An overlooked, yet essential problem in piano practice involves body posture. Bending the back, leaning towards the keys, lifting the wrist and other improper positions are usually noticed by piano teachers when instructing their students. If they sit too low, fingers will feel the burden of static arm weight; if they sit too high, the playing might become rigid with tension in wrist and should...

We investigated the potential of automatic detection of a learner’s affective states from posture patterns and dialogue features obtained from an interaction with AutoTutor, an intelligent tutoring system with conversational dialogue. Training and validation data were collected from the sensors in a learning session with AutoTutor, after which the affective states of the learner were rated by t...

In this paper, we propose a method of statistically analyzing overall shape of the trunk and classifying those of Japanese women into smaller number of classes. The main problem in this research is that the number of the coordinates of the control points in the shape data is more than 1,000 so that the principal component analysis or other many statistically analyzing methods are inapplicable t...

after prolonged periods of quiet upright posture (such as standing in a queue, standing in a shower, or even sitting for long periods), after being in a warm environment (such as in hot summer weather, a hot crowded room, a hot shower/ bath), immediately after exercise after emotionally stressful events after eating, when blood flow has shifted to the gut during the process of digestion.

The execution of academic researches – such as Undergraduate work, Master’s or PhD Thesis – is often supervised by a research advisor. The development process of such works could be characterized as face-to-face, remote or blended orientation, which combines both of former ones. The construction of a proposal for blended academic orientation involves mapping and analysis of elements, as well as...

Recent years have seen a growing recognition of the central role of affect and motivation in learning. In particular, nonverbal behaviors such as posture and gesture provide key channels signaling affective and motivational states. Developing a clear understanding of these mechanisms will inform the development of personalized learning environments that promote successful affective and motivati...

tant factor in the efficiency as well as the beauty of the individual. For here as elsewhere, beauty and efficiency go hand in hand. Since the archaic beginnings of art, sculptors and painters have delighted in representing the erect, finelypoised, exultant human figure; but medicine has come very slowly to an understanding of the truth which has so long been axiomatic in art. It is only in the...

The concepts of pose, posture, formation and contortion are defined for serial, parallel and hybrid kinematic systems. Workspace and jointspace structure is examined in terms of these concepts. The inter-relationships of pose, posture, formation and contortion are explored for a range of robot workspace and jointspace types.

This paper examines how strategic posture in IT investment with respect to industry peers (i.e., level of IT investment compared to the industry norm for IT investments) and competitive environment influence IT investments of a firm. We synthesize prior literature on determinants of IT investments and competitive dynamics to develop our theoretical framework. Using archival data for about 380 f...

This paper identifies and analyzes the long-term rising trend in single-family mortgage foreclosure rates. Traditional measures of mortgage risk, such as house appreciation rates and loan-to-value ratios (LTVs), appear to explain some, but not all, of the long-term trend. In an effort to explain the remaining part of the trend, several non-traditional hypotheses are explored. One is the notion ...