodisation of Estonian literary history, the Estonian National Awakening that started in the mid-19th century was followed by a period of lesser creativity and originality, which ended only with the breakthrough of the modernist Young Estonia group in 1905. In the canon of Estonian literature, Juhan Kunder (1852–1888, today known primarily for his fairy tales, one play and lyrics of one song, is placed in this intermediate period. This article first introduces the significance of Kunder in his time. He was a popular writer and a wellknown pedagogue, and a younger contemporary of the great figures of the National Awakening. As a critic, magazine editor and literary historian, his most important contribution to literary history was in the development of literary thought. It seems that several precedents that have been attributed to the Young Estonia group, e.g., valuing originality, writing well-argued criticism, etc., actually originated from an earlier period. Based on these observations, the author of this article believes that the current structure of Estonian literary history is not adequately justified, and she points out a semantic shift in the terms in use. It is true that Kunder was largely an epigone of his predecessors, but in the positive sense of the term, meaning that he continued their mission. Similarly, Kunder’s predecessor, the ‘first Young Estonian’ Kreutzwald, and a representative of his 20th-century successors, Friedebert Tuglas, were also epigones. During the period of Russification that started during his era, Kunder’s attitudes could be considered progressive. Kunder was also a 19th-century contemporary of the Young Estonia group and a true Young Estonian in the original sense of the term which emerged in this period: a Young Estonian introduced new initiatives and was a leader of the national movement. Epigonism and membership in Young Estonia can be seen as the keys to cultural

Scene Integration for Online VR Advertising Clouds

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Michael Kalochristianakis

2014-12-01

Full Text Available This paper presents a scene composition approach that allows the combinational use of standard three dimensional objects, called models, in order to create X3D scenes. The module is an integral part of a broader design aiming to construct large scale online advertising infrastructures that rely on virtual reality technologies. The architecture addresses a number of problems regarding remote rendering for low end devices and last but not least, the provision of scene composition and integration. Since viewers do not keep information regarding individual input models or scenes, composition requires the consideration of mechanisms that add state to viewing technologies. In terms of this work we extended a well-known, open source X3D authoring tool.

Advanced radiometric and interferometric milimeter-wave scene simulations

Science.gov (United States)

Hauss, B. I.; Moffa, P. J.; Steele, W. G.; Agravante, H.; Davidheiser, R.; Samec, T.; Young, S. K.

1993-01-01

Smart munitions and weapons utilize various imaging sensors (including passive IR, active and passive millimeter-wave, and visible wavebands) to detect/identify targets at short standoff ranges and in varied terrain backgrounds. In order to design and evaluate these sensors under a variety of conditions, a high-fidelity scene simulation capability is necessary. Such a capability for passive millimeter-wave scene simulation exists at TRW. TRW's Advanced Radiometric Millimeter-Wave Scene Simulation (ARMSS) code is a rigorous, benchmarked, end-to-end passive millimeter-wave scene simulation code for interpreting millimeter-wave data, establishing scene signatures and evaluating sensor performance. In passive millimeter-wave imaging, resolution is limited due to wavelength and aperture size. Where high resolution is required, the utility of passive millimeter-wave imaging is confined to short ranges. Recent developments in interferometry have made possible high resolution applications on military platforms. Interferometry or synthetic aperture radiometry allows the creation of a high resolution image with a sparsely filled aperture. Borrowing from research work in radio astronomy, we have developed and tested at TRW scene reconstruction algorithms that allow the recovery of the scene from a relatively small number of spatial frequency components. In this paper, the TRW modeling capability is described and numerical results are presented.

Selective Segmentation for Global Optimization of Depth Estimation in Complex Scenes

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Sheng Liu

2013-01-01

Full Text Available This paper proposes a segmentation-based global optimization method for depth estimation. Firstly, for obtaining accurate matching cost, the original local stereo matching approach based on self-adapting matching window is integrated with two matching cost optimization strategies aiming at handling both borders and occlusion regions. Secondly, we employ a comprehensive smooth term to satisfy diverse smoothness request in real scene. Thirdly, a selective segmentation term is used for enforcing the plane trend constraints selectively on the corresponding segments to further improve the accuracy of depth results from object level. Experiments on the Middlebury image pairs show that the proposed global optimization approach is considerably competitive with other state-of-the-art matching approaches.

Doing Language: Narratives from an Activists' World in the Austrian Art World of the 1990s. The Art Activism of WochenKlausur, Martin Krenn, Oliver Ressler and maiz

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Fotiadi, Eva

2012-12-01

Full Text Available The article refers to the political art scene in Austria during the 1990s and early 2000s. Participatory art-activism projects by the group WochenKlausur and by Martin Krenn and Oliver Ressler are juxtaposed to artistic work used for political activism by the women migrants' organization maiz. All case-studies engage with issues of immigration in Austria, touching also upon official immigration policies and practices in the European Union after 1989. In the case studies the artists transfer political activism practices (giving people a voice to art practices by means of participatory, public art projects, where, for instance, migrants are interviewed. In reverse, the activists transfer artistic practices (e.g., performance to their political activism practices.

Three-dimensional measurement system for crime scene documentation

Science.gov (United States)

Adamczyk, Marcin; Hołowko, Elwira; Lech, Krzysztof; Michoński, Jakub; MÄ czkowski, Grzegorz; Bolewicki, Paweł; Januszkiewicz, Kamil; Sitnik, Robert

2017-10-01

Three dimensional measurements (such as photogrammetry, Time of Flight, Structure from Motion or Structured Light techniques) are becoming a standard in the crime scene documentation process. The usage of 3D measurement techniques provide an opportunity to prepare more insightful investigation and helps to show every trace in the context of the entire crime scene. In this paper we would like to present a hierarchical, three-dimensional measurement system that is designed for crime scenes documentation process. Our system reflects the actual standards in crime scene documentation process - it is designed to perform measurement in two stages. First stage of documentation, the most general, is prepared with a scanner with relatively low spatial resolution but also big measuring volume - it is used for the whole scene documentation. Second stage is much more detailed: high resolution but smaller size of measuring volume for areas that required more detailed approach. The documentation process is supervised by a specialised application CrimeView3D, that is a software platform for measurements management (connecting with scanners and carrying out measurements, automatic or semi-automatic data registration in the real time) and data visualisation (3D visualisation of documented scenes). It also provides a series of useful tools for forensic technicians: virtual measuring tape, searching for sources of blood spatter, virtual walk on the crime scene and many others. In this paper we present our measuring system and the developed software. We also provide an outcome from research on metrological validation of scanners that was performed according to VDI/VDE standard. We present a CrimeView3D - a software-platform that was developed to manage the crime scene documentation process. We also present an outcome from measurement sessions that were conducted on real crime scenes with cooperation with Technicians from Central Forensic Laboratory of Police.

The roles of scene gist and spatial dependency among objects in the semantic guidance of attention in real-world scenes.

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Chia-Chien; Wang, Hsueh-Cheng; Pomplun, Marc

2014-12-01

A previous study (Vision Research 51 (2011) 1192-1205) found evidence for semantic guidance of visual attention during the inspection of real-world scenes, i.e., an influence of semantic relationships among scene objects on overt shifts of attention. In particular, the results revealed an observer bias toward gaze transitions between semantically similar objects. However, this effect is not necessarily indicative of semantic processing of individual objects but may be mediated by knowledge of the scene gist, which does not require object recognition, or by known spatial dependency among objects. To examine the mechanisms underlying semantic guidance, in the present study, participants were asked to view a series of displays with the scene gist excluded and spatial dependency varied. Our results show that spatial dependency among objects seems to be sufficient to induce semantic guidance. Scene gist, on the other hand, does not seem to affect how observers use semantic information to guide attention while viewing natural scenes. Extracting semantic information mainly based on spatial dependency may be an efficient strategy of the visual system that only adds little cognitive load to the viewing task. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Going Public: Conservation of Contemporary Artworks. Between Backstage and Frontstage in Contemporary Art Museums

OpenAIRE

Saaze, Vivian van

2011-01-01

In museum studies and history of art, what happens behind the scenes of museums stays relatively unseen and unspoken about. In the arts, generally speaking, what is dismissed as irrelevant (e.g. the realm of practices) is deliberately detached from what is thought to really matter; theory, discourse, content and meaning. Up till recently, backstage activities such as conservation practices are merely discussed among specialists and museum professionals. Only the outcomes of these discussions ...

Between Yesterday and Today: Contemporary Art in Nepal

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Kathryn Hagy

2012-01-01

Full Text Available This paper examines works from the last decade by six Nepalese artists and delves into questions such as how today’s artists align themselves between their ancient arts and their contemporary context. What is the conversation about globalism and its impact on artists? How do artists deal with social pressures and is the content of their work directly affected by these pressures? Through in-country research and subsequent study and interviews with artists, what is revealed is an energetic art scene that draws much of its inspiration from a local context, whether that be affirmation of or protest against that context to some degree. When visiting Kathmandu Nepal, one is bound to discover that like the ancient sculptures, paintings and temple architecture that exist on every corner, the art of contemporary Nepal is everywhere as well.

Art Interrupting Business, Business interrupting Art

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kampf, Constance Elizabeth

2014-01-01

Tensions between global corporations and digital artists who use business as an artistic and activist medium reveal rough edges in the interface between business and society. This interaction can be seen as a space where the interface between business and society is being challenged, with artists...... performing online art that raises awareness about hidden aspects of business practices. As digital artists place the spotlight on activities and business strategies that are not part of corporate plans for communicating their “transparency,” they also work to reconfigure and re(de)fine this interface. To set...... the scene for understanding digital activism, this chapter examines a partial history of digital artist activism focused on ®™ark and etoy, two artist collectives that were networked and cooperated on some projects in the late 1990s. The focus is on two projects and their impacts: Toywar and Vote...

Themes, scenes, and taste in the history of Japanese garden art

OpenAIRE

Kuitert, W.

1988-01-01

The present study deals - in its three parts - with three fragments of the garden history of Japan. It reveals how the meaning a garden had to the people of its time was significantly different in all of these periods.

Part one, titled "Themes", deals with the later Heian period, from the tenth until the late twelfth century. The foundations of a native, Japanese tradition of garden art were laid. The first chapters introduce the palace gardens of the courtly aristocracy in t...

Pedagogias feministas e de(scoloniais nas artes da vida

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Mara Lucia Leal

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Os estudos de(scoloniais e os estudos feministas interseccionais são teorias críticas que abordam a questão das diferenças pensando-as em articulação com as forças de subjetivação que descorporificam nossa relação com o mundo. Cada vez mais as artes da cena se mostram interessadas em refletir sobre si mesmas desde uma perspectiva corporificada, onde a subjetividade e a singularidade do corpo de quem compõe a cena estão presentes. Assim, pensar os processos criativos da cena contemporânea em articulação com estudos e pedagogias descoloniais e feministas possibilitaria que tais processos criativos adensassem questões de gênero, sexualidade, raça, etnia, classe, entre outras, que surgem com agudez em processos que reconhecem que vidas vivem em corpos e que visam trabalhar desde uma política de afetos. ABSTRACT The decolonial studies and intersectional feminist studies are critical theories that approach difference issues thinking them in articulation with the subjective forces that disembodies our relations to the world. Increasingly the arts scene show interest in reflecting about themselves from an embodied perspective where subjectivity and the singularity of the perfomers body are present. To think the creative processes of contemporary scene in articulation with feminists and decolonial pedagogies allows those creative processes to thicken issues related to gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, among others, issues that come up sharpness in processes that recognize that lives are liven in bodies and that aim to work from the politics of affection. KEYWORDS Decoloniality, feminisms, body, performing arts, the art of living.

IR characteristic simulation of city scenes based on radiosity model

Science.gov (United States)

Xiong, Xixian; Zhou, Fugen; Bai, Xiangzhi; Yu, Xiyu

2013-09-01

Reliable modeling for thermal infrared (IR) signatures of real-world city scenes is required for signature management of civil and military platforms. Traditional modeling methods generally assume that scene objects are individual entities during the physical processes occurring in infrared range. However, in reality, the physical scene involves convective and conductive interactions between objects as well as the radiations interactions between objects. A method based on radiosity model describes these complex effects. It has been developed to enable an accurate simulation for the radiance distribution of the city scenes. Firstly, the physical processes affecting the IR characteristic of city scenes were described. Secondly, heat balance equations were formed on the basis of combining the atmospheric conditions, shadow maps and the geometry of scene. Finally, finite difference method was used to calculate the kinetic temperature of object surface. A radiosity model was introduced to describe the scattering effect of radiation between surface elements in the scene. By the synthesis of objects radiance distribution in infrared range, we could obtain the IR characteristic of scene. Real infrared images and model predictions were shown and compared. The results demonstrate that this method can realistically simulate the IR characteristic of city scenes. It effectively displays the infrared shadow effects and the radiation interactions between objects in city scenes.

Global scene layout modulates contextual learning in change detection

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Markus eConci

2014-02-01

Full Text Available Change in the visual scene often goes unnoticed – a phenomenon referred to as ‘change blindness’. This study examined whether the hierarchical structure, i.e., the global-local layout of a scene can influence performance in a one-shot change detection paradigm. To this end, natural scenes of a laid breakfast table were presented, and observers were asked to locate the onset of a new local object. Importantly, the global structure of the scene was manipulated by varying the relations among objects in the scene layouts. The very same items were either presented as global-congruent (typical layouts or as global-incongruent (random arrangements. Change blindness was less severe for congruent than for incongruent displays, and this congruency benefit increased with the duration of the experiment. These findings show that global layouts are learned, supporting detection of local changes with enhanced efficiency. However, performance was not affected by scene congruency in a subsequent control experiment that required observers to localize a static discontinuity (i.e., an object that was missing from the repeated layouts. Our results thus show that learning of the global layout is particularly linked to the local objects. Taken together, our results reveal an effect of global precedence in natural scenes. We suggest that relational properties within the hierarchy of a natural scene are governed, in particular, by global image analysis, reducing change blindness for local objects through scene learning.

Global scene layout modulates contextual learning in change detection.

Science.gov (United States)

Conci, Markus; Müller, Hermann J

2014-01-01

Change in the visual scene often goes unnoticed - a phenomenon referred to as "change blindness." This study examined whether the hierarchical structure, i.e., the global-local layout of a scene can influence performance in a one-shot change detection paradigm. To this end, natural scenes of a laid breakfast table were presented, and observers were asked to locate the onset of a new local object. Importantly, the global structure of the scene was manipulated by varying the relations among objects in the scene layouts. The very same items were either presented as global-congruent (typical) layouts or as global-incongruent (random) arrangements. Change blindness was less severe for congruent than for incongruent displays, and this congruency benefit increased with the duration of the experiment. These findings show that global layouts are learned, supporting detection of local changes with enhanced efficiency. However, performance was not affected by scene congruency in a subsequent control experiment that required observers to localize a static discontinuity (i.e., an object that was missing from the repeated layouts). Our results thus show that learning of the global layout is particularly linked to the local objects. Taken together, our results reveal an effect of "global precedence" in natural scenes. We suggest that relational properties within the hierarchy of a natural scene are governed, in particular, by global image analysis, reducing change blindness for local objects through scene learning.

Merleau-Ponty, percepção e arte [Merleau-Ponty, perception and art

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Claudinei Aparecido de Freitas da Silva

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Me proponho traçar, em linhas gerais, um recorte mínimo da coletânea Merleau-Ponty and the art of perception, publicada pela Suny Press, em 2016, sob a organização de Duane H. Davis e William S. Hamrick. A obra traz para a primeira cena de debate, a figura de Merleau-Ponty, ao retratar alguns de seus temas mais capilares tendo como fio condutor as noções de “percepção” e “arte”.   [I propose to outline, in general, a minimal profile of the compilation Merleau-Ponty and the art of perception, published by Suny Press, in 2016, edited by Duane H. Davis and William S. Hamrick. The work brings to the first scene of debate the figure of Merleau-Ponty portraying some of its most capillary themes having the notions of “perception” and “art” as a guide.

The primal scene and symbol formation.

Science.gov (United States)

Niedecken, Dietmut

2016-06-01

This article discusses the meaning of the primal scene for symbol formation by exploring its way of processing in a child's play. The author questions the notion that a sadomasochistic way of processing is the only possible one. A model of an alternative mode of processing is being presented. It is suggested that both ways of processing intertwine in the "fabric of life" (D. Laub). Two clinical vignettes, one from an analytic child psychotherapy and the other from the analysis of a 30 year-old female patient, illustrate how the primal scene is being played out in the form of a terzet. The author explores whether the sadomasochistic way of processing actually precedes the "primal scene as a terzet". She discusses if it could even be regarded as a precondition for the formation of the latter or, alternatively, if the "combined parent-figure" gives rise to ways of processing. The question is being left open. Finally, it is shown how both modes of experiencing the primal scene underlie the discoursive and presentative symbol formation, respectively. Copyright © 2015 Institute of Psychoanalysis.

Modeling global scene factors in attention

Science.gov (United States)

Torralba, Antonio

2003-07-01

Models of visual attention have focused predominantly on bottom-up approaches that ignored structured contextual and scene information. I propose a model of contextual cueing for attention guidance based on the global scene configuration. It is shown that the statistics of low-level features across the whole image can be used to prime the presence or absence of objects in the scene and to predict their location, scale, and appearance before exploring the image. In this scheme, visual context information can become available early in the visual processing chain, which allows modulation of the saliency of image regions and provides an efficient shortcut for object detection and recognition. 2003 Optical Society of America

Estonian experience in establishing the national radiation protection infrastructure in the newly independent State

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kalam, J.

2001-01-01

The Estonian Radiation Protection Centre (ERPC) was established on 4 January 1996 as the regulatory authority for radiation protection and safety of radiation sources. The report explains the ERPC's structure and its main functions and activities, and provides information on the regulations that have been approved or are planned to be adopted. Reference is made to radiological emergency preparedness and, in particular, to the status of development of the system of regulatory control by authorization and inspection of radiation practices in the country. (author)

Presentation of 3D Scenes Through Video Example.

Science.gov (United States)

Baldacci, Andrea; Ganovelli, Fabio; Corsini, Massimiliano; Scopigno, Roberto

2017-09-01

Using synthetic videos to present a 3D scene is a common requirement for architects, designers, engineers or Cultural Heritage professionals however it is usually time consuming and, in order to obtain high quality results, the support of a film maker/computer animation expert is necessary. We introduce an alternative approach that takes the 3D scene of interest and an example video as input, and automatically produces a video of the input scene that resembles the given video example. In other words, our algorithm allows the user to "replicate" an existing video, on a different 3D scene. We build on the intuition that a video sequence of a static environment is strongly characterized by its optical flow, or, in other words, that two videos are similar if their optical flows are similar. We therefore recast the problem as producing a video of the input scene whose optical flow is similar to the optical flow of the input video. Our intuition is supported by a user-study specifically designed to verify this statement. We have successfully tested our approach on several scenes and input videos, some of which are reported in the accompanying material of this paper.

47 CFR 80.1127 - On-scene communications.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

....1127 Telecommunication FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (CONTINUED) SAFETY AND SPECIAL RADIO SERVICES STATIONS IN THE MARITIME SERVICES Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) Operating Procedures for Distress and Safety Communications § 80.1127 On-scene communications. (a) On-scene communications...

The occipital place area represents the local elements of scenes.

Science.gov (United States)

Kamps, Frederik S; Julian, Joshua B; Kubilius, Jonas; Kanwisher, Nancy; Dilks, Daniel D

2016-05-15

Neuroimaging studies have identified three scene-selective regions in human cortex: parahippocampal place area (PPA), retrosplenial complex (RSC), and occipital place area (OPA). However, precisely what scene information each region represents is not clear, especially for the least studied, more posterior OPA. Here we hypothesized that OPA represents local elements of scenes within two independent, yet complementary scene descriptors: spatial boundary (i.e., the layout of external surfaces) and scene content (e.g., internal objects). If OPA processes the local elements of spatial boundary information, then it should respond to these local elements (e.g., walls) themselves, regardless of their spatial arrangement. Indeed, we found that OPA, but not PPA or RSC, responded similarly to images of intact rooms and these same rooms in which the surfaces were fractured and rearranged, disrupting the spatial boundary. Next, if OPA represents the local elements of scene content information, then it should respond more when more such local elements (e.g., furniture) are present. Indeed, we found that OPA, but not PPA or RSC, responded more to multiple than single pieces of furniture. Taken together, these findings reveal that OPA analyzes local scene elements - both in spatial boundary and scene content representation - while PPA and RSC represent global scene properties. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Riik võib lüüa SAS-i esmaspäevaks Estonian Airi omanikeringist välja / Erik Müürsepp, Mikk Salu

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Müürsepp, Erik

2008-01-01

SAS osaleb Estonian Airþile lisakapitali eraldamises ainult juhul, kui Eesti riik müüb oma osaluses lennukompaniis SAS-ile. Peaminister Andrus Ansipi ning majandus- ja kommunikatsiooniminister Juhan Partsi seisukoht

Accumulating and remembering the details of neutral and emotional natural scenes.

Science.gov (United States)

Melcher, David

2010-01-01

In contrast to our rich sensory experience with complex scenes in everyday life, the capacity of visual working memory is thought to be quite limited. Here our memory has been examined for the details of naturalistic scenes as a function of display duration, emotional valence of the scene, and delay before test. Individual differences in working memory and long-term memory for pictorial scenes were examined in experiment 1. The accumulation of memory for emotional scenes and the retention of these details in long-term memory were investigated in experiment 2. Although there were large individual differences in performance, memory for scene details generally exceeded the traditional working memory limit within a few seconds. Information about positive scenes was learned most quickly, while negative scenes showed the worst memory for details. The overall pattern of results was consistent with the idea that both short-term and long-term representations are mixed together in a medium-term 'online' memory for scenes.

Investigations Into the Phenomenology and the Ontology of the Work of Art

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

studied in this volume is related to the ontology of the work of art: Written or visual artworks are a specific type of objects, containing particular kinds of representation which elicit a particular kind of experience. The research question explored is: What properties in artful objects trigger...... this type of experience, and what characterizes representation in written and visual artworks? The volume sets the scene for state-of-the-art inquiries in the intersection between the psychology and ontology of art. The investigations of the relation between the properties of artworks...... human beings respond to artworks, how we process linguistic or visual information, and what properties in artworks trigger aesthetic experiences. The examination of the properties of aesthetic experience reveals essential aspects of our perceptual, cognitive, and semiotic capacities. The second issue...

Feature diagnosticity and task context shape activity in human scene-selective cortex.

Science.gov (United States)

Lowe, Matthew X; Gallivan, Jason P; Ferber, Susanne; Cant, Jonathan S

2016-01-15

Scenes are constructed from multiple visual features, yet previous research investigating scene processing has often focused on the contributions of single features in isolation. In the real world, features rarely exist independently of one another and likely converge to inform scene identity in unique ways. Here, we utilize fMRI and pattern classification techniques to examine the interactions between task context (i.e., attend to diagnostic global scene features; texture or layout) and high-level scene attributes (content and spatial boundary) to test the novel hypothesis that scene-selective cortex represents multiple visual features, the importance of which varies according to their diagnostic relevance across scene categories and task demands. Our results show for the first time that scene representations are driven by interactions between multiple visual features and high-level scene attributes. Specifically, univariate analysis of scene-selective cortex revealed that task context and feature diagnosticity shape activity differentially across scene categories. Examination using multivariate decoding methods revealed results consistent with univariate findings, but also evidence for an interaction between high-level scene attributes and diagnostic visual features within scene categories. Critically, these findings suggest visual feature representations are not distributed uniformly across scene categories but are shaped by task context and feature diagnosticity. Thus, we propose that scene-selective cortex constructs a flexible representation of the environment by integrating multiple diagnostically relevant visual features, the nature of which varies according to the particular scene being perceived and the goals of the observer. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Economic modelling of the capture-transport-sink scenario of industrial CO2 emissions: The Estonian-Latvian cross-border case study

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Shogenova, A.; Shogenov, K.; Pomeranceva, R.; Nulle, I.; Neele, F.; Hendriks, C.

2011-01-01

Industrial CO2 emissions and opportunities for CO2 geological storage in the Baltic Region were studied within the EU GeoCapacity project supported by the European Union Framework Programme 6. Estonia produces the largest amounts of CO2 emissions in the region, due to the combustion of Estonian oil

Maxwellian Eye Fixation during Natural Scene Perception

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jean Duchesne

2012-01-01

Full Text Available When we explore a visual scene, our eyes make saccades to jump rapidly from one area to another and fixate regions of interest to extract useful information. While the role of fixation eye movements in vision has been widely studied, their random nature has been a hitherto neglected issue. Here we conducted two experiments to examine the Maxwellian nature of eye movements during fixation. In Experiment 1, eight participants were asked to perform free viewing of natural scenes displayed on a computer screen while their eye movements were recorded. For each participant, the probability density function (PDF of eye movement amplitude during fixation obeyed the law established by Maxwell for describing molecule velocity in gas. Only the mean amplitude of eye movements varied with expertise, which was lower in experts than novice participants. In Experiment 2, two participants underwent fixed time, free viewing of natural scenes and of their scrambled version while their eye movements were recorded. Again, the PDF of eye movement amplitude during fixation obeyed Maxwell’s law for each participant and for each scene condition (normal or scrambled. The results suggest that eye fixation during natural scene perception describes a random motion regardless of top-down or of bottom-up processes.

Maxwellian Eye Fixation during Natural Scene Perception

Science.gov (United States)

Duchesne, Jean; Bouvier, Vincent; Guillemé, Julien; Coubard, Olivier A.

2012-01-01

When we explore a visual scene, our eyes make saccades to jump rapidly from one area to another and fixate regions of interest to extract useful information. While the role of fixation eye movements in vision has been widely studied, their random nature has been a hitherto neglected issue. Here we conducted two experiments to examine the Maxwellian nature of eye movements during fixation. In Experiment 1, eight participants were asked to perform free viewing of natural scenes displayed on a computer screen while their eye movements were recorded. For each participant, the probability density function (PDF) of eye movement amplitude during fixation obeyed the law established by Maxwell for describing molecule velocity in gas. Only the mean amplitude of eye movements varied with expertise, which was lower in experts than novice participants. In Experiment 2, two participants underwent fixed time, free viewing of natural scenes and of their scrambled version while their eye movements were recorded. Again, the PDF of eye movement amplitude during fixation obeyed Maxwell's law for each participant and for each scene condition (normal or scrambled). The results suggest that eye fixation during natural scene perception describes a random motion regardless of top-down or of bottom-up processes. PMID:23226987

Two «new» paintings inspired by Don Quixote and belonging to American art collections: Dance Scene (ca. 1656-1658?, anonymous although attributed to Joos van Crasbeeck (Neerlinter, Flanders 1605/1606-Brussels ca. 1660, and Dorothea (1823, by John Quidor (Tappan, New York State 1801-Jersey City, New Yersey 1881

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kenneth Brown

2009-12-01

Full Text Available This study presents a detailed analysis of two hitherto ignored or poorly understood paintings inspired by Cervantes’ Don Quijote de la Mancha: Dorothea (1823, by the New Yorker John Quidor, and Dance Scene (1656-1658, attributed to the Flemish Baroque master Joos van Craesbeeck. Dorothea is housed in the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and Dance Scene in Philadelphia’s The Rosenbach Museum and Gallery. The novelty of these two works is that Quidor’s is an ingenious and colourful improvement of a widely circulating black and white print, and van Craesbeeck’s miniature captures not only multiple don Quijotes and Sancho Panzas at a masquerade ball, but also the Dukes of Alba, for at the time the Duke was Governor General of the Spanish Netherlands.

Selective scene perception deficits in a case of topographical disorientation.

Science.gov (United States)

Robin, Jessica; Lowe, Matthew X; Pishdadian, Sara; Rivest, Josée; Cant, Jonathan S; Moscovitch, Morris

2017-07-01

Topographical disorientation (TD) is a neuropsychological condition characterized by an inability to find one's way, even in familiar environments. One common contributing cause of TD is landmark agnosia, a visual recognition impairment specific to scenes and landmarks. Although many cases of TD with landmark agnosia have been documented, little is known about the perceptual mechanisms which lead to selective deficits in recognizing scenes. In the present study, we test LH, a man who exhibits TD and landmark agnosia, on measures of scene perception that require selectively attending to either the configural or surface properties of a scene. Compared to healthy controls, LH demonstrates perceptual impairments when attending to the configuration of a scene, but not when attending to its surface properties, such as the pattern of the walls or whether the ground is sand or grass. In contrast, when focusing on objects instead of scenes, LH demonstrates intact perception of both geometric and surface properties. This study demonstrates that in a case of TD and landmark agnosia, the perceptual impairments are selective to the layout of scenes, providing insight into the mechanism of landmark agnosia and scene-selective perceptual processes. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Crime Scenes as Augmented Reality

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sandvik, Kjetil

2010-01-01

Using the concept of augmented reality, this article will investigate how places in various ways have become augmented by means of different mediatization strategies. Augmentation of reality implies an enhancement of the places' emotional character: a certain mood, atmosphere or narrative surplus......, physical damage: they are all readable and interpretable signs. As augmented reality the crime scene carries a narrative which at first is hidden and must be revealed. Due to the process of investigation and the detective's ability to reason and deduce, the crime scene as place is reconstructed as virtual...

Semi-Supervised Multitask Learning for Scene Recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Lu, Xiaoqiang; Li, Xuelong; Mou, Lichao

2015-09-01

Scene recognition has been widely studied to understand visual information from the level of objects and their relationships. Toward scene recognition, many methods have been proposed. They, however, encounter difficulty to improve the accuracy, mainly due to two limitations: 1) lack of analysis of intrinsic relationships across different scales, say, the initial input and its down-sampled versions and 2) existence of redundant features. This paper develops a semi-supervised learning mechanism to reduce the above two limitations. To address the first limitation, we propose a multitask model to integrate scene images of different resolutions. For the second limitation, we build a model of sparse feature selection-based manifold regularization (SFSMR) to select the optimal information and preserve the underlying manifold structure of data. SFSMR coordinates the advantages of sparse feature selection and manifold regulation. Finally, we link the multitask model and SFSMR, and propose the semi-supervised learning method to reduce the two limitations. Experimental results report the improvements of the accuracy in scene recognition.

Mathematics for the liberal arts

CERN Document Server

Brown, Jason I

2014-01-01

The Math in Your Life Health, Safety, and Mathematics Found in Translation The Essentials of Conversion Making Sense of Your World with Statistics Summarizing Data with a Few Good Numbers Estimating Unknowns Leading You Down the Garden Path with Statistics Visualizing with Mathematics Seeing Data A Graph Is Worth a Thousand Words Money and Risk Money - Now or Later Risk Taking and Probability The Life in Your Math! Deciding to Make the Best Decisions Making the Right Choices for You Game Theory - Coming Out on Top Making Joint Decisions Art Imitating Math The Math that Makes the Art Believing What You See (or Not) The Mathematics of Sound (and the Sound of Mathematics) The Mathematics of Listening The Mathematics of Composing Solving Musical Mysteries with MSI (Math Scene Investigations) Late Night Mathematics - Humor and Philosophy Laughing with Mathematics The Limits of Mathematics Bibliography Index Review questions appear at the end of each chapter.

The neural time course of art perception: an ERP study on the processing of style versus content in art.

Science.gov (United States)

Augustin, M Dorothee; Defranceschi, Birgit; Fuchs, Helene K; Carbon, Claus-Christian; Hutzler, Florian

2011-06-01

A central prerequisite to understand the phenomenon of art in psychological terms is to investigate the nature of the underlying perceptual and cognitive processes. Building on a study by Augustin, Leder, Hutzler, and Carbon (2008) the current ERP study examined the neural time course of two central aspects of representational art, one of which is closely related to object- and scene perception, the other of which is art-specific: content and style. We adapted a paradigm that has repeatedly been employed in psycholinguistics and that allows one to examine the neural time course of two processes in terms of when sufficient information is available to allow successful classification. Twenty-two participants viewed pictures that systematically varied in style and content and conducted a combined go/nogo dual choice task. The dependent variables of interest were the Lateralised Readiness Potential (LRP) and the N200 effect. Analyses of both measures support the notion that in the processing of art style follows content, with style-related information being available at around 224 ms or between 40 and 94 ms later than content-related information. The paradigm used here offers a promising approach to further explore the time course of art perception, thus helping to unravel the perceptual and cognitive processes that underlie the phenomenon of art and the fascination it exerts. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Political conservatism predicts asymmetries in emotional scene memory.

