Partial Views Research Articles

Registering multiview range data to create 3D computer objects

Concerns the problem of range image registration for the purpose of building surface models of 3D objects. The registration task involves finding the translation and rotation parameters which properly align overlapping views of the object so as to reconstruct from these partial surfaces, an integrated surface representation of the object. The registration task is expressed as an optimization problem. We define a function which measures the quality of the alignment between the partial surfaces contained in two range images as produced by a set of motion parameters. This function computes a sum of Euclidean distances from control points on one surfaces to corresponding points on the other. The strength of this approach is in the method used to determine point correspondences. It reverses the rangefinder calibration process, resulting in equations which can be used to directly compute the location of a point in a range image corresponding to an arbitrary point in 3D space. A stochastic optimization technique, very fast simulated reannealing (VFSR), is used to minimize the cost function. Dual-view registration experiments yielded excellent results in very reasonable time. A multiview registration experiment took a long time. A complete surface model was then constructed from the integration of multiple partial views. The effectiveness with which registration of range images can be accomplished makes this method attractive for many practical applications where surface models of 3D objects must be constructed. >

Elimination de cones d'ombre acoustique par combinaison d'images échographiques mode B

A system devoted to echographic image reconstruction has been performed din order to eliminate acoustic shadowing generated in the images by the hyperechogenic structures. The image reconstruction consists in the combination of several complementary and partial views, obtained by turning around the hyperechogenicity. The relative position of the images is given by a pantograph localisation system on which is fixed the echographic transducer

Fast automated mosaic synthesis method for 2-D/3-D image analysis of specimens much wider than the field of view

We present an efficient, robust, and widely-applicable technique for computational synthesis of wide-area images from a series of overlapping partial views. The synthesized image is the set union of the areas covered by the partial views, and is called the “mosaic”. One application is the laser-scanning confocal microscopy of specimens that are much wider than the field of view of the microscope. Another is imaging of the retinal periphery using a standard fundus imager. This technique can also be used to combine the results of various forms of image analysis, such as cell counting and neuron tracing, to generate large representations that are equivalent to processing the total mosaic, rather than the individual partial views.The synthesis begins by computing a concise set of landmark points for each partial view. The type of landmarks used can vary greatly depending on the application. For instance, in the retinal imaging application, the vascular branching and crossover points are a natural choice. Likewise, the locations of cells in Figs. 1 and 2 provide a natural set of landmarks for joining these images.

Analysis of Complex Negotiations in International Business: The RBC Perspective

International negotiations between organizations project a complexity that makes them a challenge to describe, explain and improve. Their many elements and dynamics challenge especially those researchers and practitioners who seek a comprehensive yet essential understanding of these negotiations. Toward that end, this article develops a new analytic perspective that focuses on three key facets of negotiation—parties' Relationships, parties' Behaviors, and influencing Conditions (RBC)—and their basic B → R → C → B interaction. The first section defines international business negotiation, targets the subset of complex, interorganizational negotiations, presents as an example the 1985–86 CGE-ITT telecommunications merger, and considers the partial views of the merger talks provided by existing frameworks. Several reasons then enumerated underscore the need for and potential value of an inclusive, generally applicable perspective for complex negotiations. The RBC Framework, coupled with the Basic Model, are presented in detail, with each key facet defined, illustrated, and supported with references from diverse literatures. The Relationship and Behavior facets incorporate multiple levels of analysis (organizational, group and individual). Conditions encompass four types (circumstances, capabilities, cultures and environments). A temporal dimension completes the framework. The last section of the paper proposes empirical and practical applications of this perspective to international business. The former includes question-asking, model-building and testing, and cumulation of knowledge, and the latter, making sense of myriad details and identifying potential points of influence on counterparts. In these ways, the RBC Perspective integrates existing knowledge and will stimulate future work in the field.

