This paper proposes a new approach to shape classication that is well suited to the speci c challenges of vision-based hand posture recognition in a multi-user tabletop collaboration scenario. We use a representation of the 2-D hand silhouette where in-plane rotation and mirror symmetry appear as particular cases of permutations, and then show how to take advantage of this pattern to develop an...

One of the most used techniques for full-body human tracking consists of estimating the probability of the parameters of a human body model over time by means of a particle filter. However, given the high-dimensionality of the models to be tracked, the number of required particles to properly populate the space of solutions makes the problem computationally very expensive. To overcome this, we ...

This case describes the “wiring” of Watkins University (a fictional name for a real Midwestern university) between 1997 and 2003 as the university responded to competitive pressures in the higher education market. After describing the University and the competitive challenges it faced, the case takes the student into a strategy session between the organization’s CFO, CTO and Provost as they rev...

A novel framework for interactively acquiring images is developed in which uses real-time visual and audio cues to assist in guiding the user into correct alignment for compliance with European biometric passport regulations. Users pose in front of a camera using visual feedback from a monitor to approximately position themselves prior to an iris detection scheme used to calculate their roll (z...

I model the principal-agent problem in a banking context, where the agent must not only be induced to exert costly unveri…able e¤ort but also to exercise …duciary discretion in lending money on behalf of an employing bank. I show that the spread in wage outcomes necessary to induce …duciary discretion may be prohibitively expensive; instead, the bank may opt for a second-best solution where exc...

In this article we propose an intelligent system (IS) for automatic movements of a robotic-assisted hospital bed, it is based on posture classification and recognition using mattress pressure sensors. The proposed IS allows to program a sequence of movements of the robotic bed that are executed automatically through electric actuators in response to the pressure distribution of a patient on the...

There are two streams in the literature on the economics of obesity. Short-run perspective is one related to the contemporary prevalence of obesity and its associated costs. Long-run perspective looks at the trends in human longevity, and relationship between physical characteristics of the population such as height, weight, or posture and their effect on health and longevity. Although both app...

In this paper, person detection with simultaneous or subsequent human body posture recognition is achieved using parts-based models, since the search space for typical poses is much smaller than the kinematics space. Posture recovery is carried out by detecting the human body, its posture and orientation at the same time. Since features of different human postures can be expected to have some s...

Physically extruding the body allows us to magnify and draw focus to the relative position of different body parts. It also allows us to consider how postures and gestures might impact surrounding space. If the extrusions are realized with light they would not constrict the body, hinder movement, or otherwise affect the wearer or their surroundings, except to inform both wearer and observer of ...