Putting animals on display: geographies of taxidermy practice

Taxidermy specimens and displays have become increasingly liminal features in contemporary society. Viewed variously as historical curios, obsolete relics or more malignantly as ‘monstrosities’, they can be a source of discomfort for many. Taxidermy objects have become uncomfortable reminders of past scientific and colonial practices which have sought to capture, order and control animated life and as such have become increasingly problematic items for their owners. As a result many taxidermy displays have been dismantled and mounts relegated to ‘backstores’ to gather dust. The paradox is that taxidermy as a practice is a quest for ‘liveness’, to impute life back into the dead. Much like the taxidermist, my goal in this thesis is to revive and restore: to renew interest in and reassert the value of taxidermy collections by recovering what I shall term as the ‘biogeographies’ of their making and continued maintenance. Considerable academic attention has been paid to the ‘finished’ form and display of taxidermy specimens inside cabinets, behind glass – in other words, to their representation. By way of contrast, this thesis recovers the relationships, practices and geographies that brought specimens to their state of enclosure, inertness and seeming fixity. These efforts are aligned with work in cultural geography seeking to counteract ‘deadening effects’ in an active world through a prioritisation of practice (Dewsbury and Thrift 2000), and elsewhere draw on research arguments and approaches originating in historical geography, and the history of science. The thesis firstly investigates historical developments in the scientific and craft practice of taxidermy through the close study of period manuals, combined with ethnographic observations of a practicing taxidermist. Critical attention to practice then facilitates the recovery of the lifeworlds of past taxidermy workshops and the globally sited biogeographies behind the making of individual specimens and collections. The thesis required the purposeful assemblage and rehabilitation of diffuse zoological and historical remains to form unconventional archives, enabling a series of critical reflections on the scientific, creative and political potentials of taxidermy

Study on Co-occurrence-based Image Feature Analysis and Texture Recognition Employing Diagonal-Crisscross Local Binary Pattern

In this thesis, we focus on several important fields on real-world image texture analysis and recognition. We survey various important features that are suitable for texture analysis. Apart from the issue of variety of features, different types of texture datasets are also discussed in-depth. There is no thorough work covering the important databases and analyzing them in various viewpoints. We persuasively categorize texture databases ? based on many references. In this survey, we put a categorization to split these texture datasets into few basic groups and later put related datasets. Next, we exhaustively analyze eleven second-order statistical features or cues based on co-occurrence matrices to understand image texture surface. These features are exploited to analyze properties of image texture. The features are also categorized based on their angular orientations and their applicability. Finally, we propose a method called diagonal-crisscross local binary pattern (DCLBP) for texture recognition. We also propose two other extensions of the local binary pattern. Compare to the local binary pattern and few other extensions, we achieve that our proposed method performs satisfactorily well in two very challenging benchmark datasets, called the KTH-TIPS (Textures under varying Illumination, Pose and Scale) database, and the USC-SIPI (University of Southern California ? Signal and Image Processing Institute) Rotations Texture dataset.九州工業大学博士学位論文 学位記番号:工博甲第354号　学位授与年月日:平成25年9月27日CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION|CHAPTER 2 FEATURES FOR TEXTURE ANALYSIS|CHAPTER 3 IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS OF TEXTURE DATABASES|CHAPTER 4 ANALYSIS OF FEATURES BASED ON CO-OCCURRENCE IMAGE MATRIX|CHAPTER 5 CATEGORIZATION OF FEATURES BASED ON CO-OCCURRENCE IMAGE MATRIX|CHAPTER 6 TEXTURE RECOGNITION BASED ON DIAGONAL-CRISSCROSS LOCAL BINARY PATTERN|CHAPTER 7 CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK九州工業大学平成25年

