The influence of the skin colour on the perceived attributes

Skin colour data are important for many applications such as medical, imaging, cosmetics. The present study was aimed to collect a comprehensive skin colour database, and to study the impact of the skin colour on the variety of facial impression attributes. Although many researchers and engineers have collected skin data，few of them studied the skin colours to measure the same locations on a large number of subjects from different ethnic groups using the same colour measuring instruments. As for studying the impact of the skin colour on the visual perceptions, many studies investigated the impact of the skin colour on the attractiveness, health and youth. Limited previous studies investigated the impact of the skin colour on the other impression attributes. The present study was divided into two experiments, Experiments 1 and 2. Experiment 1 was to accumulate the skin colour database, named the Leeds Liverpool skin colour (LLSC). It included skin colours of 188 people from four ethnic groups (Caucasian, Oriental, South Asian and African) and both genders. Three colour measuring methods were used to accumulate the skin colour of each subject’s 10 locations including facial locations (forehead, cheekbone, cheek, nose tip, chin and neck) and body locations (the back of the hand, inner forearm, outer forearm and fingertip). The colour measuring methods included a tele-spectroradiometer (TSR), a spectrophotometer (SP) and a set of skin colour chart used as a visual aid. Also, a characterised digital camera controlled by an imaging system was used to collect facial images. Before the data collection, the short-term repeatability of different settings of the TSR and the SP on measuring human skin colour in vivo was determined. And this was used to settle the measurement protocols of the two instruments. The LLSC database was later used to investigate the skin colour distribution between ethnic groups, between genders, between measuring methods. A skin whiteness and blackness scales based on the CIELAB L* and Cab* scales in CIELAB was developed by referencing the vividness and depth formulae, which was developed by Berns (2000). It was found that these scales and CIELAB hue angle can describe well the property of skin colour of each ethnic group. Experiment 2 was to investigate the impact of the skin colour on the facial impression attributes. Based on the LLSC database, the gamut of skin colour was defined. Twenty-three attributes used to describe facial skin colours were accumulated. They were classified into two groups (appearance and impression). Two experiments were carried out on a monitor to understand the impact of the skin colour on the perceived facial impression attributes. The first experiment (Experiment 2.1) was to study the relationship between different attributes by 10 observers. The results showed that only four dimensions were required to describe skin facial colours, which were named Likeable, Sociable, Feminine and Youth. The health was also selected because the traditional Chinese medicine has interested in it. The second experiment (Experiment 2.2) was to scale facial images selected from two ethnic groups and both genders by using these five impression attributes by 24 Chinese observers. The experimental results showed that there were systematic patterns between the impression attributes and the whiteness and hue angle scales. There are some differences between these images for each impression. The ethnic group had an impact on the judgement, but the difference between the Oriental and Caucasian female images was limited. Finally, mathematical models were successfully developed to predict the impressions from the skin whiteness and hue angle data

Model facial colour appearance and facial attractiveness for human complexions

Human facial complexion has been a subject of great interest in many areas of science and technology including dermatology, cosmetology, computer graphics, and computer vision. Facial colour appearance conveys vital personal information and influences social interactions and mate choices as contributing factors to perceived beauty, health, and age. How various colour characteristics affect facial preference and whether there are cultural differences are not fully understood. On the other hand, facial colour appearance cannot be simply quantified by colour measurement. Facial colour perception is distinctive. The perceptual aspects of facial colour appearance haven’t been precisely investigated. The present study aims to better understand the human colour perception of facial complexions. Psychophysical experiments were carried out to assess facial colour preference and facial colour appearance, respectively. A set of facial images of real human faces were used and the colour was rigorously controlled in those experiments so that the facial colour appearance could be evaluated based on the realistic skin models. Experiments on colour preference provided a thorough assessment of the relationships between various facial colour characteristics and preference judgements and meanwhile revealed large cultural differences between Caucasian and Chinese populations. A useful and repeatable analytical framework for facial preference modelling was provided. This work contributes to the growing body of research using realistic skin models and highlights the importance of examining various colour cues utilized in facial preference evaluation. Experiments on colour appearance for the first time precisely measured the overall colour perception of facial appearance. New indices WIS, RIS, and YIS were developed to accurately quantify perceived facial whiteness, redness, and yellowness. The perceptual difference between the colour appearance of the face stimuli and the nonface stimuli was discovered. Taken together, the present study shed new light on how our visual system perceives and processes colour information on human faces

Strange fruit: The reification of race and the myth of official multiculturalism in selected Canadian media.

