Emotional facial expressions can inform researchers about an individual's emotional state. Recent technological advances open up new avenues to automatic Facial Expression Recognition. Based on machine learning, such technology can tremendously increase the amount of processed data. FER is now easily accessible and has been validated for the classification of standardized prototypical facial expressions. However, applicability to more naturalistic facial expressions still remains uncertain. Hence, we test and compare performance of three different FER systems with human emotion recognition for standardized (...) posed facial expressions and for non-standardized acted facial expressions. For the standardized images, all three systems classify basic emotions accurately and they are mostly on par with human raters. For the non-standardized stimuli, performance drops remarkably for all three systems, but Azure still performs similarly to humans. In addition, all systems and humans alike tend to misclassify some of the non-standardized emotional facial expressions as neutral. In sum, emotion recognition by automated facial expression recognition can be an attractive alternative to human emotion recognition for standardized and non-standardized emotional facial expressions. However, we also found limitations in accuracy for specific facial expressions; clearly there is need for thorough empirical evaluation to guide future developments in computer vision of emotional facial expressions. (shrink)

In lower quadrupedal vertebrates locomotor efficiency seems to result from the associate movements of the axial and appendicular systems, which are totally independent in structure and embryological origin. The curvature of the trunk, produced by a standing wave, magnifies the propulsive action of the limbs. In intermediate forms, the association of an elongate trunk with limbs reduced in size brings about functional consequences which may be noticeably diverse according to the degree of trunk elongation and limb reduction. According to environmental (...) constraints, animals search for better locomotor efficiency, which implies the maintenance or breakage of this association of both locomotor systems. In some cases, limb action on the ground is added to the axial wave action through a perfect mutual adjustment of rhythmic activity, until mechanical inefficiency of the limbs is reached by possible loss of contact with the ground. In other cases, the limbs dragged on the ground during the stance phase act against the axial action or, on the contrary, are inhibited by the axial system. A review of available data tries to contribute to an understanding of the respective roles of both systems in the transition to limblessness. (shrink)

In der Zeit von 1712-1714 verbrachte Leibniz fast zwei Jahre in Wien. Vorgeblich beschäftigte er sich während dieser Zeit mit der Materialsuche für die Historia Domus des Welfenhauses und führte nebenbei zu dessen Gunsten diplomatische Gespräche. Tatsachlich war er damit beschäftigt, für die Gründung einer Sozietät oder Akademie der Wissenschaften unter seiner Führung als Ausgleich für die stetige Reduktion seines Prasidentenamtes an der Berliner Akademie zu werben. Allerdings führten die Kontakte, die er knüpfte, zum Entstehen der wichtigsten vergleichenden Überblicke seiner (...) Philosophic der „Principia philosophiae“, die unter dem Titel „Monadologie“ bekannt geworden ist, und der „Principes de la nature et de la grace“. Zusammenfassend wirft Leibniz' Aktivität in dieser Phase ein aufschlußreiches Licht auf seinen modus operandi als Gelehrter, Diplomat und Höfling. (shrink)