Emerging Technologies in Fisheries Science: A Transdisciplinary Report

The Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery harvests a diverse and large grouping of fishes, but it did not become heavily fished until around WWII. This makes the groundfish fishery a comparatively young fishery. Despite its youth, it is one of the largest and most lucrative fisheries in Oregon—with a current harvest value of approximately $48 million per year, which is exceeded only by the Dungeness crab fishery. Northeastern Pacific Coast Groundfish species are also important for recreational and tribal purposes, although it is difficult to compare these to the commercial industry. With over 90 different species to consider, this commercial fishery is complex, and there are many different stakeholder groups involved, each with their own goals, values, and perspectives. Fishing regulations greatly impact local stakeholders, some of whom rely on the fishery for their livelihoods. These local stakeholders are dependent on accurate stock assessment surveys and models so that the fishing regulations are appropriate. Some stakeholders feel that regulations tend to be overly cautious to compensate for the large amount of uncertainty involved with managing a fishery and estimating a fish population. To reduce this uncertainty and the need to err so heavily on the side of caution, stock assessment surveys could include innovative technologies and novel datasets. For example, these stock assessments do not currently use automated video surveillance on their bottom trawl surveys, an emerging form of machine learning. As understood by the NSF-funded National Research Traineeship (NRT) training, there are three interwoven core concepts: 1) Big Data (BD), 2) Coupled Natural-Human (CNH) systems, and 3) Risk and Uncertainty (R&U) analysis and communication. Big Data refers to any high volume of data with high throughput. Coupled Natural-Human systems are the biological and human worlds, as well as their overlap and interaction. Risk is the potential and likelihood of an unfavorable event, and uncertainty refers to the unknowns of a likelihood, process, or analysis. This project chose to investigate these three concepts within the framework of emerging technologies and fisheries science. Emerging technologies are those dealing with BD, since this is a relatively new area of study, and this project specifically focused on computer vision within machine learning. This technology was applied to the realm of fisheries science and ultimately management, which is the study of a coupled natural-human system. Changing oceans conditions mean that Northeastern Pacific groundfish are at risk and their future is uncertain. Therefore, this project set out to determine how the influence of big data, machine learning, ecological inference, and environmental decision making overlap. The story of the life and study of these fishes in a newly Americanized sea is ready for a closer examination. It is for these reasons combined that Pacific coast groundfish fishery science provides a robust platform in which to explore the autonomous capacity of technology and data production at the intersection of environmental science and decision making. More specifically, to what extent are large, ecological datasets informing the production and application of emerging technologies in fisheries science, and how are these new technologies and sampling methods being integrated into fisheries management frameworks? A case study in which to explore this concept can be found in the testimony of a flatfish, or rather, the complex, ecologically and economically important assemblages of numerous groundfish species in the northeastern Pacific Ocean where flatfish are found

New editing techniques for video post-processing

This thesis contributes to capturing 3D cloth shape, editing cloth texture and altering object shape and motion in multi-camera and monocular video recordings. We propose a technique to capture cloth shape from a 3D scene flow by determining optical flow in several camera views. Together with a silhouette matching constraint we can track and reconstruct cloth surfaces in long video sequences. In the area of garment motion capture, we present a system to reconstruct time-coherent triangle meshes from multi-view video recordings. Texture mapping of the acquired triangle meshes is used to replace the recorded texture with new cloth patterns. We extend this work to the more challenging single camera view case. Extracting texture deformation and shading effects simultaneously enables us to achieve texture replacement effects for garments in monocular video recordings. Finally, we propose a system for the keyframe editing of video objects. A color-based segmentation algorithm together with automatic video inpainting for filling in missing background texture allows us to edit the shape and motion of 2D video objects. We present examples for altering object trajectories, applying non-rigid deformation and simulating camera motion.In dieser Dissertation stellen wir Beiträge zur 3D-Rekonstruktion von Stoffoberfächen, zum Editieren von Stofftexturen und zum Editieren von Form und Bewegung von Videoobjekten in Multikamera- und Einkamera-Aufnahmen vor. Wir beschreiben eine Methode für die 3D-Rekonstruktion von Stoffoberflächen, die auf der Bestimmung des optischen Fluß in mehreren Kameraansichten basiert. In Kombination mit einem Abgleich der Objektsilhouetten im Video und in der Rekonstruktion erhalten wir Rekonstruktionsergebnisse für längere Videosequenzen. Für die Rekonstruktion von Kleidungsstücken beschreiben wir ein System, das zeitlich kohärente Dreiecksnetze aus Multikamera-Aufnahmen rekonstruiert. Mittels Texturemapping der erhaltenen Dreiecksnetze wird die Stofftextur in der Aufnahme mit neuen Texturen ersetzt. Wir setzen diese Arbeit fort, indem wir den anspruchsvolleren Fall mit nur einer einzelnen Videokamera betrachten. Um realistische Resultate beim Ersetzen der Textur zu erzielen, werden sowohl Texturdeformationen durch zugrundeliegende Deformation der Oberfläche als auch Beleuchtungseffekte berücksichtigt. Im letzten Teil der Dissertation stellen wir ein System zum Editieren von Videoobjekten mittels Keyframes vor. Dies wird durch eine Kombination eines farbbasierten Segmentierungsalgorithmus mit automatischem Auffüllen des Hintergrunds erreicht, wodurch Form und Bewegung von 2D-Videoobjekten editiert werden können. Wir zeigen Beispiele für editierte Objekttrajektorien, beliebige Deformationen und simulierte Kamerabewegung

