Above and Beyond the Battle: Virtuosity and Collectivity within Televised Street Dance Crew Competitions

This chapter explores competitive street dance crew choreography in relation to interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks regarding virtuosity and excess. Through a close analysis of five performances featured on the British television talent shows of Britain’s Got Talent and Got to Dance, this chapter examines the concept of virtuosity as transcendence in relation to the continued emphasis on technology and the street dance body. Through the choreographic application of animation techniques, synchronicity, the construction of “meta-bodies,” and the narrative of ordinary versus extraordinary, this chapter reveals that crews create the illusion of transgression through their affinity with technology, while also competing with their cinematic counterparts. Through this analysis, this chapter further reveals the negotiation between the individualistic nature of the virtuoso and the crew collective within the neoliberal capitalist framework of the competition

Brain architecture in the terrestrial hermit crab Coenobita clypeatus (Anomura, Coenobitidae), a crustacean with a good aerial sense of smell

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>During the evolutionary radiation of Crustacea, several lineages in this taxon convergently succeeded in meeting the physiological challenges connected to establishing a fully terrestrial life style. These physiological adaptations include the need for sensory organs of terrestrial species to function in air rather than in water. Previous behavioral and neuroethological studies have provided solid evidence that the land hermit crabs (Coenobitidae, Anomura) are a group of crustaceans that have evolved a good sense of aerial olfaction during the conquest of land. We wanted to study the central olfactory processing areas in the brains of these organisms and to that end analyzed the brain of <it>Coenobita clypeatus </it>(Herbst, 1791; Anomura, Coenobitidae), a fully terrestrial tropical hermit crab, by immunohistochemistry against synaptic proteins, serotonin, FMRFamide-related peptides, and glutamine synthetase.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The primary olfactory centers in this species dominate the brain and are composed of many elongate olfactory glomeruli. The secondary olfactory centers that receive an input from olfactory projection neurons are almost equally large as the olfactory lobes and are organized into parallel neuropil lamellae. The architecture of the optic neuropils and those areas associated with antenna two suggest that <it>C. clypeatus </it>has visual and mechanosensory skills that are comparable to those of marine Crustacea.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In parallel to previous behavioral findings of a good sense of aerial olfaction in C. clypeatus, our results indicate that in fact their central olfactory pathway is most prominent, indicating that olfaction is a major sensory modality that these brains process. Interestingly, the secondary olfactory neuropils of insects, the mushroom bodies, also display a layered structure (vertical and medial lobes), superficially similar to the lamellae in the secondary olfactory centers of <it>C. clypeatus</it>. More detailed analyses with additional markers will be necessary to explore the question if these similarities have evolved convergently with the establishment of superb aerial olfactory abilities or if this design goes back to a shared principle in the common ancestor of Crustacea and Hexapoda.</p

An experimental investigation into ALS uncertainty and its impact on environmental applications

This study takes an experimental approach to investigating the reliability and repeatability of an airborne laser scanning (ALS) survey. The ability to characterise an area precisely in 3-D using ALS is essential for multi-temporal analysis where change detection is an important application. The reliability and consistency between two ALS datasets is discussed in the context of uncertainty within a single epoch and in the context of well known point- and grid-based descriptors and metrics. The implications of repeatability, verifiability and reliability are discussed in the context of environmental applications, specifically concerning forestry where high resolution ALS surveys are commonly used for forest mensuration over large areas. The study used a regular 10-by-10 layout of standard school tables and decreased the separation from 2.5 metres apart to 0.5 metres in order to evaluate the effects of object separation on their detection. Each configuration was scanned twice using the same ALS scanning parameters and the difference between the datasets is investigated and discussed. The results quantify uncertainty in the ability of ALS to characterise objects, estimate vertical heights and interpret features / objects with certainty. The results show that repeat scanning of the same features under the same conditions result in a laser point cloud with different properties. Objects that are expected to be present in 40 points per metre2 laser point cloud are absent, and the investigation reveals that irregular point spacing and lack of consideration of the ALS footprint size and the interaction with the object of interest are significant factors in the detection and characterisation of features. The results strongly suggest that characterisation of error is important and relevant to environmental applications that use multi-epoch ALS or data with high resolution / point density for object detection and characterisatio

The Geometry and Usage of the Supplementary Fisheye Lenses in Smartphones

Nowadays, mobile phones are more than a device that can only satisfy the communication need between people. Since fisheye lenses integrated with mobile phones are lightweight and easy to use, they are advantageous. In addition to this advantage, it is experimented whether fisheye lens and mobile phone combination can be used in a photogrammetric way, and if so, what will be the result. Fisheye lens equipment used with mobile phones was tested in this study. For this, standard calibration of ‘Olloclip 3 in one’ fisheye lens used with iPhone 4S mobile phone and ‘Nikon FC‐E9’ fisheye lens used with Nikon Coolpix8700 are compared based on equidistant model. This experimental study shows that Olloclip 3 in one fisheye lens developed for mobile phones has at least the similar characteristics with classic fisheye lenses. The dimensions of fisheye lenses used with smart phones are getting smaller and the prices are reducing. Moreover, as verified in this study, the accuracy of fisheye lenses used in smartphones is better than conventional fisheye lenses. The use of smartphones with fisheye lenses will give the possibility of practical applications to ordinary users in the near future

Building integrated solar concentrating systems: A review

© 2019 Elsevier Ltd In the building sector, concerns towards the vast energy consumption has promoted the development of renewable energy technologies. In this regards, the solar concentration devices show a promising concept for building applications. However, the solar concentrators for application in buildings have many restrictions, which are different from the traditional solar concentrators. The main objective of this paper is to present a concise review on the building integrated concentrating devices, that have their own characteristics and multiple functions. This paper made a classification based on device's functions, i.e. building integrated concentrated photovoltaic systems (BICPV), building integrated concentrating solar thermal (BICST) and building integrated concentrating solar daylighting (BICSD) and the combination of functions, i.e. BICPV/T, BICPV/D, BICST/D and BICPV/T/D. At the same time, this paper presented an elaborate introduction of the demands, types and applications of the building integrated concentrating devices and prospects/ directions/ policies about these technologies around the world. The review would provide important information for the actual engineering of building integrated concentrating devices