The paper presents findings from research project Mobis which is aimed at developing a method of assessing safety of unsignalised pedestrian road crossings using video image analysis. Pedestrian and vehicle traffic has been recorded at selected zebra crossing sites in Warsaw and Wrocław, before and after installation of active signage systems SignFlash and Levelite. Speeds of approaching vehicles were measured and drivers’ behaviour was classified using video analysis.
The paper presents a comparison of effectiveness of systems such as SignFlash and Levelite based on changes in the mean and standard deviation of vehicle spot speeds as well as changes in speed profiles of vehicles approaching the crossings.
Results indicate that both SignFlash and Levelite active signage reduce mean vehicle approach speeds and have a positive impact on drivers’ behaviour.
The topic of this paper is the universal call to holiness with reference to the notion of „ordinary holiness”. The contemporary teaching of the Catholic Church, particularly since Vatican II, has underlined that holiness is both a gift and a task for all Christians. It is illustrated with several papal pronouncements by Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Finally the paper points out to some examples which confrm that any activity in life is appropriate for fulflling the call to holiness. It is also noticed that ordinary holiness is a positive reaction and response of Christ’s disciples to the signs of the time they face. Some of those signs of the time are nowadays: man’s changing attitude to the truth, to human life as a fundamental value, to conjugal love which is in its essence faithful and exclusive, as well as to service as a form of daily love.
A variety of algorithms allows gesture recognition in video sequences. Alleviating the need for interpreters is of interest to hearing impaired people, since it allows a great degree of self-sufficiency in communicating their intent to the non-sign language speakers without the need for interpreters. State-of-theart in currently used algorithms in this domain is capable of either real-time recognition of sign language in low resolution videos or non-real-time recognition in high-resolution videos. This paper proposes a novel approach to real-time recognition of fingerspelling alphabet letters of American Sign Language (ASL) in ultra-high-resolution (UHD) video sequences. The proposed approach is based on adaptive Laplacian of Gaussian (LoG) filtering with local extrema detection using Features from Accelerated Segment Test (FAST) algorithm classified by a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). The recognition rate of our algorithm was verified on real-life data.
The article consists of two parts. In the first one (introductory) I recall—following Edmund Husserl, Stanisław Ossowski and Adam Schaff—the main formulations of the “principle of transparency of the sign.” In these formulations it is usually said about (1) the transparency of the sign regarding objects denoted by the sign (denoted, designated and/or named), or (2) the transparency of the sign regarding its meaning (respectively, events, states of affairs and facts designated by the sign). However, as Husserl pointed out, one can also speak about (3) the transparency of the sign in relations to the activities and mental states of the sign’s users (senders and recipients). After all, only due to the transparency of the sign understood in this way, it is possible for people to communicate with each other, thus the sign can also has an expressive and communicative function. In turn, the second part of the article (essential) contains a reconstruction of the Leon Koj’s approach; Koj gave a consistently formalized form to the theory of sign based on the principle of transparency— the form of an axiomatized logical system (using Quine's formalism from his Mathematical Logic). One of Koj's main goals was also to indicate the close relationship between semantics and pragmatics, and even the primacy of pragmatics over semantics. Formal-logical tools have also shown that the theory of sign based on the principle of transparency neither contravene The Law of Non-Contradiction (at least in its psychological formulation), nor contain or imply semantic antinomies such us antinomy of the liar. Because it is a theory easily negotiable with Alfred Tarski’s theory of language levels.
This article presents examples of the relationship between culture, dance, and the body in the fields of communication (with oneself, the community, God/deity), the social hierarchy, social values, relations between the individual and the group, and relations between genders, from the perspective of the sociology of the dance. The sociological perspective also indicates the various historical, ritual, control, and regulatory roles that traditional and modern dances play in the communities in which they arise and are performed. The second part of the text contains a case study of the Japanese ankoku butoh dance. The author presents the philosophical roots of the dance (e.g., Japanese mythology, Zen Buddhist philosophy) and the creator’s personal experiences (childhood trauma and post-war social situation) as factors that influenced the dance’s development. The example of ankoku butoh illustrates the interrelation between cultural meanings and dance movements.
Polish Sign Language (PJM) is a natural communication system that has been evolving for two centuries. It is at the heart of the identity and culture of the Deaf community in Poland, but it is often marginalized and neglected. It first came under serious linguistic scrutiny not long ago, and more systematic research on it has been initiated in recent years by a team of researchers at the Section for Sign Linguistics at the University of Warsaw.
The aim of this paper is to analyse and interprete the prose text "Vor der Zunahme der Zeichen" by the young, German-speaking writer who as a child fled from the civil war in Sri Lanka. The paper provides an analysis of the contingency of language signs (like homeland, descent, native language, identity) which is a function of the experience of flight, exile, and live in the globalized and electronic media-dominated world. The central role in the novel is played by the relation between death and literary language and its communicative and perception function.
For many adaptive noise control systems the Filtered-Reference LMS, known as the FXLMS algorithm is used to update parameters of the control filter. Appropriate adjustment of the step size is then important to guarantee convergence of the algorithm, obtain small excess mean square error, and react with required rate to variation of plant properties or noise nonstationarity. There are several recipes presented in the literature, theoretically derived or of heuristic origin.
This paper focuses on a modification of the FXLMS algorithm, were convergence is guaranteed by changing sign of the algorithm steps size, instead of using a model of the secondary path. A TakagiSugeno-Kang fuzzy inference system is proposed to evaluate both the sign and the magnitude of the step size. Simulation experiments are presented to validate the algorithm and compare it to the classical FXLMS algorithm in terms of convergence and noise reduction.
The author paints a personal and often critical image of three cities — those, which he is the most familiar with and which are particularly dear and close to him. Despite being familiar with tens of the most renowned cities in the world, the author has selected fully familial examples, which he has had and continues to have personal ties. Throughout their histories, they have been subjected to dramatic events. In terms of spatial creation, they underwent — and continue to undergo-fluid, hybrid, ambivalent and often controversial transformation. They have also been treated implicitly, as subjectively-presented models of cities in general — as well as of their fate and evolution. The author considers the city to be — perhaps — the greatest expression of human culture and civilisation.