Texton finding and lattice creation for near-regular texture

A regular texture is formed from a regular congruent tiling of perceptually meaningful texture elements, also known as textons. If the tiling statistically deviates from regularity, either by texton structure, colour, or size, the texture is called near-regular. If we continue to perturb the tiling, the texture becomes stochastic. The set of possible textures that lie between regular and stochastic make up the texture spectrum: regular, near-regular, regular, near-stochastic, and stochastic. In this thesis we provide a solution to the problem of creating, from a near-regular texture, a lattice which defines the placement of textons. We divide the problem into two distinct sub-areas: finding textons within an image, and lattice creation using both an ad-hoc method and a graph-theoretic method. The problem of finding textons within an image is addressed using correlation. A texton selected by the user is correlated with the image and points of high correlation are extracted using non-maximal suppression. To extend this framework to irregular textures, we present early results on the use of feature space during correlation. We also present a method of correcting for a specific type of error in the texton finding result using frequency-space analysis. Given texton locations, we provide two methods of creating a lattice. The ad-hoc method is able to create a lattice in spite of inconsistencies in the texton locating data. However, as texture becomes irregular the ad-hoc lattice construction method fails to correctly connect textons. To overcome this failure we adapt methods of creating proximity graphs, which join two textons whose neighbourhoods satisfy certain criteria, to our problem. The proximity graphs are parameterized for selection of the most appropriate graph choice for a given texture, solving the general lattice construction problem given correct texton locations. In the output of the algorithm, centres of textons will be connected by edges in the lattice following the structure of texton placement within the input image. More precisely, for a texture T, we create a graph G = (V,E) dependent on T, where V is a set of texton centres, and E ={(v_i, v_j)} is a set of edges, where v_i, v_j are in V. Each edge e in E connects texton centre v in V to its most perceptually sensible neighbours

Communicating in the highly regulated tobacco industry: the case of Philip Morris International

