A Generative Model of People in Clothing

We present the first image-based generative model of people in clothing for the full body. We sidestep the commonly used complex graphics rendering pipeline and the need for high-quality 3D scans of dressed people. Instead, we learn generative models from a large image database. The main challenge is to cope with the high variance in human pose, shape and appearance. For this reason, pure image-based approaches have not been considered so far. We show that this challenge can be overcome by splitting the generating process in two parts. First, we learn to generate a semantic segmentation of the body and clothing. Second, we learn a conditional model on the resulting segments that creates realistic images. The full model is differentiable and can be conditioned on pose, shape or color. The result are samples of people in different clothing items and styles. The proposed model can generate entirely new people with realistic clothing. In several experiments we present encouraging results that suggest an entirely data-driven approach to people generation is possible

Catalytic oxidation of organic compounds in waste water

Water pollution is rapidly becoming a major problem. Through studies of the effect of ultrasound on catalysts it has been found that certain water pollutants can be oxidized or modified. This synergetic effect between ultrasound and certain heterogeneous catalysts, sonocatalysis, is demonstrated qualitatively for a number of organic compounds (anilines, stilbestrol, orthochloronitrobenzene and phenol) and quantitatively for the oxidation of iodide ion. The technique shows promise as a tertiary treatment of municipal waste water.U.S. Department of the InteriorU.S. Geological SurveyOpe

Retribution: The Central Aim of Punishment

When I worked for the Manhattan District Attorney\u27s Office in the early 1980s, criminal sentences were consistently and dramatically too lenient. Though those years marked the ebb tide for the rehabilitative ideal of punishment and indeterminate zip-to-ten sentences, only career felons and those convicted of the most serious crimes were candidates for the sentences they justly deserved. Hamstrung by apparently silly rules of constitutional etiquette and bureaucratic sclerosis, the police were eclipsed in the mind of the public by the cold-blooded Everyman, bound only by the law of the jungle and some elusive sense of justice. Ultimately, popular demand required greater sentences for career criminals, a corresponding increase in prison capacities, and more police officers patrolling the streets. I do not mean to criticize the results of the aggressive policies adopted during that period. But I do mean to argue that deterrence and incapacitation are not adequate bases for sentencing those convicted of crimes. Neither, ultimately, is rehabilitation. These goals may contribute to a sound account of punishment–they may be secondary aims of punishment–but none can, on its own, morally justify punishment. Only retribution, a concept consistently misunderstood or entirely forgotten during the time I practiced criminal law, justifies punishing criminals. My aim in this paper is to present retribution as the morally justifying aim of punishment. The need to do so is well demonstrated by a dreary episode from my experience before a certain judge in the New York City Criminal Court