Stick Figure Research Articles

Opening Doors for Future Clinicians: Distance Learning at Longwood Targets Students in Other Disciplines

Opening Doors for Future Clinicians: Distance Learning at Longwood Targets Students in Other Disciplines

The southern African San and their rock art

San rock art, long believed to be little more than primitive stick figures, is now recognized as one of the world's most striking artistic traditions. The images should be seen in terms of the three-tiered San cosmology. People with special powers, shamans, were able to visit spirit realms and to return with information about supernatural things. They painted their visions on the walls of rock shelters. Today a San image is in the centre of the national coat of arms.

Geometric Description of Lifting Monomial Ideals

By focusing our attention on the set of monomials outside a given monomial ideal, we tackle the study of the geometric configurations of (reduced) unions of projective linear varieties arising from lifting monomial ideals via a classic lifting procedure, called t-lifting, and a more general lifting procedure, called pseudo-t-lifting. We observe that, in contrast to the Artinian case, in the positive dimensional case we may not obtain generalized stick figures also via a generic pseudo-t-lifting. In particular, in dimension 1 a generic pseudo-1-lifting produces a seminormal union of lines. Then we give conditions to obtain generalized stick figures by means of pseudo-t-liftings of non-Artinian monomial ideals. #Communicated by C. Pedrin.

About Schmitt: Partisans and Theory

About Schmitt:Partisans and Theory A. C. Goodson (bio) Carl Schmitt's intervention on the partisan came late in a career whose high public profile had made him illustrious, then notorious. In the wake of the Nazi cataclysm he was a historically disappointed man, and through the partisan he visited a pox on both houses of the polarized Cold War world. The origin of his essay in a Spanish academic commission of the Franco period confirms his historical isolation. Yet his disillusion with the choices Europeans were faced with was widespread. "We must endure, and stand between two fools," William Empson complained of this historical double-bind1 (2001, 102). That Schmitt's essay should be revived in post-Cold War rethinking of political modernity is indicative of disillusion with the troubles of the New World Order proclaimed on behalf of the victors. His partisans have been taken up by a distinguished readership that includes leading political theorists and postmodernists. This translation, the first of Schmitt's partisan theory into English, provides domestic readers a view through his wide-angle lens, which captures the romantic origins of the partisan as well as the "cosmo-pirates and cosmo-partisans" (Schmitt 1963, 83) he sees in our future. These stick figures came uncannily [End Page 1] alive on 11 September 2001, making a prophet of their author and recalling his essay from its Cold War limbo. Politische Theologie (Political Theology) was the title of Schmitt's influential broadside of 1922 on the cultural condition of modernity. He was Catholic by birth (1888 in the Prussian Rhineland), a subject of the Holy Roman Empire by elective affinity. His enthusiasm for the monument to Otto the Great (912-973), expressed in a letter of 1934 to Ernst Jünger (Jünger and Schmitt 1999, 24) speaks volumes about his responsiveness to a theocratic political past. Celebration of this past was standard fare in the imperial dreaming of the period.2 Schmitt's titular role as Staatsrat (state counsel) to the Third Reich confirmed his sense of mission in reviving a truly ancien régime. It also meant that he was held after the war for possible prosecution at the Nürnberg Tribunal on war crimes. He was released after extensive questioning—by a German-Jewish interrogator whose vindictive attitude he bitterly resented—showed him to be free of direct responsibility for the Holocaust. His own political theology is evident in his forthright identification of the enemy in a categorical binary of friend and foe that underwrites his mythification of the partisan. Writing in 1946, in the rearview mirror of his collusion with Goering and his Führer, Schmitt reverted to his identity as a professional jurist: "I am at home as a teacher and researcher in two juridical fields, international law and constitutional law. Both disciplines are branches of public jurisprudence. Work in these areas is publicity [publizistisch] in the strongest sense of the word. It deals with questions of broad import in domestic as well as international politics. It is immediately exposed to the dangers of the political, in consequence. The jurist in such fields cannot evade such danger even by disappearing into the Nirvana of a pure positivism" (1950, 55, my translation). The defensive tone is unmistakable, and so is the defiance. The partisan essay reflects the point of view of a legalistic mind under historical pressure. Visceral dislike of parliamentary democracy and its principal international sponsor is reinforced by doubts about the legality of the Nürnberg trials. Fear of the Soviet colossus lurking menacingly across the Elbe in German territory inspires rumination on the key role played by Russian partisans in defeating the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front. His [End Page 2] instinctive sympathy with the partisan's defense of home and hearth runs head-on here into his own national pride. Beneath the veneer of the professional jurist lurks a political player manqué. Schmitt's escape from legal positivism amounts to a plea for an international law of war that contains conflict within effectively defined limits without criminalizing it, as the Nürnberg Tribunal had done. Nothing is more characteristic of the role of jurist as publicist than his...