Science and Theology

The scientific and theological enterprises share many fundamental assumptions and have methodological similarities, though the two disciplines often have different focuses of investigation. Science seeks to unravel the detailed workings of nature by focusing on the quantitative aspects discemable in the universe. Theology strives to understand the essence, activity, and purposes of God in the universe. These two enterprises are partial views of the multi-faceted reality we call the world that occasionalfy overlap. Therefore, the data of science arui theology should be thought of as complementary streams of knowledge both of which are important to understaruiing life and the world.

In Pursuit: Of Happiness and Good Government. By Charles Murray. New York: Touchstone Books, and Simon and Schuster, 1988. 341p. $19.45 cloth, $9.95 paper. - Securing the Right to Employment: Social Welfare Policy and the Unemployed in the United States. By Philip Harvey. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989. 146p. $25.00. - Gaining Ground: Tailoring Social Programs to American Values. By

In this witty and contemporaneous essay, Arnold J. Meltsner, as a modern-day Machiavelli, offers advice to government and corporate leaders on the human pitfalls of seeking, evaluating, and using advice. Drawing examples mainly from the Oval Office and recent history, he examines the factors that affect decision making and proposes rules to help rulers maintain vigilance over their advisers and remain sensitive to the politics of personal influence and persuasion. Meltsner sees the advisory situation as dramatic, so he uses the metaphor of a play with four key scenes to describe the psychological and social context. Presenting numerous situations that arise during these scenes, Meltsner extrapolates about a half-dozen rules from each scene in this play. Specific, practical advice shapes his commentary: for example, 'Keep the inner circle small ...Be careful about revealing your own preferences ...Recognize partial views including your own ...Avoid public protest resignations'.In addition to the ruler-adviser relationship, the author discusses secrecy and leaks, the structure within which rulers make decisions, and the various ways of calibrating advice. Using sometimes humorous and sometimes painful examples, Meltsner demonstrates that rulers' reactions to advice are often based on such factors as expertise, trust, prior performance, predilections, and consensus. 'Rulers should temper their notion of the loyal adviser as an extension of themselves and not assume that they and their advisers are one'. Local and national leaders, military generals, industrial managers, and CEOs rulers of all kinds can surely benefit from this advice. Author note: Arnold J. Meltsner is Professor of Public Policy Emeritus at the Graduate School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley.

Short-run dynamics of feed ingredient prices facing the EC: a causal analysis

This paper attempts to (1) shed some light on the EC - US controversy concerning the effect of the EC oilseeds market regime on EC imports of US soybean products, essentially soy meal, and (2) provide information on another EC - US controversy: Does corn-gluten feed behave as a substitute for (EC view) or a complement to (US view) feed grains, and do EC corn-gluten feed imports displace EC grain production or not? By using a constrained vectorial autoregressive model of Rotterdam prices for soy meal, sunflower meal, rape meal, corn-gluten feed and cassava, we show that (1) the decrease in EC imports of US soymeal are mot mainly caused by the EC milling subsidies, and (2) corn-gluten feed is both a substitute for soymeal due to its protein content and a substitute for cassava (and grains) due to its energy content: US and EC views are only partial views.

Comments on "Research Paradigms in Social Work: From Stalemate to Creative Synthesis"

