Modeling and Mapping Location-Dependent Human Appearance

Human appearance is highly variable and depends on individual preferences, such as fashion, facial expression, and makeup. These preferences depend on many factors including a person\u27s sense of style, what they are doing, and the weather. These factors, in turn, are dependent upon geographic location and time. In our work, we build computational models to learn the relationship between human appearance, geographic location, and time. The primary contributions are a framework for collecting and processing geotagged imagery of people, a large dataset collected by our framework, and several generative and discriminative models that use our dataset to learn the relationship between human appearance, location, and time. Additionally, we build interactive maps that allow for inspection and demonstration of what our models have learned

Consciousness Enframed: The Alētheia of Qualia

There is nothing that we could be more familiar with than our own consciousness. It seems to us that conscious experience consists of subjective qualia – the what-it-is-like to experience the redness of an apple, the taste of coffee, or any other sense datum. Explaining how these can come about from material causes is often referred to as the hard problem in consciousness. Daniel Dennett gives a materialistic explanation of consciousness by equating qualia to a magic trick; there are no qualia, there just seem to be. In this paper I will examine this explanation in light of Heidegger\u27s critique of technological thinking. Consciousness enframed in this way stands as a one-sided explanation that covers over more than it reveals. It is still useful, however, to see that it is the very building blocks of our conscious experience – our qualia – that we challenge forth to give us this one-sided view of experience. Dennett\u27s explanation of consciousness is correct, but it does not capture the truth of consciousness

Transition Shock: Do Words Impact My Work?

In this action research, I looked at the interpersonal and intrapersonal aspects of the Demand Control Schema (DC-S) (Dean & Pollard, 2013) and how these aspects can play a role in my work as an interpreter, focusing on transition shock and colleague interactions. When interacting with coworkers, I have experienced comments that have scared me from taking the next steps in my career. These interactions can, at times, bring up unsettling feelings and in turn impact my work throughout the day. The goal of the research is to give a better understanding to myself about how we talk about our work with our colleagues and how it can have an impact on our work performance. I will also look at how major life events and comfort levels impact these interactions. Three experiences are at the forefront of focus in my mind when I think about transition shock; senior year undergraduate internship, my first job post-undergraduate degree, and moving to a new state in the middle of graduate school. Each posed their own challenges for me interpersonally and intrapersonally. Throughout my research I kept a journal, logs, and other forms of notes, to keep a record of my experiences. My goal, although more of a marathon than a sprint, is to find a way to discover proper self-care/coping strategies due to the effects of transition shock, ultimately embracing the change and learning to find ways to continue growing in my endeavors. The prediction was that, at the end of all of this, a direct relationship will be found between how we talk about the work and the negative impact that talk has on my work performance. I also look at ways to analyze these interpersonal and intrapersonal aspects to improve my quality of life in the interpreting field

An Automatic Framework for Embryonic Localization Using Edges in a Scale Space

Localization of Drosophila embryos in images is a fundamental step in an automatic computational system for the exploration of gene-gene interaction on Drosophila. Contour extraction of embryonic images is challenging due to many variations in embryonic images. In the thesis work, we develop a localization framework based on the analysis of connected components of edge pixels in a scale space. We propose criteria to select optimal scales for embryonic localization. Furthermore, we propose a scale mapping strategy to compress the range of a scale space in order to improve the efficiency of the localization framework. The effectiveness of the proposed framework and the scale mapping strategy are validated in our experiments

Influence of Varying Light Intestifies on the Vegetative Growth of Ten Southern Forest Deer Browse Species

Forest Resource

Cooling characteristics of high titania slags

Please read the abstract in the section 00front of this document Copyright 2000, University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. Please cite as follows: Bessinger, D 2000, Cooling characteristics of high titania slags, MSc dissertation, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd H 95Dissertation (MSc (Metallurgy))--University of Pretoria, 2007.Materials Science and Metallurgical Engineeringunrestricte

The development of a model for an employee wellness programme for a fast moving consumer goods organisation