Science.gov (United States)

Mills, Mark; Gonzalez, Frank J; Giuseffi, Karl; Sievert, Benjamin; Smith, Kevin B; Hibbing, John R; Dodd, Michael D

2016-06-01

Variation in political ideology has been linked to differences in attention to and processing of emotional stimuli, with stronger responses to negative versus positive stimuli (negativity bias) the more politically conservative one is. As memory is enhanced by attention, such findings predict that memory for negative versus positive stimuli should similarly be enhanced the more conservative one is. The present study tests this prediction by having participants study 120 positive, negative, and neutral scenes in preparation for a subsequent memory test. On the memory test, the same 120 scenes were presented along with 120 new scenes and participants were to respond whether a scene was old or new. Results on the memory test showed that negative scenes were more likely to be remembered than positive scenes, though, this was true only for political conservatives. That is, a larger negativity bias was found the more conservative one was. The effect was sizeable, explaining 45% of the variance across subjects in the effect of emotion. These findings demonstrate that the relationship between political ideology and asymmetries in emotion processing extend to memory and, furthermore, suggest that exploring the extent to which subject variation in interactions among emotion, attention, and memory is predicted by conservatism may provide new insights into theories of political ideology. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Being There: (Re)Making the Assessment Scene

Science.gov (United States)

Gallagher, Chris W.

2011-01-01

I use Burkean analysis to show how neoliberalism undermines faculty assessment expertise and underwrites testing industry expertise in the current assessment scene. Contending that we cannot extricate ourselves from our limited agency in this scene until we abandon the familiar "stakeholder" theory of power, I propose a rewriting of the…

[Perception of objects and scenes in age-related macular degeneration].

Science.gov (United States)

Tran, T H C; Boucart, M

2012-01-01

Vision related quality of life questionnaires suggest that patients with AMD exhibit difficulties in finding objects and in mobility. In the natural environment, objects seldom appear in isolation. They appear in a spatial context which may obscure them in part or place obstacles in the patient's path. Furthermore, the luminance of a natural scene varies as a function of the hour of the day and the light source, which can alter perception. This study aims to evaluate recognition of objects and natural scenes by patients with AMD, by using photographs of such scenes. Studies demonstrate that AMD patients are able to categorize scenes as nature scenes or urban scenes and to discriminate indoor from outdoor scenes with a high degree of precision. They detect objects better in isolation, in color, or against a white background than in their natural contexts. These patients encounter more difficulties than normally sighted individuals in detecting objects in a low-contrast, black-and-white scene. These results may have implications for rehabilitation, for layout of texts and magazines for the reading-impaired and for the rearrangement of the spatial environment of older AMD patients in order to facilitate mobility, finding objects and reducing the risk of falls. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Behind the scenes of HALO, a large-scale art installation conceived at CERN and inspired by ATLAS data will be exhibited during Art Basel

CERN Multimedia

marcelloni, claudia

2018-01-01

A large-scale immersive art installation entitled HALO is the artistic interpretation of the Large Hadron Collider’s ATLAS experiment and celebrates the links between art, science and technology. Inspired by raw data generated by ATLAS, the artwork has been conceived and executed by CERN’s former artists-in-residence, the “Semiconductor” duo Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt, in collaboration with Mónica Bello, curator and head of Arts at CERN. The artwork is part of the 4th Audemars Piguet Art Commission. HALO is a cylindrical structure, measuring ten metres in diameter and surrounded by 4-metre-long vertical piano wires. On the inside, an enormous 360-degree screen creates an immersive visual experience. Using kaleidoscopic images of slowed-down particle collisions, which trigger piano wires to create sound, the experience takes the visitors into the realm of subatomic matter through the multiple patterns generated in the space. HALO is conceived as an experiential reworking of the ATLAS experiment. Its...

Volcano art at Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park—A science perspective

Science.gov (United States)

Gaddis, Ben; Kauahikaua, James P.

2018-03-26

Long before landscape photography became common, artists sketched and painted scenes of faraway places for the masses. Throughout the 19th century, scientific expeditions to Hawaiʻi routinely employed artists to depict images for the people back home who had funded the exploration and for those with an interest in the newly discovered lands. In Hawaiʻi, artists portrayed the broad variety of people, plant and animal life, and landscapes, but a feature of singular interest was the volcanoes. Painters of early Hawaiian volcano landscapes created art that formed a cohesive body of work known as the “Volcano School” (Forbes, 1992). Jules Tavernier, Charles Furneaux, and D. Howard Hitchcock were probably the best known artists of this school, and their paintings can be found in galleries around the world. Their dramatic paintings were recognized as fine art but were also strong advertisements for tourists to visit Hawaiʻi. Many of these masterpieces are preserved in the Museum and Archive Collection of Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park, and in this report we have taken the opportunity to match the artwork with the approximate date and volcanological context of the scene.

Border Crossing in Contemporary Brazilian Culture: Global Perspectives from the Twenty-First Century Literary Scene

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cimara Valim de Melo

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract: This paper investigates the process of internationalisation of Brazilian literature in the twenty-first century from the perspective of the publishing market. For this, we analyse how Brazil has responded to globalisation and what effects of cultural globalisation can be seen in the Brazilian literary scene, focusing on the novel. Observing the movement of the novelists throughout the globe, the reception of Brazilian literature in the United Kingdom and the relations between art and the literary market in Brazil, we intend to provoke some reflections on Brazilian cultural history in the light of the twenty-first century.

Construction and Optimization of Three-Dimensional Disaster Scenes within Mobile Virtual Reality

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ya Hu

2018-06-01

Full Text Available Because mobile virtual reality (VR is both mobile and immersive, three-dimensional (3D visualizations of disaster scenes based in mobile VR enable users to perceive and recognize disaster environments faster and better than is possible with other methods. To achieve immersion and prevent users from feeling dizzy, such visualizations require a high scene-rendering frame rate. However, the existing related visualization work cannot provide a sufficient solution for this purpose. This study focuses on the construction and optimization of a 3D disaster scene in order to satisfy the high frame-rate requirements for the rendering of 3D disaster scenes in mobile VR. First, the design of a plugin-free browser/server (B/S architecture for 3D disaster scene construction and visualization based in mobile VR is presented. Second, certain key technologies for scene optimization are discussed, including diverse modes of scene data representation, representation optimization of mobile scenes, and adaptive scheduling of mobile scenes. By means of these technologies, smartphones with various performance levels can achieve higher scene-rendering frame rates and improved visual quality. Finally, using a flood disaster as an example, a plugin-free prototype system was developed, and experiments were conducted. The experimental results demonstrate that a 3D disaster scene constructed via the methods addressed in this study has a sufficiently high scene-rendering frame rate to satisfy the requirements for rendering a 3D disaster scene in mobile VR.

Fixations on objects in natural scenes: dissociating importance from salience

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bernard Marius e’t Hart

2013-07-01

Full Text Available The relation of selective attention to understanding of natural scenes has been subject to intense behavioral research and computational modeling, and gaze is often used as a proxy for such attention. The probability of an image region to be fixated typically correlates with its contrast. However, this relation does not imply a causal role of contrast. Rather, contrast may relate to an object’s importance for a scene, which in turn drives attention. Here we operationalize importance by the probability that an observer names the object as characteristic for a scene. We modify luminance contrast of either a frequently named (common/important or a rarely named (rare/unimportant object, track the observers’ eye movements during scene viewing and ask them to provide keywords describing the scene immediately after.When no object is modified relative to the background, important objects draw more fixations than unimportant ones. Increases of contrast make an object more likely to be fixated, irrespective of whether it was important for the original scene, while decreases in contrast have little effect on fixations. Any contrast modification makes originally unimportant objects more important for the scene. Finally, important objects are fixated more centrally than unimportant objects, irrespective of contrast.Our data suggest a dissociation between object importance (relevance for the scene and salience (relevance for attention. If an object obeys natural scene statistics, important objects are also salient. However, when natural scene statistics are violated, importance and salience are differentially affected. Object salience is modulated by the expectation about object properties (e.g., formed by context or gist, and importance by the violation of such expectations. In addition, the dependence of fixated locations within an object on the object’s importance suggests an analogy to the effects of word frequency on landing positions in reading.

Contemporary challenges to the Church Mission from the perspective of post-modern art and technology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gheorghe Istodor

2015-11-01

Full Text Available The secular challenges coming from postmodern art and postmodern technology constitute a serious challenge to be addressed by the mission and life of the Church. The distortion of the Christian Orthodox teaching and the blasphemous trends coming from the contemporary art scene is adding to the distortion of man as God’s special creation from the point of view of genetic engineering, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence, as the core elements of God’s empowerment of man through technology.

Camera Motion and Surrounding Scene Appearance as Context for Action Recognition

KAUST Repository

Heilbron, Fabian Caba; Thabet, Ali Kassem; Niebles, Juan Carlos; Ghanem, Bernard

2015-01-01

This paper describes a framework for recognizing human actions in videos by incorporating a new set of visual cues that represent the context of the action. We develop a weak foreground-background segmentation approach in order to robustly extract not only foreground features that are focused on the actors, but also global camera motion and contextual scene information. Using dense point trajectories, our approach separates and describes the foreground motion from the background, represents the appearance of the extracted static background, and encodes the global camera motion that interestingly is shown to be discriminative for certain action classes. Our experiments on four challenging benchmarks (HMDB51, Hollywood2, Olympic Sports, and UCF50) show that our contextual features enable a significant performance improvement over state-of-the-art algorithms.

Camera Motion and Surrounding Scene Appearance as Context for Action Recognition

KAUST Repository

Heilbron, Fabian Caba

2015-04-17

This paper describes a framework for recognizing human actions in videos by incorporating a new set of visual cues that represent the context of the action. We develop a weak foreground-background segmentation approach in order to robustly extract not only foreground features that are focused on the actors, but also global camera motion and contextual scene information. Using dense point trajectories, our approach separates and describes the foreground motion from the background, represents the appearance of the extracted static background, and encodes the global camera motion that interestingly is shown to be discriminative for certain action classes. Our experiments on four challenging benchmarks (HMDB51, Hollywood2, Olympic Sports, and UCF50) show that our contextual features enable a significant performance improvement over state-of-the-art algorithms.

A statistical model for radar images of agricultural scenes

Science.gov (United States)

Frost, V. S.; Shanmugan, K. S.; Holtzman, J. C.; Stiles, J. A.

1982-01-01

The presently derived and validated statistical model for radar images containing many different homogeneous fields predicts the probability density functions of radar images of entire agricultural scenes, thereby allowing histograms of large scenes composed of a variety of crops to be described. Seasat-A SAR images of agricultural scenes are accurately predicted by the model on the basis of three assumptions: each field has the same SNR, all target classes cover approximately the same area, and the true reflectivity characterizing each individual target class is a uniformly distributed random variable. The model is expected to be useful in the design of data processing algorithms and for scene analysis using radar images.

Rahvusliku ajaloo tõlgendusi eesti draamas ja teatris 1970.–1980. aastatel. Interpretations of National History in Estonian Drama and Theatre in the 1970s–1980s

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Piret Kruuspere

2012-04-01

Full Text Available According to theatre scholar Freddie Rokem, theatre portraying or performing historical events is seeking to overcome both the separation and the exclusion from the past, as well as ’striving to create a community where the events from this past will matter again’. This article covers the topic of interpretations of national history in Estonian theatre and in original dramaturgy during the Soviet era, with the focus on aspects like national self-reflection and the relationship to the common past. The main focus is on the 1970s, with examples from Rein Saluri’s, Mati Unt’s and Jaan Kaplinski’s drama productions. During the period in question, re-tellings of national history on Estonian theatre stages were clothed in metaphors, allusions and secret codes – Aesopian language. Within the Soviet cultural context, I analyse if and to what extent theatre of the time displayed resistance, political theatre or social allegory. Theatre was also connected with the principle of playing or playfulness, which on one hand indicates national resistance, national endurance, and a certain survival strategy, but on the other hand indicates the Estonian as being an involuntary homo ludens – the Playing Man, who through various enforced roles is trying to adjust to the whirlwinds of history. Saluri’s first play, the intellectual drama Külalised (The Guests, opens with an allusion to a drama classic the world over, William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, adding a powerful national-symbolic background to the play. The role-play which permeates and structures the play (The Host–The Guest however, displays allegorical references to changes in the status and self-image of Estonians. In Unt’s play Peaproov (Dress Rehearsal, the principle of playing/acting sheds ironic light on the makers of an historical film and their readiness to create superficially flashy interpretations at any cost: this take acts as an estranging and generalising reflection in a context

The neural bases of spatial frequency processing during scene perception

Science.gov (United States)

Kauffmann, Louise; Ramanoël, Stephen; Peyrin, Carole

2014-01-01

Theories on visual perception agree that scenes are processed in terms of spatial frequencies. Low spatial frequencies (LSF) carry coarse information whereas high spatial frequencies (HSF) carry fine details of the scene. However, how and where spatial frequencies are processed within the brain remain unresolved questions. The present review addresses these issues and aims to identify the cerebral regions differentially involved in low and high spatial frequency processing, and to clarify their attributes during scene perception. Results from a number of behavioral and neuroimaging studies suggest that spatial frequency processing is lateralized in both hemispheres, with the right and left hemispheres predominantly involved in the categorization of LSF and HSF scenes, respectively. There is also evidence that spatial frequency processing is retinotopically mapped in the visual cortex. HSF scenes (as opposed to LSF) activate occipital areas in relation to foveal representations, while categorization of LSF scenes (as opposed to HSF) activates occipital areas in relation to more peripheral representations. Concomitantly, a number of studies have demonstrated that LSF information may reach high-order areas rapidly, allowing an initial coarse parsing of the visual scene, which could then be sent back through feedback into the occipito-temporal cortex to guide finer HSF-based analysis. Finally, the review addresses spatial frequency processing within scene-selective regions areas of the occipito-temporal cortex. PMID:24847226

The Dialogue with Hamlet: Paul-Eerik Rummo’s “Hamlet’s Songs” as an Example of the Existential Paradigm in Estonian Culture

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anneli Mihkelev

2013-06-01

Full Text Available The article demonstrates different meanings of the motif of Hamlet in the Estonian culture. Hamlet as a literary figure has been very important and influential, a symbol of will and a fighter in a hopeless situation. Paul-Eerik Rummo’s poem “Hamlet’s Songs” (1964 forms the centre around which revolve not only written texts but also many such cultural texts as theatre performances and music, all connected by allusions to Hamlet. Rummo’s poem is one of the most innovative poems from the 1960s in Estonian literature. The generation of the 1960s was influenced by several important contemporary theories, including existentialism. Many young writers systematically undermined the Soviet regime in their works. The use of the motif of Hamlet reveals a similarity between the existential and romantic rebellions. Rummo’s dialogue with Hamlet in his poem expresses optimism in a hopeless situation in a way different from Shakespeare’s.

A Look Behind the Scenes: Danish Renaissance Martial Arts during the Reign of Christian IV

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sørensen Claus Frederik

2016-12-01

Full Text Available From the 4th – 7th of July 2016, the annual International Medieval Congress was held in Leeds, England. Among the many different sessions two specifically addressed historical European martial arts. The first session discussed and commented upon modern practices and interpretations of historical European martial arts, each paper being based on good practice and the proper criteria for academic research. The second session, in which this paper was presented, went more “behind the scenes”, discussing the importance of thorough analysis of the historical context which remains essential to forming a foundation for solid hypotheses and interpretations.

Cacophony of Voices and Emotions Dialogic of Buying and Selling Art

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Can-Seng Ooi

2010-09-01

Full Text Available The importance of galleries as go-betweens for artists and art buyers is acknowl-edged in art world research. Using a Bakhtinian dialogic approach, this article examines social encounters of three artists, two art buyers and one gallery sales executive in Singapore. Specifically, it looks into the social interactional dynam-ics of artists and art buyers when they trade directly. Situational ambiguities and emotional ambivalence arise during such meetings from the different expectations and demands that are imposed, which have the effect of placing the parties in-volved in conflicting social contexts. For instance, when art connoisseurs and art-ists discuss aesthetics, monetary value is not of primary concern, nonetheless when they want to trade, commercial concerns become central; this can lead to discomfort between the parties. Similarly, art buyers may want to go behind the scenes to know more about the artist and the art practice; getting away from the glitter of the commercial gallery and into the modest art studio for an authentic experience may reveal too much for visitors; such experiences may break their illusion of the glamorous artist. This article looks at the microscopic interaction between artists and art buyers and shows how the ambiguities and ambivalence that can be generated by their encounters become constraining factors in encour-aging artists and art buyers to trade directly, by-passing commercial art galleries and dealers.

Detection of chromatic and luminance distortions in natural scenes.

Science.gov (United States)

Jennings, Ben J; Wang, Karen; Menzies, Samantha; Kingdom, Frederick A A

2015-09-01

A number of studies have measured visual thresholds for detecting spatial distortions applied to images of natural scenes. In one study, Bex [J. Vis.10(2), 1 (2010)10.1167/10.2.231534-7362] measured sensitivity to sinusoidal spatial modulations of image scale. Here, we measure sensitivity to sinusoidal scale distortions applied to the chromatic, luminance, or both layers of natural scene images. We first established that sensitivity does not depend on whether the undistorted comparison image was of the same or of a different scene. Next, we found that, when the luminance but not chromatic layer was distorted, performance was the same regardless of whether the chromatic layer was present, absent, or phase-scrambled; in other words, the chromatic layer, in whatever form, did not affect sensitivity to the luminance layer distortion. However, when the chromatic layer was distorted, sensitivity was higher when the luminance layer was intact compared to when absent or phase-scrambled. These detection threshold results complement the appearance of periodic distortions of the image scale: when the luminance layer is distorted visibly, the scene appears distorted, but when the chromatic layer is distorted visibly, there is little apparent scene distortion. We conclude that (a) observers have a built-in sense of how a normal image of a natural scene should appear, and (b) the detection of distortion in, as well as the apparent distortion of, natural scene images is mediated predominantly by the luminance layer and not chromatic layer.

Semi-automatic scene generation using the Digital Anatomist Foundational Model.

Science.gov (United States)

Wong, B A; Rosse, C; Brinkley, J F

1999-01-01

A recent survey shows that a major impediment to more widespread use of computers in anatomy education is the inability to directly manipulate 3-D models, and to relate these to corresponding textual information. In the University of Washington Digital Anatomist Project we have developed a prototype Web-based scene generation program that combines the symbolic Foundational Model of Anatomy with 3-D models. A Web user can browse the Foundational Model (FM), then click to request that a 3-D scene be created of an object and its parts or branches. The scene is rendered by a graphics server, and a snapshot is sent to the Web client. The user can then manipulate the scene, adding new structures, deleting structures, rotating the scene, zooming, and saving the scene as a VRML file. Applications such as this, when fully realized with fast rendering and more anatomical content, have the potential to significantly change the way computers are used in anatomy education.

Visual search for changes in scenes creates long-term, incidental memory traces.

Science.gov (United States)

Utochkin, Igor S; Wolfe, Jeremy M

2018-05-01

Humans are very good at remembering large numbers of scenes over substantial periods of time. But how good are they at remembering changes to scenes? In this study, we tested scene memory and change detection two weeks after initial scene learning. In Experiments 1-3, scenes were learned incidentally during visual search for change. In Experiment 4, observers explicitly memorized scenes. At test, after two weeks observers were asked to discriminate old from new scenes, to recall a change that they had detected in the study phase, or to detect a newly introduced change in the memorization experiment. Next, they performed a change detection task, usually looking for the same change as in the study period. Scene recognition memory was found to be similar in all experiments, regardless of the study task. In Experiment 1, more difficult change detection produced better scene memory. Experiments 2 and 3 supported a "depth-of-processing" account for the effects of initial search and change detection on incidental memory for scenes. Of most interest, change detection was faster during the test phase than during the study phase, even when the observer had no explicit memory of having found that change previously. This result was replicated in two of our three change detection experiments. We conclude that scenes can be encoded incidentally as well as explicitly and that changes in those scenes can leave measurable traces even if they are not explicitly recalled.

“... if there’s a party, then there’s definitely alcohol”. Construction of partying practices and abstinence in Estonian youth forums

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Parder Mari-Liisa

2015-12-01

Full Text Available AIMS – Adolescents’ abstinence from alcohol has not been much researched in terms of providing suggestions for prevention strategies. This study aims to fill that gap by offering a practice theory-inspired analysis of how the unwritten rules of partying practices are communicated between posters of Estonian youth forums.

Multiscale deep features learning for land-use scene recognition

Science.gov (United States)

Yuan, Baohua; Li, Shijin; Li, Ning

2018-01-01

The features extracted from deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have shown their promise as generic descriptors for land-use scene recognition. However, most of the work directly adopts the deep features for the classification of remote sensing images, and does not encode the deep features for improving their discriminative power, which can affect the performance of deep feature representations. To address this issue, we propose an effective framework, LASC-CNN, obtained by locality-constrained affine subspace coding (LASC) pooling of a CNN filter bank. LASC-CNN obtains more discriminative deep features than directly extracted from CNNs. Furthermore, LASC-CNN builds on the top convolutional layers of CNNs, which can incorporate multiscale information and regions of arbitrary resolution and sizes. Our experiments have been conducted using two widely used remote sensing image databases, and the results show that the proposed method significantly improves the performance when compared to other state-of-the-art methods.

Depth estimation of complex geometry scenes from light fields

Science.gov (United States)

Si, Lipeng; Wang, Qing

2018-01-01

The surface camera (SCam) of light fields gathers angular sample rays passing through a 3D point. The consistency of SCams is evaluated to estimate the depth map of scene. But the consistency is affected by several limitations such as occlusions or non-Lambertian surfaces. To solve those limitations, the SCam is partitioned into two segments that one of them could satisfy the consistency constraint. The segmentation pattern of SCam is highly related to the texture of spatial patch, so we enforce a mask matching to describe the shape correlation between segments of SCam and spatial patch. To further address the ambiguity in textureless region, a global method with pixel-wise plane label is presented. Plane label inference at each pixel can recover not only depth value but also local geometry structure, that is suitable for light fields with sub-pixel disparities and continuous view variation. Our method is evaluated on public light field datasets and outperforms the state-of-the-art.

Fitting boxes to Manhattan scenes using linear integer programming

KAUST Repository

Li, Minglei

2016-02-19

We propose an approach for automatic generation of building models by assembling a set of boxes using a Manhattan-world assumption. The method first aligns the point cloud with a per-building local coordinate system, and then fits axis-aligned planes to the point cloud through an iterative regularization process. The refined planes partition the space of the data into a series of compact cubic cells (candidate boxes) spanning the entire 3D space of the input data. We then choose to approximate the target building by the assembly of a subset of these candidate boxes using a binary linear programming formulation. The objective function is designed to maximize the point cloud coverage and the compactness of the final model. Finally, all selected boxes are merged into a lightweight polygonal mesh model, which is suitable for interactive visualization of large scale urban scenes. Experimental results and a comparison with state-of-the-art methods demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework.

Scene reassembly after multimodal digitization and pipeline evaluation using photorealistic rendering

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Stets, Jonathan Dyssel; Dal Corso, Alessandro; Nielsen, Jannik Boll

2017-01-01

of the lighting environment. This enables pixelwise comparison of photographs of the real scene with renderings of the digital version of the scene. Such quantitative evaluation is useful for verifying acquired material appearance and reconstructed surface geometry, which is an important aspect of digital content......Transparent objects require acquisition modalities that are very different from the ones used for objects with more diffuse reflectance properties. Digitizing a scene where objects must be acquired with different modalities requires scene reassembly after reconstruction of the object surfaces....... This reassembly of a scene that was picked apart for scanning seems unexplored. We contribute with a multimodal digitization pipeline for scenes that require this step of reassembly. Our pipeline includes measurement of bidirectional reflectance distribution functions and high dynamic range imaging...

Dynamic Frames Based Generation of 3D Scenes and Applications

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Danijel Radošević

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Modern graphic/programming tools like Unity enables the possibility of creating 3D scenes as well as making 3D scene based program applications, including full physical model, motion, sounds, lightning effects etc. This paper deals with the usage of dynamic frames based generator in the automatic generation of 3D scene and related source code. The suggested model enables the possibility to specify features of the 3D scene in a form of textual specification, as well as exporting such features from a 3D tool. This approach enables higher level of code generation flexibility and the reusability of the main code and scene artifacts in a form of textual templates. An example of the generated application is presented and discussed.

Visual search in scenes involves selective and non-selective pathways

Science.gov (United States)

Wolfe, Jeremy M; Vo, Melissa L-H; Evans, Karla K; Greene, Michelle R

2010-01-01

How do we find objects in scenes? For decades, visual search models have been built on experiments in which observers search for targets, presented among distractor items, isolated and randomly arranged on blank backgrounds. Are these models relevant to search in continuous scenes? This paper argues that the mechanisms that govern artificial, laboratory search tasks do play a role in visual search in scenes. However, scene-based information is used to guide search in ways that had no place in earlier models. Search in scenes may be best explained by a dual-path model: A “selective” path in which candidate objects must be individually selected for recognition and a “non-selective” path in which information can be extracted from global / statistical information. PMID:21227734

Medical History's Moment in Art Photography (1920 to 1950): How Lejaren à Hiller and Valentino Sarra Created a Fashion for Scenes of Early Surgery.

Science.gov (United States)

Hansen, Bert

2017-10-01

Two groups of black-and-white photographs are found in medical rare book rooms and the collections of historically minded physicians. They were created by artists Hiller and Sarra to bring medical history to life for members of the health professions and, to some extent, for a wider public. These were not didactic illustrations for a textbook, but elegant scenes of great figures from Antiquity to the nineteenth century, evocation not documentation even though they were based on research. As pieces of fine art, cherished in portfolios or framed on the wall, the quality prints were intended to stimulate curiosity about the achievements of the figures portrayed. While familiar to some archivists and librarians, these photographs have received almost no attention in the scholarship of medical history. Only one short article examined them in 1983. In recent years these photographers have been given new consideration by scholars of advertising and photography. Using those works and primary sources, this article expands both men's biographies, and it explores their working methods, their artistry, and their achievements. An appreciation of these photographs enlarges our understanding of the place of medical history in American culture during the first half of the twentieth century. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Radiative transfer model for heterogeneous 3-D scenes

Science.gov (United States)

Kimes, D. S.; Kirchner, J. A.

1982-01-01

A general mathematical framework for simulating processes in heterogeneous 3-D scenes is presented. Specifically, a model was designed and coded for application to radiative transfers in vegetative scenes. The model is unique in that it predicts (1) the directional spectral reflectance factors as a function of the sensor's azimuth and zenith angles and the sensor's position above the canopy, (2) the spectral absorption as a function of location within the scene, and (3) the directional spectral radiance as a function of the sensor's location within the scene. The model was shown to follow known physical principles of radiative transfer. Initial verification of the model as applied to a soybean row crop showed that the simulated directional reflectance data corresponded relatively well in gross trends to the measured data. However, the model can be greatly improved by incorporating more sophisticated and realistic anisotropic scattering algorithms

Two Distinct Scene-Processing Networks Connecting Vision and Memory.

Science.gov (United States)

Baldassano, Christopher; Esteva, Andre; Fei-Fei, Li; Beck, Diane M

2016-01-01

A number of regions in the human brain are known to be involved in processing natural scenes, but the field has lacked a unifying framework for understanding how these different regions are organized and interact. We provide evidence from functional connectivity and meta-analyses for a new organizational principle, in which scene processing relies upon two distinct networks that split the classically defined parahippocampal place area (PPA). The first network of strongly connected regions consists of the occipital place area/transverse occipital sulcus and posterior PPA, which contain retinotopic maps and are not strongly coupled to the hippocampus at rest. The second network consists of the caudal inferior parietal lobule, retrosplenial complex, and anterior PPA, which connect to the hippocampus (especially anterior hippocampus), and are implicated in both visual and nonvisual tasks, including episodic memory and navigation. We propose that these two distinct networks capture the primary functional division among scene-processing regions, between those that process visual features from the current view of a scene and those that connect information from a current scene view with a much broader temporal and spatial context. This new framework for understanding the neural substrates of scene-processing bridges results from many lines of research, and makes specific functional predictions.

Creating photo-realistic works in a 3D scene using layers styles to create an animation

Science.gov (United States)

Avramescu, A. M.

2015-11-01

Creating realist objects in a 3D scene is not an easy work. We have to be very careful to make the creation very detailed. If we don't know how to make these photo-realistic works, by using the techniques and a good reference photo we can create an amazing amount of detail and realism. For example, in this article there are some of these detailed methods from which we can learn the techniques necessary to make beautiful and realistic objects in a scene. More precisely, in this paper, we present how to create a 3D animated scene, mainly using the Pen Tool and Blending Options. Indeed, this work is based on teaching some simple ways of using the Layer Styles to create some great shadows, lights, textures and a realistic sense of 3 Dimension. The present work involves also showing how some interesting ways of using the illuminating and rendering options can create a realistic effect in a scene. Moreover, this article shows how to create photo realistic 3D models from a digital image. The present work proposes to present how to use Illustrator paths, texturing, basic lighting and rendering, how to apply textures and how to parent the building and objects components. We also propose to use this proposition to recreate smaller details or 3D objects from a 2D image. After a critic art stage, we are able now to present in this paper the architecture of a design method that proposes to create an animation. The aim is to create a conceptual and methodological tutorial to address this issue both scientifically and in practice. This objective also includes proposing, on strong scientific basis, a model that gives the possibility of a better understanding of the techniques necessary to create a realistic animation.

Taxes, Estonian state budget and economic crises. Maksud, riigi eelarve ja majanduskriis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Olev Raju

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Recession has sharply erected the question of tax burden and the optimal proportion of different kinds of taxes among the incomes of the budget. Indirect taxes and consumption taxes, which proportion is different according to different methodologies, dominate in Estonian state budget. The buoyancy of a tax system based on taxes of that kind is especially weak during the recession. Difficulties concerning the incomes of budget have arisen the necessity for lifting taxes, which is possible as the tax burden is low now. But a sharp question of the optimal level of taxes is going to be raised. A formula for indirect tax optimum according to Ramsey taxes and Slutski decomposition has been proposed in the article.

Earth as art three

Science.gov (United States)

,

2010-01-01

For most of us, deserts, mountains, river valleys, coastlines even dry lakebeds are relatively familiar features of the Earth's terrestrial environment. For earth scientists, they are the focus of considerable scientific research. Viewed from a unique and unconventional perspective, Earth's geographic attributes can also be a surprising source of awe-inspiring art. That unique perspective is space. The artists for the Earth as Art Three exhibit are the Landsat 5 and Landsat 7 satellites, which orbit approximately 705 kilometers (438 miles) above the Earth's surface. While studying the images these satellites beam down daily, researchers are often struck by the sheer beauty of the scenes. Such images inspire the imagination and go beyond scientific value to remind us how stunning, intricate, and simply amazing our planet's features can be. Instead of paint, the medium for these works of art is light. But Landsat satellite sensors don't see light as human eyes do; instead, they see radiant energy reflected from Earth's surface in certain wavelengths, or bands, of red, green, blue, and infrared light. When these different bands are combined into a single image, remarkable patterns, colors, and shapes emerge. The Earth as Art Three exhibit provides fresh and inspiring glimpses of different parts of our planet's complex surface. The images in this collection were chosen solely based on their aesthetic appeal. Many of the images have been manipulated to enhance color variations or details. They are not intended for scientific interpretation only for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!