Colin Peile's article, Research Paradigms in Social Work: From Stalemate to Creative Synthesis (Social Service Review 62 [March 1988]: 1-19), has the worthwhile goal of providing a synthesis of conflicting or partial views of the research paradigm of choice for social work. Peile endorses three distinct paradigms but favors what he terms the creative paradigm.' Unfortunately, Peile rests his argument on a conceptual analysis whose categories are inherently flawed. The problem lies with the unexamined and problematic ontology that regulates his conceptual analysis. Peile attempts to reach a useful synthesis by relating and synthesizing terms that he says represent the two sides of the current social work debate about research paradigms. However, Peile does not recognize that the terms he attributes to each side are ontologically distinct rather than ontologically isomorphic. Therefore, by definition, he cannot achieve a true synthesis but is limited to a syncretistic mixture that is misleading and, ultimately, divisive. Peile's stated purpose in presenting the categories that are supposed to represent the empirical and normative alternatives to research is to exemplify the deadlocked nature of the dispute about optimal research paradigms.2 Nevertheless, Peile goes on to make these two categories the basis for his synthesis, in spite of the fact that they rest on mutually exclusive ontologies. For example, to the extent that Peile identifies the normative alternative with the heuristic paradigm that I have advocated, his dichotomous categories are invalid, and I would like to correct this central misconception. First, the heuristic paradigm actually includes many of the characteristics Peile attributes to the other, empiricist view. Examples are prediction, observation, quantitative methods, measurement and testing, and the focus on content. Second, many of the characteristics Peile ascribes to the normative paradigm are in direct conflict with the tenets of the heuristic paradigm in that they arise from what the heuristic paradigm would consider to be spurious dichotomies. Examples of these untenable dichotomies are: (1) Bias limitation (value free) / Bias incorporation (value ladenness); (2) Separation of / Integration of knowledge and values; (3) Objective / Subjective; (4) Detachment / Involvement; and (4) Aim for certainty / Reliance on faith.3 In summary, Peile's assertion that the heuristic paradigm I have advanced corresponds even roughly to his normative model is entirely unfounded. The heuristic paradigm does not advocate replacing one restrictive paradigm of research with another. For example, as I have repeatedly emphasized, there is ample room in the heuristic paradigm for the experimental model and quantitative data.4 The heuristic paradigm propounds a flexible, inclusive, open approach to research, which, however, is not equivalent to a paradigm of absolute relativism. The philosophical justification for the breadth of the heuristic paradigm is that there are no sound epistemological or ontological grounds for a more restrictive paradigm of research.

Prognostic Conflict in Life-and-Death Decisions: The Organization as an Ecology of Knowledge

This paper examines prognostic conflict in life-and-death decisions in intensive care units for newborn infants. The data were collected during 16 months of field research in two intensive care nurseries which differed with respect to their size, relative prestige, referral patterns, and the demographic composition of their clientele. This analysis approaches life-and-death decisions from the standpoint of the sociology of knowledge, which relates decisions to the social context in which they take place. Prognostic conflict is used as a paradigmatic case to illustrate how the organization as an ecology of knowledge allocates different information to those who reach life-and-death decisions. A major finding is that physicians and nurses, because of their experiences in the intensive care nursery, differ systematically in their views of infants' prognoses. Residents, whose contact with infants is limited and technologically focused, assess prognosis largely on the basis of diagnostic technology. Nurses, who sustain continuous contact with infants, also assess prognosis on the basis of cues gleaned from interactions with infants, but may assume a more pessimistic attitude toward infants who pose management difficulties. These contrasting and partial views of reality are rooted in the culture and social structure of technology-intensive medical settings. Following medical historians, we suggest that medical practice has been characterized by a diminishing attention to patients' subjective symptoms, a waning confidence in clinical observation, and an increasing reliance on diagnostic technology. These organizational features of neonatal intensive care units complicate life-and-death decisions. By implication, a change in some of these features might result in more informed and equitable decision-making.

‘Oasis'* Systems Management

This paper describes ‘oases' as an integrated basis for rational water management, and integrated management as a tool for rational decision-making. In the evolution of man's relationship with water, three phases (the uses phase, the resources phase, and the environment phase) and three stages (legal, institutional, and integrative), are identified, which are examined in three areas (Argentina, Latin America, and the world) . The challenge of water resources management is to move from fragmented (closed) to complete (open) ‘oases', the ultimate goal being to restore man's relationship with nature. Integrated management of water resources is presented as a way of solving the problems that tend to dissociate man from institutions. Integrated management is a versatile tool that goes beyond the limits of disciplines that result in partial views of reality. It is also a specialized tool that promotes a harmonious relationship between natural and cultural sciences. *In this paper, the word ‘oasis' is not given its customary meaning of “a fertile spot in the desert”. Instead, the definition the author wishes to ascribe to the word ‘oasis' is as follows: “An ecologic subsystem within the natural ecosystem, the differentiating element of which is the presence of water in all its dimensions (technical, economic, administrative/ institutional, political). The ‘oasis' is a potentially open subsystem which permits the integration of man and nature.”