How do physicians most effectively communicate clinical evidence to people facing treatment decisions?

SummaryQuestionHow can physicians best communicate evidence to people facing treatment decisions to improve understanding, involvement in decision-making and clinical outcomes?Study designSystematic review with narrative synthesis.Main resultsThree of 51 identified studies met inclusion criteria. The first study found that decision making was influenced by the order in which survival curves are presented, particularly in older and less-educated people. The second found that women aged 40–65 years preferred human stick figures or faces to histograms, although lower educated people felt that stick figures represented higher risk. The third study suggested that presenting relative risk reduction figures in chemotherapy decision-making may be misleading and that absolute survival benefits or numbers needed to treat were more easily interpreted. However, this result was not reliable for less-well informed patients.Authors’ ConclusionsWe lack reliable evidence to suggest how physicians can most effectively communicate clinical evidence to people facing treatment decisions.

VIRTUAL WOODWORK: MAKING TOYS FROM GEOMETRIC MODELS

Shape idealization techniques provide a simplified description of a geometric model. Idealized descriptions are useful for recognition, animation, and other applications, providing a compact and efficient alternative to manipulating the complete model. Often idealized models are visually interesting in their own right and provide an appealing artistic impression of the models. We describe an algorithm for automatic generation of idealized bead figures from recognizable 3D models (animals, humans, etc.). The bead figures approximate the model by a set of cylindrical shapes threaded onto a skeleton of the model. As such, they provide volumetric shape information in addition to the skeleton. The bead figures can be used by applications requiring a simple and compact description of the shapes. They also provide a visually appealing, toy-like description which can be used in artistic applications. The input models are given as 3D triangulated meshes. A bead figure is generated using the skeleton of the model, often referred to as the stick figure. The skeleton reflects the structure of the original mesh and its features, using a small number of edges. Once the skeleton is computed, beads are threaded onto it to create the final model. Computation of a compact and concise skeleton which captures the features of the model is crucial for realistic bead figure generation. The figure making process involves voxelization of the model; computation of the 3D Euclidean distance transform (DT); extraction of the skeleton from the DT data (combined with the model's curvature information); and threading the beads over the skeleton. In addition to the generation of the beaded figures, our work also introduces a novel skeleton construction algorithm. The algorithm has several advantages over existing methods and may be used in other applications which utilize skeletons.

Communicating evidence for participatory decision making.

Informed patients are more likely to actively participate in their care, make wiser decisions, come to a common understanding with their physicians, and adhere more fully to treatment; however, currently there are no evidence-based guidelines for discussing clinical evidence with patients in the process of making medical decisions. To identify ways to communicate evidence that improve patient understanding, involvement in decisions, and outcomes. Systematic review of MEDLINE for the period 1966-2003 and review of reference lists of retrieved articles to identify original research dealing with communication between clinicians and patients and directly addressing methods of presenting clinical evidence to patients. Two investigators and a research assistant screened 367 abstracts and 2 investigators reviewed 51 full-text articles, yielding 8 potentially relevant articles. Methods for communicating clinical evidence to patients include nonquantitative general terms, numerical translation of clinical evidence, graphical representations, and decision aids. Focus-group data suggest presenting options and/or equipoise before asking patients about preferred decision-making roles or formats for presenting details. Relative risk reductions may be misleading; absolute risk is preferred. Order of information presented and time-frame of outcomes can bias patient understanding. Limited evidence supports use of human stick figure graphics or faces for single probabilities and vertical bar graphs for comparative information. Less-educated and older patients preferred proportions to percentages and did not appreciate confidence intervals. Studies of decision aids rarely addressed patient-physician communication directly. No studies addressed clinical outcomes of discussions of clinical evidence. There is a paucity of evidence to guide how physicians can most effectively share clinical evidence with patients facing decisions; however, basing our recommendations largely on related studies and expert opinion, we describe means of accomplishing 5 communication tasks to address in framing and communicating clinical evidence: understanding the patient's (and family members') experience and expectations; building partnership; providing evidence, including a balanced discussion of uncertainties; presenting recommendations informed by clinical judgment and patient preferences; and checking for understanding and agreement.