Hierarchy-associated semantic-rule inference framework for classifying indoor scenes

Science.gov (United States)

Yu, Dan; Liu, Peng; Ye, Zhipeng; Tang, Xianglong; Zhao, Wei

2016-03-01

Typically, the initial task of classifying indoor scenes is challenging, because the spatial layout and decoration of a scene can vary considerably. Recent efforts at classifying object relationships commonly depend on the results of scene annotation and predefined rules, making classification inflexible. Furthermore, annotation results are easily affected by external factors. Inspired by human cognition, a scene-classification framework was proposed using the empirically based annotation (EBA) and a match-over rule-based (MRB) inference system. The semantic hierarchy of images is exploited by EBA to construct rules empirically for MRB classification. The problem of scene classification is divided into low-level annotation and high-level inference from a macro perspective. Low-level annotation involves detecting the semantic hierarchy and annotating the scene with a deformable-parts model and a bag-of-visual-words model. In high-level inference, hierarchical rules are extracted to train the decision tree for classification. The categories of testing samples are generated from the parts to the whole. Compared with traditional classification strategies, the proposed semantic hierarchy and corresponding rules reduce the effect of a variable background and improve the classification performance. The proposed framework was evaluated on a popular indoor scene dataset, and the experimental results demonstrate its effectiveness.

Cognitive organization of roadway scenes : an empirical study.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Gundy, C.M.

1995-01-01

This report describes six studies investigating the cognitive organization of roadway scenes. These scenes were represented by still photographs taken on a number of roads outside of built-up areas. Seventy-eight drivers, stratified by age and sex to simulate the Dutch driving population,

Attitudes of Academic Staff towards Their Own Work and towards External Evaluation, from the Perspective of Self-Determination Theory: Estonian Case

Science.gov (United States)

Seema, Riin; Udam, Maiki; Mattisen, Heli

2016-01-01

The purpose of this study was to ascertain the attitudes of academic staff towards their own work as well as towards external evaluations. The study was based on (1) an analysis of assessment reports of institutional accreditations conducted by the Estonian Quality Agency for Higher and Vocational Education and (2) self-determination theory on…

Performance Benefits with Scene-Linked HUD Symbology: An Attentional Phenomenon?

Science.gov (United States)

Levy, Jonathan L.; Foyle, David C.; McCann, Robert S.; Null, Cynthia H. (Technical Monitor)

1999-01-01

Previous research has shown that in a simulated flight task, navigating a path defined by ground markers while maintaining a target altitude is more accurate when an altitude indicator appears in a virtual "scenelinked" format (projected symbology moving as if it were part of the out-the-window environment) compared to the fixed-location, superimposed format found on present-day HUDs (Foyle, McCann & Shelden, 1995). One explanation of the scene-linked performance advantage is that attention can be divided between scene-linked symbology and the outside world more efficiently than between standard (fixed-position) HUD symbology and the outside world. The present study tested two alternative explanations by manipulating the location of the scene-linked HUD symbology relative to the ground path markers. Scene-linked symbology yielded better ground path-following performance than standard fixed-location superimposed symbology regardless of whether the scene-linked symbology appeared directly along the ground path or at various distances off the path. The results support the explanation that the performance benefits found with scene-linked symbology are attentional.

Scene complexity: influence on perception, memory, and development in the medial temporal lobe

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xiaoqian J Chai

2010-03-01

Full Text Available Regions in the medial temporal lobe (MTL and prefrontal cortex (PFC are involved in memory formation for scenes in both children and adults. The development in children and adolescents of successful memory encoding for scenes has been associated with increased activation in PFC, but not MTL, regions. However, evidence suggests that a functional subregion of the MTL that supports scene perception, located in the parahippocampal gyrus (PHG, goes through a prolonged maturation process. Here we tested the hypothesis that maturation of scene perception supports the development of memory for complex scenes. Scenes were characterized by their levels of complexity defined by the number of unique object categories depicted in the scene. Recognition memory improved with age, in participants ages 8-24, for high, but not low, complexity scenes. High-complexity compared to low-complexity scenes activated a network of regions including the posterior PHG. The difference in activations for high- versus low- complexity scenes increased with age in the right posterior PHG. Finally, activations in right posterior PHG were associated with age-related increases in successful memory formation for high-, but not low-, complexity scenes. These results suggest that functional maturation of the right posterior PHG plays a critical role in the development of enduring long-term recollection for high-complexity scenes.

Crime Scene Investigation.

Science.gov (United States)

Harris, Barbara; Kohlmeier, Kris; Kiel, Robert D.

Casting students in grades 5 through 12 in the roles of reporters, lawyers, and detectives at the scene of a crime, this interdisciplinary activity involves participants in the intrigue and drama of crime investigation. Using a hands-on, step-by-step approach, students work in teams to investigate a crime and solve a mystery. Through role-playing…

SCEGRAM: An image database for semantic and syntactic inconsistencies in scenes.

Science.gov (United States)

Öhlschläger, Sabine; Võ, Melissa Le-Hoa

2017-10-01

Our visual environment is not random, but follows compositional rules according to what objects are usually found where. Despite the growing interest in how such semantic and syntactic rules - a scene grammar - enable effective attentional guidance and object perception, no common image database containing highly-controlled object-scene modifications has been publically available. Such a database is essential in minimizing the risk that low-level features drive high-level effects of interest, which is being discussed as possible source of controversial study results. To generate the first database of this kind - SCEGRAM - we took photographs of 62 real-world indoor scenes in six consistency conditions that contain semantic and syntactic (both mild and extreme) violations as well as their combinations. Importantly, always two scenes were paired, so that an object was semantically consistent in one scene (e.g., ketchup in kitchen) and inconsistent in the other (e.g., ketchup in bathroom). Low-level salience did not differ between object-scene conditions and was generally moderate. Additionally, SCEGRAM contains consistency ratings for every object-scene condition, as well as object-absent scenes and object-only images. Finally, a cross-validation using eye-movements replicated previous results of longer dwell times for both semantic and syntactic inconsistencies compared to consistent controls. In sum, the SCEGRAM image database is the first to contain well-controlled semantic and syntactic object-scene inconsistencies that can be used in a broad range of cognitive paradigms (e.g., verbal and pictorial priming, change detection, object identification, etc.) including paradigms addressing developmental aspects of scene grammar. SCEGRAM can be retrieved for research purposes from http://www.scenegrammarlab.com/research/scegram-database/ .

Changing scenes: memory for naturalistic events following change blindness.

Science.gov (United States)

Mäntylä, Timo; Sundström, Anna

2004-11-01

Research on scene perception indicates that viewers often fail to detect large changes to scene regions when these changes occur during a visual disruption such as a saccade or a movie cut. In two experiments, we examined whether this relative inability to detect changes would produce systematic biases in event memory. In Experiment 1, participants decided whether two successively presented images were the same or different, followed by a memory task, in which they recalled the content of the viewed scene. In Experiment 2, participants viewed a short video, in which an actor carried out a series of daily activities, and central scenes' attributes were changed during a movie cut. A high degree of change blindness was observed in both experiments, and these effects were related to scene complexity (Experiment 1) and level of retrieval support (Experiment 2). Most important, participants reported the changed, rather than the initial, event attributes following a failure in change detection. These findings suggest that attentional limitations during encoding contribute to biases in episodic memory.

Sensory substitution: the spatial updating of auditory scenes ‘mimics’ the spatial updating of visual scenes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Achille ePasqualotto

2016-04-01

Full Text Available Visual-to-auditory sensory substitution is used to convey visual information through audition, and it was initially created to compensate for blindness; it consists of software converting the visual images captured by a video-camera into the equivalent auditory images, or ‘soundscapes’. Here, it was used by blindfolded sighted participants to learn the spatial position of simple shapes depicted in images arranged on the floor. Very few studies have used sensory substitution to investigate spatial representation, while it has been widely used to investigate object recognition. Additionally, with sensory substitution we could study the performance of participants actively exploring the environment through audition, rather than passively localising sound sources. Blindfolded participants egocentrically learnt the position of six images by using sensory substitution and then a judgement of relative direction task (JRD was used to determine how this scene was represented. This task consists of imagining being in a given location, oriented in a given direction, and pointing towards the required image. Before performing the JRD task, participants explored a map that provided allocentric information about the scene. Although spatial exploration was egocentric, surprisingly we found that performance in the JRD task was better for allocentric perspectives. This suggests that the egocentric representation of the scene was updated. This result is in line with previous studies using visual and somatosensory scenes, thus supporting the notion that different sensory modalities produce equivalent spatial representation(s. Moreover, our results have practical implications to improve training methods with sensory substitution devices.

Mental Layout Extrapolations Prime Spatial Processing of Scenes

Science.gov (United States)

Gottesman, Carmela V.

2011-01-01

Four experiments examined whether scene processing is facilitated by layout representation, including layout that was not perceived but could be predicted based on a previous partial view (boundary extension). In a priming paradigm (after Sanocki, 2003), participants judged objects' distances in photographs. In Experiment 1, full scenes (target),…

Colour agnosia impairs the recognition of natural but not of non-natural scenes.

Science.gov (United States)

Nijboer, Tanja C W; Van Der Smagt, Maarten J; Van Zandvoort, Martine J E; De Haan, Edward H F

2007-03-01

Scene recognition can be enhanced by appropriate colour information, yet the level of visual processing at which colour exerts its effects is still unclear. It has been suggested that colour supports low-level sensory processing, while others have claimed that colour information aids semantic categorization and recognition of objects and scenes. We investigated the effect of colour on scene recognition in a case of colour agnosia, M.A.H. In a scene identification task, participants had to name images of natural or non-natural scenes in six different formats. Irrespective of scene format, M.A.H. was much slower on the natural than on the non-natural scenes. As expected, neither M.A.H. nor control participants showed any difference in performance for the non-natural scenes. However, for the natural scenes, appropriate colour facilitated scene recognition in control participants (i.e., shorter reaction times), whereas M.A.H.'s performance did not differ across formats. Our data thus support the hypothesis that the effect of colour occurs at the level of learned associations.

Graphics processing unit (GPU) real-time infrared scene generation

Science.gov (United States)

Christie, Chad L.; Gouthas, Efthimios (Themie); Williams, Owen M.

2007-04-01

VIRSuite, the GPU-based suite of software tools developed at DSTO for real-time infrared scene generation, is described. The tools include the painting of scene objects with radiometrically-associated colours, translucent object generation, polar plot validation and versatile scene generation. Special features include radiometric scaling within the GPU and the presence of zoom anti-aliasing at the core of VIRSuite. Extension of the zoom anti-aliasing construct to cover target embedding and the treatment of translucent objects is described.

Semantic guidance of eye movements in real-world scenes

OpenAIRE

Hwang, Alex D.; Wang, Hsueh-Cheng; Pomplun, Marc

2011-01-01

The perception of objects in our visual world is influenced by not only their low-level visual features such as shape and color, but also their high-level features such as meaning and semantic relations among them. While it has been shown that low-level features in real-world scenes guide eye movements during scene inspection and search, the influence of semantic similarity among scene objects on eye movements in such situations has not been investigated. Here we study guidance of eye movemen...

Picture models for 2-scene comics creating system

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Miki UENO

2015-03-01

Full Text Available Recently, computer understanding pictures and stories becomes one of the most important research topics in computer science. However, there are few researches about human like understanding by computers because pictures have not certain format and contain more lyric aspect than that of natural laguage. For picture understanding, a comic is the suitable target because it is consisted by clear and simple plot of stories and separated scenes.In this paper, we propose 2 different types of picture models for 2-scene comics creating system. We also show the method of the application of 2-scene comics creating system by means of proposed picture model.

The figure of the teacher in Estonian school discourse

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ott Puumeister

2014-10-01

Full Text Available The article concerns itself with the figure of the teacher in Estonian society. We do not concentrate on the educational system as a whole, but on one specific and crucial element in this apparatus - the teacher. We begin by offering a brief historical overview of the conditions of pedagogues in the 20th century before moving on to describe the adoption of neo-liberal free market policies since the 1990s and the effects these policies had and still have on education. Our main concern is to understand the teacher as an actor in power relations; to achieve this understanding we have selected as our examples 1 surveillance techniques in school environment that have direct relations to the state and the market; and 2 the 2012 educational workers' strike that made it quite clear that the teachers have been fixed to a position of wage workers. The overall and more abstract aim of the paper is to think about the social role of the teacher in Estonia.

Scene Categorization in Alzheimer's Disease: A Saccadic Choice Task

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Quentin Lenoble

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Aims: We investigated the performance in scene categorization of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD using a saccadic choice task. Method: 24 patients with mild AD, 28 age-matched controls and 26 young people participated in the study. The participants were presented pairs of coloured photographs and were asked to make a saccadic eye movement to the picture corresponding to the target scene (natural vs. urban, indoor vs. outdoor. Results: The patients' performance did not differ from chance for natural scenes. Differences between young and older controls and patients with AD were found in accuracy but not saccadic latency. Conclusions: The results are interpreted in terms of cerebral reorganization in the prefrontal and temporo-occipital cortex of patients with AD, but also in terms of impaired processing of visual global properties of scenes.

Defining spatial relations in a specific ontology for automated scene creation

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D. Contraş

2013-06-01

Full Text Available This paper presents the approach of building an ontology for automatic scene generation. Every scene contains various elements (backgrounds, characters, objects which are spatially interrelated. The article focuses on these spatial and temporal relationships of the elements constituting a scene.

Unsupervised semantic indoor scene classification for robot vision based on context of features using Gist and HSV-SIFT

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Madokoro, H.; Yamanashi, A.; Sato, K.

2013-08-01

This paper presents an unsupervised scene classification method for actualizing semantic recognition of indoor scenes. Background and foreground features are respectively extracted using Gist and color scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) as feature representations based on context. We used hue, saturation, and value SIFT (HSV-SIFT) because of its simple algorithm with low calculation costs. Our method creates bags of features for voting visual words created from both feature descriptors to a two-dimensional histogram. Moreover, our method generates labels as candidates of categories for time-series images while maintaining stability and plasticity together. Automatic labeling of category maps can be realized using labels created using adaptive resonance theory (ART) as teaching signals for counter propagation networks (CPNs). We evaluated our method for semantic scene classification using KTH's image database for robot localization (KTH-IDOL), which is popularly used for robot localization and navigation. The mean classification accuracies of Gist, gray SIFT, one class support vector machines (OC-SVM), position-invariant robust features (PIRF), and our method are, respectively, 39.7, 58.0, 56.0, 63.6, and 79.4%. The result of our method is 15.8% higher than that of PIRF. Moreover, we applied our method for fine classification using our original mobile robot. We obtained mean classification accuracy of 83.2% for six zones.

A hierarchical probabilistic model for rapid object categorization in natural scenes.

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Xiaofu He

Full Text Available Humans can categorize objects in complex natural scenes within 100-150 ms. This amazing ability of rapid categorization has motivated many computational models. Most of these models require extensive training to obtain a decision boundary in a very high dimensional (e.g., ∼6,000 in a leading model feature space and often categorize objects in natural scenes by categorizing the context that co-occurs with objects when objects do not occupy large portions of the scenes. It is thus unclear how humans achieve rapid scene categorization.To address this issue, we developed a hierarchical probabilistic model for rapid object categorization in natural scenes. In this model, a natural object category is represented by a coarse hierarchical probability distribution (PD, which includes PDs of object geometry and spatial configuration of object parts. Object parts are encoded by PDs of a set of natural object structures, each of which is a concatenation of local object features. Rapid categorization is performed as statistical inference. Since the model uses a very small number (∼100 of structures for even complex object categories such as animals and cars, it requires little training and is robust in the presence of large variations within object categories and in their occurrences in natural scenes. Remarkably, we found that the model categorized animals in natural scenes and cars in street scenes with a near human-level performance. We also found that the model located animals and cars in natural scenes, thus overcoming a flaw in many other models which is to categorize objects in natural context by categorizing contextual features. These results suggest that coarse PDs of object categories based on natural object structures and statistical operations on these PDs may underlie the human ability to rapidly categorize scenes.

Scene perception in posterior cortical atrophy: categorization, description and fixation patterns.

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Shakespeare, Timothy J; Yong, Keir X X; Frost, Chris; Kim, Lois G; Warrington, Elizabeth K; Crutch, Sebastian J

2013-01-01

Partial or complete Balint's syndrome is a core feature of the clinico-radiological syndrome of posterior cortical atrophy (PCA), in which individuals experience a progressive deterioration of cortical vision. Although multi-object arrays are frequently used to detect simultanagnosia in the clinical assessment and diagnosis of PCA, to date there have been no group studies of scene perception in patients with the syndrome. The current study involved three linked experiments conducted in PCA patients and healthy controls. Experiment 1 evaluated the accuracy and latency of complex scene perception relative to individual faces and objects (color and grayscale) using a categorization paradigm. PCA patients were both less accurate (faces < scenes < objects) and slower (scenes < objects < faces) than controls on all categories, with performance strongly associated with their level of basic visual processing impairment; patients also showed a small advantage for color over grayscale stimuli. Experiment 2 involved free description of real world scenes. PCA patients generated fewer features and more misperceptions than controls, though perceptual errors were always consistent with the patient's global understanding of the scene (whether correct or not). Experiment 3 used eye tracking measures to compare patient and control eye movements over initial and subsequent fixations of scenes. Patients' fixation patterns were significantly different to those of young and age-matched controls, with comparable group differences for both initial and subsequent fixations. Overall, these findings describe the variability in everyday scene perception exhibited by individuals with PCA, and indicate the importance of exposure duration in the perception of complex scenes.

Scene perception in Posterior Cortical Atrophy: categorisation, description and fixation patterns

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Timothy J Shakespeare

2013-10-01

Full Text Available Partial or complete Balint’s syndrome is a core feature of the clinico-radiological syndrome of posterior cortical atrophy (PCA, in which individuals experience a progressive deterioration of cortical vision. Although multi-object arrays are frequently used to detect simultanagnosia in the clinical assessment and diagnosis of PCA, to date there have been no group studies of scene perception in patients with the syndrome. The current study involved three linked experiments conducted in PCA patients and healthy controls. Experiment 1 evaluated the accuracy and latency of complex scene perception relative to individual faces and objects (colour and greyscale using a categorisation paradigm. PCA patients were both less accurate (faces<scenesscenesscenes. PCA patients generated fewer features and more misperceptions than controls, though perceptual errors were always consistent with the patient’s global understanding of the scene (whether correct or not. Experiment 3 used eye tracking measures to compare patient and control eye movements over initial and subsequent fixations of scenes. Patients’ fixation patterns were significantly different to those of young and age-matched controls, with comparable group differences for both initial and subsequent fixations. Overall, these findings describe the variability in everyday scene perception exhibited by individuals with PCA, and indicate the importance of exposure duration in the perception of complex scenes.

Performative Research in Art Education: Scenes from the Seminar "Exploring Performative Rituals in City Space"

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Ulrike Stutz

2008-05-01

Full Text Available In my contribution, I lay the foundations for a performative approach to art education research and then apply it to three examples from a performance seminar conducted with university students. In the process, I subject video documentaries produced during performative exploration of everyday rituals in public space, to a fresh performative analysis using media techniques. My research interest targets the reactions of passers-by as an expanded audience, i.e., it targets the qualitative changes of social space brought about by these actions of site specific art. The contribution is presented as a multimedia document with videos and animations. The parallel presentation of different media formats produces differentiating and activating readings. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0802514

System and method for extracting dominant orientations from a scene

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Straub, Julian; Rosman, Guy; Freifeld, Oren; Leonard, John J.; Fisher, III; , John W.

2017-05-30

In one embodiment, a method of identifying the dominant orientations of a scene comprises representing a scene as a plurality of directional vectors. The scene may comprise a three-dimensional representation of a scene, and the plurality of directional vectors may comprise a plurality of surface normals. The method further comprises determining, based on the plurality of directional vectors, a plurality of orientations describing the scene. The determined plurality of orientations explains the directionality of the plurality of directional vectors. In certain embodiments, the plurality of orientations may have independent axes of rotation. The plurality of orientations may be determined by representing the plurality of directional vectors as lying on a mathematical representation of a sphere, and inferring the parameters of a statistical model to adapt the plurality of orientations to explain the positioning of the plurality of directional vectors lying on the mathematical representation of the sphere.

AR goggles make crime scene investigation a desk job

OpenAIRE

Aron, Jacob; NORTHFIELD, Dean

2012-01-01

CRIME scene investigators could one day help solve murders without leaving the office. A pair of augmented reality glasses could allow local police to virtually tag objects in a crime scene, and build a clean record of the scene in 3D video before evidence is removed for processing.\\ud The system, being developed by Oytun Akman and colleagues at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, consists of a head-mounted display receiving 3D video from a pair of attached cameras controll...

Oculomotor capture during real-world scene viewing depends on cognitive load.

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Matsukura, Michi; Brockmole, James R; Boot, Walter R; Henderson, John M

2011-03-25

It has been claimed that gaze control during scene viewing is largely governed by stimulus-driven, bottom-up selection mechanisms. Recent research, however, has strongly suggested that observers' top-down control plays a dominant role in attentional prioritization in scenes. A notable exception to this strong top-down control is oculomotor capture, where visual transients in a scene draw the eyes. One way to test whether oculomotor capture during scene viewing is independent of an observer's top-down goal setting is to reduce observers' cognitive resource availability. In the present study, we examined whether increasing observers' cognitive load influences the frequency and speed of oculomotor capture during scene viewing. In Experiment 1, we tested whether increasing observers' cognitive load modulates the degree of oculomotor capture by a new object suddenly appeared in a scene. Similarly, in Experiment 2, we tested whether increasing observers' cognitive load modulates the degree of oculomotor capture by an object's color change. In both experiments, the degree of oculomotor capture decreased as observers' cognitive resources were reduced. These results suggest that oculomotor capture during scene viewing is dependent on observers' top-down selection mechanisms. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Gay and Lesbian Scene in Metelkova

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Nataša Velikonja

2013-09-01

Full Text Available The article deals with the development of the gay and lesbian scene in ACC Metelkova, while specifying the preliminary aspects of establishing and building gay and lesbian activism associated with spatial issues. The struggle for space or occupying public space is vital for the gay and lesbian scene, as it provides not only the necessary socializing opportunities for gays and lesbians, but also does away with the historical hiding of homosexuality in the closet, in seclusion and silence. Because of their autonomy and long-term, continuous existence, homo-clubs at Metelkova contributed to the consolidation of the gay and lesbian scene in Slovenia and significantly improved the opportunities for cultural, social and political expression of gays and lesbians. Such a synthesis of the cultural, social and political, further intensified in Metelkova, and characterizes the gay and lesbian community in Slovenia from the very outset of gay and lesbian activism in 1984. It is this long-term synthesis that keeps this community in Slovenia so vital and politically resilient.

License plate localization in complex scenes based on oriented FAST and rotated BRIEF feature

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Wang, Ran; Xia, Yuanchun; Wang, Guoyou; Tian, Jiangmin

2015-09-01

Within intelligent transportation systems, fast and robust license plate localization (LPL) in complex scenes is still a challenging task. Real-world scenes introduce complexities such as variation in license plate size and orientation, uneven illumination, background clutter, and nonplate objects. These complexities lead to poor performance using traditional LPL features, such as color, edge, and texture. Recently, state-of-the-art performance in LPL has been achieved by applying the scale invariant feature transform (SIFT) descriptor to LPL for visual matching. However, for applications that require fast processing, such as mobile phones, SIFT does not meet the efficiency requirement due to its relatively slow computational speed. To address this problem, a new approach for LPL, which uses the oriented FAST and rotated BRIEF (ORB) feature detector, is proposed. The feature extraction in ORB is much more efficient than in SIFT and is invariant to scale and grayscale as well as rotation changes, and hence is able to provide superior performance for LPL. The potential regions of a license plate are detected by considering spatial and color information simultaneously, which is different from previous approaches. The experimental results on a challenging dataset demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed method.

Smoking prevalence and attitudes towards smoking among Estonian physicians: results from cross-sectional studies in 2002 and 2014

OpenAIRE

Põld, Mariliis; Pärna, Kersti

2017-01-01

Objectives To explore smoking prevalence and attitudes towards smoking among Estonian physicians in 2002 and 2014. Design Two self-administered cross-sectional postal surveys were conducted among practising physicians in Estonia. Participants Initial sample consisted of all practising physicians in Estonia. The corrected response rate was 67.8% in 2002 and 53.1% in 2014. Present study sample was restricted to physicians younger than 65 years (n=2549 in 2002, n=2339 in 2014). Methods Age-stand...

Audio scene segmentation for video with generic content

Science.gov (United States)

Niu, Feng; Goela, Naveen; Divakaran, Ajay; Abdel-Mottaleb, Mohamed

2008-01-01

In this paper, we present a content-adaptive audio texture based method to segment video into audio scenes. The audio scene is modeled as a semantically consistent chunk of audio data. Our algorithm is based on "semantic audio texture analysis." At first, we train GMM models for basic audio classes such as speech, music, etc. Then we define the semantic audio texture based on those classes. We study and present two types of scene changes, those corresponding to an overall audio texture change and those corresponding to a special "transition marker" used by the content creator, such as a short stretch of music in a sitcom or silence in dramatic content. Unlike prior work using genre specific heuristics, such as some methods presented for detecting commercials, we adaptively find out if such special transition markers are being used and if so, which of the base classes are being used as markers without any prior knowledge about the content. Our experimental results show that our proposed audio scene segmentation works well across a wide variety of broadcast content genres.

Simulator scene display evaluation device

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Haines, R. F. (Inventor)

1986-01-01

An apparatus for aligning and calibrating scene displays in an aircraft simulator has a base on which all of the instruments for the aligning and calibrating are mounted. Laser directs beam at double right prism which is attached to pivoting support on base. The pivot point of the prism is located at the design eye point (DEP) of simulator during the aligning and calibrating. The objective lens in the base is movable on a track to follow the laser beam at different angles within the field of vision at the DEP. An eyepiece and a precision diopter are movable into a position behind the prism during the scene evaluation. A photometer or illuminometer is pivotable about the pivot into and out of position behind the eyepiece.

Parallel programming of saccades during natural scene viewing: evidence from eye movement positions.

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Wu, Esther X W; Gilani, Syed Omer; van Boxtel, Jeroen J A; Amihai, Ido; Chua, Fook Kee; Yen, Shih-Cheng

2013-10-24

Previous studies have shown that saccade plans during natural scene viewing can be programmed in parallel. This evidence comes mainly from temporal indicators, i.e., fixation durations and latencies. In the current study, we asked whether eye movement positions recorded during scene viewing also reflect parallel programming of saccades. As participants viewed scenes in preparation for a memory task, their inspection of the scene was suddenly disrupted by a transition to another scene. We examined whether saccades after the transition were invariably directed immediately toward the center or were contingent on saccade onset times relative to the transition. The results, which showed a dissociation in eye movement behavior between two groups of saccades after the scene transition, supported the parallel programming account. Saccades with relatively long onset times (>100 ms) after the transition were directed immediately toward the center of the scene, probably to restart scene exploration. Saccades with short onset times (programming of saccades during scene viewing. Additionally, results from the analyses of intersaccadic intervals were also consistent with the parallel programming hypothesis.

Synchronous contextual irregularities affect early scene processing: replication and extension.

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Mudrik, Liad; Shalgi, Shani; Lamy, Dominique; Deouell, Leon Y

2014-04-01

Whether contextual regularities facilitate perceptual stages of scene processing is widely debated, and empirical evidence is still inconclusive. Specifically, it was recently suggested that contextual violations affect early processing of a scene only when the incongruent object and the scene are presented a-synchronously, creating expectations. We compared event-related potentials (ERPs) evoked by scenes that depicted a person performing an action using either a congruent or an incongruent object (e.g., a man shaving with a razor or with a fork) when scene and object were presented simultaneously. We also explored the role of attention in contextual processing by using a pre-cue to direct subjects׳ attention towards or away from the congruent/incongruent object. Subjects׳ task was to determine how many hands the person in the picture used in order to perform the action. We replicated our previous findings of frontocentral negativity for incongruent scenes that started ~ 210 ms post stimulus presentation, even earlier than previously found. Surprisingly, this incongruency ERP effect was negatively correlated with the reaction times cost on incongruent scenes. The results did not allow us to draw conclusions about the role of attention in detecting the regularity, due to a weak attention manipulation. By replicating the 200-300 ms incongruity effect with a new group of subjects at even earlier latencies than previously reported, the results strengthen the evidence for contextual processing during this time window even when simultaneous presentation of the scene and object prevent the formation of prior expectations. We discuss possible methodological limitations that may account for previous failures to find this an effect, and conclude that contextual information affects object model selection processes prior to full object identification, with semantic knowledge activation stages unfolding only later on. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Motivational Objects in Natural Scenes (MONS: A Database of >800 Objects

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Judith Schomaker

2017-09-01

Full Text Available In daily life, we are surrounded by objects with pre-existing motivational associations. However, these are rarely controlled for in experiments with natural stimuli. Research on natural stimuli would therefore benefit from stimuli with well-defined motivational properties; in turn, such stimuli also open new paths in research on motivation. Here we introduce a database of Motivational Objects in Natural Scenes (MONS. The database consists of 107 scenes. Each scene contains 2 to 7 objects placed at approximately equal distance from the scene center. Each scene was photographed creating 3 versions, with one object (“critical object” being replaced to vary the overall motivational value of the scene (appetitive, aversive, and neutral, while maintaining high visual similarity between the three versions. Ratings on motivation, valence, arousal and recognizability were obtained using internet-based questionnaires. Since the main objective was to provide stimuli of well-defined motivational value, three motivation scales were used: (1 Desire to own the object; (2 Approach/Avoid; (3 Desire to interact with the object. Three sets of ratings were obtained in independent sets of observers: for all 805 objects presented on a neutral background, for 321 critical objects presented in their scene context, and for the entire scenes. On the basis of the motivational ratings, objects were subdivided into aversive, neutral, and appetitive categories. The MONS database will provide a standardized basis for future studies on motivational value under realistic conditions.

Motivational Objects in Natural Scenes (MONS): A Database of >800 Objects.

Science.gov (United States)

Schomaker, Judith; Rau, Elias M; Einhäuser, Wolfgang; Wittmann, Bianca C

2017-01-01

In daily life, we are surrounded by objects with pre-existing motivational associations. However, these are rarely controlled for in experiments with natural stimuli. Research on natural stimuli would therefore benefit from stimuli with well-defined motivational properties; in turn, such stimuli also open new paths in research on motivation. Here we introduce a database of Motivational Objects in Natural Scenes (MONS). The database consists of 107 scenes. Each scene contains 2 to 7 objects placed at approximately equal distance from the scene center. Each scene was photographed creating 3 versions, with one object ("critical object") being replaced to vary the overall motivational value of the scene (appetitive, aversive, and neutral), while maintaining high visual similarity between the three versions. Ratings on motivation, valence, arousal and recognizability were obtained using internet-based questionnaires. Since the main objective was to provide stimuli of well-defined motivational value, three motivation scales were used: (1) Desire to own the object; (2) Approach/Avoid; (3) Desire to interact with the object. Three sets of ratings were obtained in independent sets of observers: for all 805 objects presented on a neutral background, for 321 critical objects presented in their scene context, and for the entire scenes. On the basis of the motivational ratings, objects were subdivided into aversive, neutral, and appetitive categories. The MONS database will provide a standardized basis for future studies on motivational value under realistic conditions.

Live Entertainment in a Fairytale Art-Peripheral Tourist Setting

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Laila EL-Mahgary

2016-05-01

Full Text Available This article introduces a multidisciplinary study in which the different fields of musicology, social sciences and children’s ‘fairytale’ literature blend together. The interest in this topic came from a lack of attention in past studies on the art-peripheral performers’ and audiences’ experiences with the more popular form of entertainment in art-peripheral tourist settings. Another fundamental purpose for this research is to explore the important role of the art-peripheral ‘fairytale’ settings in transforming the different groups of hosts’ and guests’ everyday rational characters and performances, as they transgress from their cultural norms, and move through the liminal spaces of the sea. Consequently, new identities in Hurghada’s hotels’ fairytale scenes are being formed, and which are the outcome of localized and western, cultural, political, economic, and social constructions. The empirical method in this study puts emphasis on the texts of classical fairytale stories, which are used as an architextual model developed in the course of earlier research undertaken by the author. It is also well worth mentioning, that Hurghada’s art-peripheral hotel settings generate cultural tourism from the simple consumption of entertainment and popular music.