This report was developed to study how legal regulations restrict the communication and promotional efforts of the tobacco industry, worldwide and in Portugal. The object of study chosen was the tobacco firm Philip Morris, mostly due to its attempts in the past to overcome industry’s boundaries, its historic importance regarding communication in Marketing, and its new product offering (IQOS). Tobacco consumption is declining in the world. Consumers are more educated, have more access to information and are more aware of what tobacco products do to their health. The IQOS comes as an answer to the health concerns of the modern tobacco consumer and to the dropping cigarettes’ market share, but also as a possible way for Philip Morris to communicate externally without so many restrictions – the firm looks into the future instead of relying on yesterday’s successful products and campaigns. In Portugal, Philip Morris has an immediate target of 610,000 to pitch the IQOS to – these are daily smokers, aged from 25 to 54, who want to change and improve their health. Philip Morris encourages every smoker to quit, but if they fail in such attempt the IQOS is there for them as a less harmful way to enjoy the tobacco taste and experience. To attract and retain that target and to spread the new positioning of Philip Morris some recommendations were proposed, which focused on achieving five communication objectives: increase/build brand awareness, change attitudes towards RRPs, establish need for RRPs, influence purchase intent, and retain existing customers (brand loyalty).Este relatório surge para estudar como certas regulamentações legais restringem os esforços de comunicação e promoção da indústria do tabaco, no mundo e em Portugal. O objeto de estudo escolhido foi a Philip Morris, principalmente devido às tentativas no passado de superar as limitações da indústria, à importância histórica em relação à comunicação em Marketing, e à nova oferta de produto (IQOS). O consumo de tabaco está em declínio. Os consumidores estão mais instruídos, têm mais acesso à informação e estão mais conscientes do que o tabaco faz à saúde. O IQOS aparece como resposta às preocupações de saúde do consumidor moderno e à queda da quota de mercado dos cigarros, mas também como via para a Philip Morris comunicar externamente sem tantas restrições – a empresa olha para o futuro em vez de depender dos produtos e campanhas do passado. Em Portugal, a Philip Morris tem um público-alvo imediato de 610.000 para vender o IQOS – fumadores diários, dos 25 aos 54 anos, que querem mudar e melhorar a saúde. A Philip Morris incentiva todos os fumadores a parar, mas se eles falharem nessa tentativa o IQOS surge como uma maneira menos prejudicial de apreciar o sabor e experiência do tabaco. Para atrair e manter esse público-alvo e difundir o novo posicionamento da Philip Morris foram propostas algumas recomendações, focadas em cinco objetivos de comunicação: aumentar/criar reconhecimento da marca, mudar atitudes relativamente aos RRPs, estabelecer a necessidade de RRPs, influenciar a intenção de compra, e reter clientes existentes (fidelidade à marca)

Multimedia in mobile networks: Streaming techniques, optimization and User Experience

1.UMTS overview and User Experience 2.Streaming Service & Streaming Platform 3.Quality of Service 4.Mpeg-4 5.Test Methodology & testing architecture 6.Conclusion

25th International Congress of the European Association for Endoscopic Surgery (EAES) Frankfurt, Germany, 14-17 June 2017 : Oral Presentations

Introduction: Ouyang has recently proposed hiatal surface area (HSA) calculation by multiplanar multislice computer tomography (MDCT) scan as a useful tool for planning treatment of hiatus defects with hiatal hernia (HH), with or without gastroesophageal reflux (MRGE). Preoperative upper endoscopy or barium swallow cannot predict the HSA and pillars conditions. Aim to asses the efficacy of MDCT’s calculation of HSA for planning the best approach for the hiatal defects treatment. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 25 patients, candidates to laparoscopic antireflux surgery as primary surgery or hiatus repair concomitant with or after bariatric surgery. Patients were analyzed preoperatively and after one-year follow-up by MDCT scan measurement of esophageal hiatus surface. Five normal patients were enrolled as control group. The HSA’s intraoperative calculation was performed after complete dissection of the area considered a triangle. Postoperative CT-scan was done after 12 months or any time reflux symptoms appeared. Results: (1) Mean HSA in control patients with no HH, no MRGE was cm2 and similar in non-complicated patients with previous LSG and cruroplasty. (2) Mean HSA in patients candidates to cruroplasty was 7.40 cm2. (3) Mean HSA in patients candidates to redo cruroplasty for recurrence was 10.11 cm2. Discussion. MDCT scan offer the possibility to obtain an objective measurement of the HSA and the correlation with endoscopic findings and symptoms. The preoperative information allow to discuss with patients the proper technique when a HSA[5 cm2 is detected. During the follow-up a correlation between symptoms and failure of cruroplasty can be assessed. Conclusions: MDCT scan seems to be an effective non-invasive method to plan hiatal defect treatment and to check during the follow-up the potential recurrence. Future research should correlate in larger series imaging data with intraoperative findings

Ready or Not: Creating a High School Diploma That Counts

Describes the American Diploma Project's benchmarks for English and math skills needed for high school graduates to succeed in college or high-growth jobs. Outlines how states, the federal government, colleges, and businesses can help align standards

Graphics Technology in Space Applications (GTSA 1989)

This document represents the proceedings of the Graphics Technology in Space Applications, which was held at NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center on April 12 to 14, 1989 in Houston, Texas. The papers included in these proceedings were published in general as received from the authors with minimum modifications and editing. Information contained in the individual papers is not to be construed as being officially endorsed by NASA