611 research outputs found
Chinese and English Infants’ Tone Perception: Evidence for Perceptual Reorganization.
No full textOver half the world’s population speaks a tone language, yet infant speech perception research has typically focused on consonants and vowels. Very young infants can discriminate a wide range of native and nonnative consonants and vowels, and then in a process of perceptual reorganization over the 1st year, discrimination of most nonnative speech sounds deteriorates. We investigated perceptual reorganization for tones by testing 6- and 9-month-old infants from tone (Chinese) and nontone (English) language environments for speech (lexical tone) and nonspeech (violin sound) tone discrimination in both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. Overall, Chinese infants performed equally well at 6 and 9 months for both speech and nonspeech tone discrimination. Conversely, English infants’ discrimination of lexical tone declined between 6 and 9 months of age, whereas their nonspeech tone discrimination remained constant. These results indicate that the reorganization of tone perception is a function of the native language environment, and that this reorganization is linguistically based
Visual front-end wars : Viola-Jones face detector vs Fourier Lucas-Kanade
No full textThe performance of visual speech recognition (VSR)\ud
systems are significantly influenced by the accuracy of\ud
the visual front-end. The current state-of-the-art VSR\ud
systems use off-the-shelf face detectors such as Viola-\ud
Jones (VJ) which has limited reliability for changes in\ud
illumination and head poses. For a VSR system to perform\ud
well under these conditions, an accurate visual front\ud
end is required. This is an important problem to be solved\ud
in many practical implementations of audio visual speech\ud
recognition systems, for example in automotive environments\ud
for an efficient human-vehicle computer interface.\ud
In this paper, we re-examine the current state-of-the-art\ud
VSR by comparing off-the-shelf face detectors with the\ud
recently developed Fourier Lucas-Kanade (FLK) image\ud
alignment technique. A variety of image alignment and\ud
visual speech recognition experiments are performed on\ud
a clean dataset as well as with a challenging automotive\ud
audio-visual speech dataset. Our results indicate that the\ud
FLK image alignment technique can significantly outperform\ud
off-the shelf face detectors, but requires frequent\ud
fine-tuning
Bad habits drinking, smoking, taking drugs, gambling, sexual misbehavior, and swearing in American history
No full text"The vast majority of Americans have, at one point or another, gotten drunk, smoked, dabbled with drugs, gambled, sworn, or engaged in adultery. During the 1800s, "respectable" people struggled to control these behaviors, labeling them "bad" and the people who indulged in them unrespectable. In the twentieth century, these minor vices were transformed into a societal complex of enormous and pervasive influence. Yet the general belief persists that these activities remain merely harmless "bad habits," individual transgressions more than social problems. Not so, argues distinguished historian John C. Burnham in this pioneering study." "In Bad Habits, Burnham traces the growth of a veritable minor vice-industrial complex illustrating the special heritage shared by these vices. As this vice complex grew, activities that might have been harmless, natural, and sociable fun resulted in fundamental social change. When Burnham set out to explore the influence of these bad habits on American society, he sought to discover why so many "good" people engaged in activities that many, including they themselves, considered "bad." What he found, however, was a coalition of economic and social interests in which the single minded quest for profit allied with the values of the Victorian saloon underworld and bohemian rebelliousness. This combination radically inverted common American standards of personal conduct.""Bad Habits, then, describes, in words and pictures how more and more Americans learned to value hedonism and self-gratification - to smoke and swear during World War I, to admire cabaret night life, and to reject schoolmarmish standards in the age of Prohibition. Tracing the evolution of each of the bad habits, Burnham tells how liquor control boards encouraged the consumption of alcohol; how alcoholic beverage producers got their workers deferred from the draft during World War II; how convenience stores and accounting firms pursued profits by pushing legalized gambling; how "swinging" Playboy bankrolled a drug advocacy group; how advertising and television made the Marlboro man a national hero; how drug paraphernalia were promoted by national advertisers; how a practical joker/drug addict caused a shortage of kitty litter on Long Island; and how the evolution of an entire sex therapy industry helped turn sexual experience into a new kind of commodity. Altogether, a lot of people made a lot of money. But what, the author asks, did these changes cost American society?" "This illustrated tour de force by one of the most distinctive and important voices in social history reveals John C. Burnham at his provocative and controversial best."--BOOK JACKE
The relationship between auditory-visual speech perception and language-specific speech perception at the onset of reading instruction in English-speaking children