This thesis investigates the concept of \u27race\u27 and its place within the discourse of \u27official multiculturalism\u27 in the Canadian context. More specifically, I explore the ways that \u27race\u27 has been coded in the popular media in my examination of selected articles from the Toronto Star\u27s coverage of: Philippe Rushton, human genome research, and racial profiling practiced by the Toronto Police Service. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis2005 .A33. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 44-03, page: 1244. Thesis (M.A.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 2005

Accurate Colour Reproduction of Human Face using 3D Printing Technology

The colour of the face is one of the most significant factors in appearance and perception of an individual. With the rapid development of colour 3D printing technology and 3D imaging acquisition techniques, it is possible to achieve skin colour reproduction with the application of colour management. However, due to the complicated skin structure with uneven and non-uniform surface, it is challenging to obtain accurate skin colour appearance and reproduce it faithfully using 3D colour printers. The aim of this study was to improve the colour reproduction accuracy of the human face using 3D printing technology. A workflow of 3D colour image reproduction was developed, including 3D colour image acquisition, 3D model manipulation, colour management, colour 3D printing, postprocessing and colour reproduction evaluation. Most importantly, the colour characterisation methods for the 3D imaging system and the colour 3D printer were comprehensively investigated for achieving higher accuracy

Deconstructing the Ideology of White Aesthetics

In this Article, the author provides a discussion on the dynamic between race and aesthetics. The author states that because Whites are the dominant group in America, they dictate what is beautiful. The consequence of this power dynamic is that the dominant group, Whites, can exercise preferences in deciding how to look or express themselves, whereas people of color are limited to either conforming to an imposed White standard or rejecting it. The author starts by laying out some of the features to what he terms the ideology of White aesthetics. He then commences to examine how this ideology has played out in Black-White relations and in relations between Asian Americans and Whites, and how it may be used to shed new light both on race relations and on behavior within communities of color. The author concludes by addressing potential counter-arguments

Anglo-Australian racial science, trans-hemispheric transactions, and the "yellow peril" in the Anglosphere, 1850-1960

This thesis traces the history of Anglo-Australian racial science between 1850 and 1960, and examines evolving anthropological constructions of interracial marriage, as a lens through which we can re-evaluate gold rush histories and changing attitudes to East Asian migration throughout the British World, the British Empire’s geo-political relationship with China and Japan, and the transnational dissemination and contestation of the ‘‘yellow peril’’ trope. By decentring the histories of racial science and the British Empire from their North Atlantic moorings, and looking to anxious perceptions of East Asians emanating from antipodean Britons of the ‘global south’, the thesis builds a more trans-hemispheric narrative of the rise and fall of racial thinking. It does this by utilising two case studies. One examines the Sydney geographer Professor Griffith Taylor’s interwar problematisation of the White Australia Policy and the ‘transnational biopolitics’ of Asian immigration restriction in the Anglosphere, through his positive pronouncements about Eurasian intermarriage. Secondly, analysing the latter career of outcast former Kings College London racial scientist Professor Reginald ‘Ruggles’ Gates, and his ‘race crossing’ research in 1950s Australia and Japan, the thesis complicates histories of the global decline of racial thinking and survival of marginal scientific racists after the fall of Nazism

Spirometric and gas transfer measurements among normal adult South African men : an investigation into anthropoemtric, socio-economic, racial and environmental factors influencing lung function

