BACKGROUND Obesity is a global public health challenge. In the US, for instance, obesity prevalence remains high at more than one-third of the adult population, while over two-thirds are obese or overweight. Obesity is associated with various health problems, such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), depression, some forms of cancer, sleep apnea, osteoarthritis, among others. The body m...

Natural selection often results in profound differences in body shape among populations from divergent selective environments. Predation is a well-studied driver of divergence, with predators having a strong effect on the evolution of prey body shape, especially for traits related to escape behavior. Comparative studies, both at the population level and between species, show that the presence o...

Assumption: The body shape relative to the body frame is a given function of time B0(t). We call this the standard shape. The current body shape B(t) is obtained under a translation and rotation of the body frame. The latter is defined by a positional matrix. To say that locomotion has occurred at time t means we have realized at time t a nonzero translation. Example: steady locomotion in two d...

There is growing evidence that body shape and regional body composition are strong indicators of metabolic health. The purpose of this study was to develop statistical models that accurately describe holistic body shape, thickness, and leanness. We hypothesized that there are unique body shape features that are predictive of mortality beyond standard clinical measures. We developed algorithms t...

OBJECTIVE This work is to build upon the concept of matching a person's weight, height and age to their overall body shape to create an adjustable three-dimensional model. A versatile and accurate predictor of body size and shape and ligament thickness is required to improve simulation for medical procedures. A model which is adjustable for any size, shape, body mass, age or height would provid...

This paper presents a new approach to a shape optimization problem of a body located in the unsteady incompressible viscous flow field based on an optimal control theory. The optimal state is defined by the reduction of drag and lift forces subjected to the body. The state equation used is the transient incompressible Navier–Stokes equations. The shape optimization problem can be formulated to ...

In this paper we present an approach for inferring the body posture from a 3D visual-hull representation. We present an appearancebased, view-independent, 3D shape description for classifying and identifying human posture using a support vector machine. The proposed global representation allows a robust description of shape that accommodates for variation of the shape of the human body across m...