No full textSpeech perception is auditory visual, but relatively little is known about auditory visual compared with auditory-only speech perception. One avenue for further understanding is via developmental studies. In a recent study, Sekiyama and Burnham (2008) found that English speakers significantly increase their use of visual speech information between 6 and 8 years of age but that this development does not appear to be universal across languages. Here, the possible bases for this language-specific increase among English speakers were investigated. Four groups of English-language children (5, 6, 7, and 8 years) and a group of adults were tested on auditory visual, auditory-only, and visual-only speech perception; language-specific speech perception with native and non-native speech sounds; articulation; and reading. Results showed that language-specific speech perception and lip-reading ability reliably predicted auditory visual speech perception in children but that adult auditory visual speech perception was predicted by auditory-only speech perception. The implications are discussed in terms of both auditory visual speech perception and language development
Beethoven hero
No full textBringing together reception history, music analysis and criticism, the history of music theory, and the philosophy of music, Beethoven Hero explores the nature and persistence of Beethoven's heroic style. What have we come to value in this music, asks Scott Burnham, and why do generations of critics and analysts hear it in much the same way? Specifically, what is it that fosters the intensity of listener engagement with the heroic style, the often overwhelming sense of identification with its musical process? Starting with the story of heroic quest heard time and again in the first movement of the Eroica Symphony, Burnham suggests that Beethoven's music matters profoundly to its listeners because it projects an empowering sense of self, destiny, and freedom, while modeling ironic self-consciousnessIn addition to thus identifying Beethoven's music as an overarching expression of values central to the age of both Goethe and Hegel, the author describes and then critiques the process by which the musical values of the heroic style quickly became the controlling model of compositional logic in Western music criticism and analysis. Apart from its importance for students of Beethoven and his music, this book should appeal to all those interested in canon formation in the arts and in music as a cultural, ethical, and emotional force - in short, to anyone interested in the questions of what we want from music and what music does for u
Behind the Lynching of Emmet Louis Till
No full textLouis Burnham. Behind the Lynching of Emmet Louis Till. New York: Freedom Associates, 1955. http://hdl.handle.net/10428/2991.
Louis E. Burnham is editor of FREEDOM, the lively monthly publication which interprets Negro affairs. For ten years he traveled extensively throughout the South as an organizer of the Negro youth and leader of the right-to-vote movement. He is intimately acquainted with the Mississippi Delta area described in this pamphlet and uniquely equipped to write about current developments there on which the nation’s eyes are focused.Faint vertical crease through center where long ago this was folded and put in a pocket, otherwise, only very light wear and expected aging. This is a fiery pamphlet regarding human rights abuses against African-Americans in the South. The pamphlet is not just about Emmet Till, whose murder helped galvanize the Civil Rights movement, but about violence against blacks throughout the South. The author was a civil rights activist who was the editor of Freedom, the newspaper founded by Paul Robeson. Compelling pamphlet from the early days of the Civil Rights Movement
The Human Communication Science Virtual Lab (HCS vLab): A repository microclimate in a rapidly evolving research-ecosystem
No full textPresentation at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014General Track Papers and PanelsThe session was recorded and is available for watching (this presentation starts at 0:00:30)The HCS vLab represents a new kind of data driven research collaboration environment built around a repository of human communication data, from research collections in a broad range of fields. The repository contains text, audio and video data as well as annotations which describe the data, with a discovery search/browse interface. The main function of the lab is to provide a platform data via a rich programming interface (API), and via a workflow engine which allows a large cross-disciplinary research community to run combinations of tools on the data. The presentation will cover vLab’s genesis as an Australian Government funded project led by the University of Western Sydney. We will provide a walk-through of the functionality of the lab including showing how familiar repository functionality such as search-and-browse is linked to the creation of stable, citable collections known as “item lists”, and how item lists can be processed and analysed in various ways and how this fits in to the research lifecycle including how data and publications will be linked and cited, and explore the relationship between the lab and other scholarly infrastructure such as institutional repositories.Sefton, Peter Malcolm (University of Western Sydney, Australia)Estival, Dominique (University of Western Sydney, Australia)Cassidy, Steve (Macquarie University, Australia)Burnham, Denis (University of Western Sydney, Australia)Berghold, Jared (Intersect Australia