The Role of Parents and Parental Mediation on 0-3-Year Olds' Digital Play with Smart Devices: Estonian Parents' Attitudes and Practices

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Nevski, Elyna; Siibak, Andra

2016-01-01

In this manuscript, we analyse the attitudes and practices of Estonian parents (N = 198) who allowed their 0-3-year olds to use smart devices. We aimed to discover if there was an interaction between parental use of smart technologies, parents' attitudes and the child's age that would predict young children's usage of smart devices. We also wanted…

Cortical Representations of Speech in a Multitalker Auditory Scene.

Science.gov (United States)

Puvvada, Krishna C; Simon, Jonathan Z

2017-09-20

The ability to parse a complex auditory scene into perceptual objects is facilitated by a hierarchical auditory system. Successive stages in the hierarchy transform an auditory scene of multiple overlapping sources, from peripheral tonotopically based representations in the auditory nerve, into perceptually distinct auditory-object-based representations in the auditory cortex. Here, using magnetoencephalography recordings from men and women, we investigate how a complex acoustic scene consisting of multiple speech sources is represented in distinct hierarchical stages of the auditory cortex. Using systems-theoretic methods of stimulus reconstruction, we show that the primary-like areas in the auditory cortex contain dominantly spectrotemporal-based representations of the entire auditory scene. Here, both attended and ignored speech streams are represented with almost equal fidelity, and a global representation of the full auditory scene with all its streams is a better candidate neural representation than that of individual streams being represented separately. We also show that higher-order auditory cortical areas, by contrast, represent the attended stream separately and with significantly higher fidelity than unattended streams. Furthermore, the unattended background streams are more faithfully represented as a single unsegregated background object rather than as separated objects. Together, these findings demonstrate the progression of the representations and processing of a complex acoustic scene up through the hierarchy of the human auditory cortex. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Using magnetoencephalography recordings from human listeners in a simulated cocktail party environment, we investigate how a complex acoustic scene consisting of multiple speech sources is represented in separate hierarchical stages of the auditory cortex. We show that the primary-like areas in the auditory cortex use a dominantly spectrotemporal-based representation of the entire auditory

Improved content aware scene retargeting for retinitis pigmentosa patients

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Al-Atabany Walid I

2010-09-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background In this paper we present a novel scene retargeting technique to reduce the visual scene while maintaining the size of the key features. The algorithm is scalable to implementation onto portable devices, and thus, has potential for augmented reality systems to provide visual support for those with tunnel vision. We therefore test the efficacy of our algorithm on shrinking the visual scene into the remaining field of view for those patients. Methods Simple spatial compression of visual scenes makes objects appear further away. We have therefore developed an algorithm which removes low importance information, maintaining the size of the significant features. Previous approaches in this field have included seam carving, which removes low importance seams from the scene, and shrinkability which dynamically shrinks the scene according to a generated importance map. The former method causes significant artifacts and the latter is inefficient. In this work we have developed a new algorithm, combining the best aspects of both these two previous methods. In particular, our approach is to generate a shrinkability importance map using as seam based approach. We then use it to dynamically shrink the scene in similar fashion to the shrinkability method. Importantly, we have implemented it so that it can be used in real time without prior knowledge of future frames. Results We have evaluated and compared our algorithm to the seam carving and image shrinkability approaches from a content preservation perspective and a compression quality perspective. Also our technique has been evaluated and tested on a trial included 20 participants with simulated tunnel vision. Results show the robustness of our method at reducing scenes up to 50% with minimal distortion. We also demonstrate efficacy in its use for those with simulated tunnel vision of 22 degrees of field of view or less. Conclusions Our approach allows us to perform content aware video

Separate and simultaneous adjustment of light qualities in a real scene

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Xia, L.; Pont, S.C.; Heynderickx, I.E.J.R.

2017-01-01

Humans are able to estimate light field properties in a scene in that they have expectations of the objects' appearance inside it. Previously, we probed such expectations in a real scene by asking whether a "probe object" fitted a real scene with regard to its lighting. But how well are observers

Punk as a Strategy for Body Politicization in the Ljubljana Alternative Scene of the 1980s

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Jasmina Založnik

2017-10-01

Full Text Available The paper focuses on the notion of punk understood as a political position and as a strategy by the actors of the Ljubljana alternative scene in the 1980s. With exposing the minor, invisible and hidden subjectivities the actors and agents of the scene created a ground for experimentation with subjectivities, but also for shaking the Yugoslav Grand National narrative of ‘brotherhood and unity’. I am emphasizing mainly the notion of the body with and through the code of sex and sexuality, being still a base and the core investment of the government. No matter that the discourse has been radically changed, the procedures and protocols of power investments in their core have not. This is an additional reason and a need to recall the past and tackle the bodies that have appeared as unwanted, as ‘not right and not quiet’ identities in the past in order to evaluate and compare the position of the marginalized and suppressed today. Additionally, I am claiming that only with creating different genealogies can we fight against growing ‘intellectual redundancy’ and the continuous process of erasure of the subjectivities, which we are confronting today.   Article received: June 2, 2017; Article accepted: June 12, 2017; Published online: October 15, 2017; Original scholarly paper How to cite this article: Založnik, Jasmina. "Punk as a Strategy for Body Politicization in the Ljubljana Alternative Scene of the 1980s." AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 14 (2017: 145-156. doi: 10.25038/am.v0i14.217

Recognizing the Stranger: Recognition Scenes in the Gospel of John

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Larsen, Kasper Bro

Recognizing the Stranger is the first monographic study of recognition scenes and motifs in the Gospel of John. The recognition type-scene (anagnōrisis) was a common feature in ancient drama and narrative, highly valued by Aristotle as a touching moment of truth, e.g., in Oedipus’ tragic self...... structures of the type-scene in order to show how Jesus’ true identity can be recognized behind the half-mask of his human appearance....

SAR Raw Data Generation for Complex Airport Scenes

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Jia Li

2014-10-01

Full Text Available The method of generating the SAR raw data of complex airport scenes is studied in this paper. A formulation of the SAR raw signal model of airport scenes is given. Via generating the echoes from the background, aircrafts and buildings, respectively, the SAR raw data of the unified SAR imaging geometry is obtained from their vector additions. The multipath scattering and the shadowing between the background and different ground covers of standing airplanes and buildings are analyzed. Based on the scattering characteristics, coupling scattering models and SAR raw data models of different targets are given, respectively. A procedure is given to generate the SAR raw data of airport scenes. The SAR images from the simulated raw data demonstrate the validity of the proposed method.

Effects of aging on neural connectivity underlying selective memory for emotional scenes.

Science.gov (United States)

Waring, Jill D; Addis, Donna Rose; Kensinger, Elizabeth A

2013-02-01

Older adults show age-related reductions in memory for neutral items within complex visual scenes, but just like young adults, older adults exhibit a memory advantage for emotional items within scenes compared with the background scene information. The present study examined young and older adults' encoding-stage effective connectivity for selective memory of emotional items versus memory for both the emotional item and its background. In a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, participants viewed scenes containing either positive or negative items within neutral backgrounds. Outside the scanner, participants completed a memory test for items and backgrounds. Irrespective of scene content being emotionally positive or negative, older adults had stronger positive connections among frontal regions and from frontal regions to medial temporal lobe structures than did young adults, especially when items and backgrounds were subsequently remembered. These results suggest there are differences between young and older adults' connectivity accompanying the encoding of emotional scenes. Older adults may require more frontal connectivity to encode all elements of a scene rather than just encoding the emotional item. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Radio Wave Propagation Scene Partitioning for High-Speed Rails

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Bo Ai

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Radio wave propagation scene partitioning is necessary for wireless channel modeling. As far as we know, there are no standards of scene partitioning for high-speed rail (HSR scenarios, and therefore we propose the radio wave propagation scene partitioning scheme for HSR scenarios in this paper. Based on our measurements along the Wuhan-Guangzhou HSR, Zhengzhou-Xian passenger-dedicated line, Shijiazhuang-Taiyuan passenger-dedicated line, and Beijing-Tianjin intercity line in China, whose operation speeds are above 300 km/h, and based on the investigations on Beijing South Railway Station, Zhengzhou Railway Station, Wuhan Railway Station, Changsha Railway Station, Xian North Railway Station, Shijiazhuang North Railway Station, Taiyuan Railway Station, and Tianjin Railway Station, we obtain an overview of HSR propagation channels and record many valuable measurement data for HSR scenarios. On the basis of these measurements and investigations, we partitioned the HSR scene into twelve scenarios. Further work on theoretical analysis based on radio wave propagation mechanisms, such as reflection and diffraction, may lead us to develop the standard of radio wave propagation scene partitioning for HSR. Our work can also be used as a basis for the wireless channel modeling and the selection of some key techniques for HSR systems.

Unconscious analyses of visual scenes based on feature conjunctions.

Science.gov (United States)

Tachibana, Ryosuke; Noguchi, Yasuki

2015-06-01

To efficiently process a cluttered scene, the visual system analyzes statistical properties or regularities of visual elements embedded in the scene. It is controversial, however, whether those scene analyses could also work for stimuli unconsciously perceived. Here we show that our brain performs the unconscious scene analyses not only using a single featural cue (e.g., orientation) but also based on conjunctions of multiple visual features (e.g., combinations of color and orientation information). Subjects foveally viewed a stimulus array (duration: 50 ms) where 4 types of bars (red-horizontal, red-vertical, green-horizontal, and green-vertical) were intermixed. Although a conscious perception of those bars was inhibited by a subsequent mask stimulus, the brain correctly analyzed the information about color, orientation, and color-orientation conjunctions of those invisible bars. The information of those features was then used for the unconscious configuration analysis (statistical processing) of the central bars, which induced a perceptual bias and illusory feature binding in visible stimuli at peripheral locations. While statistical analyses and feature binding are normally 2 key functions of the visual system to construct coherent percepts of visual scenes, our results show that a high-level analysis combining those 2 functions is correctly performed by unconscious computations in the brain. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

The treatment of lexical collocations in EFL coursebooks in the Estonian secondary school context

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Liina Vassiljev

2015-04-01

Full Text Available The article investigates lexical collocations encountered in English as a Foreign Language (EFL instruction in Estonian upper secondary schools. This is achieved through a statistical analysis of collocations featuring in three coursebooks where the collocations found are analysed in terms of their type, frequency and usefulness index by studying them through an online language corpus (Collins Wordbanks Online. The coursebooks are systematically compared and contrasted relying upon the data gathered. The results of the study reveal that the frequency and range of lexical collocations in a language corpus have not been regarded as an essential criterion for their selection and practice by any of the coursebook authors under discussion.

Emotional Scene Content Drives the Saccade Generation System Reflexively

Science.gov (United States)

Nummenmaa, Lauri; Hyona, Jukka; Calvo, Manuel G.

2009-01-01

The authors assessed whether parafoveal perception of emotional content influences saccade programming. In Experiment 1, paired emotional and neutral scenes were presented to parafoveal vision. Participants performed voluntary saccades toward either of the scenes according to an imperative signal (color cue). Saccadic reaction times were faster…

SAMPEG: a scene-adaptive parallel MPEG-2 software encoder

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Farin, D.S.; Mache, N.; With, de P.H.N.; Girod, B.; Bouman, C.A.; Steinbach, E.G.

2001-01-01

This paper presents a fully software-based MPEG-2 encoder architecture, which uses scene-change detection to optimize the Group-of-Picture (GOP) structure for the actual video sequence. This feature enables easy, lossless edit cuts at scene-change positions and it also improves overall picture

Review of On-Scene Management of Mass-Casualty Attacks

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Annelie Holgersson

2016-02-01

Full Text Available Background: The scene of a mass-casualty attack (MCA entails a crime scene, a hazardous space, and a great number of people needing medical assistance. Public transportation has been the target of such attacks and involves a high probability of generating mass casualties. The review aimed to investigate challenges for on-scene responses to MCAs and suggestions made to counter these challenges, with special attention given to attacks on public transportation and associated terminals. Methods: Articles were found through PubMed and Scopus, “relevant articles” as defined by the databases, and a manual search of references. Inclusion criteria were that the article referred to attack(s and/or a public transportation-related incident and issues concerning formal on-scene response. An appraisal of the articles’ scientific quality was conducted based on an evidence hierarchy model developed for the study. Results: One hundred and five articles were reviewed. Challenges for command and coordination on scene included establishing leadership, inter-agency collaboration, multiple incident sites, and logistics. Safety issues entailed knowledge and use of personal protective equipment, risk awareness and expectations, cordons, dynamic risk assessment, defensive versus offensive approaches, and joining forces. Communication concerns were equipment shortfalls, dialoguing, and providing information. Assessment problems were scene layout and interpreting environmental indicators as well as understanding setting-driven needs for specialist skills and resources. Triage and treatment difficulties included differing triage systems, directing casualties, uncommon injuries, field hospitals, level of care, providing psychological and pediatric care. Transportation hardships included scene access, distance to hospitals, and distribution of casualties. Conclusion: Commonly encountered challenges during unintentional incidents were added to during MCAs

Clandestine laboratory scene investigation and processing using portable GC/MS

Science.gov (United States)

Matejczyk, Raymond J.

1997-02-01

This presentation describes the use of portable gas chromatography/mass spectrometry for on-scene investigation and processing of clandestine laboratories. Clandestine laboratory investigations present special problems to forensic investigators. These crime scenes contain many chemical hazards that must be detected, identified and collected as evidence. Gas chromatography/mass spectrometry performed on-scene with a rugged, portable unit is capable of analyzing a variety of matrices for drugs and chemicals used in the manufacture of illicit drugs, such as methamphetamine. Technologies used to detect various materials at a scene have particular applications but do not address the wide range of samples, chemicals, matrices and mixtures that exist in clan labs. Typical analyses performed by GC/MS are for the purpose of positively establishing the identity of starting materials, chemicals and end-product collected from clandestine laboratories. Concerns for the public and investigator safety and the environment are also important factors for rapid on-scene data generation. Here is described the implementation of a portable multiple-inlet GC/MS system designed for rapid deployment to a scene to perform forensic investigations of clandestine drug manufacturing laboratories. GC/MS has long been held as the 'gold standard' in performing forensic chemical analyses. With the capability of GC/MS to separate and produce a 'chemical fingerprint' of compounds, it is utilized as an essential technique for detecting and positively identifying chemical evidence. Rapid and conclusive on-scene analysis of evidence will assist the forensic investigators in collecting only pertinent evidence thereby reducing the amount of evidence to be transported, reducing chain of custody concerns, reducing costs and hazards, maintaining sample integrity and speeding the completion of the investigative process.

Viewing nature scenes positively affects recovery of autonomic function following acute-mental stress.

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Brown, Daniel K; Barton, Jo L; Gladwell, Valerie F

2013-06-04

A randomized crossover study explored whether viewing different scenes prior to a stressor altered autonomic function during the recovery from the stressor. The two scenes were (a) nature (composed of trees, grass, fields) or (b) built (composed of man-made, urban scenes lacking natural characteristics) environments. Autonomic function was assessed using noninvasive techniques of heart rate variability; in particular, time domain analyses evaluated parasympathetic activity, using root-mean-square of successive differences (RMSSD). During stress, secondary cardiovascular markers (heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure) showed significant increases from baseline which did not differ between the two viewing conditions. Parasympathetic activity, however, was significantly higher in recovery following the stressor in the viewing scenes of nature condition compared to viewing scenes depicting built environments (RMSSD; 50.0 ± 31.3 vs 34.8 ± 14.8 ms). Thus, viewing nature scenes prior to a stressor alters autonomic activity in the recovery period. The secondary aim was to examine autonomic function during viewing of the two scenes. Standard deviation of R-R intervals (SDRR), as change from baseline, during the first 5 min of viewing nature scenes was greater than during built scenes. Overall, this suggests that nature can elicit improvements in the recovery process following a stressor.

Real-time maritime scene simulation for ladar sensors

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Christie, Chad L.; Gouthas, Efthimios; Swierkowski, Leszek; Williams, Owen M.

2011-06-01

Continuing interest exists in the development of cost-effective synthetic environments for testing Laser Detection and Ranging (ladar) sensors. In this paper we describe a PC-based system for real-time ladar scene simulation of ships and small boats in a dynamic maritime environment. In particular, we describe the techniques employed to generate range imagery accompanied by passive radiance imagery. Our ladar scene generation system is an evolutionary extension of the VIRSuite infrared scene simulation program and includes all previous features such as ocean wave simulation, the physically-realistic representation of boat and ship dynamics, wake generation and simulation of whitecaps, spray, wake trails and foam. A terrain simulation extension is also under development. In this paper we outline the development, capabilities and limitations of the VIRSuite extensions.

The influence of color on emotional perception of natural scenes.

Science.gov (United States)

Codispoti, Maurizio; De Cesarei, Andrea; Ferrari, Vera

2012-01-01

Is color a critical factor when processing the emotional content of natural scenes? Under challenging perceptual conditions, such as when pictures are briefly presented, color might facilitate scene segmentation and/or function as a semantic cue via association with scene-relevant concepts (e.g., red and blood/injury). To clarify the influence of color on affective picture perception, we compared the late positive potentials (LPP) to color versus grayscale pictures, presented for very brief (24 ms) and longer (6 s) exposure durations. Results indicated that removing color information had no effect on the affective modulation of the LPP, regardless of exposure duration. These findings imply that the recognition of the emotional content of scenes, even when presented very briefly, does not critically rely on color information. Copyright © 2011 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

Cybersickness in the presence of scene rotational movements along different axes.

Science.gov (United States)

Lo, W T; So, R H

2001-02-01

Compelling scene movements in a virtual reality (VR) system can cause symptoms of motion sickness (i.e., cybersickness). A within-subject experiment has been conducted to investigate the effects of scene oscillations along different axes on the level of cybersickness. Sixteen male participants were exposed to four 20-min VR simulation sessions. The four sessions used the same virtual environment but with scene oscillations along different axes, i.e., pitch, yaw, roll, or no oscillation (speed: 30 degrees/s, range: +/- 60 degrees). Verbal ratings of the level of nausea were taken at 5-min intervals during the sessions and sickness symptoms were also measured before and after the sessions using the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire (SSQ). In the presence of scene oscillation, both nausea ratings and SSQ scores increased at significantly higher rates than with no oscillation. While individual participants exhibited different susceptibilities to nausea associated with VR simulation containing scene oscillations along different rotational axes, the overall effects of axis among our group of 16 randomly selected participants were not significant. The main effects of, and interactions among, scene oscillation, duration, and participants are discussed in the paper.

Vitality of the Estonian forests (results of the inventory and research)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Karoles, K.

1991-01-01

Factors affecting Estonian forests are: The environmental, specially atmospheric pollution, - the foundation of new forests as monoculture on unsuitable locations, - mechanical damages by unsuitable forest machinery, - unfavourable water conditions, - Heterobasidion or Armillaria rot roots. Local damages in consequence of air pollutants are distributed in environments of Tallinn, Kivioli, Kohtla-Jaerve and the thermal power stations (Narva), where the SO 2 -content in the air is on the average higher than 50 (80) μg/m 3 . Pine forests on dry sand soils (600 ha damaged in 1989) and the older spruce forests show the new type of forest decline. High Al-ion concentration, disturbances of the Ca-Mg-metabolism, an extreme nutrient deficit, (specially N-deficit) and periodical water deficit as well as pathogenic fungi are damaging the trees. Spruces show nonspecific defoliation, needle necrosis, needlefall, occurence of fungal diseases. More damaged are the spruce forests in regions with basic precipitations and high sulphur-deposition. (orig./UWA) [de

Gender differences in factors associated with sexual intercourse among Estonian adolescents.

Science.gov (United States)

Part, Kai; Rahu, Kaja; Rahu, Mati; Karro, Helle

2011-06-01

To examine factors associated with early sexual intercourse among 15 to 16-year-old adolescents by gender. The data were collected from a random sample of Estonian basic schools' ninth grade pupils in 1999 using self-completed questionnaires. A multivariate logistic regression analysis for boys and girls was used to test for associations between sexual intercourse, and personal gender role-related attitudes, attitudes towards sexual intercourse, pubertal timing, smoking status and experience of drunkenness. Of the respondents, 14.6% of boys and 13.1% of girls had experienced sexual intercourse. Traditional gender role-related attitudes were associated with sexual intercourse among girls, but not among boys. Smoking and experience of drunkenness was strongly associated with sexual intercourse for both genders. Gender differences in the association between gender role-related attitudes and early sexual intercourse were observed among 15 to 16-year-olds in Estonia. Smoking and experience of drunkenness were strongly related to sexual intercourse for both genders.

Tools: Stuff: Art

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

David Kirshner

2014-07-01

Full Text Available Between 1890 and 1898 Erik Satie lived at 6 rue Cortot: ‘in a wardrobe’. Satie was a collector […]. After his death his wardrobe was found to contain 84 handkerchiefs besides 12 identical velvet suits and dozens of umbrellas. 
Trois morceaux en forme de poire […] three pieces in the form of a pear. The title of a piano piece in seven parts by Erik Satie. Satie composed this piece in response to Debussy's criticism that his works lacked a 'sense of form'. What exactly did Debussy mean by this? Where and what actually was this scene of formlessness? 
The first part of the Paper will advance some possible reasoning behind Debussy's comments. Was Debussy questioning Satie's attitude to what Heidegger [in The Origin of the Work of Art] would term the 'thingly' element of the Work of Art, or more precisely – the relationship between 'things' and the 'thing in itself'?
Heidegger's contemplation of 'Form' and his writings on 'tools', 'material' and 'art', and the section dealing with the Temple provides an interesting locus in which to discus Debussy's comments.
The second section gives some ideas of how I reinterpreted this argument to produce a series of visual works inspired by another of Satie's works, Furniture Music – Musique d' ameublement, a piece of music that was not to be listened to. 
Milhaud later recounted: ‘It was no use Satie shouting: “Talk for heaven's sake! Move around! Don't listen!” They kept quiet. They listened. The whole thing went wrong.’

In the working memory of the beholder: Art appreciation is enhanced when visual complexity is compatible with working memory.

Science.gov (United States)

Sherman, Aleksandra; Grabowecky, Marcia; Suzuki, Satoru

2015-08-01

What shapes art appreciation? Much research has focused on the importance of visual features themselves (e.g., symmetry, natural scene statistics) and of the viewer's experience and expertise with specific artworks. However, even after taking these factors into account, there are considerable individual differences in art preferences. Our new result suggests that art preference is also influenced by the compatibility between visual properties and the characteristics of the viewer's visual system. Specifically, we have demonstrated, using 120 artworks from diverse periods, cultures, genres, and styles, that art appreciation is increased when the level of visual complexity within an artwork is compatible with the viewer's visual working memory capacity. The result highlights the importance of the interaction between visual features and the beholder's general visual capacity in shaping art appreciation. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Eestlased hõivasid Lissaboni / Rael Artel

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Artel, Rael, 1980-

2001-01-01

18. maist Rael Arteli kureeritud eesti kunsti näitus "Nyyd Estonian Malady" Zé dos Boisi galeriis. Osalevad Silja Saarepuu, Kiwa, Mari Laanemets, Killu Sukmit, Kadi Estland. Näidatakse Marko Raadi, Mari Sobolevi ja Jasper Zoova videofilme. R. Arteli ja M. Laanemetsa videoloengud eesti ja ida-euroopa noorest sotsiaalsest kunstist.

MODELLING DICLOFENAC AND IBUPROFEN RESIDUES IN MAJOR ESTONIAN SEASIDE CITIES

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Erki Lember

2016-06-01

Full Text Available A theoretical model was developed to model the fate of two common pharmaceutical residues: diclofenac and ibuprofen in eight Estonian seaside cities that discharge their wastewaters directly into the Baltic Sea. The consumption rates of the active ingredients of diclofenac and ibuprofen from 2006-2014 were analysed. A decrease of 19.9% for diclofenac consumption and an increase of 14.1% for ibuprofen were found. The fate of diclofenac and ibuprofen were modelled by considering the human metabolism removal rate for pharmaceuticals, the removal rate of diclofenac and ibuprofen in activated sludge wastewater treatment plants (WWTP and annual flow rates. An average decrease from 1 to 0.8 µg/l (decrease of 20% for diclofenac and an increase from 11.4 to 13.4 µg/l (increase of 14.9% for ibuprofen for the concentration in the effluents of the WWTP were modelled. The model gives us a good overview about the theoretical concentrations of pharmaceutical residues in the environment and is helpful for evaluating environmental impacts.

Framework of passive millimeter-wave scene simulation based on material classification

Science.gov (United States)

Park, Hyuk; Kim, Sung-Hyun; Lee, Ho-Jin; Kim, Yong-Hoon; Ki, Jae-Sug; Yoon, In-Bok; Lee, Jung-Min; Park, Soon-Jun

2006-05-01

Over the past few decades, passive millimeter-wave (PMMW) sensors have emerged as useful implements in transportation and military applications such as autonomous flight-landing system, smart weapons, night- and all weather vision system. As an efficient way to predict the performance of a PMMW sensor and apply it to system, it is required to test in SoftWare-In-the-Loop (SWIL). The PMMW scene simulation is a key component for implementation of this simulator. However, there is no commercial on-the-shelf available to construct the PMMW scene simulation; only there have been a few studies on this technology. We have studied the PMMW scene simulation method to develop the PMMW sensor SWIL simulator. This paper describes the framework of the PMMW scene simulation and the tentative results. The purpose of the PMMW scene simulation is to generate sensor outputs (or image) from a visible image and environmental conditions. We organize it into four parts; material classification mapping, PMMW environmental setting, PMMW scene forming, and millimeter-wave (MMW) sensorworks. The background and the objects in the scene are classified based on properties related with MMW radiation and reflectivity. The environmental setting part calculates the following PMMW phenomenology; atmospheric propagation and emission including sky temperature, weather conditions, and physical temperature. Then, PMMW raw images are formed with surface geometry. Finally, PMMW sensor outputs are generated from PMMW raw images by applying the sensor characteristics such as an aperture size and noise level. Through the simulation process, PMMW phenomenology and sensor characteristics are simulated on the output scene. We have finished the design of framework of the simulator, and are working on implementation in detail. As a tentative result, the flight observation was simulated in specific conditions. After implementation details, we plan to increase the reliability of the simulation by data collecting

Occlusion Issues in Early Renaissance Art

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Barbara Gillam

2011-12-01

Full Text Available Early Renaissance painters innovatively attempted to depict realistic three-dimensional scenes. A major problem was to produce the impression of overlap for surfaces that occlude one another in the scene but are adjoined in the picture plane. Much has been written about perspective in art but little about occlusion. Here I examine some of the strategies for depicting occlusion used by early Renaissance painters in relation to ecological considerations and perceptual research. Perceived surface overlap is often achieved by implementing the principle that an occluding surface occludes anything behind it, so that occlusion perception is enhanced by a lack of relationship of occluding contour to occluded contours. Some well-known figure-ground principles are also commonly used to stratify adjoined figures. Global factors that assist this stratification include the placement of figures on a ground plane, a high viewpoint, and figure grouping. Artists of this period seem to have differed on whether to occlude faces and heads, often carefully avoiding doing so. Halos were either eliminated selectively or placed oddly to avoid such occlusions. Finally, I argue that the marked intransitivity in occlusion by architecture in the paintings of Duccio can be related to the issue of perceptual versus cognitive influences on the visual impact of paintings.

Determination of Heating Value of Estonian Oil Shale by Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy

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M. Aints

2018-01-01

Full Text Available The laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS combined with multivariate regression analysis of measured data were utilised for determination of the heating value and the chemical composition of pellets made from Estonian oil shale samples with different heating values. The study is the first where the oil shale heating value is determined on the basis of LIBS spectra. The method for selecting the optimal number of spectral lines for ordinary multivariate least squares regression model is presented. The correlation coefficient between the heating value predicted by the regression model, and that measured by calorimetric bomb, was R2=0.98. The standard deviation of prediction was 0.24 MJ/kg. Concentrations of oil shale components predicted by the regression model were compared with those measured by ordinary methods.

Hydrological AnthropoScenes

Science.gov (United States)

Cudennec, Christophe

2016-04-01

The Anthropocene concept encapsulates the planetary-scale changes resulting from accelerating socio-ecological transformations, beyond the stratigraphic definition actually in debate. The emergence of multi-scale and proteiform complexity requires inter-discipline and system approaches. Yet, to reduce the cognitive challenge of tackling this complexity, the global Anthropocene syndrome must now be studied from various topical points of view, and grounded at regional and local levels. A system approach should allow to identify AnthropoScenes, i.e. settings where a socio-ecological transformation subsystem is clearly coherent within boundaries and displays explicit relationships with neighbouring/remote scenes and within a nesting architecture. Hydrology is a key topical point of view to be explored, as it is important in many aspects of the Anthropocene, either with water itself being a resource, hazard or transport force; or through the network, connectivity, interface, teleconnection, emergence and scaling issues it determines. We will schematically exemplify these aspects with three contrasted hydrological AnthropoScenes in Tunisia, France and Iceland; and reframe therein concepts of the hydrological change debate. Bai X., van der Leeuw S., O'Brien K., Berkhout F., Biermann F., Brondizio E., Cudennec C., Dearing J., Duraiappah A., Glaser M., Revkin A., Steffen W., Syvitski J., 2016. Plausible and desirable futures in the Anthropocene: A new research agenda. Global Environmental Change, in press, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2015.09.017 Brondizio E., O'Brien K., Bai X., Biermann F., Steffen W., Berkhout F., Cudennec C., Lemos M.C., Wolfe A., Palma-Oliveira J., Chen A. C-T. Re-conceptualizing the Anthropocene: A call for collaboration. Global Environmental Change, in review. Montanari A., Young G., Savenije H., Hughes D., Wagener T., Ren L., Koutsoyiannis D., Cudennec C., Grimaldi S., Blöschl G., Sivapalan M., Beven K., Gupta H., Arheimer B., Huang Y

Hierarchical Model for the Similarity Measurement of a Complex Holed-Region Entity Scene

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Zhanlong Chen

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Complex multi-holed-region entity scenes (i.e., sets of random region with holes are common in spatial database systems, spatial query languages, and the Geographic Information System (GIS. A multi-holed-region (region with an arbitrary number of holes is an abstraction of the real world that primarily represents geographic objects that have more than one interior boundary, such as areas that contain several lakes or lakes that contain islands. When the similarity of the two complex holed-region entity scenes is measured, the number of regions in the scenes and the number of holes in the regions are usually different between the two scenes, which complicates the matching relationships of holed-regions and holes. The aim of this research is to develop several holed-region similarity metrics and propose a hierarchical model to measure comprehensively the similarity between two complex holed-region entity scenes. The procedure first divides a complex entity scene into three layers: a complex scene, a micro-spatial-scene, and a simple entity (hole. The relationships between the adjacent layers are considered to be sets of relationships, and each level of similarity measurements is nested with the adjacent one. Next, entity matching is performed from top to bottom, while the similarity results are calculated from local to global. In addition, we utilize position graphs to describe the distribution of the holed-regions and subsequently describe the directions between the holes using a feature matrix. A case study that uses the Great Lakes in North America in 1986 and 2015 as experimental data illustrates the entire similarity measurement process between two complex holed-region entity scenes. The experimental results show that the hierarchical model accounts for the relationships of the different layers in the entire complex holed-region entity scene. The model can effectively calculate the similarity of complex holed-region entity scenes, even if the

Corporate Governance from the Perspective of Stakeholder Theory and in Light of Perceptions among Estonian Owners and Managers of Relations with Stakeholders / Mari Kooskora

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Kooskora, Mari, 1969-

2006-01-01

Äriühingute valitsemise kontseptsioon ja teoreetiline taust; Eesti omanike ja tippjuhtide ootused suhetes erinevate huvigruppidega ning äriühingute valitsemine huvigruppide teooriast lähtudes. Skeem: The stakeholder model. Tabelid: Contractual and community stakeholders; Overview of how perceptions of the main stakeholder groups among Estonian business leaders between 1995-2004 have changed

The role of memory for visual search in scenes.

