Peer relationships encompass an important developmental context for young girls’ understanding of normative social behavior and appearances. In early adolescence, concern for peer acceptance intensifies, as do the rigid standards peers regulate and command for physical appearance. Pressure to conform to group norms of attractiveness leaves girls vulnerable to reduced self-esteem and body dissatisfaction. Based on the life history narratives of 10 pre- and post-pubertal girls of diverse backgrounds, experiences with peers as they relate to pressures and resistances towards appearance conformity are documented through a prospective design. Results support the presence of two highly integrated domains of the peer environment which promote the pervasiveness of appearance-related pressure and body-consciousness for girls transitioning into adolescence: the evaluative external gaze and concerns for peer acceptance. Protective factors are discussed in the context of girls’ friendships and their ability to distance themselves from peer appearance pressure.

Peer relationships encompass an important developmental context for young girls’ understanding of normative social behavior and appearances. In early adolescence, concern for peer acceptance intensifies, as do the rigid standards peers regulate and command for physical appearance. Pressure to conform to group norms of attractiveness leaves girls vulnerable to reduced self-esteem and body dissatisfaction. Based on the life history narratives of 10 pre- and post-pubertal girls of diverse backgrounds, experiences with peers as they relate to pressures and resistances towards appearance conformity are documented through a prospective design. Results support the presence of two highly integrated domains of the peer environment which promote the pervasiveness of appearance-related pressure and body-consciousness for girls transitioning into adolescence: the evaluative external gaze and concerns for peer acceptance. Protective factors are discussed in the context of girls’ friendships and their ability to distance themselves from peer appearance pressure.

Image-based face recognition has attained wide applications during the past decades in commerce and law enforcement areas, such as mug shot database matching, identity authentication, and access control. Existing face recognition techniques (e.g., Eigenface, Fisherface, and Elastic Bunch Graph Matching, etc.), however, do not perform well when the following case inevitably exists. The case is that, due to some variations in imaging conditions, e.g., pose and illumination changes, face images of the same person often have different appearances. These variations make face recognition techniques much challenging. With this concern in mind, the objective of my research is to develop robust face recognition techniques against variations. This thesis addresses two main variation problems in face recognition, i.e., pose and illumination variations. To improve the performance of face recognition systems, the following methods are proposed: (1) a face feature extraction and representation method using non-uniformly selected Gabor convolution features, (2) an illumination normalization method using adaptive region-based image enhancement for face recognition under variable illumination conditions, (3) an eye detection method in gray-scale face images under various illumination conditions, and (4) a virtual pose generation method for pose-invariant face recognition. The details of these proposed methods are explained in this thesis. In addition, we conduct a comprehensive survey of the existing face recognition methods. Future research directions are pointed out.

The goal of this thesis is to gain a deep understanding of inverse problems arising from 2D image and 3D surface reconstruction, and to design effective techniques for solving them. Both computational and theoretical issues are studied and efficient numerical algorithms are proposed. The first part of this thesis is concerned with the recovery of 2D images, e.g., de-noising and de-blurring. We first consider implicit methods that involve solving linear systems at each iteration. An adaptive Huber regularization functional is used to select the most reasonable model and a global convergence result for lagged diffusivity is proved. Two mechanisms---multilevel continuation and multigrid preconditioning---are proposed to improve efficiency for large-scale problems. Next, explicit methods involving the construction of an artificial time-dependent differential equation model followed by forward Euler discretization are analyzed. A rapid, adaptive scheme is then proposed, and additional hybrid algorithms are designed to improve the quality of such processes. We also devise methods for more challenging cases, such as recapturing texture from a noisy input and de-blurring an image in the presence of significant noise. It is well-known that extending image processing methods to 3D triangular surface meshes is far from trivial or automatic. In the second part of this thesis we discuss techniques for faithfully reconstructing such surface models with different features. Some models contain a lot of small yet visually meaningful details, and typically require very fine meshes to represent them well; others consist of large flat regions, long sharp edges (creases) and distinct corners, and the meshes required for their representation can often be much coarser. All of these models may be sampled very irregularly. For models of the first class, we methodically develop a fast multiscale anisotropic Laplacian (MSAL) smoothing algorithm. To reconstruct a piecewise smooth CAD-like model in the second class, we design an efficient hybrid algorithm based on specific vertex classification, which combines K-means clustering and geometric a priori information. Hence, we have a set of algorithms that efficiently handle smoothing and regularization of meshes large and small in a variety of situations.

