35,860 research outputs found
GRASS: Generative Recursive Autoencoders for Shape Structures
We introduce a novel neural network architecture for encoding and synthesis
of 3D shapes, particularly their structures. Our key insight is that 3D shapes
are effectively characterized by their hierarchical organization of parts,
which reflects fundamental intra-shape relationships such as adjacency and
symmetry. We develop a recursive neural net (RvNN) based autoencoder to map a
flat, unlabeled, arbitrary part layout to a compact code. The code effectively
captures hierarchical structures of man-made 3D objects of varying structural
complexities despite being fixed-dimensional: an associated decoder maps a code
back to a full hierarchy. The learned bidirectional mapping is further tuned
using an adversarial setup to yield a generative model of plausible structures,
from which novel structures can be sampled. Finally, our structure synthesis
framework is augmented by a second trained module that produces fine-grained
part geometry, conditioned on global and local structural context, leading to a
full generative pipeline for 3D shapes. We demonstrate that without
supervision, our network learns meaningful structural hierarchies adhering to
perceptual grouping principles, produces compact codes which enable
applications such as shape classification and partial matching, and supports
shape synthesis and interpolation with significant variations in topology and
geometry.Comment: Corresponding author: Kai Xu ([email protected]
Non-discursive knowledge and the construction of identity. Potters, potting and performance at the bronze age tell of Százhalombatta, Hungary
This article explores the relationship between the making of things and the making of people at the Bronze Age tell at Százhalombatta, Hungary. Focusing on potters and potting, we explore how the performance of non-discursive knowledge was critical to the construction of social categories. Potters literally came into being as potters through repeated bodily enactment of potting skills. Potters also gained their identity in the social sphere through the connection between their potting performance and their audience. We trace degrees of skill in the ceramic record to reveal the material articulation of non-discursive knowledge and consider the ramifications of the differential acquisition of non-discursive knowledge for the expression of different kinds of potter's identities. The creation of potters as a social category was essential to the ongoing creation of specific forms of material culture. We examine the implications of altered potters' performances and the role of non-discursive knowledge in the construction of social models of the Bronze Ag
Categorical Ontology of Complex Systems, Meta-Systems and Theory of Levels: The Emergence of Life, Human Consciousness and Society
Single cell interactomics in simpler organisms, as well as somatic cell interactomics in multicellular organisms, involve biomolecular interactions in complex signalling pathways that were recently represented in modular terms by quantum automata with ‘reversible behavior’ representing normal cell cycling and division. Other implications of such quantum automata, modular modeling of signaling pathways and cell differentiation during development are in the fields of neural plasticity and brain development leading to quantum-weave dynamic patterns and specific molecular processes underlying extensive memory, learning, anticipation mechanisms and the emergence of human consciousness during the early brain development in children. Cell interactomics is here represented for the first time as a mixture of ‘classical’ states that determine molecular dynamics subject to Boltzmann statistics and ‘steady-state’, metabolic (multi-stable) manifolds, together with ‘configuration’ spaces of metastable quantum states emerging from complex quantum dynamics of interacting networks of biomolecules, such as proteins and nucleic acids that are now collectively defined as quantum interactomics. On the other hand, the time dependent evolution over several generations of cancer cells --that are generally known to undergo frequent and extensive genetic mutations and, indeed, suffer genomic transformations at the chromosome level (such as extensive chromosomal aberrations found in many colon cancers)-- cannot be correctly represented in the ‘standard’ terms of quantum automaton modules, as the normal somatic cells can. This significant difference at the cancer cell genomic level is therefore reflected in major changes in cancer cell interactomics often from one cancer cell ‘cycle’ to the next, and thus it requires substantial changes in the modeling strategies, mathematical tools and experimental designs aimed at understanding cancer mechanisms. Novel solutions to this important problem in carcinogenesis are proposed and experimental validation procedures are suggested. From a medical research and clinical standpoint, this approach has important consequences for addressing and preventing the development of cancer resistance to medical therapy in ongoing clinical trials involving stage III cancer patients, as well as improving the designs of future clinical trials for cancer treatments.\ud
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KEYWORDS: Emergence of Life and Human Consciousness;\ud
Proteomics; Artificial Intelligence; Complex Systems Dynamics; Quantum Automata models and Quantum Interactomics; quantum-weave dynamic patterns underlying human consciousness; specific molecular processes underlying extensive memory, learning, anticipation mechanisms and human consciousness; emergence of human consciousness during the early brain development in children; Cancer cell ‘cycling’; interacting networks of proteins and nucleic acids; genetic mutations and chromosomal aberrations in cancers, such as colon cancer; development of cancer resistance to therapy; ongoing clinical trials involving stage III cancer patients’ possible improvements of the designs for future clinical trials and cancer treatments. \ud
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Alberti and Ficino
Leon Battista Alberti and Marsilio Ficino, though separated by twenty-nine years in age, had a close relationship as mentor and pupil. Concepts which can be found in Alberti’s De pictura (1435) and De re aedificatoria (1450) are infused in Ficino’s De amore (1469). The concepts include Alberti’s theories of armonia, lineamenti, concinnitas, ornamento, and the pyramid of light in the theory of vision. In both Alberti and Ficino, harmonies shared by the body and music are manifestations of the harmonies of the soul. Beauty in body and matter is determined by beauty in mind (mens), that part of mind directed toward intellectus divinus, and beauty is made manifest in mind by the lineamenti, the lines in the mind which are distinguished from matter. Beauty is the internal perfection of the intellectus divinus, which is the good, which is a perfect harmony called concinnitas. Ornament is not beauty, but rather a physical complement to beauty
Phrase structure grammars as indicative of uniquely human thoughts
I argue that the ability to compute phrase structure grammars is indicative of a particular kind of thought. This type of thought that is only available to cognitive systems that have access to the computations that allow the generation and interpretation of the structural descriptions of phrase structure grammars. The study of phrase structure grammars, and formal language theory in general, is thus indispensable to studies of human cognition, for it makes explicit both the unique type of human thought and the underlying mechanisms in virtue of which this thought is made possible
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