Science.gov (United States)

Le-Hoa Võ, Melissa; Wolfe, Jeremy M

2015-03-01

Many daily activities involve looking for something. The ease with which these searches are performed often allows one to forget that searching represents complex interactions between visual attention and memory. Although a clear understanding exists of how search efficiency will be influenced by visual features of targets and their surrounding distractors or by the number of items in the display, the role of memory in search is less well understood. Contextual cueing studies have shown that implicit memory for repeated item configurations can facilitate search in artificial displays. When searching more naturalistic environments, other forms of memory come into play. For instance, semantic memory provides useful information about which objects are typically found where within a scene, and episodic scene memory provides information about where a particular object was seen the last time a particular scene was viewed. In this paper, we will review work on these topics, with special emphasis on the role of memory in guiding search in organized, real-world scenes. © 2015 New York Academy of Sciences.

The time course of natural scene perception with reduced attention

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Groen, I.I.A.; Ghebreab, S.; Lamme, V.A.F.; Scholte, H.S.

Attention is thought to impose an informational bottleneck on vision by selecting particular information from visual scenes for enhanced processing. Behavioral evidence suggests, however, that some scene information is extracted even when attention is directed elsewhere. Here, we investigated the

Change in medical plant use in Estonian ethnomedicine: a historical comparison between 1888 and 1994.

Science.gov (United States)

Sõukand, Renata; Kalle, Raivo

2011-05-17

The aim of this paper is to compare the changes in the utilization of species from various hemeroby categories (indicating the degree of sensitivity of the plant to human impact) using historical data concerning the years 1888-1994. The authors digitised 8808 handwritten reports, reflecting local ethnopharmacological knowledge from 8 selected collections from the Estonian Folklore Archives of the Estonian Literary Museum. They were semi-quantitatively analyzed according to the sensitivity to human impact of 540 taxa that could possibly be related to the plant vernacular names given in the reports. Although in different periods of time the number of ethnopharmacologically used plants has changed, the proportion of plants utilized from each group has remained relatively same, consisting on average of: 23% anthropophytes, 42% apophytes, 32% hemeradiaphores and 3% hemerophobes. Comparison of the application of the most used plants revealed considerable changes of plant utilization, in which the varied use of the most popular anthropophytes increased and the applied scope of the most popular hemeradiaphores and hemerophobes decreased almost by twofold in one century. Case studies on seven taxa are presented, of them, use of Allium sativum L., Aesculus hippocastanum L. and Mentha xpiperita L. increased, whereas the use of Hordeum L., Orchidaceae, Paris quadrifolia L. and Briza media L. decreased greatly. This research contributes to the better understanding of the cognitive and human ecological concepts underlying the use of medicinal plants in Estonia. Strong increase in the ethnomedical utilization of plants depending on human influence, and a decrease in the use of taxa that do not prefer human activities indicates that, despite some of the population still have access to natural resources and diverse knowledge of the medical use of plants, the majority relies on a very narrow selection and a rather restricted herbal landscape. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd

Research on hyperspectral dynamic scene and image sequence simulation

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, Dandan; Liu, Fang; Gao, Jiaobo; Sun, Kefeng; Hu, Yu; Li, Yu; Xie, Junhu; Zhang, Lei

2016-10-01

This paper presents a simulation method of hyperspectral dynamic scene and image sequence for hyperspectral equipment evaluation and target detection algorithm. Because of high spectral resolution, strong band continuity, anti-interference and other advantages, in recent years, hyperspectral imaging technology has been rapidly developed and is widely used in many areas such as optoelectronic target detection, military defense and remote sensing systems. Digital imaging simulation, as a crucial part of hardware in loop simulation, can be applied to testing and evaluation hyperspectral imaging equipment with lower development cost and shorter development period. Meanwhile, visual simulation can produce a lot of original image data under various conditions for hyperspectral image feature extraction and classification algorithm. Based on radiation physic model and material characteristic parameters this paper proposes a generation method of digital scene. By building multiple sensor models under different bands and different bandwidths, hyperspectral scenes in visible, MWIR, LWIR band, with spectral resolution 0.01μm, 0.05μm and 0.1μm have been simulated in this paper. The final dynamic scenes have high real-time and realistic, with frequency up to 100 HZ. By means of saving all the scene gray data in the same viewpoint image sequence is obtained. The analysis results show whether in the infrared band or the visible band, the grayscale variations of simulated hyperspectral images are consistent with the theoretical analysis results.

Dynamics of scene representations in the human brain revealed by magnetoencephalography and deep neural networks

Science.gov (United States)

Cichy, Radoslaw Martin; Khosla, Aditya; Pantazis, Dimitrios; Oliva, Aude

2017-01-01

Human scene recognition is a rapid multistep process evolving over time from single scene image to spatial layout processing. We used multivariate pattern analyses on magnetoencephalography (MEG) data to unravel the time course of this cortical process. Following an early signal for lower-level visual analysis of single scenes at ~100 ms, we found a marker of real-world scene size, i.e. spatial layout processing, at ~250 ms indexing neural representations robust to changes in unrelated scene properties and viewing conditions. For a quantitative model of how scene size representations may arise in the brain, we compared MEG data to a deep neural network model trained on scene classification. Representations of scene size emerged intrinsically in the model, and resolved emerging neural scene size representation. Together our data provide a first description of an electrophysiological signal for layout processing in humans, and suggest that deep neural networks are a promising framework to investigate how spatial layout representations emerge in the human brain. PMID:27039703

Recognition and attention guidance during contextual cueing in real-world scenes: evidence from eye movements.

Science.gov (United States)

Brockmole, James R; Henderson, John M

2006-07-01

When confronted with a previously encountered scene, what information is used to guide search to a known target? We contrasted the role of a scene's basic-level category membership with its specific arrangement of visual properties. Observers were repeatedly shown photographs of scenes that contained consistently but arbitrarily located targets, allowing target positions to be associated with scene content. Learned scenes were then unexpectedly mirror reversed, spatially translating visual features as well as the target across the display while preserving the scene's identity and concept. Mirror reversals produced a cost as the eyes initially moved toward the position in the display in which the target had previously appeared. The cost was not complete, however; when initial search failed, the eyes were quickly directed to the target's new position. These results suggest that in real-world scenes, shifts of attention are initially based on scene identity, and subsequent shifts are guided by more detailed information regarding scene and object layout.

Implementation of quality assurance and quality control in the Nuclear Analytical Laboratory of the Estonian Radiation Protection Centre

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Koeoep, T.; Jakobson, E.

2002-01-01

The Analytical Laboratory of the Estonian Radiation Protection Centre is in the process of implementing the system of Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Control (QC) in the framework of the IAEA TC Project RER/2/004/ 'QA/QC of Nuclear Analytical Techniques'. The draft Quality Manual with annexes has been prepared accordingly to the ISO 17025 Guide, documents and other printed material delivered on the seminars of the project. The laboratory supply has been supplemented with necessary equipment for guaranteeing of quality. Proficiency testing included in the project has been performed successfully. (author)

Bos primigenius in Ancient Egyptian art – historical evidence for the continuity of occurrence and ecology of an extinct key species

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Carl Beierkuhnlein

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Knowledge of the habitat requirements and temporal stability of populations of extinct aurochs (Bos primigenius is surprisingly scarce. Reliable reports of this species, which by its domestication remains tremendously important for humans, are rare. As the species became extinct about 400 years ago and regionally disappeared much earlier, its behaviour and morphology are also under debate. Aurochs is also a crucial component of the mega-herbivore theory in nature conservation, but in fact its natural habitat and behaviour are unknown. Here, I report records of aurochs for the time period of Ancient Egypt. They are found in archaeological sites and literature, and in collections. Records of the species continue through all the periods of Ancient Egypt. In particular, hunting scenes illustrating the merits of high-ranking persons, in their graves (mastabas and temples, provide insights into the behaviour and ecology of the depicted game. Here, special attention is given to one outstanding hunting scene that is documented in a relief at the mortuary temple of Ramesses III (1175 BC, Medinet Habu, Egypt. Assisted by a group of hunters, the pharaoh kills three specimens of aurochs. The whole scene is stunningly realistic.  The adult specimen is fleeing towards the reed belt of the River Nile, suggesting that the species’ habitat was probably in large valley bottoms, where open grassland is regularly created by flooding. Endemic species of fish and game confirm that this scene took place in Lower Egypt. The regional populations of the North-African subspecies of aurochs probably went extinct shortly after this piece of art was produced. Records of species in ancient art can be very informative in terms of ecology and behaviour of species, especially when extinct species are addressed. In addition, the dating of old pieces of art containing biological information can be very precise, for instance when these refer to a historic personage. 

Virtual Tour Environment of Cuba's National School of Art

Science.gov (United States)

Napolitano, R. K.; Douglas, I. P.; Garlock, M. E.; Glisic, B.

2017-08-01

Innovative technologies have enabled new opportunities for collecting, analyzing, and sharing information about cultural heritage sites. Through a combination of two of these technologies, spherical imaging and virtual tour environment, we preliminarily documented one of Cuba's National Schools of Art, the National Ballet School.The Ballet School is one of the five National Art Schools built in Havana, Cuba after the revolution. Due to changes in the political climate, construction was halted on the schools before completion. The Ballet School in particular was partially completed but never used for the intended purpose. Over the years, the surrounding vegetation and environment have started to overtake the buildings; damages such as missing bricks, corroded rebar, and broken tie bars can be seen. We created a virtual tour through the Ballet School which highlights key satellite classrooms and the main domed performance spaces. Scenes of the virtual tour were captured utilizing the Ricoh Theta S spherical imaging camera and processed with Kolor Panotour virtual environment software. Different forms of data can be included in this environment in order to provide a user with pertinent information. Image galleries, hyperlinks to websites, videos, PDFs, and links to databases can be embedded within the scene and interacted with by a user. By including this information within the virtual tour, a user can better understand how the site was constructed as well as the existing types of damage. The results of this work are recommendations for how a site can be preliminarily documented and information can be initially organized and shared.

Review of infrared scene projector technology-1993

Science.gov (United States)

Driggers, Ronald G.; Barnard, Kenneth J.; Burroughs, E. E.; Deep, Raymond G.; Williams, Owen M.

1994-07-01

The importance of testing IR imagers and missile seekers with realistic IR scenes warrants a review of the current technologies used in dynamic infrared scene projection. These technologies include resistive arrays, deformable mirror arrays, mirror membrane devices, liquid crystal light valves, laser writers, laser diode arrays, and CRTs. Other methods include frustrated total internal reflection, thermoelectric devices, galvanic cells, Bly cells, and vanadium dioxide. A description of each technology is presented along with a discussion of their relative benefits and disadvantages. The current state of each methodology is also summarized. Finally, the methods are compared and contrasted in terms of their performance parameters.

Use of AFIS for linking scenes of crime.

Science.gov (United States)

Hefetz, Ido; Liptz, Yakir; Vaturi, Shaul; Attias, David

2016-05-01

Forensic intelligence can provide critical information in criminal investigations - the linkage of crime scenes. The Automatic Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) is an example of a technological improvement that has advanced the entire forensic identification field to strive for new goals and achievements. In one example using AFIS, a series of burglaries into private apartments enabled a fingerprint examiner to search latent prints from different burglary scenes against an unsolved latent print database. Latent finger and palm prints coming from the same source were associated with over than 20 cases. Then, by forensic intelligence and profile analysis the offender's behavior could be anticipated. He was caught, identified, and arrested. It is recommended to perform an AFIS search of LT/UL prints against current crimes automatically as part of laboratory protocol and not by an examiner's discretion. This approach may link different crime scenes. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automatic video surveillance of outdoor scenes using track before detect

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hansen, Morten; Sørensen, Helge Bjarup Dissing; Birkemark, Christian M.

2005-01-01

This paper concerns automatic video surveillance of outdoor scenes using a single camera. The first step in automatic interpretation of the video stream is activity detection based on background subtraction. Usually, this process will generate a large number of false alarms in outdoor scenes due...

Gordon Craig's Scene Project: a history open to revision

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Luiz Fernando

2014-09-01

Full Text Available The article proposes a review of Gordon Craig’s Scene project, an invention patented in 1910 and developed until 1922. Craig himself kept an ambiguous position whether it was an unfulfilled project or not. His son and biographer Edward Craig sustained that Craig’s original aims were never achieved because of technical limitation, and most of the scholars who examined the matter followed this position. Departing from the actual screen models saved in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Craig’s original notebooks, and a short film from 1963, I defend that the patented project and the essay published in 1923 mean, indeed, the materialisation of the dreamed device of the thousand scenes in one scene

Places in the Brain: Bridging Layout and Object Geometry in Scene-Selective Cortex.

Science.gov (United States)

Dillon, Moira R; Persichetti, Andrew S; Spelke, Elizabeth S; Dilks, Daniel D

2017-06-13

Diverse animal species primarily rely on sense (left-right) and egocentric distance (proximal-distal) when navigating the environment. Recent neuroimaging studies with human adults show that this information is represented in 2 scene-selective cortical regions-the occipital place area (OPA) and retrosplenial complex (RSC)-but not in a third scene-selective region-the parahippocampal place area (PPA). What geometric properties, then, does the PPA represent, and what is its role in scene processing? Here we hypothesize that the PPA represents relative length and angle, the geometric properties classically associated with object recognition, but only in the context of large extended surfaces that compose the layout of a scene. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging adaptation, we found that the PPA is indeed sensitive to relative length and angle changes in pictures of scenes, but not pictures of objects that reliably elicited responses to the same geometric changes in object-selective cortical regions. Moreover, we found that the OPA is also sensitive to such changes, while the RSC is tolerant to such changes. Thus, the geometric information typically associated with object recognition is also used during some aspects of scene processing. These findings provide evidence that scene-selective cortex differentially represents the geometric properties guiding navigation versus scene categorization. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Estimating cotton canopy ground cover from remotely sensed scene reflectance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Maas, S.J.

1998-01-01

Many agricultural applications require spatially distributed information on growth-related crop characteristics that could be supplied through aircraft or satellite remote sensing. A study was conducted to develop and test a methodology for estimating plant canopy ground cover for cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) from scene reflectance. Previous studies indicated that a relatively simple relationship between ground cover and scene reflectance could be developed based on linear mixture modeling. Theoretical analysis indicated that the effects of shadows in the scene could be compensated for by averaging the results obtained using scene reflectance in the red and near-infrared wavelengths. The methodology was tested using field data collected over several years from cotton test plots in Texas and California. Results of the study appear to verify the utility of this approach. Since the methodology relies on information that can be obtained solely through remote sensing, it would be particularly useful in applications where other field information, such as plant size, row spacing, and row orientation, is unavailable

Significance of perceptually relevant image decolorization for scene classification

Science.gov (United States)

Viswanathan, Sowmya; Divakaran, Govind; Soman, Kutti Padanyl

2017-11-01

Color images contain luminance and chrominance components representing the intensity and color information, respectively. The objective of this paper is to show the significance of incorporating chrominance information to the task of scene classification. An improved color-to-grayscale image conversion algorithm that effectively incorporates chrominance information is proposed using the color-to-gray structure similarity index and singular value decomposition to improve the perceptual quality of the converted grayscale images. The experimental results based on an image quality assessment for image decolorization and its success rate (using the Cadik and COLOR250 datasets) show that the proposed image decolorization technique performs better than eight existing benchmark algorithms for image decolorization. In the second part of the paper, the effectiveness of incorporating the chrominance component for scene classification tasks is demonstrated using a deep belief network-based image classification system developed using dense scale-invariant feature transforms. The amount of chrominance information incorporated into the proposed image decolorization technique is confirmed with the improvement to the overall scene classification accuracy. Moreover, the overall scene classification performance improved by combining the models obtained using the proposed method and conventional decolorization methods.

Medial Temporal Lobe Contributions to Episodic Future Thinking: Scene Construction or Future Projection?

Science.gov (United States)

Palombo, D J; Hayes, S M; Peterson, K M; Keane, M M; Verfaellie, M

2018-02-01

Previous research has shown that the medial temporal lobes (MTL) are more strongly engaged when individuals think about the future than about the present, leading to the suggestion that future projection drives MTL engagement. However, future thinking tasks often involve scene processing, leaving open the alternative possibility that scene-construction demands, rather than future projection, are responsible for the MTL differences observed in prior work. This study explores this alternative account. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we directly contrasted MTL activity in 1) high scene-construction and low scene-construction imagination conditions matched in future thinking demands and 2) future-oriented and present-oriented imagination conditions matched in scene-construction demands. Consistent with the alternative account, the MTL was more active for the high versus low scene-construction condition. By contrast, MTL differences were not observed when comparing the future versus present conditions. Moreover, the magnitude of MTL activation was associated with the extent to which participants imagined a scene but was not associated with the extent to which participants thought about the future. These findings help disambiguate which component processes of imagination specifically involve the MTL. Published by Oxford University Press 2016.

Intrinsic Scene Decomposition from RGB-D Images

KAUST Repository

Hachama, Mohammed; Ghanem, Bernard; Wonka, Peter

2015-01-01

In this paper, we address the problem of computing an intrinsic decomposition of the colors of a surface into an albedo and a shading term. The surface is reconstructed from a single or multiple RGB-D images of a static scene obtained from different views. We thereby extend and improve existing works in the area of intrinsic image decomposition. In a variational framework, we formulate the problem as a minimization of an energy composed of two terms: a data term and a regularity term. The first term is related to the image formation process and expresses the relation between the albedo, the surface normals, and the incident illumination. We use an affine shading model, a combination of a Lambertian model, and an ambient lighting term. This model is relevant for Lambertian surfaces. When available, multiple views can be used to handle view-dependent non-Lambertian reflections. The second term contains an efficient combination of l2 and l1-regularizers on the illumination vector field and albedo respectively. Unlike most previous approaches, especially Retinex-like techniques, these terms do not depend on the image gradient or texture, thus reducing the mixing shading/reflectance artifacts and leading to better results. The obtained non-linear optimization problem is efficiently solved using a cyclic block coordinate descent algorithm. Our method outperforms a range of state-of-the-art algorithms on a popular benchmark dataset.

Intrinsic Scene Decomposition from RGB-D Images

KAUST Repository

Hachama, Mohammed

2015-12-07

In this paper, we address the problem of computing an intrinsic decomposition of the colors of a surface into an albedo and a shading term. The surface is reconstructed from a single or multiple RGB-D images of a static scene obtained from different views. We thereby extend and improve existing works in the area of intrinsic image decomposition. In a variational framework, we formulate the problem as a minimization of an energy composed of two terms: a data term and a regularity term. The first term is related to the image formation process and expresses the relation between the albedo, the surface normals, and the incident illumination. We use an affine shading model, a combination of a Lambertian model, and an ambient lighting term. This model is relevant for Lambertian surfaces. When available, multiple views can be used to handle view-dependent non-Lambertian reflections. The second term contains an efficient combination of l2 and l1-regularizers on the illumination vector field and albedo respectively. Unlike most previous approaches, especially Retinex-like techniques, these terms do not depend on the image gradient or texture, thus reducing the mixing shading/reflectance artifacts and leading to better results. The obtained non-linear optimization problem is efficiently solved using a cyclic block coordinate descent algorithm. Our method outperforms a range of state-of-the-art algorithms on a popular benchmark dataset.

Eye movements and attention in reading, scene perception, and visual search.

Science.gov (United States)

Rayner, Keith

2009-08-01

Eye movements are now widely used to investigate cognitive processes during reading, scene perception, and visual search. In this article, research on the following topics is reviewed with respect to reading: (a) the perceptual span (or span of effective vision), (b) preview benefit, (c) eye movement control, and (d) models of eye movements. Related issues with respect to eye movements during scene perception and visual search are also reviewed. It is argued that research on eye movements during reading has been somewhat advanced over research on eye movements in scene perception and visual search and that some of the paradigms developed to study reading should be more widely adopted in the study of scene perception and visual search. Research dealing with "real-world" tasks and research utilizing the visual-world paradigm are also briefly discussed.

Chernobyl is still haunting us. Radionuclides in Estonian mushrooms

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Martin, J.; Vilde, R.; Martin, L.; Aaspollu, J.; Tekko, S.

1993-01-01

The disaster that happened at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in 1986 caused a sharp rise in radioactive pollution over an extensive area in the region of the Baltic Sea. To estimate the distribution and the concentration of Cs-137 and Sr-90 in Estonian ecosystems, samples of mushrooms, mosses, lichens and the upper horizons of soil were gathered from 63 test sites during 1991. We were particularly interested in the amounts of radionuclides in mushrooms because these are used as food by people. Dangerously high radionuclide concentrations were found in mushrooms gathered in North-East Estonia. Heightened concentrations were registered here and there all over the territory of Estonia, especially in mushrooms gathered in Central and South-Western Estonia. The Cs-137 content in mushrooms depends on its content in other components of the ecosystems, first and foremost on the concentrations of radiocaesium in mosses and litter, which, therefore, can be used as indicators in prognostication the radioactive pollution of mushrooms in a certain region. As Cs-137 migrates between various ecosystem components, it is necessary to check the radioactivity of the forest products used for food for still a number of years to come. The Sr-90 level was low in all the ecosystem components examined. (author). 3 figs., 10 refs

Kolm Eesti Robinsoni: Daniel Defoe romaan eesti tõlkes / Three Estonian Robinsons: Daniel Defoe’s Novel in Estonian Translation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ene-Reet Soovik

2012-06-01

Full Text Available The article discusses three Estonian translations of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe into Estonian with the focus on the completeness of the translated texts and the characterisation given to these in paratextual information. While there are several translations and versions of the tex t available in E stonian that have either used a mediating language or do not proceed directly from Defoe’s novel, three editions explicitly list Defoe’s English-language Robinson Crusoe as their source text. These are Rudolf Sirge’s translation from 1950 and two editions translated by Valter Rummel that appeared in 1984 (reprinted in 2001 and 2007, respectively. The article sets out to discover the main differences between the three editions and the possible reasons that may have triggered their publication in Estonia at those particular times. In order to approach the issues, a general framework derived from descriptive translation studies is employed with an emphasis on Gideon Toury’s chrestomatic treatment of translation norms. Thus an attempt is made to detect the preliminary translational norms regarding translation policy, particularly the choice of texts to be translated, as well as the matricial norms that concern the fullness of the translated text and are part of operational norms manifested in the translator’s decisions which, in two of the cases at hand, may also have been decisions made by the editor or the censor. Rudolf Sirge’s translation appeared at a time when Estonia had fairly recently been incorporated into the Soviet Union and there was a lack of children’s literature ideologically appreciated by the regime. This may account for the packaging of the book as a work with a strong didactic bent, while its primary audience was taken to be children and young adults for whom the protagonist served as an example of a hard-working and tenacious hero to be emulated by young Soviets. The target text has been considerably shortened as

Robotic Discovery of the Auditory Scene

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Martinson, E; Schultz, A

2007-01-01

.... Motivated by the large negative effect of ambient noise sources on robot audition, the long-term goal is to provide awareness of the auditory scene to a robot, so that it may more effectively act...

Developmental Changes in Attention to Faces and Bodies in Static and Dynamic Scenes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Brenda M Stoesz

2014-03-01

Full Text Available Typically developing individuals show a strong visual preference for faces and face-like stimuli; however, this may come at the expense of attending to bodies or to other aspects of a scene. The primary goal of the present study was to provide additional insight into the development of attentional mechanisms that underlie perception of real people in naturalistic scenes. We examined the looking behaviours of typical children, adolescents, and young adults as they viewed static and dynamic scenes depicting one or more people. Overall, participants showed a bias to attend to faces more than on other parts of the scenes. Adding motion cues led to a reduction in the number, but an increase in the average duration of face fixations in single-character scenes. When multiple characters appeared in a scene, motion-related effects were attenuated and participants shifted their gaze from faces to bodies, or made off-screen glances. Children showed the largest effects related to the introduction of motion cues or additional characters, suggesting that they find dynamic faces difficult to process, and are especially prone to look away from faces when viewing complex social scenes – a strategy that could reduce the cognitive and the affective load imposed by having to divide one’s attention between multiple faces. Our findings provide new insights into the typical development of social attention during natural scene viewing, and lay the foundation for future work examining gaze behaviours in typical and atypical development.

Potential Teaching Model for Applying Novel Approaches of Renewed Estonian National Curriculum into Visual Art Classes in Primary School

Science.gov (United States)

Vahter, Edna

2015-01-01

In 2010, the renewed national curriculum was legislated in Estonia. Major changes include a new list of cross-curricular topics, increased importance of integration and specification of the components of the art learning process. In this situation, the question arises--how to fully implement the challenges of the renewed curriculum in primary…

Scene Recognition for Indoor Localization Using a Multi-Sensor Fusion Approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mengyun Liu

2017-12-01

Full Text Available After decades of research, there is still no solution for indoor localization like the GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System solution for outdoor environments. The major reasons for this phenomenon are the complex spatial topology and RF transmission environment. To deal with these problems, an indoor scene constrained method for localization is proposed in this paper, which is inspired by the visual cognition ability of the human brain and the progress in the computer vision field regarding high-level image understanding. Furthermore, a multi-sensor fusion method is implemented on a commercial smartphone including cameras, WiFi and inertial sensors. Compared to former research, the camera on a smartphone is used to “see” which scene the user is in. With this information, a particle filter algorithm constrained by scene information is adopted to determine the final location. For indoor scene recognition, we take advantage of deep learning that has been proven to be highly effective in the computer vision community. For particle filter, both WiFi and magnetic field signals are used to update the weights of particles. Similar to other fingerprinting localization methods, there are two stages in the proposed system, offline training and online localization. In the offline stage, an indoor scene model is trained by Caffe (one of the most popular open source frameworks for deep learning and a fingerprint database is constructed by user trajectories in different scenes. To reduce the volume requirement of training data for deep learning, a fine-tuned method is adopted for model training. In the online stage, a camera in a smartphone is used to recognize the initial scene. Then a particle filter algorithm is used to fuse the sensor data and determine the final location. To prove the effectiveness of the proposed method, an Android client and a web server are implemented. The Android client is used to collect data and locate a user. The web

Adaptive attunement of selective covert attention to evolutionary-relevant emotional visual scenes.

Science.gov (United States)

Fernández-Martín, Andrés; Gutiérrez-García, Aída; Capafons, Juan; Calvo, Manuel G

2017-05-01

We investigated selective attention to emotional scenes in peripheral vision, as a function of adaptive relevance of scene affective content for male and female observers. Pairs of emotional-neutral images appeared peripherally-with perceptual stimulus differences controlled-while viewers were fixating on a different stimulus in central vision. Early selective orienting was assessed by the probability of directing the first fixation towards either scene, and the time until first fixation. Emotional scenes selectively captured covert attention even when they were task-irrelevant, thus revealing involuntary, automatic processing. Sex of observers and specific emotional scene content (e.g., male-to-female-aggression, families and babies, etc.) interactively modulated covert attention, depending on adaptive priorities and goals for each sex, both for pleasant and unpleasant content. The attentional system exhibits domain-specific and sex-specific biases and attunements, probably rooted in evolutionary pressures to enhance reproductive and protective success. Emotional cues selectively capture covert attention based on their bio-social significance. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Adaptive attunement of selective covert attention to evolutionary-relevant emotional visual scenes

OpenAIRE

Fernández-Martín, Andrés (UNIR); Gutiérrez-García, Aida; Capafons, Juan; Calvo, Manuel G

2017-01-01

We investigated selective attention to emotional scenes in peripheral vision, as a function of adaptive relevance of scene affective content for male and female observers. Pairs of emotional neutral images appeared peripherally with perceptual stimulus differences controlled while viewers were fixating on a different stimulus in central vision. Early selective orienting was assessed by the probability of directing the first fixation towards either scene, and the time until first fixation. Emo...

Eesti Kultuurifond Ühendriiges / Anne Valmas

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Valmas, Anne, 1941-2017

2007-01-01

14. dets. 1957 toimus New Yorgi Eesti Majas Eesti Kultuurifondi Ühendriiges (The Foundation for Estonian Arts and Letters,) asutamiskoosolek. Kultuurifond loodi kunstide, rahvusteaduste, kirjanduse ja eesti keele edendamiseks ning on tegutsenud ligi pool sajandit

What is Estonian sound art? / Maria Juur

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Juur, Maria, 1988-

2011-01-01

Eesti helikunstist, kunstnikest ja nende töödest. Maria Juure Eesti Kunstiakadeemia Kunstiteaduse Instituudi lõputöö teema oli "Helikunsti määratlemine ja spetsiifika. Erinevad lähenemised helile Eesti uuemas kunstis" (2010)

When Art Is the Weapon: Culture and Resistance Confronting Violence in the Post-Uprisings Arab World

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mark LeVine

2015-11-01

Full Text Available This articles explores the explosion of artistic production in the Arab world during the so-called Arab Spring. Focusing on music, poetry, theatre, and graffiti and related visual arts, I explore how these “do-it-yourself” scenes represent, at least potentially, a “return of the aura” to the production of culture at the edge of social and political transformation. At the same time, the struggle to retain a revolutionary grounding in the wake of successful counter-revolutionary moves highlights the essentially “religious” grounding of “committed” art at the intersection of intense creativity and conflict across the Arab world.

Representations and Techniques for 3D Object Recognition and Scene Interpretation

CERN Document Server

Hoiem, Derek

2011-01-01

One of the grand challenges of artificial intelligence is to enable computers to interpret 3D scenes and objects from imagery. This book organizes and introduces major concepts in 3D scene and object representation and inference from still images, with a focus on recent efforts to fuse models of geometry and perspective with statistical machine learning. The book is organized into three sections: (1) Interpretation of Physical Space; (2) Recognition of 3D Objects; and (3) Integrated 3D Scene Interpretation. The first discusses representations of spatial layout and techniques to interpret physi

Individual and work-related risk factors for musculoskeletal pain: a cross-sectional study among Estonian computer users.

Science.gov (United States)

Oha, Kristel; Animägi, Liina; Pääsuke, Mati; Coggon, David; Merisalu, Eda

2014-05-28

Occupational use of computers has increased rapidly over recent decades, and has been linked with various musculoskeletal disorders, which are now the most commonly diagnosed occupational diseases in Estonia. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of musculoskeletal pain (MSP) by anatomical region during the past 12 months and to investigate its association with personal characteristics and work-related risk factors among Estonian office workers using computers. In a cross-sectional survey, the questionnaires were sent to the 415 computer users. Data were collected by self-administered questionnaire from 202 computer users at two universities in Estonia. The questionnaire asked about MSP at different anatomical sites, and potential individual and work related risk factors. Associations with risk factors were assessed by logistic regression. Most respondents (77%) reported MSP in at least one anatomical region during the past 12 months. Most prevalent was pain in the neck (51%), followed by low back pain (42%), wrist/hand pain (35%) and shoulder pain (30%). Older age, right-handedness, not currently smoking, emotional exhaustion, belief that musculoskeletal problems are commonly caused by work, and low job security were the statistically significant risk factors for MSP in different anatomical sites. A high prevalence of MSP in the neck, low back, wrist/arm and shoulder was observed among Estonian computer users. Psychosocial risk factors were broadly consistent with those reported from elsewhere. While computer users should be aware of ergonomic techniques that can make their work easier and more comfortable, presenting computer use as a serious health hazard may modify health beliefs in a way that is unhelpful.

Automating the construction of scene classifiers for content-based video retrieval

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Khan, L.; Israël, Menno; Petrushin, V.A.; van den Broek, Egon; van der Putten, Peter

2004-01-01

This paper introduces a real time automatic scene classifier within content-based video retrieval. In our envisioned approach end users like documentalists, not image processing experts, build classifiers interactively, by simply indicating positive examples of a scene. Classification consists of a

Number of perceptually distinct surface colors in natural scenes.