Bodies capture attention when nothing is expected

Functional neuroimaging research has shown that certain classes of visual stimulus selectively activate focal regions of visual cortex. Specifically, cortical areas that generally and selectively respond to faces (Kanwisher, N., McDermott, J., & Chun, M. M. (1997). The fusiform face area: a module in human extrastriate cortex specialized for face perception. Journal of Neuroscience, 17(11), 4302–4311; Puce, A., Allison, T., Asgari, M., Gore, J. C., & McCarthy, G. (1996). Differential sensitivity of human visual cortex to faces, letterstrings, and textures: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study. Journal of Neuroscience, 16(16), 5205–5215.) and to the human body (Downing, P. E., Jiang, Y., Shuman, M., & Kanwisher, N. (2001). A cortical area selective for visual processing of the human body. Science, 293(5539), 2470–2473.) have recently been described using fMRI. A parallel body of research has focused on the ability of faces to “capture” the focus of attention, compared to other kinds of objects (Lavie, N., Ro, T., & Russell, C. (2003). The role of perceptual load in processing distractor faces. Psychological Science, 14(5), 510–515; Ro, T., Russell, C., & Lavie, N. (2001). Changing faces: a detection advantage in the flicker paradigm. Psychological Science, 12(1), 94–99; Vuilleumier, P. (2000). Faces call for attention: evidence from patients with visual extinction. Neuropsychologia, 38(5), 693–700.). The present study uses Mack and Rock's “inattentional blindness” paradigm to investigate whether unexpected, task-irrelevant human body stimuli capture awareness when attention is occupied by a primary task (Mack, A., & Rock, I. (1998). Inattentional blindness. London: MIT Press). Silhouettes and stick figures of human bodies, and silhouettes of hands, were compared to control stimuli including object silhouettes, object stick figures, and scrambled silhouettes of bodies, body parts, and objects. Participants were significantly better able to detect a human figure relative to the control stimuli. These results suggest that the human body, like the face, may be prioritized for attentional selection. More generally, they are consistent with the proposal that the visual system assigns attentional priority to types of stimuli that are also represented in strongly selective cortical regions.

Acquisition of Operant-Trained Bipedal Locomotion in Juvenile Japanese Monkeys (Macaca Fuscata): A Longitudinal Study

This study investigated developmental aspects of the acquisition of operant-trained bipedal (Bp) standing and Bp walking in the normally quadrupedal (Qp) juvenile Japanese monkey (M. fuscata). Four male monkeys (age: 1.6 to 2.4 years, body weight: 3.3 to 4.6 kg) were initially operantly trained to stand upright on a smooth floor and a stationary treadmill belt (width = 60 cm, walking length = 150 cm). They were then trained to walk bipedally on the moving treadmill belt (speed: 0.4-0.7 m/s). A regular training program (5 days/week; 30-60 min/day) was given to each monkey for the first 40 to 60 days, followed by less intensive training. After the beginning of locomotor training, upright postural stability and Bp walking capability were assessed kinematically for 592, 534, 526, and 537 days on monkeys A, B, C, and D, respectively. Left side- and back-views of the walking monkey were photographed (10 frames/s) and videotaped (250 frames/s). Stick figures of the head, body, and hindlimbs were drawn with reference to ink-marks positioned in front of the ear and over the pivot points of hindlimb joints. All kinematic data were digitized and analyzed using image-analyzing software. After sufficient physical growth and locomotor training, all the monkeys gradually acquired: (a) a more upright and a more stable posture with a constant body axis orientation during Bp locomotion; (b) a more stable and a stronger functional coupling between the body and hindlimb movements with a less anterior (A)-posterior (P) fluctuation of a body axis; (c) a smaller leftward (Lt)-rightward (Rt) displacement of the midline pelvic position, allowing the monkey to walk along a straight course; (d) a more coordinated relationship among hip-knee, knee-ankle, and ankle-metatarsophalangeal (MTP) joints; and finally (e) the acquisition of well-coordinated Bp walking even at high treadmill belt speeds up to 1.5 m/s. All of these results demonstrated the capability of the physically developing monkey to integrate the neural and musculoskeletal mechanisms required for sufficient coordination of upper (head, neck, trunk) and lower (hindlimbs) motor segments so that Bp standing and Bp walking could be elaborated.

