scholarly journals Moving Toward versus Away from Another: How Body Motion Direction Changes the Representation of Bodies and Actions in the Visual Cortex

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuelle Bellot ◽  
Etienne Abassi ◽  
Liuba Papeo

Abstract Representing multiple agents and their mutual relations is a prerequisite to understand social events such as interactions. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging on human adults, we show that visual areas dedicated to body form and body motion perception contribute to processing social events, by holding the representation of multiple moving bodies and encoding the spatial relations between them. In particular, seeing animations of human bodies facing and moving toward (vs. away from) each other increased neural activity in the body-selective cortex [extrastriate body area (EBA)] and posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) for biological motion perception. In those areas, representation of body postures and movements, as well as of the overall scene, was more accurate for facing body (vs. nonfacing body) stimuli. Effective connectivity analysis with dynamic causal modeling revealed increased coupling between EBA and pSTS during perception of facing body stimuli. The perceptual enhancement of multiple-body scenes featuring cues of interaction (i.e., face-to-face positioning, spatial proximity, and approaching signals) was supported by the participants’ better performance in a recognition task with facing body versus nonfacing body stimuli. Thus, visuospatial cues of interaction in multiple-person scenarios affect the perceptual representation of body and body motion and, by promoting functional integration, streamline the process from body perception to action representation.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuelle Bellot ◽  
Etienne Abassi ◽  
Liuba Papeo

AbstractRepresenting multiple agents and their mutual relations is a prerequisite to understand social events. Using functional MRI on human adults, we show that visual areas dedicated to body-form and body-motion perception contribute to processing social events, by holding the representation of multiple moving bodies and encoding the spatial relations between them. In particular, seeing animations of human bodies facing and moving toward (vs. away from) each other, increased neural activity in the body-selective cortex (extrastriate body area -EBA) and posterior superior temporal sulcus for biological-motion perception (bm-pSTS). In those areas, representation of body postures and movements, as well as of the overall scene, was more accurate for facing-body (vs. non-facing body) stimuli. Effective connectivity analysis with Dynamic Causal Modeling revealed increased coupling between EBA and bm-pSTS during perception of facing-body stimuli. The attunement of human vision to multiple-body scenes involving perceptual cues of interaction such as face-to-face positioning and approaching behaviour, was further supported by the participants’ better performance in a match-to-sample task with facing-body vs. non-facing body stimuli. Thus, visuo-spatial cues of interaction in multiple-person scenarios affect the perceptual representation of body and body motion and, by promoting functional integration, streamline the process from body perception to action representation.


Author(s):  
Johan Roenby ◽  
Hassan Aref

The model of body–vortex interactions, where the fluid flow is planar, ideal and unbounded, and the vortex is a point vortex, is studied. The body may have a constant circulation around it. The governing equations for the general case of a freely moving body of arbitrary shape and mass density and an arbitrary number of point vortices are presented. The case of a body and a single vortex is then investigated numerically in detail. In this paper, the body is a homogeneous, elliptical cylinder. For large body–vortex separations, the system behaves much like a vortex pair regardless of body shape. The case of a circle is integrable. As the body is made slightly elliptic, a chaotic region grows from an unstable relative equilibrium of the circle-vortex case. The case of a cylindrical body of any shape moving in fluid otherwise at rest is also integrable. A second transition to chaos arises from the limit between rocking and tumbling motion of the body known in this case. In both instances, the chaos may be detected both in the body motion and in the vortex motion. The effect of increasing body mass at a fixed body shape is to damp the chaos.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanjun Ryu ◽  
Hyun-moon Park ◽  
Moo-Kang Kim ◽  
Bosung Kim ◽  
Hyoun Seok Myoung ◽  
...  

AbstractSelf-powered implantable devices have the potential to extend device operation time inside the body and reduce the necessity for high-risk repeated surgery. Without the technological innovation of in vivo energy harvesters driven by biomechanical energy, energy harvesters are insufficient and inconvenient to power titanium-packaged implantable medical devices. Here, we report on a commercial coin battery-sized high-performance inertia-driven triboelectric nanogenerator (I-TENG) based on body motion and gravity. We demonstrate that the enclosed five-stacked I-TENG converts mechanical energy into electricity at 4.9 μW/cm3 (root-mean-square output). In a preclinical test, we show that the device successfully harvests energy using real-time output voltage data monitored via Bluetooth and demonstrate the ability to charge a lithium-ion battery. Furthermore, we successfully integrate a cardiac pacemaker with the I-TENG, and confirm the ventricle pacing and sensing operation mode of the self-rechargeable cardiac pacemaker system. This proof-of-concept device may lead to the development of new self-rechargeable implantable medical devices.