The Burnham Transportation, Plan of Chicago: 100 Years Later
No full textIn 1909, Daniel Burnham, internationally famous architect and planner, was the principal author of the Plan of Chicago, which made recommendations on how the city could grow and improve the quality of life for its residents in an orderly fashion. “…The time has come [for Chicago and other world cities] to bring order out of the chaos incident to rapid growth” (Burnham and Bennett 1909, 188). Many of Burnham’s suggested solutions were carried out in some form or another, some very directly and others incidentally. For example, his boulevard and parks recommendations resulted in Michigan Avenue becoming a great boulevard, the double decking of Wacker Drive and the construction of Grant Park. Eighteen pages of the 164 page Plan were devoted to Chapter V, “Transportation: A Freight Center: Grouping of Passenger Stations: A Loop System.” The purpose of this paper is to examine and evaluate those freight and passenger transportation components contained in Chapter V of the plan. To put the Plan in proper perspective, Chicago was one of the fastest-growing urban areas in the world during the 19th century. Its population grew from approximately 100 people in 1812 to 1.7 million in 1900. This is even more remarkable considering the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed more than 17,000 structures. The rapid growth resulted in congestion, chaos, poverty and air and water pollution (Young 1998). Burnham envisioned a city of organized beauty and efficiency similar to the “White City” he helped create as a part of the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, celebrating the anniversary of the discovery of America (Smith 2006). The freight and passenger transportation recommendations in the Plan addressed such issues as freight congestion, consolidation of railroad passenger facilities, creation of freight loops, and elimination of rail grade crossings. Some of these recommendations resulted in immediate action plans. Others, like the consolidation of all intercity passenger trains, did not occur until 1971, when Amtrak consolidated all passenger service in Union Station. Some issues, like rail freight congestion, are still present in the region today. While the freight and passenger transportation components of the Plan have mixed results, one can argue that the Chicago region’s transportation system has benefited from the visionary planning by Burnham in the Plan of Chicago
The Digital Unconscious and Decolonizing Lacan — with Clint Burnham
No full textClint Burnham was born in Comox, British Columbia, which is on the traditional territory of the K’ómoks (Sathloot) First Nation, centred historically on kwaniwsam. He lives and teaches on the traditional ancestral territories of the Coast Salish peoples, including traditional territories of the Squamish (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw), Tsleil-Waututh (səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ), Musqueam (xʷməθkʷəy̓əm), and Kwikwetlem (kʷikʷəƛ̓əm) Nations. Clint’s research interests include cultural studies (especially film and popular culture), contemporary poetry, and theory (especially psychoanalysis and Marxism). He is the author of book-length studies of Steve McCaffery, Fredric Jameson, and Slavoj Žižek. He is also the author of numerous books of poetry and fiction; his novel Smoke Show was published by Arsenal Pulp in 2005, his most recent book of poetry, Pound at Guantánamo, was published in 2016 by Talonbooks, and his latest fiction collection, Stories for my iPad, is under contract with Anvil. Clint has written on art in ESPACE art actuel,fillip, Flash Art, Camera Austria, The Vancouver Sun, Canadian Art, Artforum, and The Globe and Mail. He co-edited Digital Natives (Other Sights) with Lorna Brown, From Text to Txting (Indiana) with Paul Budra, and an issue of Canadian Literature on 21st century poetics with Christine Stewart; he is the author of The Only Poetry that Matters: Reading the Kootenay School of Writing (Arsenal Pulp). New and recent art writing includes a review essay on Walker Evans for Scan (U of Winnipeg), an essay on Vancouver artist Rodney Graham for the Polygon Gallery (North Vancouver), and a catalogue essay on Canadian photographer Kelly Wood. An essay on Edward Burtynsky appeared in the recent Petrocultures collection from McGill-Queen’s, an essay on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is in the forthcoming Un-Archiving the Literary Event: CanLit Across Media volume, also from McGill-Queen’s, and an essay on Lacan and new media is in After Lacan collection from Cambridge (ed. Ankhi Mukerjee). His essay “Love and Sex in the Age of Capitalist Realism,” co-authored with Matthew Flisfeder, appeared in Cinema Journal in 2017, and “New Media as Event,” co-authored with Katarina Peović Vuković, appeared in Synthesis Philosophica, also in 2017. Prof. Burnham’s newest scholarly book, Does the Internet have an Unconscious? Slavoj Žižek and Digital Culture appeared in 2018 from Bloomsbury, which also