Science.gov (United States)

Marín-Franch, Iván; Foster, David H

2010-09-30

The ability to perceptually identify distinct surfaces in natural scenes by virtue of their color depends not only on the relative frequency of surface colors but also on the probabilistic nature of observer judgments. Previous methods of estimating the number of discriminable surface colors, whether based on theoretical color gamuts or recorded from real scenes, have taken a deterministic approach. Thus, a three-dimensional representation of the gamut of colors is divided into elementary cells or points which are spaced at one discrimination-threshold unit intervals and which are then counted. In this study, information-theoretic methods were used to take into account both differing surface-color frequencies and observer response uncertainty. Spectral radiances were calculated from 50 hyperspectral images of natural scenes and were represented in a perceptually almost uniform color space. The average number of perceptually distinct surface colors was estimated as 7.3 × 10(3), much smaller than that based on counting methods. This number is also much smaller than the number of distinct points in a scene that are, in principle, available for reliable identification under illuminant changes, suggesting that color constancy, or the lack of it, does not generally determine the limit on the use of color for surface identification.

Characteristics of nontrauma scene flights for air medical transport.

Science.gov (United States)

Krebs, Margaret G; Fletcher, Erica N; Werman, Howard; McKenzie, Lara B

2014-01-01

Little is known about the use of air medical transport for patients with medical, rather than traumatic, emergencies. This study describes the practices of air transport programs, with respect to nontrauma scene responses, in several areas throughout the United States and Canada. A descriptive, retrospective study was conducted of all nontrauma scene flights from 2008 and 2009. Flight information and patient demographic data were collected from 5 air transport programs. Descriptive statistics were used to examine indications for transport, Glasgow Coma Scale Scores, and loaded miles traveled. A total of 1,785 nontrauma scene flights were evaluated. The percentage of scene flights contributed by nontraumatic emergencies varied between programs, ranging from 0% to 44.3%. The most common indication for transport was cardiac, nonST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (22.9%). Cardiac arrest was the indication for transport in 2.5% of flights. One air transport program reported a high percentage (49.4) of neurologic, stroke, flights. The use of air transport for nontraumatic emergencies varied considerably between various air transport programs and regions. More research is needed to evaluate which nontraumatic emergencies benefit from air transport. National guidelines regarding the use of air transport for nontraumatic emergencies are needed. Copyright © 2014 Air Medical Journal Associates. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

VIRTUAL TOUR ENVIRONMENT OF CUBA’S NATIONAL SCHOOL OF ART

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

R. K. Napolitano

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Innovative technologies have enabled new opportunities for collecting, analyzing, and sharing information about cultural heritage sites. Through a combination of two of these technologies, spherical imaging and virtual tour environment, we preliminarily documented one of Cuba’s National Schools of Art, the National Ballet School.The Ballet School is one of the five National Art Schools built in Havana, Cuba after the revolution. Due to changes in the political climate, construction was halted on the schools before completion. The Ballet School in particular was partially completed but never used for the intended purpose. Over the years, the surrounding vegetation and environment have started to overtake the buildings; damages such as missing bricks, corroded rebar, and broken tie bars can be seen. We created a virtual tour through the Ballet School which highlights key satellite classrooms and the main domed performance spaces. Scenes of the virtual tour were captured utilizing the Ricoh Theta S spherical imaging camera and processed with Kolor Panotour virtual environment software. Different forms of data can be included in this environment in order to provide a user with pertinent information. Image galleries, hyperlinks to websites, videos, PDFs, and links to databases can be embedded within the scene and interacted with by a user. By including this information within the virtual tour, a user can better understand how the site was constructed as well as the existing types of damage. The results of this work are recommendations for how a site can be preliminarily documented and information can be initially organized and shared.

Learned Compact Local Feature Descriptor for Tls-Based Geodetic Monitoring of Natural Outdoor Scenes

Science.gov (United States)

Gojcic, Z.; Zhou, C.; Wieser, A.

2018-05-01

The advantages of terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) for geodetic monitoring of man-made and natural objects are not yet fully exploited. Herein we address one of the open challenges by proposing feature-based methods for identification of corresponding points in point clouds of two or more epochs. We propose a learned compact feature descriptor tailored for point clouds of natural outdoor scenes obtained using TLS. We evaluate our method both on a benchmark data set and on a specially acquired outdoor dataset resembling a simplified monitoring scenario where we successfully estimate 3D displacement vectors of a rock that has been displaced between the scans. We show that the proposed descriptor has the capacity to generalize to unseen data and achieves state-of-the-art performance while being time efficient at the matching step due the low dimension.

Virtual environments for scene of crime reconstruction and analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Howard, Toby L. J.; Murta, Alan D.; Gibson, Simon

2000-02-01

This paper describes research conducted in collaboration with Greater Manchester Police (UK), to evalute the utility of Virtual Environments for scene of crime analysis, forensic investigation, and law enforcement briefing and training. We present an illustrated case study of the construction of a high-fidelity virtual environment, intended to match a particular real-life crime scene as closely as possible. We describe and evaluate the combination of several approaches including: the use of the Manchester Scene Description Language for constructing complex geometrical models; the application of a radiosity rendering algorithm with several novel features based on human perceptual consideration; texture extraction from forensic photography; and experiments with interactive walkthroughs and large-screen stereoscopic display of the virtual environment implemented using the MAVERIK system. We also discuss the potential applications of Virtual Environment techniques in the Law Enforcement and Forensic communities.

STREAM PROCESSING ALGORITHMS FOR DYNAMIC 3D SCENE ANALYSIS

Science.gov (United States)

2018-02-15

PROCESSING ALGORITHMS FOR DYNAMIC 3D SCENE ANALYSIS 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER FA8750-14-2-0072 5b. GRANT NUMBER N/A 5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER 62788F 6...of Figures 1 The 3D processing pipeline flowchart showing key modules. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 2 Overall view (data flow) of the proposed...pipeline flowchart showing key modules. from motion and bundle adjustment algorithm. By fusion of depth masks of the scene obtained from 3D

Children's Development of Analogical Reasoning: Insights from Scene Analogy Problems

Science.gov (United States)

Richland, Lindsey E.; Morrison, Robert G.; Holyoak, Keith J.

2006-01-01

We explored how relational complexity and featural distraction, as varied in scene analogy problems, affect children's analogical reasoning performance. Results with 3- and 4-year-olds, 6- and 7-year-olds, 9- to 11-year-olds, and 13- and 14-year-olds indicate that when children can identify the critical structural relations in a scene analogy…

The Influence of Color on the Perception of Scene Gist

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Castelhano, Monica S.; Henderson, John M.

2008-01-01

In 3 experiments the authors used a new contextual bias paradigm to explore how quickly information is extracted from a scene to activate gist, whether color contributes to this activation, and how color contributes, if it does. Participants were shown a brief presentation of a scene followed by the name of a target object. The target object could…

Emotional event-related potentials are larger to figures than scenes but are similarly reduced by inattention

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Nordström Henrik

2012-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background In research on event-related potentials (ERP to emotional pictures, greater attention to emotional than neutral stimuli (i.e., motivated attention is commonly indexed by two difference waves between emotional and neutral stimuli: the early posterior negativity (EPN and the late positive potential (LPP. Evidence suggests that if attention is directed away from the pictures, then the emotional effects on EPN and LPP are eliminated. However, a few studies have found residual, emotional effects on EPN and LPP. In these studies, pictures were shown at fixation, and picture composition was that of simple figures rather than that of complex scenes. Because figures elicit larger LPP than do scenes, figures might capture and hold attention more strongly than do scenes. Here, we showed negative and neutral pictures of figures and scenes and tested first, whether emotional effects are larger to figures than scenes for both EPN and LPP, and second, whether emotional effects on EPN and LPP are reduced less for unattended figures than scenes. Results Emotional effects on EPN and LPP were larger for figures than scenes. When pictures were unattended, emotional effects on EPN increased for scenes but tended to decrease for figures, whereas emotional effects on LPP decreased similarly for figures and scenes. Conclusions Emotional effects on EPN and LPP were larger for figures than scenes, but these effects did not resist manipulations of attention more strongly for figures than scenes. These findings imply that the emotional content captures attention more strongly for figures than scenes, but that the emotional content does not hold attention more strongly for figures than scenes.

Emotional event-related potentials are larger to figures than scenes but are similarly reduced by inattention

Science.gov (United States)

2012-01-01

Background In research on event-related potentials (ERP) to emotional pictures, greater attention to emotional than neutral stimuli (i.e., motivated attention) is commonly indexed by two difference waves between emotional and neutral stimuli: the early posterior negativity (EPN) and the late positive potential (LPP). Evidence suggests that if attention is directed away from the pictures, then the emotional effects on EPN and LPP are eliminated. However, a few studies have found residual, emotional effects on EPN and LPP. In these studies, pictures were shown at fixation, and picture composition was that of simple figures rather than that of complex scenes. Because figures elicit larger LPP than do scenes, figures might capture and hold attention more strongly than do scenes. Here, we showed negative and neutral pictures of figures and scenes and tested first, whether emotional effects are larger to figures than scenes for both EPN and LPP, and second, whether emotional effects on EPN and LPP are reduced less for unattended figures than scenes. Results Emotional effects on EPN and LPP were larger for figures than scenes. When pictures were unattended, emotional effects on EPN increased for scenes but tended to decrease for figures, whereas emotional effects on LPP decreased similarly for figures and scenes. Conclusions Emotional effects on EPN and LPP were larger for figures than scenes, but these effects did not resist manipulations of attention more strongly for figures than scenes. These findings imply that the emotional content captures attention more strongly for figures than scenes, but that the emotional content does not hold attention more strongly for figures than scenes. PMID:22607397

Whole-word frequency and inflectional paradigm size facilitate Estonian case-inflected noun processing.

Science.gov (United States)

Lõo, Kaidi; Järvikivi, Juhani; Baayen, R Harald

2018-06-01

Estonian is a morphologically rich Finno-Ugric language with nominal paradigms that have at least 28 different inflected forms but sometimes more than 40. For languages with rich inflection, it has been argued that whole-word frequency, as a diagnostic of whole-word representations, should not be predictive for lexical processing. We report a lexical decision experiment, showing that response latencies decrease both with frequency of the inflected form and its inflectional paradigm size. Inflectional paradigm size was also predictive of semantic categorization, indicating it is a semantic effect, similar to the morphological family size effect. These findings fit well with the evidence for frequency effects of word n-grams in languages with little inflectional morphology, such as English. Apparently, the amount of information on word use in the mental lexicon is substantially larger than was previously thought. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Conceptual co-presence of motion and emotion in the Estonian terms of personality

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Heili Orav

2010-05-01

Full Text Available The purpose of the study was to find out whether the conceptual connection of emotion and motion is holding in the domain of personality traits. In a quantitative study 40 Estonian terms of personality traits were investigated and a conclusion was driven that, indeed, the qualities of emotionality and motion are perceived as co-present characteristics. In further data analysis some visualized measures were applied in order to get further insights into the hidden structure of the data. The self-organizing map (SOM analysis revealed an additional dimension of axiological evaluations present in the semantics and the SOM meta-analysis technique revealed groups of near synonymous words as well as gave overview of the more general structure common in the two data sets. The latter was tentatively explained by the person’s habitual level of activation.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5128/ERYa6.21

Short report: the effect of expertise in hiking on recognition memory for mountain scenes.

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Kawamura, Satoru; Suzuki, Sae; Morikawa, Kazunori

2007-10-01

The nature of an expert memory advantage that does not depend on stimulus structure or chunking was examined, using more ecologically valid stimuli in the context of a more natural activity than previously studied domains. Do expert hikers and novice hikers see and remember mountain scenes differently? In the present experiment, 18 novice hikers and 17 expert hikers were presented with 60 photographs of scenes from hiking trails. These scenes differed in the degree of functional aspects that implied some action possibilities or dangers. The recognition test revealed that the memory performance of experts was significantly superior to that of novices for scenes with highly functional aspects. The memory performance for the scenes with few functional aspects did not differ between novices and experts. These results suggest that experts pay more attention to, and thus remember better, scenes with functional meanings than do novices.

History of experimental psychology from an Estonian perspective.

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Allik, Jüri

2007-11-01

A short review of the development of experimental psychology from an Estonian perspective is presented. The first rector after the reopening of the University of Dorpat (Tartu) in 1802, Georg Friedrich Parrot (1767-1852) was interested in optical phenomena which he attempted to explain by introducing the concept of unconscious inferences, anticipating a similar theory proposed by Herman von Helmholtz 20 years later. One of the next rectors, Alfred Wilhelm Volkmann (1800-1878) was regarded by Edwin Boring as one of the founding fathers of the experimental psychology. Georg Wilhelm Struve (1793-1864) played an essential part in solving the problem of personal equations. Arthur Joachim von Oettingen (1836-1920) developed a theory of music harmony, which stimulated his student Wilhelm Friedrich Ostwald (1853-1932) to study colour harmony. Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926), the founder of modern psychiatry, is by far the most important experimental psychologist who has worked in Estonia. His successor Wladimir von Tchisch (1855-1922), another student of Wilhelm Wundt, continued Kraepelin's work in experimental psychology. The lives of Wolfgang Köhler (1887-1967), who was born in Reval (Tallinn), and Oswald Külpe (1862-1915), who graduated from the University of Dorpat, extended the link between the history of experimental psychology and Estonia. Karl Gustav Girgensohn (1875-1925), the founder of the Dorpat School of the psychology of religion, stretched the use of experimental methods to the study of religious experience.

OpenSceneGraph 3 Cookbook

CERN Document Server

Wang, Rui

2012-01-01

This is a cookbook full of recipes with practical examples enriched with code and the required screenshots for easy and quick comprehension. You should be familiar with the basic concepts of the OpenSceneGraph API and should be able to write simple programs. Some OpenGL and math knowledge will help a lot, too.

The Anthropo-scene: A guide for the perplexed.

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Lorimer, Jamie

2017-02-01

The scientific proposal that the Earth has entered a new epoch as a result of human activities - the Anthropocene - has catalysed a flurry of intellectual activity. I introduce and review the rich, inchoate and multi-disciplinary diversity of this Anthropo-scene. I identify five ways in which the concept of the Anthropocene has been mobilized: scientific question, intellectual zeitgeist, ideological provocation, new ontologies and science fiction. This typology offers an analytical framework for parsing this diversity, for understanding the interactions between different ways of thinking in the Anthropo-scene, and thus for comprehending elements of its particular and peculiar sociabilities. Here I deploy this framework to situate Earth Systems Science within the Anthropo-scene, exploring both the status afforded science in discussions of this new epoch, and the various ways in which the other means of engaging with the concept come to shape the conduct, content and politics of this scientific enquiry. In conclusion the paper reflects on the potential of the Anthropocene for new modes of academic praxis.

A Virtual Environments Editor for Driving Scenes

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Ronald R. Mourant

2003-12-01

Full Text Available The goal of this project was to enable the rapid creation of three-dimensional virtual driving environments. We designed and implemented a high-level scene editor that allows a user to construct a driving environment by pasting icons that represent 1 road segments, 2 road signs, 3 trees and 4 buildings. These icons represent two- and three-dimensional objects that have been predesigned. Icons can be placed in the scene at specific locations (x, y, and z coordinates. The editor includes the capability of a user to "drive" a vehicle using a computer mouse for steering, accelerating and braking. At any time during the process of building a virtual environment, a user may switch to "Run Mode" and inspect the three-dimensional scene by "driving" through it using the mouse. Adjustments and additions can be made to the virtual environment by going back to "Build Mode". Once a user is satisfied with the threedimensional virtual environment, it can be saved in a file. The file can used with Java3D software that enables the traversing of three-dimensional environments. The process of building virtual environments from predesigned icons can be applied to many other application areas. It will enable novice computer users to rapidly construct and use three-dimensional virtual environments.

Where and when Do Objects Become Scenes?

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Jiye G. Kim

2011-05-01

Full Text Available Scenes can be understood with extraordinary speed and facility, not merely as an inventory of individual objects but in the coding of the relations among them. These relations, which can be readily described by prepositions or gerunds (e.g., a hand holding a pen, allows the explicit representation of complex structures. Where in the brain are inter-object relations specified? In a series of fMRI experiments, we show that pairs of objects shown as interacting elicit greater activity in LOC than when the objects are depicted side-by-side (e.g., a hand beside a pen. Other visual areas, PPA, IPS, and DLPFC, did not show this sensitivity to scene relations, rendering it unlikely that the relations were computed in these regions. Using EEG and TMS, we further show that LOC's sensitivity to object interactions arises around 170ms post stimulus onset and that disruption of normal LOC activity—but not IPS activity—is detrimental to the behavioral sensitivity of inter-object relations. Insofar as LOC is the earliest cortical region where shape is distinguished from texture, our results provide strong evidence that scene-like relations are achieved simultaneously with the perception of object shape and not inferred at some stage following object identification.

Iseseisvusdeklaratsioonid 1776–1918. The Estonian Declaration of Sovereignty: An Example of the Civilizing Force of Hypocrisy

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Hent Kalmo

2012-06-01

Full Text Available Sovereignty has been characterised as a form of “organized hypocrisy”, a system governed by a set of rules that are generally recognised as binding and yet are continually infringed upon by the most powerful actors. This idea can be extended to analyse the role of sovereignty within the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was nominally governed by a Constitution which endowed the Union Republics with the right of secession, but there was no realistic possibility of exercising this right. One should not rush to conclude, however, that the actual wording of the Soviet Constitution of 1977 was entirely without relevance. As Jon Elster has argued, hypocrisy can have a “civilizing force” when the need to appear impartial and to retain public credibility forces actors to choose a strategy they would not choose otherwise. A good example of this kind of argumentative constraint is offered by the dilemma faced by the Soviet leadership after the mid-1980s, as it became reluctant to use military force to suppress independence movements within the Baltic States while, at the same time, promising to give more weight to the Soviet Constitution and respect the “sovereignty” of the Union Republics. In this setting, the ambiguity of the word “sovereignty” could be played upon by a whole gamut of political movements in order to further their agenda, from local communists eager to expand their autonomy within the Soviet system to those making an explicit bid for the restoration of independence. Significant legal and political changes could be justified as mere conclusions from the constitutionally recognised status of the Union Republics – a strategy which was all the more effective as Moscow struggled to formulate an alternative line of constitutional interpretation that could be used to counter the Baltic claims. This exchange of opinions escalated into a constitutional conflict in November 1988, when the Estonian Supreme Soviet responded to

The ancient art of laying rope

Science.gov (United States)

Bohr, J.; Olsen, K.

2011-03-01

We describe a geometrical property of helical structures and show how it accounts for the early art of rope-making. Helices have a maximum number of rotations that can be added to them — and it is shown that this is a geometrical feature, not a material property. This geometrical insight explains why nearly identically appearing ropes can be made from very different materials and it is also the reason behind the unyielding nature of ropes. Maximally rotated strands behave as zero-twist structures. Hence, under strain they neither rotate in one direction nor in the other. The necessity for the rope to be stretched while being laid, known from Egyptian tomb scenes, follows straightforwardly, as does the function of the top, an old tool for laying ropes.

Reconstruction and simplification of urban scene models based on oblique images

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, J.; Guo, B.

2014-08-01

We describe a multi-view stereo reconstruction and simplification algorithms for urban scene models based on oblique images. The complexity, diversity, and density within the urban scene, it increases the difficulty to build the city models using the oblique images. But there are a lot of flat surfaces existing in the urban scene. One of our key contributions is that a dense matching algorithm based on Self-Adaptive Patch in view of the urban scene is proposed. The basic idea of matching propagating based on Self-Adaptive Patch is to build patches centred by seed points which are already matched. The extent and shape of the patches can adapt to the objects of urban scene automatically: when the surface is flat, the extent of the patch would become bigger; while the surface is very rough, the extent of the patch would become smaller. The other contribution is that the mesh generated by Graph Cuts is 2-manifold surface satisfied the half edge data structure. It is solved by clustering and re-marking tetrahedrons in s-t graph. The purpose of getting 2- manifold surface is to simply the mesh by edge collapse algorithm which can preserve and stand out the features of buildings.

Effects of scene content and layout on the perceived light direction in 3D spaces.

Science.gov (United States)

Xia, Ling; Pont, Sylvia C; Heynderickx, Ingrid

2016-08-01

The lighting and furnishing of an interior space (i.e., the reflectance of its materials, the geometries of the furnishings, and their arrangement) determine the appearance of this space. Conversely, human observers infer lighting properties from the space's appearance. We conducted two psychophysical experiments to investigate how the perception of the light direction is influenced by a scene's objects and their layout using real scenes. In the first experiment, we confirmed that the shape of the objects in the scene and the scene layout influence the perceived light direction. In the second experiment, we systematically investigated how specific shape properties influenced the estimation of the light direction. The results showed that increasing the number of visible faces of an object, ultimately using globally spherical shapes in the scene, supported the veridicality of the estimated light direction. Furthermore, symmetric arrangements in the scene improved the estimation of the tilt direction. Thus, human perception of light should integrally consider materials, scene content, and layout.

Neural Correlates of Divided Attention in Natural Scenes.

Science.gov (United States)

Fagioli, Sabrina; Macaluso, Emiliano

2016-09-01

Individuals are able to split attention between separate locations, but divided spatial attention incurs the additional requirement of monitoring multiple streams of information. Here, we investigated divided attention using photos of natural scenes, where the rapid categorization of familiar objects and prior knowledge about the likely positions of objects in the real world might affect the interplay between these spatial and nonspatial factors. Sixteen participants underwent fMRI during an object detection task. They were presented with scenes containing either a person or a car, located on the left or right side of the photo. Participants monitored either one or both object categories, in one or both visual hemifields. First, we investigated the interplay between spatial and nonspatial attention by comparing conditions of divided attention between categories and/or locations. We then assessed the contribution of top-down processes versus stimulus-driven signals by separately testing the effects of divided attention in target and nontarget trials. The results revealed activation of a bilateral frontoparietal network when dividing attention between the two object categories versus attending to a single category but no main effect of dividing attention between spatial locations. Within this network, the left dorsal premotor cortex and the left intraparietal sulcus were found to combine task- and stimulus-related signals. These regions showed maximal activation when participants monitored two categories at spatially separate locations and the scene included a nontarget object. We conclude that the dorsal frontoparietal cortex integrates top-down and bottom-up signals in the presence of distractors during divided attention in real-world scenes.

Gist in time: Scene semantics and structure enhance recall of searched objects.

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Josephs, Emilie L; Draschkow, Dejan; Wolfe, Jeremy M; Võ, Melissa L-H

2016-09-01

Previous work has shown that recall of objects that are incidentally encountered as targets in visual search is better than recall of objects that have been intentionally memorized (Draschkow, Wolfe, & Võ, 2014). However, this counter-intuitive result is not seen when these tasks are performed with non-scene stimuli. The goal of the current paper is to determine what features of search in a scene contribute to higher recall rates when compared to a memorization task. In each of four experiments, we compare the free recall rate for target objects following a search to the rate following a memorization task. Across the experiments, the stimuli include progressively more scene-related information. Experiment 1 provides the spatial relations between objects. Experiment 2 adds relative size and depth of objects. Experiments 3 and 4 include scene layout and semantic information. We find that search leads to better recall than explicit memorization in cases where scene layout and semantic information are present, as long as the participant has ample time (2500ms) to integrate this information with knowledge about the target object (Exp. 4). These results suggest that the integration of scene and target information not only leads to more efficient search, but can also contribute to stronger memory representations than intentional memorization. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The development of brain systems associated with successful memory retrieval of scenes.

Science.gov (United States)

Ofen, Noa; Chai, Xiaoqian J; Schuil, Karen D I; Whitfield-Gabrieli, Susan; Gabrieli, John D E

2012-07-18

Neuroanatomical and psychological evidence suggests prolonged maturation of declarative memory systems in the human brain from childhood into young adulthood. Here, we examine functional brain development during successful memory retrieval of scenes in children, adolescents, and young adults ages 8-21 via functional magnetic resonance imaging. Recognition memory improved with age, specifically for accurate identification of studied scenes (hits). Successful retrieval (correct old-new decisions for studied vs unstudied scenes) was associated with activations in frontal, parietal, and medial temporal lobe (MTL) regions. Activations associated with successful retrieval increased with age in left parietal cortex (BA7), bilateral prefrontal, and bilateral caudate regions. In contrast, activations associated with successful retrieval did not change with age in the MTL. Psychophysiological interaction analysis revealed that there were, however, age-relate changes in differential connectivity for successful retrieval between MTL and prefrontal regions. These results suggest that neocortical regions related to attentional or strategic control show the greatest developmental changes for memory retrieval of scenes. Furthermore, these results suggest that functional interactions between MTL and prefrontal regions during memory retrieval also develop into young adulthood. The developmental increase of memory-related activations in frontal and parietal regions for retrieval of scenes and the absence of such an increase in MTL regions parallels what has been observed for memory encoding of scenes.

Image Chunking: Defining Spatial Building Blocks for Scene Analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

1987-04-01

mumgs0.USmusa 7.AUWOJO 4. CIUTAC Rm6ANT Wuugme*j James V/. Mlahoney DACA? 6-85-C-00 10 NOQ 1 4-85-K-O 124 Artificial Inteligence Laboratory US USS 545...0197 672 IMAGE CHUWING: DEINING SPATIAL UILDING PLOCKS FOR 142 SCENE ANRLYSIS(U) MASSACHUSETTS INST OF TECH CAIIAIDGE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE LAO J...Technical Report 980 F-Image Chunking: Defining Spatial Building Blocks for Scene DTm -Analysis S ELECTED James V. Mahoney’ MIT Artificial Intelligence

Global Transsaccadic Change Blindness During Scene Perception

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Henderson, John

2003-01-01

.... The results from two experiments demonstrated a global transsaccadic change-blindness effect, suggesting that point-by-point visual representations are not functional across saccades during complex scene perception. Ahstract.

Comparative analysis of idiom selection and sequencing 5 in Estonian basic school EFL coursebooks

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Rita Anita Forssten

2017-05-01

Full Text Available The article investigates the selection and sequencing of the idioms encountered in two locally-produced and international coursebook series currently employed in Estonian basic schools. It is hypothesized that there exists a positive correlation between idioms’ difficulty and coursebooks’ language proficiency level. The hypothesis is tested through a statistical analysis of the idioms found which are categorized in terms of their analysability into three categories where category 1 includes analysable semi-literal idioms, category 2 comprises analysable semi-transparent idioms, and category 3 encompasses non-analysable opaque idioms, and then analysed through an online language corpus (British National Corpus. The results of the study reveal that the coursebook authors under discussion have disregarded idioms’ frequency as a criterion for selection or sequencing, whereas the factor utilized to some extent is the degree of analysability.

Ontology of a scene based on Java 3D architecture.

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Rubén González Crespo

2009-12-01

Full Text Available The present article seeks to make an approach to the class hierarchy of a scene built with the architecture Java 3D, to develop an ontology of a scene as from the semantic essential components for the semantic structuring of the Web3D. Java was selected because the language recommended by the W3C Consortium for the Development of the Web3D oriented applications as from X3D standard is Xj3D which compositionof their Schemas is based the architecture of Java3D In first instance identifies the domain and scope of the ontology, defining classes and subclasses that comprise from Java3D architecture and the essential elements of a scene, as its point of origin, the field of rotation, translation The limitation of the scene and the definition of shaders, then define the slots that are declared in RDF as a framework for describing the properties of the classes established from identifying thedomain and range of each class, then develops composition of the OWL ontology on SWOOP Finally, be perform instantiations of the ontology building for a Iconosphere object as from class expressions defined.

Modelling Technology for Building Fire Scene with Virtual Geographic Environment

Science.gov (United States)

Song, Y.; Zhao, L.; Wei, M.; Zhang, H.; Liu, W.

2017-09-01

Building fire is a risky activity that can lead to disaster and massive destruction. The management and disposal of building fire has always attracted much interest from researchers. Integrated Virtual Geographic Environment (VGE) is a good choice for building fire safety management and emergency decisions, in which a more real and rich fire process can be computed and obtained dynamically, and the results of fire simulations and analyses can be much more accurate as well. To modelling building fire scene with VGE, the application requirements and modelling objective of building fire scene were analysed in this paper. Then, the four core elements of modelling building fire scene (the building space environment, the fire event, the indoor Fire Extinguishing System (FES) and the indoor crowd) were implemented, and the relationship between the elements was discussed also. Finally, with the theory and framework of VGE, the technology of building fire scene system with VGE was designed within the data environment, the model environment, the expression environment, and the collaborative environment as well. The functions and key techniques in each environment are also analysed, which may provide a reference for further development and other research on VGE.

Guidance of Attention to Objects and Locations by Long-Term Memory of Natural Scenes

Science.gov (United States)

Becker, Mark W.; Rasmussen, Ian P.

2008-01-01

Four flicker change-detection experiments demonstrate that scene-specific long-term memory guides attention to both behaviorally relevant locations and objects within a familiar scene. Participants performed an initial block of change-detection trials, detecting the addition of an object to a natural scene. After a 30-min delay, participants…

Eesti patsient. Haiguse ja haige inimese kujutamise mudel 19. sajandi eesti kultuuris ja kirjasõnas. The Estonian Patient: A Model for the Representation of Illness and the Ill in 19th Century Estonian Culture and Letters

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Janek Kraavi

2012-04-01

Full Text Available The portrait of the 18th and 19th century „Estonian patient” sketched in this article is a theoretical model of the ill person, based mainly on literary texts, but with reference to a variety of scientific and popular-scientific material. The point of departure is the classic postcolonial theorist, Frantz Fanon, in whose writings medicine, healing, and discourse on such topics are seen as the functioning of a specific colonial practice. The most notable characteristic of the figure of the Estonian patient is non-communicativeness. Communication is avoided and feared primarily because it has to be directed toward those in higher positions of power, or to institutions that embody power (the apothecary, the hospital. While these traits also characterize the separation between peasants and their rulers more generally, in a situation of illness the exclusion is felt with a double intensity. Sickness casts the peasant in a double bind: when in need of help or healing, contact across the divide between social rank, and – more broadly, between two cultures and ways of understanding the world, becomes unavoidable. In such situations, illness signifies an intensification of the gap in social standing. The ill person, who already stands on a lower rung of the social hierarchy, becomes all the more marginalized. In keeping with these observations, the real reason behind indecisiveness and refusal of medical treatment may well be an effort to avoid or postpone humiliation on the basis of lower social standing. Other contributing factors might include unconscious resistance – or even a conscious model of resistance – in the psyche, which manifests as an avoidance of communication. The content and motivating force for the model is not heroism, but rather a sense of shame. Indeed, behind the context of medical culture lurks ethnic and material isolation. The individual’s economic situation, living conditions, education and – most important – his

Semantic memory for contextual regularities within and across scene categories: evidence from eye movements.

Science.gov (United States)

Brockmole, James R; Le-Hoa Võ, Melissa

2010-10-01

When encountering familiar scenes, observers can use item-specific memory to facilitate the guidance of attention to objects appearing in known locations or configurations. Here, we investigated how memory for relational contingencies that emerge across different scenes can be exploited to guide attention. Participants searched for letter targets embedded in pictures of bedrooms. In a between-subjects manipulation, targets were either always on a bed pillow or randomly positioned. When targets were systematically located within scenes, search for targets became more efficient. Importantly, this learning transferred to bedrooms without pillows, ruling out learning that is based on perceptual contingencies. Learning also transferred to living room scenes, but it did not transfer to kitchen scenes, even though both scene types contained pillows. These results suggest that statistical regularities abstracted across a range of stimuli are governed by semantic expectations regarding the presence of target-predicting local landmarks. Moreover, explicit awareness of these contingencies led to a central tendency bias in recall memory for precise target positions that is similar to the spatial category effects observed in landmark memory. These results broaden the scope of conditions under which contextual cuing operates and demonstrate how semantic memory plays a causal and independent role in the learning of associations between objects in real-world scenes.