Parents' Definitions of Children's Bullying in a Five-Country Comparison

This study was carried out with 30- to 55-year-old parents of children ages 6 to 13 years in five different countries: Italy, Spain, Portugal, England, and Japan. It aimed at analyzing similarities and differences between words in five languages used to describe different types of bullying and social exclusion and identifying which terms are more appropriate to use in comparisons across cultures and languages. Target terms were selected using focus groups of children. Participants were presented with 25 stick figure cartoons showing different types and contexts of bullying and related behaviors. They were asked to evaluate whether the cartoons could be described or not by one of the target terms. Cluster analysis identified six clusters of cartoons characterized by specific behaviors: nonaggression, fighting, severe physical aggression, verbal aggression, exclusion, and severe exclusion. On the basis of these clusters, there were clear differences across terms and countries regarding both the width of the semantic area of a term and its closeness to the usual scientific definition of bullying.

A real-time biomechanical feedback system for training rowers

A system was developed that quantifies rowing mechanics while an athlete trains on a rowing ergometer. The system consists of a Concept II rowing ergometer instrumented with a load cell and a series of potentiometers, a data acquisition computer and custom software. Kinematic and kinetic rowing data are displayed in the form of a two-dimensional stick figure animation, overlaid with kinematic and kinetic profiles. The software allows data to be saved and later replayed.

Students' Perceptions of Expressiveness: Age and Gender Effects on Teacher Evaluations.

In this study we investigated the relationship between college students' perceptions of professors' expressiveness and implicit age and gender stereotypes. Three hundred and fifty-two male and female students watched slides of an age- and gender-neutral stick figure and listened to a neutral voice presenting a lecture, and then evaluated it on teacher evaluation forms that indicated 1 of 4 different age and gender conditions (male, female, “old,” and “young”). Main and interaction effects indicated that students rated the “young” male professor higher than they did the “young” female, “old” male, and “old” female professors on speaking enthusiastically and using a meaningful voice tone during the class lecture regardless of the identical manner in which the material was presented. Implications of biased teacher-expressiveness items on student evaluations are discussed.

Remembering Willie Wirehand: Consumer Culture and Consensus in American Life

I remember Willie Wirehand. The smiling stick figure, with a light bulb for a head, worked to convince members of rural electric cooperatives to use more electricity at home and to use it safely and efficiently. The cartoon figure appeared on billboards, leaflets, even Zippo lighters, and on the pages of the co-ops' consumer magazines with articles that reminded readers that they could keep cool on hot summer days by using electric ceiling fans and power roof ventilator[s] and by preparing meals with all-day slow cookers [and] electric skillets. Electricity was not expensive, but rather a bargain that improved the quality of life and freed country people from all those chores ... that had to be done by hand before we got electricity.' As a kid growing up in the heartland in the 1970s, this seemed to me altogether unnecessary. Why would anyone hesitate to use electricity? Who still actually needed to be convinced to use an electric refrigerator, washing machine, or iron rather than an icebox, gas-powered washer, or flat, heavy sad iron? In two thoughtful books, Frank Cross and Thomas Kline address these issues in historical perspective. The authors engage two key questions: to what extent did consumer culture define American life in the twentieth

Experimental Tests of Normative Group Influence and Representation Effects in Computer-Mediated Communication.

Two experiments addressed the questions of if and how normative social influence operates in anonymous computer-mediated communication (CMC) and human-computer interaction (HCI). In Experiment 1, a 2 (public response vs. private response) × 2 (one interactant vs. four interactants) × 3 (textbox vs. stick figure vs. animated character) mixed-design experiment (N = 72), we investigated how conformity pressure operates in a simulated CMC setting. Each participant was asked to make a decision in hypothetical social dilemmas after being presented with a unanimous opinion by other (ostensible) participants. The experiment examined how the visual representation of interaction partners on the screen moderates this social influence process. Group conformity effects were shown to be more salient when the participant's responses were allegedly seen by others, compared to when the responses were given in private. In addition, participants attributed greater competence, social attractiveness, and trustworthiness to partners represented by anthropomorphic characters than those represented by textboxes or stick figures. Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1, replacing interaction with a computer(s) rather than (ostensible) people, to create an interaction setting in which no normative pressure was expected to occur. The perception of interaction partner (human vs. computer) moderated the group conformity effect such that people expressed greater public agreement with human partners than with computers. No such difference was found for the private expression of opinion. As expected, the number of computer agents did not affect participants' opinions whether the responses were given in private or in public, while visual representation had a significant impact on both conformity measures and source perception variables.