published his Fredric Jameson andThe Wolf of Wall Street, in 2016. He has been a member of the SFU English department since 2007; before that he taught at UBC, Capilano College, and Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. He is currently chair of the SFU English Graduate Program, and in addition to teaching the professional development courses in the coming academic year, he is also teaching, in spring 2020, a graduate seminar on truth and reconciliation, and in intersession 2020, a new introductory course on creative writing. He has supervised doctoral students writing on photography and intimacy (Alison Dean) and on sound archives (Deanna Fong), and is presently supervising dissertations on theories of search (Alois Sieben), cognitive mapping (Ed Graham – co-supervised with Prof. Lesjak), and post-humanism (Ziwei Yan). Clint is an associate member of the SFU Department of Geography and a member of SFU’s Centre for Global Political Economy, and he is a founding member of the Vancouver Lacan Salon. He co-organized the LaConference 2018, the proceedings of which, Lacan + the Environment, he is co-editing, with Prof. Kingsbury (SFU Geography) for Palgrave; this coming year he is on the organizing committee for the Canadian Association of Cultural Studies/Association Canadienne des Études Culturelles “Organized Abandonment” Conference 2020
The Digital Unconscious and Decolonizing Lacan — with Clint Burnham (Video)
No full textClint Burnham was born in Comox, British Columbia, which is on the traditional territory of the K’ómoks (Sathloot) First Nation, centred historically on kwaniwsam. He lives and teaches on the traditional ancestral territories of the Coast Salish peoples, including traditional territories of the Squamish (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw), Tsleil-Waututh (səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ), Musqueam (xʷməθkʷəy̓əm), and Kwikwetlem (kʷikʷəƛ̓əm) Nations. Clint’s research interests include cultural studies (especially film and popular culture), contemporary poetry, and theory (especially psychoanalysis and Marxism). He is the author of book-length studies of Steve McCaffery, Fredric Jameson, and Slavoj Žižek. He is also the author of numerous books of poetry and fiction; his novel Smoke Show was published by Arsenal Pulp in 2005, his most recent book of poetry, Pound at Guantánamo, was published in 2016 by Talonbooks, and his latest fiction collection, Stories for my iPad, is under contract with Anvil. Clint has written on art in ESPACE art actuel,fillip, Flash Art, Camera Austria, The Vancouver Sun, Canadian Art, Artforum, and The Globe and Mail. He co-edited Digital Natives (Other Sights) with Lorna Brown, From Text to Txting (Indiana) with Paul Budra, and an issue of Canadian Literature on 21st century poetics with Christine Stewart; he is the author of The Only Poetry that Matters: Reading the Kootenay School of Writing (Arsenal Pulp). New and recent art writing includes a review essay on Walker Evans for Scan (U of Winnipeg), an essay on Vancouver artist Rodney Graham for the Polygon Gallery (North Vancouver), and a catalogue essay on Canadian photographer Kelly Wood. An essay on Edward Burtynsky appeared in the recent Petrocultures collection from McGill-Queen’s, an essay on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is in the forthcoming Un-Archiving the Literary Event: CanLit Across Media volume, also from McGill-Queen’s, and an essay on Lacan and new media is in After Lacan collection from Cambridge (ed. Ankhi Mukerjee). His essay “Love and Sex in the Age of Capitalist Realism,” co-authored with Matthew Flisfeder, appeared in Cinema Journal in 2017, and “New Media as Event,” co-authored with Katarina Peović Vuković, appeared in Synthesis Philosophica, also in 2017. Prof. Burnham’s newest scholarly book, Does the Internet have an Unconscious? Slavoj Žižek and Digital Culture appeared in 2018 from Bloomsbury, which also published his Fredric Jameson andThe Wolf of Wall Street, in 2016. He has been a member of the SFU English department since 2007; before that he taught at UBC, Capilano College, and Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. He is currently chair of the SFU English Graduate Program, and in addition to teaching the professional development courses in the coming academic year, he is also teaching, in spring 2020, a graduate seminar on truth and reconciliation, and in intersession 2020, a new introductory course on creative writing. He has supervised doctoral students writing on photography and intimacy (Alison Dean) and on sound archives (Deanna Fong), and is presently supervising dissertations on theories of search (Alois Sieben), cognitive mapping (Ed Graham – co-supervised with Prof. Lesjak), and post-humanism (Ziwei Yan). Clint is an associate member of the SFU Department of Geography and a member of SFU’s Centre for Global Political Economy, and he is a founding member of the Vancouver Lacan Salon. He co-organized the LaConference 2018, the proceedings of which, Lacan + the Environment, he is co-editing, with Prof. Kingsbury (SFU Geography) for Palgrave; this coming year he is on the organizing committee for the Canadian Association of Cultural Studies/Association Canadienne des Études Culturelles “Organized Abandonment” Conference 2020
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