Where Do We Go from Here? Scenarios for the Psychology of Religion

As the discipline of psychology has become enormously diversified in this century, a great diversity of psychologies of religion has become possible and up to a point been demonstrated. Even more importantly, one can now see marked differences in the apparent motives and aims whereby psychologies of religion have been produced, with the result that partial, competing, and parochial views abound and a comprehensive psychology of religion is still a long way off. In this situation it is crucial to agree on criteria that guarantee perspectival integrity in the discipline of psychology of religion. Some basic guidelines are offered. In addition, some suggestions are made for needed new studies and approaches, including the developing of heuristically rich typologies, and a concentration on religion in aging persons and the dying, in some of whom dogmatic or ritualistic religiosity may have given way to a non-conflictual atheistic ethical and existential concern.

X-ray tomography on plasmas with arbitrary cross sections and limited access

An x-ray imaging system is described for 2D reconstructions of plasmas with viewing access limitations. A relatively small number of 72 detectors distributed over six fan arrays first provides partial views of the toroidal plasma in a poloidal plane. Next, the line-integrated data is deconvoluted using a computerized tomographic approach based on linear algebra and a least-squares fit. The arrangement and the number of detectors have been optimized to the point where significant reconstruction improvements are limited by available viewing access rather than by the number of lines of sight.

ENERGY, ENVIRONMENTAL, AND ECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS OF SOME RECENT ALBERTA WATER RESOURCES PROJECTS1

ABSTRACT: Most of us are aware, or feel we are aware, of the impacts of major water resources projects on our lives. “Dam‐lovers” note the life‐saving flood‐risk reduction and recreational benefits of a proposed reservoir, while “dam‐haters” bemoan the future drowning out of the wildlife habitat of its river valley, and the recreational disbenefits to stream (as opposed to lake) fishermen. Water supply projects can often be given such a revered status, assuming the “obvious” tenet that water, air, food, and shelter are basic requirements of decent living, that the economic viability of the project may not even be assessed. Water resources planners are supposed to impartially weigh the environmental and economic benefits, and especially now, the energy implications of all proposed water projects, but many times the partial views of political or public advocates may be hard to ignore. The assumptions used in the planning of four recent water projects in the Province of Alberta will be presented and some revisions suggested which materially affect their Benefit/Cost ratios. In one project that is still in the public hearing stage, the economic analysis will be revealed, indicating that the original B/C ratio of about 1.6:1 might be more realistically placed at 0.6:1. In another project just completed, the apparent lack of an economic or energy analysis that has resulted in a perpetual and unnecessary energy load on the province, will be described.

The cultural context for family policy considerations

SynopsisI would like to talk about the kind of change I see going on. It is not economic change, it is not social change — it is culture change. When people ask me what I am working on these days, although I am a social worker I tend to say I work for culture change. And when I talk about the family I am really talking about two things — the family itself as one large variable or macro-variable; and the context within which the family finds itself. If we want to understand the family today we have to see what that context is and what are the interrelationships between the family and the context. Otherwise we get not only very partial views but we head off down some very inaccurate and damaging paths in our work and even in our own lives. I want to talk about data too, because all of us come from fields which rely heavily on data as well as other kinds of information, especially when we are discussing context. I will also be talking about life-styles. These are important in coming to understand what is goi...