Author(s):  
Minglu Chen ◽  
Shan Huang ◽  
Nigel Baltrop ◽  
Ji Chunyan ◽  
Liangbi Li

Mooring line damping plays an important role to the body motion of moored floating platforms. Meanwhile, it can also make contributions to optimize the mooring line system. Accurate assessment of mooring line damping is thus an essential issue for offshore structure design. However, it is difficult to determine the mooring line damping based on theoretical methods. This study considers the parameters which have impact on mooring-induced damping. In the paper, applying Morison formula to calculate the drag and initial force on the mooring line, its dynamic response is computed in the time domain. The energy dissipation of the mooring line due to the viscosity was used to calculate mooring-induced damping. A mooring line is performed with low-frequency oscillation only, the low-frequency oscillation superimposed with regular and irregular wave-frequency motions. In addition, the influences of current velocity, mooring line pretension and different water depths are taken into account.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yiyu Chen ◽  
Abhinav Pandey ◽  
Zhiwei Deng ◽  
Anthony Nguyen ◽  
Ruiqi Wang ◽  
...  

Abstract The global COVID-19 pandemic has inevitably made disinfection a daily routine to ensure the safety of public and private spaces. However, the existing disinfection procedures are time-consuming and require intensive human labor to apply chemical-based disinfectant onto contaminated surfaces. In this paper, a robot disinfection system is presented to increase the automation of the disinfection task to assist humans in performing routine disinfection safely and efficiently. This paper presents a semi-autonomous quadruped robot called LASER-D for performing disinfection in cluttered environments. The robot is equipped with a spray-based disinfection system and leverages the body motion to control the spray action without an extra stabilization mechanism. The spraying unit is mounted on the robot’s back and controlled by the robot computer. The control architecture is designed based on force control, resulting in navigating rough terrains and the flexibility in controlling the body motion during standing and walking for the disinfection task. The robot also uses the vision system to improve localization and maintain desired distance to the disinfection surface. The system incorporates image processing capability to evaluate disinfected regions with high accuracy. This feedback is then used to adjust the disinfection plan to guarantee that all assigned areas are disinfected properly. The system is also equipped with highly integrated simulation software to design, simulate and evaluate disinfection plans effectively. This work has allowed the robot to successfully carry out effective disinfection experiments while safely traversing through cluttered environments, climb stairs/slopes, and navigate on slippery surfaces.


Author(s):  
X. Tong ◽  
B. Tabarrok

Abstract In this paper the global motion of a rigid body subject to small periodic torques, which has a fixed direction in the body-fixed coordinate frame, is investigated by means of Melnikov’s method. Deprit’s variables are introduced to transform the equations of motion into a form describing a slowly varying oscillator. Then the Melnikov method developed for the slowly varying oscillator is used to predict the transversal intersections of stable and unstable manifolds for the perturbed rigid body motion. It is shown that there exist transversal intersections of heteroclinic orbits for certain ranges of parameter values.


Author(s):  
A.Y. Peretyatko ◽  

For the pre-revolutionary Don historiography, complaints about the lack of a full-fledged generalizing work of the history of the Cossacks were extremely characteristic. As shown in the article, a similar situation is observed in our time: the article has again become the main genre of Cossack historiography, and the understanding of a huge number of publications on the history of various Cossack troops is extremely difficult. The author proves that in these conditions, works that claim to generalize become especially important, but it is extremely difficult to summarize all the facts, developments and research concepts on any broad topic of Cossack history. In his opinion, the search for other methods of scientific generalization and perception by historians of the developments of their colleagues looks promising. One of these ways he sees the organization of round tables on specifically Cossack topics, especially dedicated to new discoveries.


1994 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. W. Oram ◽  
D. I. Perrett

Cells have been found in the superior temporal polysensory area (STPa) of the macaque temporal cortex that are selectively responsive to the sight of particular whole body movements (e.g., walking) under normal lighting. These cells typically discriminate the direction of walking and the view of the body (e.g., left profile walking left). We investigated the extent to which these cells are responsive under “biological motion” conditions where the form of the body is defined only by the movement of light patches attached to the points of limb articulation. One-third of the cells (25/72) selective for the form and motion of walking bodies showed sensitivity to the moving light displays. Seven of these cells showed only partial sensitivity to form from motion, in so far as the cells responded more to moving light displays than to moving controls but failed to discriminate body view. These seven cells exhibited directional selectivity. Eighteen cells showed statistical discrimination for both direction of movement and body view under biological motion conditions. Most of these cells showed reduced responses to the impoverished moving light stimuli compared to full light conditions. The 18 cells were thus sensitive to detailed form information (body view) from the pattern of articulating motion. Cellular processing of the global pattern of articulation was indicated by the observations that none of these cells were found sensitive to movement of individual limbs and that jumbling the pattern of moving limbs reduced response magnitude. A further 10 cells were tested for sensitivity to moving light displays of whole body actions other than walking. Of these cells 5/10 showed selectivity for form displayed by biological motion stimuli that paralleled the selectivity under normal lighting conditions. The cell responses thus provide direct evidence for neural mechanisms computing form from nonrigid motion. The selectivity of the cells was for body view, specific direction, and specific type of body motion presented by moving light displays and is not predicted by many current computational approaches to the extraction of form from motion.


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