380 research outputs found
Markerless motion capture: The challenge of accuracy in capturing animal motions through model based approaches
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Automatic generation of a subject specific model for accurate markerless motion capture and biomechanical applications
No full textA new method for the intra-operative measurement of the femoral anteversion angle during total hip arthroplasty procedures
No full textGrowth forecast errors during the euro crisis: what was the cause?, 11 March
No full textWhat was the cause of the serious growth forecast errors during the Euro crisis? According to the former IMF Chief economist Olivier Blanchard it was an underestimation of the “Keynesian multipliers”, which also led to understate the contractionary effects of austerity. Alberto Alesina, Carlo Favero and Francesco Giavazzi aim for a confutation of this argument and in their new book suggest an alternative interpretation. Emiliano Brancaccio and Fabiana De Cristofaro - author and co-author of “Anti-Blanchard Macroeconomics” - take side with the French economist this time, providing new empirical evidence that supports his point
Crisis and Revolution in Economic Theory and Policy: A Debate
No full textThe following is the transcript of a debate, entitled ‘Pensare un’alternativa’ (Thinking of an Alternative), between Olivier Blanchard, former Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund and a leading exponent of mainstream macroeconomics, and Emiliano Brancaccio, author of the book Anti-Blanchard and advocate of ‘The Economists’ Warning’ against European deflationary policies. The debate examines, from two different theoretical perspectives, the global great recession, the Eurozone crisis, the effects of austerity and deflation, increased social inequality, and political conflict. It took place at the Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Foundation in Milan, Italy, on 19 December 2018, and was moderated by the journalist Pietro Raitano
Markerless motion capture through visual hull and articulated icp using subject specific models
No full textAn approach for accurately measuring human motion through Markerless Motion Capture (MMC) is presented. The method uses multiple color cameras and combines an accurate and anatomically consistent tracking algorithm with a method for automatically generating subject specific models. The tracking approach employed a Levenberg-Marquardt minimization scheme over an iterative closest point algorithm with six degrees of freedom for each body segment. Anatomical consistency was maintained by enforcing rotational and translational joint range of motion constraints for each specific joint. A subject specific model of the subjects was obtained through an automatic model generation algorithm (Corazza et al. in IEEE Trans. Biomed. Eng., 2009) which combines a space of human shapes (Anguelov et al. in Proceedings SIGGRAPH, 2005) with biomechanically consistent kinematic models and a pose-shape matching algorithm. There were 15 anatomical body segments and 14 joints, each with six degrees of freedom (13 and 12, respectively for the HumanEva II dataset). The overall method is an improvement over (Mundermann et al. in Proceedings of CVPR, 2007) in terms of both accuracy and robustness. Since the method was originally developed for a parts per thousand yen8 cameras, the method performance was tested both (i) on the HumanEva II dataset (Sigal and Black, Technical Report CS-06-08, 2006) in a 4 camera configuration, (ii) on a series of motions including walking trials, a very challenging gymnastic motion and a dataset with motions similar to HumanEva II but with variable number of cameras
The Polish Cyborg. A Reflection on the Relationship between Man and Machine in Early Polish Modernism
No full textFar from being enthusiastic “modernolatr y” of Italian futurism, Polish futurism demonstrates an attitude of ambivalence toward modernity. This is particularly evident in the Polish approach to that ver y synecdoche of modernity which is the machine. In his essay of 1923, the leader of the group, Bruno Jasieński, compares the fetishistic cult of the machine, which characterizes the Italian approach, with the utilitarian one of the Russians, exemplified by a quote from Majakovskij. To these two propositions, as a sort of Hegelian synthesis, he adds a Polish one consisting in the conception of the machine as a prosthesis, a continuation of the human body. Thereby he introduces an idea later known as “cyborg”. The categor y of cyborg is also useful to understand the work of another today almost forgotten Polish writer of the Twenties, Jerzy Sosnkowski. He was the author of a short novel, A Car, You and Me (Love of Machines), in which a whole chapter concerns the chief character’s dystopian nightmare wherein machines take control over the world. The third section of the essay deals with the idea of man a machine – an old, 18th centur y conception, which became actual anew in the 20th centur y and whose traces we can find among others in a well-known poem by Tytus Czyżewski. Thirty years before N. Wiener, Polish modernists seem to have sensed the social, political and anthropological implications of the mechanization of work
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