Partial Views

Partial Views

The Teacher's Source of Authority

I want to consider the question of authority in education more particularly in connection with my own subject, the humanities. In the sciences, which deal primarily with man's relation to nature, the question of authority is more or less taken care of by such things as repeatable experiment and the possibility of prediction. If astronomers can predict an eclipse to within a second, the question of authority is inevitably bound up with their method, and there is no use arguing about the validity of observations that leads to such an impressive prediction. But the humanities belong to the world that man himself creates; consequently, some kind of fundamental questioning of postulates is built into the humanities from the beginning. Many of our ideas on education derive from Plato and the figure of Socrates, which is so important in Plato. What Plato writes is normally in a dialogue form that very frequently develops into what he calls the symposium, a group of people meeting together at a banquet and putting forward partial and individual views of a certain central theme (such as that of love in the dialogue called The Symposium), with the hope that this theme will manifest itself with all the vividness and impressiveness of a Platonic form or idea in the middle of society. In his last and most complicated work The Laws, Plato begins unexpectedly with the symposium that has a crucial importance in the actual regulating of society. He says that the symposium is an important element in education and is, to that extent, one of the ways of achieving the vision of authority that underlies The Laws. It seems extraordinary that the symposium should be used in this way in a work as serious and as comprehensive as The Laws, because elsewhere, Plato is quite clear about the limitations of the symposium in

Joyce and Cinema

1. The interplay of metaphoric and metonymic tropes, which puts into question the consecutiveness and linearity of language and the narrative form.1 2. The blurring of the distinction between subjective and objective discourse, between inner and outer reality, between the conscious and the unconscious. 3. The recreation by narrative voices of the nonverbal experiences underlying the verbal forms of expression. 4. The simulation of an ocular experience within an acoustic space (of random ambient sound) via framed partial views, expressive fragments that are the verbal correlatives for the closeup, for multiple angles of vision and for aural/visual associations. 5. The reification of narrative form through the objective presentation of things as they are. 6. The apprehension of the movement of consciousness and of the

Computer Recognition of Partial Views of Curved Objects

The use of a variation of chain encoding of binary boundary images is described in the context of a scene analysis system. The system can learn single views of the three-dimensional curved objects and can later recognize various partial views of the same projections of the objects. The system is completely automatic except for specifying whether the object is to be learned or recognized.

Industrial Linkage and Local Agglomeration in the West Midlands Metal Industries

Sample establishments in the metal industries of the West Midlands conurbation are classified according to the number and function of their material linkages with other establishments. Three industries are examined and compared: ironfoundry, dropforgings and lock and latch production. Multivariate ordination techniques are employed to assess the combined influence of various linkages, and to identify different arrays of local and non-local connection. The extent of local agglomeration is therefore also identified in terms of the complexity of local plant linkage. This participation of industrial establishments in the local linkage system is then correlated with independently identified organizational attributes, including employment size, category of ownership, the technical processes employed and the principal product markets which are served. Local linkage appears to be related to the organizational form and size of individual plants, acting to some extent independently of their product categories. The spatial organization of manufacturing is thus shown to be one aspect of its more general organizational characteristics, suggesting that an understanding of one is important for the appreciation of the other. BOTH of the authors of this paper have quite recently been involved in a published discussion of the nature and significance for locational studies of 'industrial linkage'.' Such linkage we define to include all of the operational contacts, including flows of material and exchanges of information, between the separate functional elements of the manufacturing system. Although the relevant 'elements' may be regarded as whole industries or sectors of the economy (as in input-output studies2), this paper focuses on the locational attributes of particular plants and the manner in which production processes may be organized between them. At this scale we are concerned with industrial organization as it affects the interdependence of locationally separate establishments, both through ties of ownership and, more generally, through convenient commercial arrangements. In the past, only partial views of industrial linkage have been put forward. When describing the important features of 'horizontal', 'vertical' and 'diagonal' linkage, P. S. Sargant Florence3 was attempting to explain the logic of industrial 'swarming' in the case of the West Midlands metal industries. R. C. Estall and R. O. Buchanan,4 who relied heavily on the analysis of Sargant Florence, clearly associated the significance of linkage with industrial agglomeration for they stated that 'Linkage ... is ... a derived, not an original advantage; it is a method of utilising and increasing the advantage of an already developed area'. It seems inconsistent, however, to regard a sale, for example, between one West Midlands establishment and another as a 'linkage' and not a similar contact between the West Midlands and London. D. E. Keeble,s in his study of local linkage and manufac-

Perspectives in Quantum Theory: Essays in Honor of Alfred Landé

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