ABSTRACT The purpose of this essay has been to analyse an incident that received huge attention in the media that took place on February 24 2011 involving the famous fashion designer John Galliano. Galliano who at the time served as a creative director at French luxury fashion house Dior hurled anti-Semitic remarks during an altercation to a couple at Paris café La Perle. We intended to do a study of the material in two parts. The primary focus of our thesis was to analyse six different newspaper articles that involved the incident. We chose to analyse three articles from Great Britain and three from the United States to get a versatile image of the incident. The purpose of the study was to see how the journalists argued for the incident, and see if the varied even though they were based on the same story. The secondary study was to analyse how Dior are working on maintaining their image and which strategies they chose to for its crisis management regarding the incident as an attempt to protect its image. It was performed by analyse statements by the management of Dior in the media. To answer the research questions, we have used the method of qualitative rhetorical content analysis. The method is used to study the argument in various forms of communications. The selected newspapers are The Telegraph (London) and The New York Times (New York). The incident did not just affect Galliano and Dior. The general perception was that the incident left the fashion business in imbalance.  Regarding the crisis management of Dior, these result was that the most startling ones.

It is difficult for people to recognize currencies from different countries. Our aim is to help people solve this problem. However, currency recognition systems that are based on image analysis entirely are not sufficient. Our system is based on image processing and makes the process automatic and robust. We use SEK and Chinese RMB as examples to illustrate the technique. Color and shape information are used in our algorithm.

This master thesis focus on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the relation to brand image. The topic was chosen because of the lack of research in this type of field. Previous research has suggested that there might be a bond between CSR and the brand image of a company, however, no confirmations has been done. The case study was done with in-depth interviews with Husqvarna’s CSR manager and marketing manager. The case study was also done with the help of Husqvarna’s sustainability report. Results from this study shows that brand image is affected positively by CSR. For Husqvarna, it is still a bit early to say if CSR will have a positive impact since they have not been engaged in CSR for a long time. However, it is their plan and ambition for CSR to have a positive impact on their brand image. The idea with CSR is not to set oneself side from the competition, instead it is a hygiene factor, something that is expected from companies. However, the way they set themselves apart is to take stakeholders’ expectations in consideration when planning their CSR actions. The consequence of this is that the brand image is positively affected. The process for improving brand image can be portrayed in the following steps: under the pressures derived from the stakeholders, the company have to make an effort to satisfy the stakeholders’ expectations with the help of CSR. The response derived from stakeholders will generate the assessment on the companies. These kinds of evaluations will influence the brand image.

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The natural phenomena simulation in computer graphics is commonly achieved by the procedural methods or the physics model. However, these approaches are hard to directly approach the visual experience. On the other hand, the image reconstruction works can provide the outcome based on real images but lack of interactivity and efficiency on using image resource. For solving these drawbacks, we propose a novel method that enhances the fire simulation effect using the visual learning of image features and generates continuous animations by integrating with procedural methods. We first obtain the dynamics of fire contour by binarization and edge detection. The information extracted from images is gathered into a set of feature data called fire profile. To generate a long sequence of fire animation from a short clip of fire video, we propose two approaches of visual learning to utilize fire profile to produce continuous animation. One is to use the fire image to setup a color value lookup table which contains the average color value of the fire spatial divisions; the other is to design a state machine for describing fire wiggling movement that can generate effects based on user¡¦s input. During the rendering stage of 3D visualization, we set up the fire volume which connecting the feature points of two cross-views by the cubic spline. Then the edge points found on the fire volume can be used as the contour points of the supplementing slices and generate these supplements inside the planned fire volume to formulate a complete fire effect. The proposed method can raise not only the visual reality but also the interactive ability compared with the existing work.

Eating, weight, and shape concerns (EWS) are prevalent among college women, and women with EWS concerns tend to experience difficulties in the domain of interpersonal functioning. For a young woman, romantic relationships represent one of the most important aspects of her interpersonal world; thus, an exploration of the romantic relationships of women with EWS concerns may potentially impact the risk assessment, prevention, and treatment of these women. This study used a longitudinal design to examine the relations between EWS concerns and romantic relationships in 88 college women and their heterosexual partners. Participants completed questionnaires at two time points spaced approximately two months apart. Results revealed that women’s relationship outcomes did not predict changes in their EWS concerns over the subsequent two months, but relationship negative events for men predicted a worsening of women’s EWS concerns. This finding contradicts the common hypothesis that the influence between women’s EWS concerns and romantic relationship outcomes is bi-directional. Men’s desired change in their partners’ bodies predicted women’s EWS concerns cross-sectionally and longitudinally; however, once controlling for Body Mass Index, most results were no longer significant. Thus, it seems that a woman’s actual body weight may be driving both her partner’s satisfaction with her body and her own EWS concerns. Results for analyses determining whether women’s EWS concerns predicted subsequent changes in relationship outcomes indicated that women’s body image during physical intimacy was the only EWS variable that significantly or marginally predicted a worsening of all relationship outcomes for both men and women. This finding provides further support for previous research suggesting that women’s body image problems may lead to avoidance or uneasiness with physical intimacy, which in turn may impact relationship functioning. Finally, men’s desired change in their partner’s bodies predicted only men’s own relationship outcomes cross-sectionally, and only women’s relationship outcomes longitudinally. Overall, this study highlights the importance of longitudinal research and of assessing both partners when exploring the relations between women’s EWS concerns and romantic relationship outcomes.