Pilk ingliskeelse kirjanduse tõlgetele 18. sajandi lõpust 20. sajandi algusveerandini / A Look at Estonian Translations of English Literature from the late 18th Century to the Early 20th Century

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Krista Mits

2012-06-01

Full Text Available The aim of this article is to provide an overview of translations of English literature into Estonian between 1779 and 1917. There is an attempt to analyse the texts by describing them on the basis of, or in their departure from, a text or texts that chronologically and logically precede them. The discussion includes the nature of the transfer and the changes that have been made to the text, either because they existed in the source or mediating text or because of the expectations or requirements in the receptor, i.e. Estonian culture. The translated texts are seen in their historical-cultural context. For the analysis, a corpus of translated texts – religious, fiction, drama and non-fiction (published in a book form was compiled. The general orientation of Estonia until the 1880s was to the German cultural sphere. So the first translations of English literature were made via a mediating language, which was German. English Puritan writers were introduced by the Pietist missionaries with the aim of spreading their teachings in the second half of the 18th century. At about the same time the narrative element was introduced into stories with religious content. Some internationally popular stories, e.g. the Inkle and Yarico story, later robinsonades, stories of slavery and plant at ion life, as well as Amer ican Indian st or ies wer e also t r anslat ed fr om Ger man. However, until  1875  ver  y  few  translations  of  English  literature  into  E stonian were  published.  The  last quarter of the 19th century saw an explosion in literary production: there was a substantial increase  both  in  the  number  of  translations  of  English  literature  into  E stonian  as  well  as diversification of genres. This continued into the first decade of the 20th  centur y,  when  the sociopolitical situation in Estonia changed. In addition, books came to be translated directly from  English,  although  many  translations �

The elephant in the room: Inconsistency in scene viewing and representation.

Science.gov (United States)

Spotorno, Sara; Tatler, Benjamin W

2017-10-01

We examined the extent to which semantic informativeness, consistency with expectations and perceptual salience contribute to object prioritization in scene viewing and representation. In scene viewing (Experiments 1-2), semantic guidance overshadowed perceptual guidance in determining fixation order, with the greatest prioritization for objects that were diagnostic of the scene's depicted event. Perceptual properties affected selection of consistent objects (regardless of their informativeness) but not of inconsistent objects. Semantic and perceptual properties also interacted in influencing foveal inspection, as inconsistent objects were fixated longer than low but not high salience diagnostic objects. While not studied in direct competition with each other (each studied in competition with diagnostic objects), we found that inconsistent objects were fixated earlier and for longer than consistent but marginally informative objects. In change detection (Experiment 3), perceptual guidance overshadowed semantic guidance, promoting detection of highly salient changes. A residual advantage for diagnosticity over inconsistency emerged only when selection prioritization could not be based on low-level features. Overall these findings show that semantic inconsistency is not prioritized within a scene when competing with other relevant information that is essential to scene understanding and respects observers' expectations. Moreover, they reveal that the relative dominance of semantic or perceptual properties during selection depends on ongoing task requirements. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Värsked mälestused, vigade parandused / Harry Liivrand

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Liivrand, Harry, 1961-

2001-01-01

Rets.: Ülbed üheksakümnendad : probleemid, teemad ja tähendused 1990. aastate eesti kunstis = Nosy nineties : problems, themes and meanings in Estonian art on 1990s. Tallinn, 2001. Kogumiku valikulisusest, subjektiivsusest ja ebaühtlasest tasemest

Fuzzy Classification of High Resolution Remote Sensing Scenes Using Visual Attention Features

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Linyi Li

2017-01-01

Full Text Available In recent years the spatial resolutions of remote sensing images have been improved greatly. However, a higher spatial resolution image does not always lead to a better result of automatic scene classification. Visual attention is an important characteristic of the human visual system, which can effectively help to classify remote sensing scenes. In this study, a novel visual attention feature extraction algorithm was proposed, which extracted visual attention features through a multiscale process. And a fuzzy classification method using visual attention features (FC-VAF was developed to perform high resolution remote sensing scene classification. FC-VAF was evaluated by using remote sensing scenes from widely used high resolution remote sensing images, including IKONOS, QuickBird, and ZY-3 images. FC-VAF achieved more accurate classification results than the others according to the quantitative accuracy evaluation indices. We also discussed the role and impacts of different decomposition levels and different wavelets on the classification accuracy. FC-VAF improves the accuracy of high resolution scene classification and therefore advances the research of digital image analysis and the applications of high resolution remote sensing images.

Mirth and Murder: Crime Scene Investigation as a Work Context for Examining Humor Applications

Science.gov (United States)

Roth, Gene L.; Vivona, Brian

2010-01-01

Within work settings, humor is used by workers for a wide variety of purposes. This study examines humor applications of a specific type of worker in a unique work context: crime scene investigation. Crime scene investigators examine death and its details. Members of crime scene units observe death much more frequently than other police officers…

Smoking scenes in popular Japanese serial television dramas: descriptive analysis during the same 3-month period in two consecutive years.

Science.gov (United States)

Kanda, Hideyuki; Okamura, Tomonori; Turin, Tanvir Chowdhury; Hayakawa, Takehito; Kadowaki, Takashi; Ueshima, Hirotsugu

2006-06-01

Japanese serial television dramas are becoming very popular overseas, particularly in other Asian countries. Exposure to smoking scenes in movies and television dramas has been known to trigger initiation of habitual smoking in young people. Smoking scenes in Japanese dramas may affect the smoking behavior of many young Asians. We examined smoking scenes and smoking-related items in serial television dramas targeting young audiences in Japan during the same season in two consecutive years. Fourteen television dramas targeting the young audience broadcast between July and September in 2001 and 2002 were analyzed. A total of 136 h 42 min of television programs were divided into unit scenes of 3 min (a total of 2734 unit scenes). All the unit scenes were reviewed for smoking scenes and smoking-related items. Of the 2734 3-min unit scenes, 205 (7.5%) were actual smoking scenes and 387 (14.2%) depicted smoking environments with the presence of smoking-related items, such as ash trays. In 185 unit scenes (90.2% of total smoking scenes), actors were shown smoking. Actresses were less frequently shown smoking (9.8% of total smoking scenes). Smoking characters in dramas were in the 20-49 age group in 193 unit scenes (94.1% of total smoking scenes). In 96 unit scenes (46.8% of total smoking scenes), at least one non-smoker was present in the smoking scenes. The smoking locations were mainly indoors, including offices, restaurants and homes (122 unit scenes, 59.6%). The most common smoking-related items shown were ash trays (in 45.5% of smoking-item-related scenes) and cigarettes (in 30.2% of smoking-item-related scenes). Only 3 unit scenes (0.1 % of all scenes) promoted smoking prohibition. This was a descriptive study to examine the nature of smoking scenes observed in Japanese television dramas from a public health perspective.

Technicolor/INRIA team at the MediaEval 2013 Violent Scenes Detection Task

OpenAIRE

Penet , Cédric; Demarty , Claire-Hélène; Gravier , Guillaume; Gros , Patrick

2013-01-01

International audience; This paper presents the work done at Technicolor and INRIA regarding the MediaEval 2013 Violent Scenes Detection task, which aims at detecting violent scenes in movies. We participated in both the objective and the subjective subtasks.

Art and Identity : The Soviet Woman in Estonian Art / Michael Schwab

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Schwab, Michael, 1966-

2010-01-01

Kumu Kunstimuuseumis 8.04.-26.09.2010 avatud näitusest "Nõukogude naine eesti kunstis", kuraatorid Katrin Kivimaa ja Kädi Talvoja. Ernst Hallopi maalist "Piimatootmine Väimela karjandustehnikumis" (1948) ja Lola Liivati maalist "Laulja ja näitleja Elo Tamuli portree" (1954)

Multiple vehicle routing and dispatching to an emergency scene

OpenAIRE

M S Daskin; A Haghani

1984-01-01

A model of the distribution of arrival time at the scene of an emergency for the first of many vehicles is developed for the case in which travel times on the links of the network are normally distributed and the path travel times of different vehicles are correlated. The model suggests that the probability that the first vehicle arrives at the scene within a given time may be increased by reducing the path time correlations, even if doing so necessitates increasing the mean path travel time ...

Combined Influence of Visual Scene and Body Tilt on Arm Pointing Movements: Gravity Matters!

Science.gov (United States)

Scotto Di Cesare, Cécile; Sarlegna, Fabrice R.; Bourdin, Christophe; Mestre, Daniel R.; Bringoux, Lionel

2014-01-01

Performing accurate actions such as goal-directed arm movements requires taking into account visual and body orientation cues to localize the target in space and produce appropriate reaching motor commands. We experimentally tilted the body and/or the visual scene to investigate how visual and body orientation cues are combined for the control of unseen arm movements. Subjects were asked to point toward a visual target using an upward movement during slow body and/or visual scene tilts. When the scene was tilted, final pointing errors varied as a function of the direction of the scene tilt (forward or backward). Actual forward body tilt resulted in systematic target undershoots, suggesting that the brain may have overcompensated for the biomechanical movement facilitation arising from body tilt. Combined body and visual scene tilts also affected final pointing errors according to the orientation of the visual scene. The data were further analysed using either a body-centered or a gravity-centered reference frame to encode visual scene orientation with simple additive models (i.e., ‘combined’ tilts equal to the sum of ‘single’ tilts). We found that the body-centered model could account only for some of the data regarding kinematic parameters and final errors. In contrast, the gravity-centered modeling in which the body and visual scene orientations were referred to vertical could explain all of these data. Therefore, our findings suggest that the brain uses gravity, thanks to its invariant properties, as a reference for the combination of visual and non-visual cues. PMID:24925371

Negotiating place and gendered violence in Canada's largest open drug scene.

Science.gov (United States)

McNeil, Ryan; Shannon, Kate; Shaver, Laura; Kerr, Thomas; Small, Will

2014-05-01

Vancouver's Downtown Eastside is home to Canada's largest street-based drug scene and only supervised injection facility (Insite). High levels of violence among men and women have been documented in this neighbourhood. This study was undertaken to explore the role of violence in shaping the socio-spatial relations of women and 'marginal men' (i.e., those occupying subordinate positions within the drug scene) in the Downtown Eastside, including access to Insite. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 23 people who inject drugs (PWID) recruited through the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, a local drug user organization. Interviews included a mapping exercise. Interview transcripts and maps were analyzed thematically, with an emphasis on how gendered violence shaped participants' spatial practices. Hegemonic forms of masculinity operating within the Downtown Eastside framed the everyday violence experienced by women and marginal men. This violence shaped the spatial practices of women and marginal men, in that they avoided drug scene milieus where they had experienced violence or that they perceived to be dangerous. Some men linked their spatial restrictions to the perceived 'dope quality' of neighbourhood drug dealers to maintain claims to dominant masculinities while enacting spatial strategies to promote safety. Environmental supports provided by health and social care agencies were critical in enabling women and marginal men to negotiate place and survival within the context of drug scene violence. Access to Insite did not motivate participants to enter into "dangerous" drug scene milieus but they did venture into these areas if necessary to obtain drugs or generate income. Gendered violence is critical in restricting the geographies of men and marginal men within the street-based drug scene. There is a need to scale up existing environmental interventions, including supervised injection services, to minimize violence and potential drug

Real-time scene and signature generation for ladar and imaging sensors

Science.gov (United States)

Swierkowski, Leszek; Christie, Chad L.; Antanovskii, Leonid; Gouthas, Efthimios

2014-05-01

This paper describes development of two key functionalities within the VIRSuite scene simulation program, broadening its scene generation capabilities and increasing accuracy of thermal signatures. Firstly, a new LADAR scene generation module has been designed. It is capable of simulating range imagery for Geiger mode LADAR, in addition to the already existing functionality for linear mode systems. Furthermore, a new 3D heat diffusion solver has been developed within the VIRSuite signature prediction module. It is capable of calculating the temperature distribution in complex three-dimensional objects for enhanced dynamic prediction of thermal signatures. With these enhancements, VIRSuite is now a robust tool for conducting dynamic simulation for missiles with multi-mode seekers.

Three-dimensional scene encryption and display based on computer-generated holograms.

Science.gov (United States)

Kong, Dezhao; Cao, Liangcai; Jin, Guofan; Javidi, Bahram

2016-10-10

An optical encryption and display method for a three-dimensional (3D) scene is proposed based on computer-generated holograms (CGHs) using a single phase-only spatial light modulator. The 3D scene is encoded as one complex Fourier CGH. The Fourier CGH is then decomposed into two phase-only CGHs with random distributions by the vector stochastic decomposition algorithm. Two CGHs are interleaved as one final phase-only CGH for optical encryption and reconstruction. The proposed method can support high-level nonlinear optical 3D scene security and complex amplitude modulation of the optical field. The exclusive phase key offers strong resistances of decryption attacks. Experimental results demonstrate the validity of the novel method.

Anticipatory scene representation in preschool children's recall and recognition memory.

Science.gov (United States)

Kreindel, Erica; Intraub, Helene

2017-09-01

Behavioral and neuroscience research on boundary extension (false memory beyond the edges of a view of a scene) has provided new insights into the constructive nature of scene representation, and motivates questions about development. Early research with children (as young as 6-7 years) was consistent with boundary extension, but relied on an analysis of spatial errors in drawings which are open to alternative explanations (e.g. drawing ability). Experiment 1 replicated and extended prior drawing results with 4-5-year-olds and adults. In Experiment 2, a new, forced-choice immediate recognition memory test was implemented with the same children. On each trial, a card (photograph of a simple scene) was immediately replaced by a test card (identical view and either a closer or more wide-angle view) and participants indicated which one matched the original view. Error patterns supported boundary extension; identical photographs were more frequently rejected when the closer view was the original view, than vice versa. This asymmetry was not attributable to a selection bias (guessing tasks; Experiments 3-5). In Experiment 4, working memory load was increased by presenting more expansive views of more complex scenes. Again, children exhibited boundary extension, but now adults did not, unless stimulus duration was reduced to 5 s (limiting time to implement strategies; Experiment 5). We propose that like adults, children interpret photographs as views of places in the world; they extrapolate the anticipated continuation of the scene beyond the view and misattribute it to having been seen. Developmental differences in source attribution decision processes provide an explanation for the age-related differences observed. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

From Theatre Improvisation To Video Scenes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Larsen, Henry; Hvidt, Niels Christian; Friis, Preben

2018-01-01

At Sygehus Lillebaelt, a Danish hospital, there has been a focus for several years on patient communi- cation. This paper reflects on a course focusing on engaging with the patient’s existential themes in particular the negotiations around the creation of video scenes. In the initial workshops, w...

Scene independent real-time indirect illumination

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Frisvad, Jeppe Revall; Christensen, Niels Jørgen; Falster, Peter

2005-01-01

A novel method for real-time simulation of indirect illumination is presented in this paper. The method, which we call Direct Radiance Mapping (DRM), is based on basal radiance calculations and does not impose any restrictions on scene geometry or dynamics. This makes the method tractable for rea...

Fuzzy Emotional Semantic Analysis and Automated Annotation of Scene Images

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jianfang Cao

2015-01-01

Full Text Available With the advances in electronic and imaging techniques, the production of digital images has rapidly increased, and the extraction and automated annotation of emotional semantics implied by images have become issues that must be urgently addressed. To better simulate human subjectivity and ambiguity for understanding scene images, the current study proposes an emotional semantic annotation method for scene images based on fuzzy set theory. A fuzzy membership degree was calculated to describe the emotional degree of a scene image and was implemented using the Adaboost algorithm and a back-propagation (BP neural network. The automated annotation method was trained and tested using scene images from the SUN Database. The annotation results were then compared with those based on artificial annotation. Our method showed an annotation accuracy rate of 91.2% for basic emotional values and 82.4% after extended emotional values were added, which correspond to increases of 5.5% and 8.9%, respectively, compared with the results from using a single BP neural network algorithm. Furthermore, the retrieval accuracy rate based on our method reached approximately 89%. This study attempts to lay a solid foundation for the automated emotional semantic annotation of more types of images and therefore is of practical significance.

Error Detection, Factorization and Correction for Multi-View Scene Reconstruction from Aerial Imagery

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hess-Flores, Mauricio [Univ. of California, Davis, CA (United States)

2011-11-10

Scene reconstruction from video sequences has become a prominent computer vision research area in recent years, due to its large number of applications in fields such as security, robotics and virtual reality. Despite recent progress in this field, there are still a number of issues that manifest as incomplete, incorrect or computationally-expensive reconstructions. The engine behind achieving reconstruction is the matching of features between images, where common conditions such as occlusions, lighting changes and texture-less regions can all affect matching accuracy. Subsequent processes that rely on matching accuracy, such as camera parameter estimation, structure computation and non-linear parameter optimization, are also vulnerable to additional sources of error, such as degeneracies and mathematical instability. Detection and correction of errors, along with robustness in parameter solvers, are a must in order to achieve a very accurate final scene reconstruction. However, error detection is in general difficult due to the lack of ground-truth information about the given scene, such as the absolute position of scene points or GPS/IMU coordinates for the camera(s) viewing the scene. In this dissertation, methods are presented for the detection, factorization and correction of error sources present in all stages of a scene reconstruction pipeline from video, in the absence of ground-truth knowledge. Two main applications are discussed. The first set of algorithms derive total structural error measurements after an initial scene structure computation and factorize errors into those related to the underlying feature matching process and those related to camera parameter estimation. A brute-force local correction of inaccurate feature matches is presented, as well as an improved conditioning scheme for non-linear parameter optimization which applies weights on input parameters in proportion to estimated camera parameter errors. Another application is in

Biological dosimetric studies in the Chernobyl radiation accident, on populations living in the contaminated areas (Gomel regions) and in Estonian clean-up workers, using FISH technique

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Darroudi, F.; Natarajan, A.T.

1996-01-01

In order to perform retrospective estimations of radiation doses seven years after the nuclear accident in Chernobyl, the frequencies of chromosomal aberrations in the peripheral blood lymphocytes of individuals living in contaminated areas around Chernobyl and the Estonian clean-up workers were determined. The first study group composed of 45 individuals living in four areas (i.e. Rechitsa, Komsomolski, Choiniki and Zaspa) in the vicinity (80-125 km) of Chernobyl and 20 individuals living in Minsk (control group - 340 km from Chernobyl). The second study group (Estonian clean-up workers) composed of 26 individuals involved in cleaning up the Chernobyl for a different period of time (up to 7 months) and a matched control group consisting of 9 probands. Unstable aberrations (dicentrics and rings) were scored in Giemsa stained preparations and stable aberrations (translocations) were analyzed using chromosome specific DNA libraries and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) technique. For both study groups the estimated average dose is between 0,1-0,4 Gy. Among the people living in the contaminated areas in the vicinity of Chernobyl, a higher frequency of numerical aberrations (i.e. trisomy, hyper diploidy) was evident

Scene recognition based on integrating active learning with dictionary learning

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Chengxi; Yin, Xueyan; Yang, Lin; Gong, Chengrong; Zheng, Caixia; Yi, Yugen

2018-04-01

Scene recognition is a significant topic in the field of computer vision. Most of the existing scene recognition models require a large amount of labeled training samples to achieve a good performance. However, labeling image manually is a time consuming task and often unrealistic in practice. In order to gain satisfying recognition results when labeled samples are insufficient, this paper proposed a scene recognition algorithm named Integrating Active Learning and Dictionary Leaning (IALDL). IALDL adopts projective dictionary pair learning (DPL) as classifier and introduces active learning mechanism into DPL for improving its performance. When constructing sampling criterion in active learning, IALDL considers both the uncertainty and representativeness as the sampling criteria to effectively select the useful unlabeled samples from a given sample set for expanding the training dataset. Experiment results on three standard databases demonstrate the feasibility and validity of the proposed IALDL.

Developing Scene Understanding Neural Software for Realistic Autonomous Outdoor Missions

Science.gov (United States)

2017-09-01

computer using a single graphics processing unit (GPU). To the best of our knowledge, an implementation of the open-source Python -based AlexNet CNN on...1. Introduction Neurons in the brain enable us to understand scenes by assessing the spatial, temporal, and feature relations of objects in the...effort to use computer neural networks to augment human neural intelligence to improve our scene understanding (Krizhevsky et al. 2012; Zhou et al

Three-dimensional model-based object recognition and segmentation in cluttered scenes.

Science.gov (United States)

Mian, Ajmal S; Bennamoun, Mohammed; Owens, Robyn

2006-10-01

Viewpoint independent recognition of free-form objects and their segmentation in the presence of clutter and occlusions is a challenging task. We present a novel 3D model-based algorithm which performs this task automatically and efficiently. A 3D model of an object is automatically constructed offline from its multiple unordered range images (views). These views are converted into multidimensional table representations (which we refer to as tensors). Correspondences are automatically established between these views by simultaneously matching the tensors of a view with those of the remaining views using a hash table-based voting scheme. This results in a graph of relative transformations used to register the views before they are integrated into a seamless 3D model. These models and their tensor representations constitute the model library. During online recognition, a tensor from the scene is simultaneously matched with those in the library by casting votes. Similarity measures are calculated for the model tensors which receive the most votes. The model with the highest similarity is transformed to the scene and, if it aligns accurately with an object in the scene, that object is declared as recognized and is segmented. This process is repeated until the scene is completely segmented. Experiments were performed on real and synthetic data comprised of 55 models and 610 scenes and an overall recognition rate of 95 percent was achieved. Comparison with the spin images revealed that our algorithm is superior in terms of recognition rate and efficiency.

Real-Time Projection-Based Augmented Reality System for Dynamic Objects in the Performing Arts

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jaewoon Lee

2015-02-01

Full Text Available This paper describes the case study of applying projection-based augmented reality, especially for dynamic objects in live performing shows, such as plays, dancing, or musicals. Our study aims to project imagery correctly inside the silhouettes of flexible objects, in other words, live actors or the surface of actor’s costumes; the silhouette transforms its own shape frequently. To realize this work, we implemented a special projection system based on the real-time masking technique, that is to say real-time projection-based augmented reality system for dynamic objects in performing arts. We installed the sets on a stage for live performance, and rehearsed particular scenes of a musical. In live performance, using projection-based augmented reality technology enhances technical and theatrical aspects which were not possible with existing video projection techniques. The projected images on the surfaces of actor’s costume could not only express the particular scene of a performance more effectively, but also lead the audience to an extraordinary visual experience.

Deconstructing visual scenes in cortex: gradients of object and spatial layout information.

Science.gov (United States)

Harel, Assaf; Kravitz, Dwight J; Baker, Chris I

2013-04-01

Real-world visual scenes are complex cluttered, and heterogeneous stimuli engaging scene- and object-selective cortical regions including parahippocampal place area (PPA), retrosplenial complex (RSC), and lateral occipital complex (LOC). To understand the unique contribution of each region to distributed scene representations, we generated predictions based on a neuroanatomical framework adapted from monkey and tested them using minimal scenes in which we independently manipulated both spatial layout (open, closed, and gradient) and object content (furniture, e.g., bed, dresser). Commensurate with its strong connectivity with posterior parietal cortex, RSC evidenced strong spatial layout information but no object information, and its response was not even modulated by object presence. In contrast, LOC, which lies within the ventral visual pathway, contained strong object information but no background information. Finally, PPA, which is connected with both the dorsal and the ventral visual pathway, showed information about both objects and spatial backgrounds and was sensitive to the presence or absence of either. These results suggest that 1) LOC, PPA, and RSC have distinct representations, emphasizing different aspects of scenes, 2) the specific representations in each region are predictable from their patterns of connectivity, and 3) PPA combines both spatial layout and object information as predicted by connectivity.

Sight UnScene

Science.gov (United States)

Sartorius, Tara Cady

2009-01-01

How "could" one borrow a view? The works of artist, Ray Kass (b. 1944) are as much, if not more, about the experience and process of perception and art-making as they are about the final objects he creates. Kass is notorious for not solely his art making, but also for his thinking. He thinks, he writes, he teaches, he discusses, he organizes…

A semi-interactive panorama based 3D reconstruction framework for indoor scenes

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Dang, T.K.; Worring, M.; Bui, T.D.

2011-01-01

We present a semi-interactive method for 3D reconstruction specialized for indoor scenes which combines computer vision techniques with efficient interaction. We use panoramas, popularly used for visualization of indoor scenes, but clearly not able to show depth, for their great field of view, as

Nooreestlased arvustuses ja arvustajatena: lugejakontseptsioonist 20. sajandi alguse kriitikas. The Young Estonians as Critics and in the Eyes of Critics: On the Concept of the Reader in Early 20th Century Estonia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marju Mikkel

2012-04-01

Full Text Available Until recently, the treatment of Estonian literature from the beginning of the 20th century has been influenced by the literary and cultural activities and programmatic articles of the Young Estonia movement. Current research on Young Estonia has addressed their more everyday realm of activity, which has heretofore received less attention: the Young Estonians as readers of the new works of their literary contemporaries and their practical criticism in reviews, particularly in daily newspapers. This article uses a receptionhistorical approach to analyze a large body of source material: the Young Estonians voluminous critical oeuvre in the period 1905–1915. The Young Estonians to be examined are all members of the core group of the movement: Gustav Suits, Bernhard Linde, Aino Kallas, Johannes Aavik, Villem Grünthal-Ridala, Jaan Oks, August Alle, and Johannes Semper. Within the larger framework of collective horizons of expectation, the focus of the study is the critics` concept of the reader. In addition, I will briefly discuss the dynamics of how such conceptions change. Research results indicate that in critical reviews from the time of Young Estonia, the topic of the reader was addressed from different standpoints depending on the addressee. Texts directed rhetorically toward a broad readership are characterized by the pursuit of objectivity and generalizations. When the concept of the reader is critic-centered, the text emphasizes subjective judgments, experience, and emotion. When focusing on the author and the text, the reviewer describes the influence on the reader, the cause of which is either the literary work directly or the author’s genius. In the case of polemic on the subject of reading, found mainly in responses written to reviews, the writer interprets another reader (or other readers` reading, opposing it to his or her own. When we follow the way the readers of Young Estonia and the Young Estonians themselves handle the

3D Aware Correction and Completion of Depth Maps in Piecewise Planar Scenes

KAUST Repository

Thabet, Ali Kassem; Lahoud, Jean; Asmar, Daniel; Ghanem, Bernard

2015-01-01

RGB-D sensors are popular in the computer vision community, especially for problems of scene understanding, semantic scene labeling, and segmentation. However, most of these methods depend on reliable input depth measurements, while discarding

Higher-order scene statistics of breast images

Science.gov (United States)

Abbey, Craig K.; Sohl-Dickstein, Jascha N.; Olshausen, Bruno A.; Eckstein, Miguel P.; Boone, John M.

2009-02-01

Researchers studying human and computer vision have found description and construction of these systems greatly aided by analysis of the statistical properties of naturally occurring scenes. More specifically, it has been found that receptive fields with directional selectivity and bandwidth properties similar to mammalian visual systems are more closely matched to the statistics of natural scenes. It is argued that this allows for sparse representation of the independent components of natural images [Olshausen and Field, Nature, 1996]. These theories have important implications for medical image perception. For example, will a system that is designed to represent the independent components of natural scenes, where objects occlude one another and illumination is typically reflected, be appropriate for X-ray imaging, where features superimpose on one another and illumination is transmissive? In this research we begin to examine these issues by evaluating higher-order statistical properties of breast images from X-ray projection mammography (PM) and dedicated breast computed tomography (bCT). We evaluate kurtosis in responses of octave bandwidth Gabor filters applied to PM and to coronal slices of bCT scans. We find that kurtosis in PM rises and quickly saturates for filter center frequencies with an average value above 0.95. By contrast, kurtosis in bCT peaks near 0.20 cyc/mm with kurtosis of approximately 2. Our findings suggest that the human visual system may be tuned to represent breast tissue more effectively in bCT over a specific range of spatial frequencies.

“A beautiful assemblage of an interesting nature” : Gainsborough’s Charity Relieving Distress and the Reconciliation of High and Low Art

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Georgina Cole

2015-11-01

Full Text Available In the competitive environment of the eighteenth-century London art scene, Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds were often perceived as great rivals. While they shared patrons, sitters, and a stake in the future of British art, their differing artistic approaches caused considerable friction, indeed Gainsborough seceded from the Royal Academy of Art in 1784, boycotting its exhibitions and activities. This essay, however, argues that Gainsborough’s Charity Relieving Distress, painted in the year of his secession, proposes a charitable resolution of their aesthetic attitudes. The complex interrelation of allegorical and anecdotal form is interpreted as a pictorial attempt to reconcile their approaches through the concept of charity, a virtue of powerful artistic lineage in the western tradition, and of contemporary social importance.

The singular nature of auditory and visual scene analysis in autism.

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, I-Fan; Shirama, Aya; Kato, Nobumasa; Kashino, Makio

2017-02-19

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder often have difficulty acquiring relevant auditory and visual information in daily environments, despite not being diagnosed as hearing impaired or having low vision. Resent psychophysical and neurophysiological studies have shown that autistic individuals have highly specific individual differences at various levels of information processing, including feature extraction, automatic grouping and top-down modulation in auditory and visual scene analysis. Comparison of the characteristics of scene analysis between auditory and visual modalities reveals some essential commonalities, which could provide clues about the underlying neural mechanisms. Further progress in this line of research may suggest effective methods for diagnosing and supporting autistic individuals.This article is part of the themed issue 'Auditory and visual scene analysis'. © 2017 The Author(s).

Study on general design of dual-DMD based infrared two-band scene simulation system

Science.gov (United States)

Pan, Yue; Qiao, Yang; Xu, Xi-ping

2017-02-01

Mid-wave infrared(MWIR) and long-wave infrared(LWIR) two-band scene simulation system is a kind of testing equipment that used for infrared two-band imaging seeker. Not only it would be qualified for working waveband, but also realize the essence requests that infrared radiation characteristics should correspond to the real scene. Past single-digital micromirror device (DMD) based infrared scene simulation system does not take the huge difference between targets and background radiation into account, and it cannot realize the separated modulation to two-band light beam. Consequently, single-DMD based infrared scene simulation system cannot accurately express the thermal scene model that upper-computer built, and it is not that practical. To solve the problem, we design a dual-DMD based, dual-channel, co-aperture, compact-structure infrared two-band scene simulation system. The operating principle of the system is introduced in detail, and energy transfer process of the hardware-in-the-loop simulation experiment is analyzed as well. Also, it builds the equation about the signal-to-noise ratio of infrared detector in the seeker, directing the system overall design. The general design scheme of system is given, including the creation of infrared scene model, overall control, optical-mechanical structure design and image registration. By analyzing and comparing the past designs, we discuss the arrangement of optical engine framework in the system. According to the main content of working principle and overall design, we summarize each key techniques in the system.

Ilmus folkloristide ja etnoloogide ühisväljaanne / Varje Sootak

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Sootak, Varje, 1946-

2004-01-01

Rmt.: Papers delivered at the symposium "Sacred and profane in the dialogue of cultures" : [Aprill, 2002, Tartu] / Department of Estonian and Comparative Folklore, Department of Ethnology, University of Tartu ; [editors Art Leete, Ülo Valk]. - (Studies in Folk Culture. Vol. 1). Tartu, 2003

Chemical composition of anthropogenic particles on needles collected close to the Estonian oil-shale power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Meinander, O.

1995-01-01

Within the countries surrounding the Baltic Sea, north-eastern Estonia is among the most polluted areas. Emissions from the oil-shale power plants produce air pollution problems both locally and on a larger scale. In the atmosphere, pollutants mix and convert. Consequently, the particles deposited due to the use of oil-shale can have various chemical compositions. From the point of view of air chemistry, ecological effects and air pollution modelling, knowledge of the chemical composition of the deposited particles can be of great value. The aim of this work was to study the chemical composition of single anthropogenic particles occurring on needle surfaces in north-eastern Estonia and Southern Finland close to the Estonian oil-shale power plants. For the purpose, scanning electron microscopical microanalysis was used

Cross-cultural differences in item and background memory: examining the influence of emotional intensity and scene congruency.