An investigation into anthropocentric, socio-economic, racial and environmental factors influencing lung function. In modern clinical practice the data derived from pulmonary function tests are an integral part of the evaluation of pulmonary disease states. Such data may shed light on the nature of the disease state, the extent (severity) of the disease and the degree of functional impairment that is present. It is generally recognized that there is a lack of consistent data regarding "normal" values in pulmonary function. Despite great progress in standardizing instrumentation, methodology and calculation of the lung function test, the interpretation of the test is complicated by the lack of standardized prediction values. The identification of race as a confounding variable is particularly important in an evaluation of appropriateness of currently used pulmonary function reference values. It has been pointed out that reference values for blacks, in particular, have deficiencies and that this issue demands urgent investigation. The study of differences in lung function in different race groups is complex. Race, itself, is a controversial concept and its close relationship to social stratification needs to be explored before differences may be attributed to race itself

'This Ruinous Element': African and Mexican Americans as 'Racial Problems' in early 20th Century California

This thesis explores the contrasting practices and discourses through which African and Mexican Americans were managed and marked as supposedly racial populations. It focuses primarily on Los Angeles and on the first four decades of the 20th century. This focus, however, often shifts temporally and widens geographically, as I excavate the historical roots of each of these processes. I argue that the rigid exclusion of African Americans and the more flexible boundaries placed around Mexican Americans cannot be understood as resulting from variant racial differences but must be examined within the specific historical and material conditions from which they emerged, namely slavery, on the one hand, and conquest and immigration, on the other. After an initial consideration of these circumstances, I trace their ideological and practical consequences in three areas. First, I examine how black and Mexican people were inversely defined within the regime of racial classification and anti- miscegenation law. Next, I examine how black and Mexican ‘difference’ was spatially imposed in the city of Los Angeles. Finally, I consider how patterns of collective violence, and the related segregatory practices of the World War II military reinforced substantially different social boundaries around each group. I base this examination upon a wide range of primary sources, including official documents such as court transcripts, congressional hearings, and FBI reports, as well as popular and academic works from the period. Underlying my argument is the notion that race is produced within historically specific social relations; as such, it demands rather than provides explanation. Though historical in perspective, I believe the questions raised here, and the approach with which I attempt to answer them, will be relevant to more recent debates about the workings of racism, particularly those that focus on multiethnic contexts

Telomere length analysis: A new tool for molecular photofitting

This thesis describes a new assay and analytical protocol to determine the telomere length of an individual, and its potential application in criminal investigations. The most commonly used existing assay is based on real-time qPCR. The Telomeric Multiplication Factor (TMF) assay described here instead uses end-point PCR and densitometry. Because most existing forensic DNA techniques already use end-point PCR, the TMF assay can be more easily integrated into the suite of tests available. Along with the TMF assay, a new procedure to use telomere length to determine age is presented. Previous attempts to do this rely on the calculation of a linear regression, and the interpolation of an age based on telomere length, which is not accurate enough for use in criminal investigations (with a covariance between known and predicted age of 0.2848, P=0.010564). Telomere Length Analysis (TLA) uses a database of known individuals. An unknown individual’s telomere length is compared to all telomere lengths on the database, and used to calculate the unknown individual’s age as a multiple of each age on the database. This increases exponentially the number of comparisons that can be made, and improves the accuracy of age predictions (with a covariance between known and predicted age of 0.4561, P=0.000021). The accuracy increases as the size of the database increases. TLA was developed using buccal epithelial cell samples. However, this thesis demonstrates that TLA also works on hair and blood samples, although to a lesser degree of accuracy. This makes TLA applicable in more forensic scenarios. TLA is intended to operate alongside the recent developments in molecular photofitting, to provide phenotypic and biographical information about an unknown offender to hasten his arrest and conviction, in the event that no matching DNA profile is recorded on investigating authorities’ databases. The new TMF assay and TLA analytical profile are more accurate and more applicable to a forensic scenario than other, previous, attempts to use telomere length to determine age

Identity processes and dynamics in multi-ethnic Europe

This volume is a study of identity processes and identity dynamics in a post-colonial, multiethnic European context that is constantly changing under the pressures of globalisation, migration movements and integration. The authors represent a variety of disciplines: American studies, anthropology, cultural studies, ethnology, history, social psychology and sociology. Eleven of the thirteen chapters present empirical case studies from the Netherlands, Portugal, the Basque region, Switzerland and the United Kingdom