The health and wellness of employees is of strategic importance for any business, which wants to achieve leadership in a global business world. The environment in which one function is becoming increasingly demanding. The changes in this environment continue to pose challenges and changes in the work environment. The employment relationship has changed, altering the kind of work that people do, working hours and productivity at work. With these changes more and more of the economically active populations are striving to work “smarter”, not harder. In response most employers are prompted to revisit their employment proposition. Globalisation has brought about additional unpredictability with the result that many employers move toward greater flexibility by expanding or shrinking the work force to correspond with shifting production and service demands. The changes in technology have resulted in a loss of control over working hours, in job losses and in an increasing sense of job insecurity. As cited in Rothmann (2003) many organisations have implemented practices that attempt to reduce costs and increase productivity, which often lead to a mentality that favours profitability over the welfare of people. The emphasis is on healthy living, well being, striving to strike a balance between life at work and private life. Everyday people find new and better ways to find this balance. Studies have shown that healthier diets assist people to cope better with the biological side effects of stress and that fitness and exercise help people to reduce some of the tension and assist the body to cope better with stress. Flexible work practice assists people to cope better with the demands of their personal lives. Access to counsellors and advisors empower employees to cope with psychological difficulties. One also needs to take cognisance of the changes in society and more prevalent issues that cannot be ignored such as HIV-AIDS, single parenthood, heart diseases, stress and obesity. Consider the impact that these phenomena will have on the workforce in the years to come, should there be no change to the mindsets of people and the way in which society deal with these issues. The challenge will be to educate the workforce on HIV-AIDS and not to discriminate against such individuals but rather to enable them to provide support and guidance. Employee Wellness is at the centre of these lifestyle choices and forms the basis of and an extension to the new world of work where employees expect their employers to assist them with options and to provide a service to them, assisting them with their wellness in terms of providing knowledge, information and training and also services on prevalent wellness issues. The aim of this research study was to develop a model for an Employee Wellness Programme for a Fast Moving Consumer Goods organisation. The employee wellness model for a Fast Moving Consumer Goods company has three focus areas in terms of employee wellness, the first being physical health and wellbeing. Another important focus area is psychological health wellbeing. Societal health and wellbeing is the last of the three focus areas. These three focus areas are inter-related. Physical health improves your psychological wellbeing. These in turn improve your societal wellbeing. The model also indicates the integration between the Employee Assistance Programme and the Employee Wellness Programme, mutually supporting the three dimensions of employee wellness. The model for an Employee Wellness Programme for a Fast Moving Consumer Goods Company is externally influenced by the changes in the landscape of work and therefore it is important that the Employee Wellness Programme needs to be aligned to the strategy and vision of the company to add value continuous evaluation will indicate the success of the programme. To achieve global leadership in any industry, healthy employees are vital and therefore an Employee Wellness Programme can play an important role in an organisation by enabling employees to deal effectively with the changes and challenges in their personal and work life. Copyright 2006, University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. Please cite as follows: Bessinger, ME 2006, The development of a model for an employee wellness programme for a fast moving consumer goods organisation, MCom dissertation, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd C124/eoDissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2009.Human Resource Managementunrestricte

A CATALOG OF WORKS FOR MARIMBA SOLOIST WITH PERCUSSION ENSEMBLE COMPOSED BETWEEN 1959 AND 2008 WITH ANALYSIS OF SELECTED WORKS

This document provides a chronological catalog of works for marimba soloist and percussion ensemble composed between 1959 and 2008. More than 100 works have been composed over the forty-nine year history of the genre. Those that have a record of success were considered for analysis of structure and performance problems. That record of success was determined by two factors. First, the work needed three or more submissions to the Percussive Arts Society's program archive. Those works were then examined for the second factor, a performance at the Percussive Arts Society International Conference. Four compositions were chosen for analysis from the twelve that attained both factors: Minoru Miki's Marimba Spiritual, Lynn Glassock's Off Axis, Gordon Stout's Diptych No. 2 and David Gillingham's Concerto No. 1, Gate To Heaven. These compositions represented large and small ensemble categories. In addition, three of the works were written by commissioned composers, and two were written by performers as composers. The four works were examined using Ralph Turek's analytical categories: formal structure, harmonic/tonal structure, melodic/rhythmic structure and aspects of texture/dynamics and articulation. Performance problems found in the solo part and the ensemble were examined