Disconnected Skeleton: Shape at its Absolute Scale

We present a new skeletal representation along with a matching framework to address the deformable shape recognition problem. The disconnectedness arises as a result of excessive regularization that we use to describe a shape at an attainably coarse scale. Our motivation is to rely on the stable properties of the shape instead of inaccurately measured secondary details. The new representation does not suffer from the common instability problems of traditional connected skeletons, and the matching process gives quite successful results on a diverse database of 2D shapes. An important difference of our approach from the conventional use of the skeleton is that we replace the local coordinate frame with a global Euclidean frame supported by additional mechanisms to handle articulations and local boundary deformations. As a result, we can produce descriptions that are sensitive to any combination of changes in scale, position, orientation and articulation, as well as invariant ones.Comment: The work excluding {\S}V and {\S}VI has first appeared in 2005 ICCV: Aslan, C., Tari, S.: An Axis-Based Representation for Recognition. In ICCV(2005) 1339- 1346.; Aslan, C., : Disconnected Skeletons for Shape Recognition. Masters thesis, Department of Computer Engineering, Middle East Technical University, May 200

Higgs field as the gauge field corresponding to parity in the usual space-time

We find that the local character of field theory requires the parity degree of freedom of the fields to be considered as an additional dicrete fifth dimension which is an artifact emerging due to the local description of space-time. Higgs field arises as the gauge field corresponding to this discrete dimension. Hence the noncommutative geometric derivation of the standard model follows as a manifestation of the local description of the usual space-time.Comment: 14 pages, latex, no figure

The roles of products in product emotions an explorative study

Although several theoretical frameworks that aim to explain the emotional impact of product design have been introduced in design research literature, none of these frameworks clearly specifies the role of the product in these emotions. This paper reports a study that was designed to explore the variety of roles that products can play in emotional experiences. In a three staged experience sampling study, 29 participants produced 170 records of emotions experienced while interacting with products. Each case was examined in order to identify the antecedent event (the event triggering the emotion) and the mental object (what the emotion is about). The results indicated that several types of events involved in the user-product interaction can elicit an emotional experience: noticing a product; an event occurring during product usage; an entire usage episode; an external agent mentioning the product; and a change in the relationship between a user and a product . It was also found that the resulting emotional responses can be about (can be attributed to) several types of mental objects: a physical object, such as the particular product involved; the user or some other person; the actions of the user or the designer; the antecedent event itself. The results are used to identify and discuss eight distinct roles that products can play in the experience of emotions. In addition, examples are provided to illustrate how these roles can facilitate a structured approach to design for emotion. Keywords: Design and emotion, user-product interaction</p

Determinants of Formal Giving in Turkey

This article shares the results of a recent study on individual giving to civil society organizations in Turkey. Using interview data collected from a random sample of 2,495 Turkish citizens in 2015, we estimate that about 12% to 13% of the Turkish population engage in giving, a relatively low figure compared to international giving. We find that being male, being educated, being satisfied with one’s income, being satisfied with one’s economic circumstances, being a rural resident, as well as one’s level of religiosity, civic activism, and institutional trust are all positively associated with giving in Turkey. Our findings provide a foundation for understanding philanthropic giving in Turkey and contribute to ongoing research about determinants of individual giving across countries

The Green Choice: Learning and Influencing Human Decisions on Shared Roads

Autonomous vehicles have the potential to increase the capacity of roads via platooning, even when human drivers and autonomous vehicles share roads. However, when users of a road network choose their routes selfishly, the resulting traffic configuration may be very inefficient. Because of this, we consider how to influence human decisions so as to decrease congestion on these roads. We consider a network of parallel roads with two modes of transportation: (i) human drivers who will choose the quickest route available to them, and (ii) ride hailing service which provides an array of autonomous vehicle ride options, each with different prices, to users. In this work, we seek to design these prices so that when autonomous service users choose from these options and human drivers selfishly choose their resulting routes, road usage is maximized and transit delay is minimized. To do so, we formalize a model of how autonomous service users make choices between routes with different price/delay values. Developing a preference-based algorithm to learn the preferences of the users, and using a vehicle flow model related to the Fundamental Diagram of Traffic, we formulate a planning optimization to maximize a social objective and demonstrate the benefit of the proposed routing and learning scheme.Comment: Submitted to CDC 201

The Concept of "Visual Product" Concerning the Transformation of the Subject "Galatasaray-Neuchâtel Xamax Match" into an Object through Speculative thinking via the Storability Properties of the Sports Viewing Product Services

The goal is to objectify the concept of "visual product" through speculative thinking from the start point of the subject of Galatasaray-NeuchâtelXamaxmatch on the basis of a new kind of economical product brought about by the storability of service products owing to the technological changes in sports viewing products. In our study, the general screening model, which is one of the descriptive research methods, has been used (Karasar 2009). Within the scope of this descriptive scanning method, a theoretical-analytical method has been used focusing on the relevant body of literature. Descriptive studies are usually carried out to elucidate a given situation, to make assessments in line with standards, and to reveal the relationships between events (Çepni, 2007). A concept is an abstract design that encompasses the common features of objects and events, and gathers them under a common name. Thus, a concept becomes a general and abstract representation of an object, situation or phenomenon. Concepts are divided in two as a priori and a posteriori. The subject of discourse of this study is a posteriori concepts, because the concept of "visual product" can be achieved by the method of induction, utilising observation and experience. In this procedure, first the multiplicity is researched and compared, and then the similarities, differences and variables are focused on in order to objectify the subject. At the last stage, the concept of "visual product" is obtained through abstraction, by discarding the variables and differences. The continuity of the sports viewing product necessitates a definition of it. The visual product can be conceptualized as "an economic work, action, a performance, social event or an effort that is sustained by communication technology, even though it is consumed where it is produced.

Monte Carlo simulation for statistical mechanics model of ion channel cooperativity in cell membranes

Voltage-gated ion channels are key molecules for the generation and propagation of electrical signals in excitable cell membranes. The voltage-dependent switching of these channels between conducting and nonconducting states is a major factor in controlling the transmembrane voltage. In this study, a statistical mechanics model of these molecules has been discussed on the basis of a two-dimensional spin model. A new Hamiltonian and a new Monte Carlo simulation algorithm are introduced to simulate such a model. It was shown that the results well match the experimental data obtained from batrachotoxin-modified sodium channels in the squid giant axon using the cut-open axon technique.Comment: Paper has been revise

Perception-Distortion Trade-off in the SR Space Spanned by Flow Models

Flow-based generative super-resolution (SR) models learn to produce a diverse set of feasible SR solutions, called the SR space. Diversity of SR solutions increases with the temperature ($\tau$) of latent variables, which introduces random variations of texture among sample solutions, resulting in visual artifacts and low fidelity. In this paper, we present a simple but effective image ensembling/fusion approach to obtain a single SR image eliminating random artifacts and improving fidelity without significantly compromising perceptual quality. We achieve this by benefiting from a diverse set of feasible photo-realistic solutions in the SR space spanned by flow models. We propose different image ensembling and fusion strategies which offer multiple paths to move sample solutions in the SR space to more desired destinations in the perception-distortion plane in a controllable manner depending on the fidelity vs. perceptual quality requirements of the task at hand. Experimental results demonstrate that our image ensembling/fusion strategy achieves more promising perception-distortion trade-off compared to sample SR images produced by flow models and adversarially trained models in terms of both quantitative metrics and visual quality.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in IEEE ICIP 2022 Conferenc