Science.gov (United States)

Mickley Steinmetz, Katherine R; Sturkie, Charlee M; Rochester, Nina M; Liu, Xiaodong; Gutchess, Angela H

2018-07-01

After viewing a scene, individuals differ in what they prioritise and remember. Culture may be one factor that influences scene memory, as Westerners have been shown to be more item-focused than Easterners (see Masuda, T., & Nisbett, R. E. (2001). Attending holistically versus analytically: Comparing the context sensitivity of Japanese and Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 922-934). However, cultures may differ in their sensitivity to scene incongruences and emotion processing, which may account for cross-cultural differences in scene memory. The current study uses hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to examine scene memory while controlling for scene congruency and the perceived emotional intensity of the images. American and East Asian participants encoded pictures that included a positive, negative, or neutral item placed on a neutral background. After a 20-min delay, participants were shown the item and background separately along with similar and new items and backgrounds to assess memory specificity. Results indicated that even when congruency and emotional intensity were controlled, there was evidence that Americans had better item memory than East Asians. Incongruent scenes were better remembered than congruent scenes. However, this effect did not differ by culture. This suggests that Americans' item focus may result in memory changes that are robust despite variations in scene congruency and perceived emotion.

Wall grid structure for interior scene synthesis

KAUST Repository

Xu, Wenzhuo; Wang, Bin; Yan, Dongming

2015-01-01

We present a system for automatically synthesizing a diverse set of semantically valid, and well-arranged 3D interior scenes for a given empty room shape. Unlike existing work on layout synthesis, that typically knows potentially needed 3D models

Popular music scenes and aging bodies.

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Bennett, Andy

2018-06-01

During the last two decades there has been increasing interest in the phenomenon of the aging popular music audience (Bennett & Hodkinson, 2012). Although the specter of the aging fan is by no means new, the notion of, for example, the aging rocker or the aging punk has attracted significant sociological attention, not least of all because of what this says about the shifting socio-cultural significance of rock and punk and similar genres - which at the time of their emergence were inextricably tied to youth and vociferously marketed as "youth musics". As such, initial interpretations of aging music fans tended to paint a somewhat negative picture, suggesting a sense in which such fans were cultural misfits (Ross, 1994). In more recent times, however, work informed by cultural aging perspectives has begun to consider how so-called "youth cultural" identities may in fact provide the basis of more stable and evolving identities over the life course (Bennett, 2013). Starting from this position, the purpose of this article is to critically examine how aging members of popular music scenes might be recast as a salient example of the more pluralistic fashion in which aging is anticipated, managed and articulated in contemporary social settings. The article then branches out to consider two ways that aging members of music scenes continue their scene involvement. The first focuses on evolving a series of discourses that legitimately position them as aging bodies in cultural spaces that also continue to be inhabited by significant numbers of people in their teens, twenties and thirties. The second sees aging fans taking advantage of new opportunities for consuming live music including winery concerts and dinner and show events. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Eye Movements when Looking at Unusual/Weird Scenes: Are There Cultural Differences?

Science.gov (United States)

Rayner, Keith; Castelhano, Monica S.; Yang, Jinmian

2009-01-01

Recent studies have suggested that eye movement patterns while viewing scenes differ for people from different cultural backgrounds and that these differences in how scenes are viewed are due to differences in the prioritization of information (background or foreground). The current study examined whether there are cultural differences in how…

The elephant in the room: inconsistency in scene viewing and representation

OpenAIRE

Spotorno, Sara; Tatler, Benjamin W.

2017-01-01

We examined the extent to which semantic informativeness, consistency with expectations and perceptual salience contribute to object prioritization in scene viewing and representation. In scene viewing (Experiments 1–2), semantic guidance overshadowed perceptual guidance in determining fixation order, with the greatest prioritization for objects that were diagnostic of the scene’s depicted event. Perceptual properties affected selection of consistent objects (regardless of their informativene...

Scene grammar shapes the way we interact with objects, strengthens memories, and speeds search.

Science.gov (United States)

Draschkow, Dejan; Võ, Melissa L-H

2017-11-28

Predictions of environmental rules (here referred to as "scene grammar") can come in different forms: seeing a toilet in a living room would violate semantic predictions, while finding a toilet brush next to the toothpaste would violate syntactic predictions. The existence of such predictions has usually been investigated by showing observers images containing such grammatical violations. Conversely, the generative process of creating an environment according to one's scene grammar and its effects on behavior and memory has received little attention. In a virtual reality paradigm, we either instructed participants to arrange objects according to their scene grammar or against it. Subsequently, participants' memory for the arrangements was probed using a surprise recall (Exp1), or repeated search (Exp2) task. As a result, participants' construction behavior showed strategic use of larger, static objects to anchor the location of smaller objects which are generally the goals of everyday actions. Further analysis of this scene construction data revealed possible commonalities between the rules governing word usage in language and object usage in naturalistic environments. Taken together, we revealed some of the building blocks of scene grammar necessary for efficient behavior, which differentially influence how we interact with objects and what we remember about scenes.

Z-depth integration: a new technique for manipulating z-depth properties in composited scenes

Science.gov (United States)

Steckel, Kayla; Whittinghill, David

2014-02-01

This paper presents a new technique in the production pipeline of asset creation for virtual environments called Z-Depth Integration (ZeDI). ZeDI is intended to reduce the time required to place elements at the appropriate z-depth within a scene. Though ZeDI is intended for use primarily in two-dimensional scene composition, depth-dependent "flat" animated objects are often critical elements of augmented and virtual reality applications (AR/VR). ZeDI is derived from "deep image compositing", a capacity implemented within the OpenEXR file format. In order to trick the human eye into perceiving overlapping scene elements as being in front of or behind one another, the developer must manually manipulate which pixels of an element are visible in relation to other objects embedded within the environment's image sequence. ZeDI improves on this process by providing a means for interacting with procedurally extracted z-depth data from a virtual environment scene. By streamlining the process of defining objects' depth characteristics, it is expected that the time and energy required for developers to create compelling AR/VR scenes will be reduced. In the proof of concept presented in this manuscript, ZeDI is implemented for pre-rendered virtual scene construction via an AfterEffects software plug-in.

Non-uniform crosstalk reduction for dynamic scenes

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Smit, F.A.; Liere, van R.; Fröhlich, B.

2007-01-01

Stereo displays suffer from crosstalk, an effect that reduces or even inhibits the viewer's ability to correctly perceive depth. Previous work on software crosstalk reduction focussed on the preprocessing of static scenes which are viewed from a fixed viewpoint. However, in virtual environments

METRIC EVALUATION PIPELINE FOR 3D MODELING OF URBAN SCENES

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M. Bosch

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Publicly available benchmark data and metric evaluation approaches have been instrumental in enabling research to advance state of the art methods for remote sensing applications in urban 3D modeling. Most publicly available benchmark datasets have consisted of high resolution airborne imagery and lidar suitable for 3D modeling on a relatively modest scale. To enable research in larger scale 3D mapping, we have recently released a public benchmark dataset with multi-view commercial satellite imagery and metrics to compare 3D point clouds with lidar ground truth. We now define a more complete metric evaluation pipeline developed as publicly available open source software to assess semantically labeled 3D models of complex urban scenes derived from multi-view commercial satellite imagery. Evaluation metrics in our pipeline include horizontal and vertical accuracy and completeness, volumetric completeness and correctness, perceptual quality, and model simplicity. Sources of ground truth include airborne lidar and overhead imagery, and we demonstrate a semi-automated process for producing accurate ground truth shape files to characterize building footprints. We validate our current metric evaluation pipeline using 3D models produced using open source multi-view stereo methods. Data and software is made publicly available to enable further research and planned benchmarking activities.

Metric Evaluation Pipeline for 3d Modeling of Urban Scenes

Science.gov (United States)

Bosch, M.; Leichtman, A.; Chilcott, D.; Goldberg, H.; Brown, M.

2017-05-01

Publicly available benchmark data and metric evaluation approaches have been instrumental in enabling research to advance state of the art methods for remote sensing applications in urban 3D modeling. Most publicly available benchmark datasets have consisted of high resolution airborne imagery and lidar suitable for 3D modeling on a relatively modest scale. To enable research in larger scale 3D mapping, we have recently released a public benchmark dataset with multi-view commercial satellite imagery and metrics to compare 3D point clouds with lidar ground truth. We now define a more complete metric evaluation pipeline developed as publicly available open source software to assess semantically labeled 3D models of complex urban scenes derived from multi-view commercial satellite imagery. Evaluation metrics in our pipeline include horizontal and vertical accuracy and completeness, volumetric completeness and correctness, perceptual quality, and model simplicity. Sources of ground truth include airborne lidar and overhead imagery, and we demonstrate a semi-automated process for producing accurate ground truth shape files to characterize building footprints. We validate our current metric evaluation pipeline using 3D models produced using open source multi-view stereo methods. Data and software is made publicly available to enable further research and planned benchmarking activities.

Retóricas de la pandemia. Derivas y resistencias en torno al arte argentino frente a la crisis del sida

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Francisco Lemus

2015-06-01

Full Text Available This paper investigates the political-discourse relations between Grupo de Acción Gay (1984-1985 and the aesthetic and curatorial model devised by Jorge Gumier Maier in the Gallery of Visual Arts of Centro Cultural Rojas (1989-1997 in order to reflect on gay subjectivity processes generated from the impact of AIDS in Buenos Aires and resistance strategies into the art scene of the nineties. From these ideas, this work analyzes a group of images produced by Marcelo Pombo between 1982 and 1989 that introduce some questions about the troubled socio-sexual identity of homosexuality and the rhetoric of elimination on the AIDS pandemic.

Will Hungarian Private Collectors Turn International? Private Engagement in Contemporary Art in East Central Europe

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Gábor Ébli

2012-01-01

Full Text Available The recent spectacular surge in private collecting in Hungary – which began around the fall of Communism and abated only with the current financial crisis – can be seen as part of the steady expansion of private involvement in the art scene, with some of these developments pointing beyond local significance. This paper examines the historical roots and the current structural characteristics of this spread by looking at the motifs and the choices of collectors, their co-operation with commercial galleries and public museums, as well as the advantages and side-effects of blossoming art patronage. Based on ten years of research, including close to two-hundred interviews with the actors in the art world in Hungary, I argue that private collecting, which had already strongly benefitted from the cultural thaw of the last decades of the Communist regime in the country, has earned over the past quarter-century high social status, the promise of lucrative investment and the liberty of creative self-expression for buyers of modern and, subsequently, contemporary art. The paper aims briefly to place these multiple factors in an international context; further research into art collecting in Eastern Europe will be needed to yield a more complete comparative regional study.

Distinct contributions of functional and deep neural network features to representational similarity of scenes in human brain and behavior.

Science.gov (United States)

Groen, Iris Ia; Greene, Michelle R; Baldassano, Christopher; Fei-Fei, Li; Beck, Diane M; Baker, Chris I

2018-03-07

Inherent correlations between visual and semantic features in real-world scenes make it difficult to determine how different scene properties contribute to neural representations. Here, we assessed the contributions of multiple properties to scene representation by partitioning the variance explained in human behavioral and brain measurements by three feature models whose inter-correlations were minimized a priori through stimulus preselection. Behavioral assessments of scene similarity reflected unique contributions from a functional feature model indicating potential actions in scenes as well as high-level visual features from a deep neural network (DNN). In contrast, similarity of cortical responses in scene-selective areas was uniquely explained by mid- and high-level DNN features only, while an object label model did not contribute uniquely to either domain. The striking dissociation between functional and DNN features in their contribution to behavioral and brain representations of scenes indicates that scene-selective cortex represents only a subset of behaviorally relevant scene information.

Anticipatory Scene Representation in Preschool Children's Recall and Recognition Memory

Science.gov (United States)

Kreindel, Erica; Intraub, Helene

2017-01-01

Behavioral and neuroscience research on boundary extension (false memory beyond the edges of a view of a scene) has provided new insights into the constructive nature of scene representation, and motivates questions about development. Early research with children (as young as 6-7 years) was consistent with boundary extension, but relied on an…

NATURAL BASES AND ARTISTIC MEANS OF MODERN ARTS AND CRAFTS OF DAGESTAN

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G. G. Gazimagomedov

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The aim is to carry out a generalized analysis of the history of formation of a new artistic language in contemporary arts and crafts of Dagestan. An innovative search for applied artist has gained further development in a series of works of the leading masters of folk arts and crafts of Dagestan. Discussion. For millennia, arts and crafts of Dagestan have been organically linked with the life of people and their everyday way of life and daily activities, with their worldview and understanding of beauty. In the middle of the 1st millennium BC in the mountainous Dagestan, art of bronze casting has reached a high degree of perfection, most vividly represented by statues of different wild and domestic animals. Images of animals are interpreted generically, without study of small details, but with the characteristic features of the exterior. Paired images of birds are often found in the arts and crafts of the medieval Dagestan. This heraldic composition, two-part or in conjunction with the sacred tree - a three-part, presented in metal-plastic and carved stone and wood, was one of the most popular and enduring decorative items that was common during the Middle Ages and has survived to the present day. This also has been further developed and improved and inherited by craftsmen of Dagestan.Conclusion. When creating works of arts and crafts craftsmen use diverse traditional arts and engineering techniques, the ancient but substantially revised and reinterpreted iconic scenes and ornamental motifs. In art, folk craftsmen emphasize the unity of man and nature. Most ornamental motifs common in Dagestan, go back to the very specific nature prototypes. Compositional structure, as the artistic analysis shows, is often borrowed from nature. This feeling becomes a condition for cultural and biological development, acting as a factor of co-evolution of man and nature.

Pärimus ja jäljendus. Postkolonialistlik katse mõista rahvatantsu olukorda Eesti NSV-s ja pärast seda. Tradition and Mimicry

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Sille Kapper

2012-04-01

Full Text Available Estonian dance history and traditions can in some respects be viewed as colonised culture. Folk dance research can help clarify which period or periods in our history could be discussed within the framework of colonialism. In this article, I analyse a style of staged folk dance, posing the question if a colonial situation came into being in Soviet-occupied Estonia in 1940 – 1991, and whether or not any colonial traits can be observed in Soviet Estonian cultural life and arts. The limits for what constitutes folk dance became extremely wide during the course of the 20th century, and came to encompass traditional as well as staged folk dances. The creation and performance of the latter became particularly popular in the days of the Estonian SSR. Looking at stylised dances performed at dance festivals or amateur concerts through the prism of post-colonialism could help find markers pointing to the colonial situation within the Soviet-era compositions. Stage and stadium performances at times share more similarities with classical ballet and character dance than with traditional dance – a situation which inspires to interpretations through Homi Bhabha’s notion of mimicry (Estonian: jäliendus; Annus 2003: 138–139. The style based on homogenization and other canons of classical dance has even after the re-independence of Estonia preserved the characteristics which came into being during the colonial period; out of the colonial interference, a new tradition has been born (for comparison, see Bhabha’s ’English book’. In post-colonial Estonia, the tradition of staged folk dances has little in common with folklore and a lot in common with performance arts. The hybrid art form which came into being mimicring a colonialising culture has its own – and if dance festivals are also taken into account – rather broad following of amateurs and spectators, in certain respects representing or wishing to represent the entire nation. At the same time

Object Attention Patches for Text Detection and Recognition in Scene Images using SIFT

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Sriman, Bowornrat; Schomaker, Lambertus; De Marsico, Maria; Figueiredo, Mário; Fred, Ana

2015-01-01

Natural urban scene images contain many problems for character recognition such as luminance noise, varying font styles or cluttered backgrounds. Detecting and recognizing text in a natural scene is a difficult problem. Several techniques have been proposed to overcome these problems. These are,

Euroopa-ihalusest taasiseseisvusperioodi autobiograafiates / European Identifications in Post-Soviet Estonian Life Writing

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Leena Kurvet-Käosaar

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Teesid: Artikkel käsitleb Euroopat kui identiteedi ja minaduse sõlmpunkti ja enesevahenduse mõõdet kolmes omaelulookirjutuslikus teoses, mille autoritel on väljapaistev positsioon eesti (kirjanduskultuuris: Jaan Krossi „Kallid kaasteelised“ (2003a, 2008, Jaan Kaplinski „Isale“ (2003 ja Tõnu Õnnepalu „Flandria päevik“ (2007. Artikkel keskendub sellele, kuidas küsimused suhestumise trajektooridest Euroopa mäluruumiga haakuvad Krossi, Kaplinski ja Õnnepalu teostes esiletuleva enesemääratlusliku raamiga, neist lähtuvate vastastikuse kõnetuse võimaluste ja oma aegruumi tunnetuse pidepunktidega. Kuigi tegemist on eesti keeles ilmunud ning eesti kultuuriruumi lugejale suunatud teostega, seostuvad neis väljajoonistuvad enesemääratluse teljed viimastel aastakümnetel hoogustunud laiemate aruteludega ühtse Euroopa mäluraami ning identiteedi võimalikkusest ja selle toimimise tingimustest.   In recent years, the question of the possibility of a shared frame of memory and identity in Europe, its desired manifestations and practices for attaining it as well as its obstacles and limitations to it have gained prominence in scholarly debates in a number of disciplines. In terms of the division between the East and West of Europe, these discussions take as their starting point the collapse of the Soviet system in 1989 as well as the European Union enlargement in 2004. Far from uniform, the exceedingly complex and contrasting ranges of arguments have put forward a varied palette of perspectives and suggestions about possible and desirable implications of Europe in different socio-political and cultural configurations. Taking these debates as my starting point, the current article offers an analysis of three life writing works by contemporary Estonian authors and intellectuals, Kallid kaasteelised (Dear Fellow Travellers, 2003, 2008 by Jaan Kross, Isale (To My Father, 2003 by Jaan Kaplinski and Flandria päevik (The Flemish Diary

Oxytocin increases amygdala reactivity to threatening scenes in females.

Science.gov (United States)

Lischke, Alexander; Gamer, Matthias; Berger, Christoph; Grossmann, Annette; Hauenstein, Karlheinz; Heinrichs, Markus; Herpertz, Sabine C; Domes, Gregor

2012-09-01

The neuropeptide oxytocin (OT) is well known for its profound effects on social behavior, which appear to be mediated by an OT-dependent modulation of amygdala activity in the context of social stimuli. In humans, OT decreases amygdala reactivity to threatening faces in males, but enhances amygdala reactivity to similar faces in females, suggesting sex-specific differences in OT-dependent threat-processing. To further explore whether OT generally enhances amygdala-dependent threat-processing in females, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in a randomized within-subject crossover design to measure amygdala activity in response to threatening and non-threatening scenes in 14 females following intranasal administration of OT or placebo. Participants' eye movements were recorded to investigate whether an OT-dependent modulation of amygdala activity is accompanied by enhanced exploration of salient scene features. Although OT had no effect on participants' gazing behavior, it increased amygdala reactivity to scenes depicting social and non-social threat. In females, OT may, thus, enhance the detection of threatening stimuli in the environment, potentially by interacting with gonadal steroids, such as progesterone and estrogen. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Benchmark for Endoluminal Scene Segmentation of Colonoscopy Images

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David Vázquez

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Colorectal cancer (CRC is the third cause of cancer death worldwide. Currently, the standard approach to reduce CRC-related mortality is to perform regular screening in search for polyps and colonoscopy is the screening tool of choice. The main limitations of this screening procedure are polyp miss rate and the inability to perform visual assessment of polyp malignancy. These drawbacks can be reduced by designing decision support systems (DSS aiming to help clinicians in the different stages of the procedure by providing endoluminal scene segmentation. Thus, in this paper, we introduce an extended benchmark of colonoscopy image segmentation, with the hope of establishing a new strong benchmark for colonoscopy image analysis research. The proposed dataset consists of 4 relevant classes to inspect the endoluminal scene, targeting different clinical needs. Together with the dataset and taking advantage of advances in semantic segmentation literature, we provide new baselines by training standard fully convolutional networks (FCNs. We perform a comparative study to show that FCNs significantly outperform, without any further postprocessing, prior results in endoluminal scene segmentation, especially with respect to polyp segmentation and localization.

The Problems of Estonian R&D and Innovation Strategy and the Demand-Side Innovation Policies

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Tõnu Roolaht

2012-12-01

Full Text Available The second larger Estonian R&D and Innovation Strategy ‘Knowledge-based Estonia 2007-2013’ is aimed at continuing the advancement of research and development efforts towards an innovative knowledge-based society and economic system in Estonia. Fostering of knowledge-based high-tech industries is seen as paramount for retaining country’s competitive advantage. However, the mid-term evaluations indicate that several goals of the strategy might not be achievable by 2013. In fact, the policy measures have been much more successful in developing scientific research, as indicated by increased international publication, number of patents, and number of researchers and engineers. The advances in development of high-tech products and services through innovations are noticeable but less prominent. The purpose of this study is to suggest the role for demand-side innovation policies in helping to advance commercial development and innovation

Face, Body, and Center of Gravity Mediate Person Detection in Natural Scenes

Science.gov (United States)

Bindemann, Markus; Scheepers, Christoph; Ferguson, Heather J.; Burton, A. Mike

2010-01-01

Person detection is an important prerequisite of social interaction, but is not well understood. Following suggestions that people in the visual field can capture a viewer's attention, this study examines the role of the face and the body for person detection in natural scenes. We observed that viewers tend first to look at the center of a scene,…

Edward Burne-Jones’ Art and Music: A Chant of Love

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Liana De Girolami Cheney

2015-10-01

Full Text Available This essay examines Edward Burne-Jones’ (August 28, 1833–June 17, 1898 artistic concepts of ut pictura poesis (as is painting, so is poetry and ut pictura musica (as is painting so is music, a comparison of poetry, music, and painting depicted in his imagery of the Female Musician of 1866 (at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester, UK, Fig. 1, and Music of 1877 (at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, UK, Fig. 2.  The comparison or paragone between music and art is viewed here in two ways: 1 in a natural realm as an expression of love for a muse, Maria Cassavetti Zambaco; and 2 in a metaphysical realm as a vehicle of artist expression for depicting beauty. Painting and music are then poetical guidance for Burne-Jones’ manifestation of love. Maria is Burne-Jones’ model, muse, and sorceress. His paintings are depictions of musical scenes that capture a poetical world of ardent and endless love, as well the world of the senses, a physical realm, and the world of aesthetics, a metaphysical realm.

Virtual Relighting of a Virtualized Scene by Estimating Surface Reflectance Properties

OpenAIRE

福富, 弘敦; 町田, 貴史; 横矢, 直和

2011-01-01

In mixed reality that merges real and virtual worlds, it is required to interactively manipulate the illumination conditions in a virtualized space. In general, specular reflections in a scene make it difficult to interactively manipulate the illumination conditions. Our goal is to provide an opportunity to simulate the original scene, including diffuse and specular relfections, with novel viewpoints and illumination conditions. Thus, we propose a new method for estimating diffuse and specula...

As exposições internacionais de arte brasileira: discursos, práticas e interesses em jogo International exhibitions of Brazilian art: speechs, practices and interests involved

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Ana Leticia Fialho

2005-12-01

Full Text Available Nos anos 90, a presença da arte brasileira tornou-se cada vez mais freqüente na cena artística internacional. Curadores e demais agentes internacionais vêm adotando um discurso politicamente correto, segundo o qual as fronteiras entre centro e periferia, que sempre organizaram o campo artístico internacional, teriam desaparecido, permitindo assim a valorização da arte de países periféricos pelas instituições mais prestigiosas dos países centrais. Contudo, a maior parte dos diferentes eventos em torno da arte brasileira servem muito pouco à democratização do campo artístico ou à difusão da cultura brasileira no plano internacional. De fato, eles refletem a globalização em seus efeitos perversos, servindo para aumentar o prestígio e o poder econômico de algumas poucas instituições e indivíduos, limitando a cultura brasileira à reprodução de seus estereótipos. Neste artigo, para demonstrar essa idéa, analisam-se em detalhe quatro exposições de arte brasileira organizadas na exterior: Brazil Body and Soul (Museu Guggenheim, Nova Yorque, Hélio Oiticica Quasi-Cinemas (New Museum, Nova Yorque, Un art populaire (Fundação Cartier, Paris, Tunga/Mira Schendel (Galeria Nacional Jeu de Paume, Paris.During the 1990's, the presence of Brazilian Art became more and more visible in the international art scene. Curators and other international agents adopted a kind of "politically-correct" discourse according to which borders between center and periphery - that always organized the international artistic field - would disappear, thus allowing peripheral art to enter the most prestigious institutions of central countries. Nevertheless, most of the exhibitions, including Brazilian art, do not correspond to a democratization of the international artistic field and do not help to promote Brazilian art internationally. In fact, they reflect the perverse consequences of globalization, serving to raise the prestige and the economic

Estonian arts and crafts still alive / Jana Belugina

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Belugina, Jana

2008-01-01

Lühidalt eesti käsitöö ajaloost. Rahvarõivad ja neid kandvad nukud moodustavad siiani suurima osa eesti käsitöö toodetest. Platsiveere Meistrid (Pikk 15) müüb rahvarõivaid, mis on valmistatud sama tehnoloogiaga, mida kasutati sajandeid tagasi. Käsitööesemeid kogub ja säilitab Eesti Rahva Muuseum. 1929. a. loodud Eesti Rahvakunsti ja Käsitöö Liidust, Eesti Käsitöö Majast (Pikk 22), kus asub ka tekstiilikunstnik Riina Tombergi töötuba

CSIR optronic scene simulator finds real application in self-protection mechanisms of the South African Air Force

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Willers, CJ

2010-09-01

Full Text Available The Optronic Scene Simulator (OSSIM) is a second-generation scene simulator that creates synthetic images of arbitrary complex scenes in the visual and infrared (IR) bands, covering the 0.2 to 20 μm spectral region. These images are radiometrically...

Surface-illuminant ambiguity and color constancy: effects of scene complexity and depth cues.

Science.gov (United States)

Kraft, James M; Maloney, Shannon I; Brainard, David H

2002-01-01

Two experiments were conducted to study how scene complexity and cues to depth affect human color constancy. Specifically, two levels of scene complexity were compared. The low-complexity scene contained two walls with the same surface reflectance and a test patch which provided no information about the illuminant. In addition to the surfaces visible in the low-complexity scene, the high-complexity scene contained two rectangular solid objects and 24 paper samples with diverse surface reflectances. Observers viewed illuminated objects in an experimental chamber and adjusted the test patch until it appeared achromatic. Achromatic settings made tinder two different illuminants were used to compute an index that quantified the degree of constancy. Two experiments were conducted: one in which observers viewed the stimuli directly, and one in which they viewed the scenes through an optical system that reduced cues to depth. In each experiment, constancy was assessed for two conditions. In the valid-cue condition, many cues provided valid information about the illuminant change. In the invalid-cue condition, some image cues provided invalid information. Four broad conclusions are drawn from the data: (a) constancy is generally better in the valid-cue condition than in the invalid-cue condition: (b) for the stimulus configuration used, increasing image complexity has little effect in the valid-cue condition but leads to increased constancy in the invalid-cue condition; (c) for the stimulus configuration used, reducing cues to depth has little effect for either constancy condition: and (d) there is moderate individual variation in the degree of constancy exhibited, particularly in the degree to which the complexity manipulation affects performance.

Fast Binary Coding for the Scene Classification of High-Resolution Remote Sensing Imagery

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Fan Hu

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Scene classification of high-resolution remote sensing (HRRS imagery is an important task in the intelligent processing of remote sensing images and has attracted much attention in recent years. Although the existing scene classification methods, e.g., the bag-of-words (BOW model and its variants, can achieve acceptable performance, these approaches strongly rely on the extraction of local features and the complicated coding strategy, which are usually time consuming and demand much expert effort. In this paper, we propose a fast binary coding (FBC method, to effectively generate efficient discriminative scene representations of HRRS images. The main idea is inspired by the unsupervised feature learning technique and the binary feature descriptions. More precisely, equipped with the unsupervised feature learning technique, we first learn a set of optimal “filters” from large quantities of randomly-sampled image patches and then obtain feature maps by convolving the image scene with the learned filters. After binarizing the feature maps, we perform a simple hashing step to convert the binary-valued feature map to the integer-valued feature map. Finally, statistical histograms computed on the integer-valued feature map are used as global feature representations of the scenes of HRRS images, similar to the conventional BOW model. The analysis of the algorithm complexity and experiments on HRRS image datasets demonstrate that, in contrast with existing scene classification approaches, the proposed FBC has much faster computational speed and achieves comparable classification performance. In addition, we also propose two extensions to FBC, i.e., the spatial co-occurrence matrix and different visual saliency maps, for further improving its final classification accuracy.

Effect of Smoking Scenes in Films on Immediate Smoking

Science.gov (United States)

Shmueli, Dikla; Prochaska, Judith J.; Glantz, Stanton A.

2010-01-01

Background The National Cancer Institute has concluded that exposure to smoking in movies causes adolescent smoking and there are similar results for young adults. Purpose This study investigated whether exposure of young adult smokers to images of smoking in films stimulated smoking behavior. Methods 100 cigarette smokers aged 18–25 years were randomly assigned to watch a movie montage composed with or without smoking scenes and paraphernalia followed by a10-minute recess. The outcome was whether or not participants smoked during the recess. Data were collected and analyzed in 2008 and 2009. Results Smokers who watched the smoking scenes were more likely to smoke during the break (OR3.06, 95% CI=1.01, 9.29). In addition to this acute effect of exposure, smokers who had seen more smoking in movies before the day of the experiment were more likely to smoke during the break (OR 6.73; 1.00–45.25 comparing the top to bottom percentiles of exposure) were more likely to smoke during the break. Level of nicotine dependence (OR 1.71; 1.27–2.32 per point on the FTND scale), “contemplation” (OR 9.07; 1.71–47.99) and “precontemplation” (OR 7.30; 1.39–38.36) stages of change, and impulsivity (OR 1.21; 1.03–1.43), were also associated with smoking during the break. Participants who watched the montage with smoking scenes and those with a higher level of nicotine dependence were also more likely to have smoked within 30 minutes after the study. Conclusions There is a direct link between viewing smoking scenes and immediate subsequent smoking behavior. This finding suggests that individuals attempting to limit or quit smoking should be advised to refrain from or reduce their exposure to movies that contain smoking. PMID:20307802

Effects of varying presentation time on long-term recognition memory for scenes: Verbatim and gist representations.

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Ahmad, Fahad N; Moscovitch, Morris; Hockley, William E

2017-04-01

Konkle, Brady, Alvarez and Oliva (Psychological Science, 21, 1551-1556, 2010) showed that participants have an exceptional long-term memory (LTM) for photographs of scenes. We examined to what extent participants' exceptional LTM for scenes is determined by presentation time during encoding. In addition, at retrieval, we varied the nature of the lures in a forced-choice recognition task so that they resembled the target in gist (i.e., global or categorical) information, but were distinct in verbatim information (e.g., an "old" beach scene and a similar "new" beach scene; exemplar condition) or vice versa (e.g., a beach scene and a new scene from a novel category; novel condition). In Experiment 1, half of the list of scenes was presented for 1 s, whereas the other half was presented for 4 s. We found lower performance for shorter study presentation time in the exemplar test condition and similar performance for both study presentation times in the novel test condition. In Experiment 2, participants showed similar performance in an exemplar test for which the lure was of a different category but a category that was used at study. In Experiment 3, when presentation time was lowered to 500 ms, recognition accuracy was reduced in both novel and exemplar test conditions. A less detailed memorial representation of the studied scene containing more gist (i.e., meaning) than verbatim (i.e., surface or perceptual details) information is retrieved from LTM after a short compared to a long study presentation time. We conclude that our findings support fuzzy-trace theory.

The Role of Binocular Disparity in Rapid Scene and Pattern Recognition

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Matteo Valsecchi

2013-04-01

Full Text Available We investigated the contribution of binocular disparity to the rapid recognition of scenes and simpler spatial patterns using a paradigm combining backward masked stimulus presentation and short-term match-to-sample recognition. First, we showed that binocular disparity did not contribute significantly to the recognition of briefly presented natural and artificial scenes, even when the availability of monocular cues was reduced. Subsequently, using dense random dot stereograms as stimuli, we showed that observers were in principle able to extract spatial patterns defined only by disparity under brief, masked presentations. Comparing our results with the predictions from a cue-summation model, we showed that combining disparity with luminance did not per se disrupt the processing of disparity. Our results suggest that the rapid recognition of scenes is mediated mostly by a monocular comparison of the images, although we can rely on stereo in fast pattern recognition.

The effects of alcohol intoxication on attention and memory for visual scenes.