Three techniques are presented which use assumptions about the real world to determine the orientation of objects from a single visual image. The orientation information from each of these techniques is combined to provide a more accurate estimate of object orientation. This algorithm is applied to the task of estimating the orientation of a single transistor against a uniform, but contrasting,...

A common method for texture representation is to use the marginal probability densities over the outputs of a set of multi-orientation, multi-scale filters as a description of the texture. We propose a technique, based on Independent Components Analysis, for choosing the set of filters that yield the most informative marginals, meaning that the product over the marginals most closely approximat...

To improve the robustness of human motion synthesis and capture algorithms, our goal is to provide an effective framework for imposing joint limits and reducing ambiguities. To this end, we determine these joint limits from measures performed on human subjects and then transpose them to an intuitive joint limits formalism. Here we focus on the case of ball-andsocket joint limits, applied to the...

A neural map algorithm has been employed to control a five-joint pneumatic robot arm and gripper through feedback from two video cameras. The pneumatically driven robot arm (SoftArm) employed in this investigation shares essential mechanical characteristics with skeletal muscle systems. To control the position of the arm, 200 neurons formed a network representing the three-dimensional workspace...

AbstractDeveloping self-regulated learners has been the life-long ambition of different stakeholders in education. This study was set out to find the relationships between self-regulated strategies as defined by time and resource management, cognitive and metacognitive strategies, achievement goals classified as mastery, performance-approach and performance-avoidance, and the listening ac...

Let (A,B,C) be a triple of disjoint closed convex sets in the plane such that each of them contributes at least one point to the boundary ∂ of the convex hull of their union. If there are three points a ∈ A, b ∈ B, c ∈ C that belong to ∂ and follow each other in clockwise (counterclockwise) order, we say that the orientation of the triple (A,B,C) is clockwise (counterclockwise). We construct fa...

We used a particular computational approach, the uncontrolled manifold hypothesis, to investigate joint angle covariation patterns during whole-body actions performed by standing persons. We hypothesized that two kinematic synergies accounted for the leg/trunk joint covariation across cycles during a rhythmic whole-body motion to stabilize two performance variables, the trunk orientation in the...

We investigated how V1 neurons integrate two stimulus features by presenting stimuli from a stimulus set made up of all combinations of eight different directions of motion and nine binocular disparities. We investigated the occurrence and shape of the resulting joint tuning function. Among V1 neurons, approximately 80% were jointly tuned for disparity with orientation or direction. The joint t...

Robots can modify their environment by manipulating objects. To fully exploit this ability, it is important to determine the manipulation capabilities of a given robot. Such characterization in terms of the physics and geometry of the task has important implications for manufacturing applications, where simpler hardware leads to cheaper and more reliable systems. This thesis develops techniques...