Rule Of Thumb: Deep derotation for improved fingertip detection

We investigate a novel global orientation regression approach for articulated objects using a deep convolutional neural network. This is integrated with an in-plane image derotation scheme, DeROT, to tackle the problem of per-frame fingertip detection in depth images. The method reduces the complexity of learning in the space of articulated poses which is demonstrated by using two distinct state-of-the-art learning based hand pose estimation methods applied to fingertip detection. Significant classification improvements are shown over the baseline implementation. Our framework involves no tracking, kinematic constraints or explicit prior model of the articulated object in hand. To support our approach we also describe a new pipeline for high accuracy magnetic annotation and labeling of objects imaged by a depth camera.Comment: To be published in proceedings of BMVC 201

The Aims and Scope of Evolutionary Economic Geography

This aim of this paper is to present the objectives and scope of an evolutionary approach to economic geography. We argue that the goal is not only to utilise the concepts and ideas from evolutionary economics (and evolutionary thinking more broadly) to help interpret and explain how the economic landscape changes over historical time, but also to reveal how situating the economy in space adds to our understanding of the processes that drive economic evolution, that is to say, to demonstrate how geography matters in determining the nature and trajectory of evolution of the economic system. We will argue that evolutionary economic geography is concerned with the spatialities of economic novelty; with how the spatial structures of the economy emerge from the micro-behaviours of economic agents; with how, in the absence of central coordination or direction, the economic landscape exhibits self-organisation; and with how the processes of path creation and path dependence interact to shape geographies of economic development and transformation, and why and how such processes may themselves be place dependent. Economic transformation proceeds differently in different places, and the mechanisms involved neither originate nor operate evenly across space. Our concern is both with the ways in which the forces making for economic change, adaptation and novelty shape and reshape the geographies of wealth creation, work and welfare, and with how the spatial structures and features so produced themselves feed back to influence the forces driving economic evolution. In the final part, we summarize a number of papers that have contributed to evolutionary economic geography, and which will be published in The Handbook on Evolutionary Economic Geography that is edited by the two authors, and forthcoming at Edward Elgar.evolutionary economic geography, industry location, geography of networks, institutions, agglomeration economies

Social distinctives of the Christians in the first century: pivotal essays by E.A. Judge

Author: Judge, Edwin A Social distinctives of the Christians in the first century xx, 227 p. Publisher: Peabody, Mass : Hendrickson, 2008

Corporate Governance in the Emerging Economics of the Caribbean: Peculiarities, Challenges, and a Future Pathway

Building on corporate governance research and responsible leadership theory this paper examines, through a multiple case approach, three major cases of corporate failures in the emerging economies of Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago, member states of the Caribbean Community trade bloc. The paper accordingly provides valuable insights into the dynamics of corporate governance in the Caribbean and proposes a responsible leadership approach as a framework to mitigating agency-problems and addressing the changing business contexts of the region. The paper suggests that researchers and practitioners need to develop a more holistic approach towards understanding corporate governance by going beyond traditional governance mechanisms and controls, and incorporating responsible leadership levels of analysis into the equation. It also establishes that regulators, boards, management, and auditors are critical to avoiding corporate failures and that good corporate governance is fundamental to the performance and sustainability of firms and economies as a whole