Rock art in sub-Saharan Mali

Sub-Saharan West Africa has remained largely a blank space on the world rock-art map, in spite of a steady trickle of reports during the past century on pictograph and petroglyph sites in the West African sahel and savanna belts. It seems that the nature of the rock art reported, predominantly ‘geometric’ and saurian motifs, and ‘stick figures’, as well as its apparent recent age, formed little incentive for in-depth studies of rock art in this region. From sub-Saharan Mali, for example, only two sites have been published to a satisfactory standard (Huysecom 1990; Huysecom et al. 1996). The richness of the region in rock art, as indicated by several authors (e.g. Griaule 1938; Huysecom & Mayor 1991/92; Togola et al. 1995), has been confirmed by on-going research on rock art in the Boucle du Baoulé region (map, FIGURE 5) in the southwest of the country (Kleinitz 2000). In three field seasons, 14 known and 38 newly identified rock-shelters and open-air sites with pictographs and peboglyphs have been recorded.

Twilight: Losing Sight, Gaining Insight • Malignant Sadness: The Anatomy of Depression • Girl Singer: An Autobiography • Crossing: A Memoir • Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity: One Man's Recovery • Stick Figure: A Diary of My Former Self • Group: Six People in Search of a Life

Twilight: Losing Sight, Gaining Insight • Malignant Sadness: The Anatomy of Depression • Girl Singer: An Autobiography • Crossing: A Memoir • Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity: One Man's Recovery • Stick Figure: A Diary of My Former Self • Group: Six People in Search of a Life

Twilight: Losing Sight, Gaining Insight Malignant Sadness: The Anatomy of Depression Girl Singer: An Autobiography Crossing: A Memoir Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity: One Man's Recovery Stick Figure: A Diary of My Former Self Group: Six People in Search of a Life

Twilight: Losing Sight, Gaining Insight Malignant Sadness: The Anatomy of Depression Girl Singer: An Autobiography Crossing: A Memoir Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity: One Man's Recovery Stick Figure: A Diary of My Former Self Group: Six People in Search of a Life

The Use of Stick Figures to Visualize Fischer Projections

This paper presents a very simple method for interconverting line drawings and Fischer projections. The technique uses stick figures to help students view these structures from the proper point of view.

Cortical instability and the mechanism of mania: a neural network simulation and perceptual test

Background: A previous neural network simulation suggested that manic states arise from excessive levels of noise that destabilize neural representations. The Necker cube stick figure provides a simple perceptual task that assesses stability of gestalt-type representations. Methods: A neural network was developed that included a simulation of the Necker cube task. Noise was added to induce maniclike jumps from one representation to another. A parallel study of Necker cube perception was conducted with 16 patients diagnosed with manic-spectrum disorder, 18 patients with schizophrenia, and 19 normal control subjects. Cognitive speed and rate of indiscriminate responses were assessed using an auditory continuous performance task. Results: During processing of the “Necker cube” stimulus, the reversal rate of the noise-destabilized “manic” network was increased by 30%. In the human subject study, the median score of Necker cube reversal rates for manic-spectrum patients was roughly twice that of normal control subjects and patients with schizophrenia. Accelerated reversal rates in the manic-spectrum group were not attributable to excessive cognitive speed or higher rates of indiscriminate responses. Conclusions: The two studies, considered together, support the hypothesis that excessive cortical noise destabilizes neural representations in manic-spectrum patients.

A Simple Method to Quantify 3-D Working Postures for Biomechanical Analysis

A new method to quantify working posture is proposed in this study. The new method is a modified Liu et al (1997) procedure. However, instead of matching the working posture with a photograph next to the manikin, the new method allows the investigator to superimpose a manikin stick figure over top of the photograph of the worker. To test the accuracy of this new proposed method, a controlled experiment was conducted. The results of this study indicate that the new method is a valid approach to quantify working postures. An overall average of 6.7 degrees posture specification errors were found. The smallest posture errors and posture specification time occurred at the camera perspective between 0 and 90 degrees and when the task action was a symmetric posture.