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[ES] La presente Tesis Doctoral constituye un estudio sobre las formas en que la violencia contemporánea en México ha repercutido el campo de las artes visuales, con un especial énfasis en la forma de entender y representar el cuerpo humano. Acotado en tres décadas (1988-2018), este trabajo es una investigación contextual que se afianza en el entramado social, político, histórico y económico para construir un análisis más profundo en torno a las formas en que la violencia ha trastocado igualmente el ámbito artístico, y poder ver cómo, a lo largo del tiempo, se ha modificado la imagen del cuerpo humano en la producción artística, gracias a que, por una parte, la muerte se presenta con más frecuencia en lo cotidiano y, por otra, los grupos criminales han recrudecido sus formas de ejercer violencia. Este panorama facilitó que muchos delitos graves se volvieran comunes, y poco a poco, los criminales llegaran a ejecutar actos violentos novedosos permitiendo nuevas formas de relación y trato con el cuerpo humano. Si con el paso del tiempo el crimen organizado ha vulnerado el cuerpo humano de formas cada vez más atroces, haciendo además un esfuerzo por visibilizarlos y acercarlos a la sociedad civil, ciertos artistas pueden ver en ello una oportunidad para reflexionar y construir nociones del cuerpo hasta ahora inéditas, como la de imaginar un cuerpo volátil, manifestado en la obra Vaporización (2001) de la artista sinaloense Teresa Margolles, donde propone un espacio lleno de vapor, consecuencia de alimentar condensadores situados al interior del museo, con agua previamente usada para lavar cadáveres en la morgue. El cuerpo que aquí presenta Margolles, anula toda figuración sólida y adquiere la capacidad incluso de flotar y adherirse a la piel y ropa del visitante, quién saldrá del espacio portando una milimétrica esencia humana ajena a su ser. Otro ejemplo son las concepciones humanas más cercanas a la máquina y la alta tecnología propias de las investigaciones del artista mexicano Rafael Lozano-Hemmer quién visualiza cuerpos humanos dependientes del código binario y que no dejan de ser inquietantes luego de reconocer que muchos de estos artefactos tecnológicos son igualmente usados tanto por el ejército como por los criminales en sus abyectos actos. Así, esta Tesis parte de un análisis contextual del México reciente, dejando cronológicamente el punto de inflexión de esta escalada de violencia -el año 2006- cerca de la mitad del período de tiempo estudiado para tener un antes y un después de la Declaración de Guerra por parte del Estado y permitir una cierta distancia en el análisis de las repercusiones en el arte de este enfrentamiento bélico. La segunda parte constituye un corpus teórico donde convergen reflexiones relativas a la violencia, la memoria y el duelo, para posteriormente reparar en el cuerpo humano y sus múltiples posibilidades. Lo anterior sirve de preámbulo para poder entender cómo el ser humano, en su total fragilidad, se ve afectado por agentes endógenos y exógenos que terminan por provocarle la muerte -una muerte impregnada con mayores o menores dosis de violencia-, para luego investigar sus correlatos en el campo artístico. Este análisis brinda un panorama del trabajo y pensamiento alrededor del cuerpo y permite ver cómo la violencia ha jugado un papel importante no solo en el contexto socio político de México, sino también en la forma de pensar e imaginar el cuerpo. Finalmente, gran parte de la riqueza de esta investigación proviene de las aportaciones de fuentes primarias, como son las entrevistas que pude realizar a más de veinticinco artistas, curadores e investigadores vivos que, en sus propias palabras, ayudan a entender los cambios que ha vivido México, sus artistas y la noción de cuerpo en las tres últimas décadas. / [CA] La present Tesi Doctoral constitueix un estudi sobre les formes en què la violència contemporània a Mèxic ha repercutit el camp de les arts visuals, amb un especial èmfasi en la manera d'entendre i representar el cos humà. Delimitat en tres dècades (1988-2018), aquest treball és una investigació contextual que s'aferma en l'entramat social, polític, històric i econòmic per a construir una anàlisi més profunda entorn de les formes en què la violència ha trastocat igualment l'àmbit artístic, i poder veure com, al llarg del temps, s'ha modificat la imatge del cos humà en la producció artística, gràcies a que, d'una banda, la mort es presenta amb més freqüència en el quotidià i, per una altra, els grups criminals han empitjorat les seues maneres d'exercir violència. Aquest panorama va facilitar que molts delictes greus es tornaren comuns, i a poc a poc, els criminals arribaren a executar actes violents nous permetent noves formes de relació i tracte amb el cos humà. Si amb el pas del temps el crim organitzat ha vulnerat el cos humà de formes cada vegada més atroços, fent a més un esforç per visibilitzar-los i acostar-los a la societat civil, uns certs artistes poden veure en això una oportunitat per a reflexionar i construir nocions del cos fins ara inèdites, com la d'imaginar un cos volàtil, manifestat en l'obra Vaporización (2001) de l'artista sinaloense Teresa Margolles, on proposa un espai ple de vapor, conseqüència d'alimentar condensadors situats a l'interior del museu, amb aigua prèviament usada per a llavar cadàvers en la morgue. El cos que ací presenta Margolles, anul·la tota figuració sòlida i adquireix la capacitat fins i tot de surar i adherir-se a la pell i roba del visitant, qui eixirà de l'espai portant una mil·limètrica essència humana aliena a la seua ser. Un altre exemple són les concepcions humanes més pròximes a la màquina i l'alta tecnologia pròpies de les investigacions de l'artista mexicà Rafael Lozano-Hemmer qui visualitza cossos humans dependents del codi binari i que no deixen de ser inquietants després de reconéixer que molts d'aquests artefactes tecnològics són igualment usats tant per l'exèrcit com pels criminals en els seus abjectes actes. Així, aquesta Tesi parteix d'una anàlisi contextual del Mèxic recent, deixant cronològicament el punt d'inflexió d'aquesta escalada de violència -l'any 2006- prop de la meitat del període de temps estudiat per a tindre un abans i un després de la Declaració de Guerra per part de l'Estat i permetre una certa distància en l'anàlisi de les repercussions en l'art d'aquest enfrontament bèl·lic. La segona part constitueix un corpus teòric on convergeixen reflexions relatives a la violència, la memòria i el duel, per a posteriorment reparar en el cos humà i les seues múltiples possibilitats. L'anterior serveix de preàmbul per a poder entendre com l'ésser humà, en la seua total fragilitat, es veu afectat per agents endògens i exògens que acaben per provocar-li la mort -una mort impregnada amb majors o menors dosis de violència-, per a després investigar els seus correlats en el camp artístic. Aquesta anàlisi brinda un panorama del treball i pensament al voltant del cos i permet veure com la violència ha jugat un paper important no sols en el context soci polític de Mèxic, sinó també en la manera de pensar i imaginar el cos. Finalment, gran part de la riquesa d'aquesta investigació prové de les aportacions de fonts primàries, com són les entrevistes que vaig poder realitzar a més de vint-i-cinc artistes, commissari i investigadors vius que, en les seues pròpies paraules, ajuden a entendre els canvis que ha viscut Mèxic, els seus artistes i la noció de cos en les tres últimes dècades. / [EN] This Doctoral Thesis constitutes a study on the ways in which contemporary violence in Mexico has impacted the field of visual arts, with a special emphasis on understanding and representing the human body. Limited to three decades (1988-2018), this work is a contextual investigation that is strengthened in the social, political, historical and economic framework to build a deeper analysis around the ways in which violence has also disrupted the artistic field, and to be able to see how, over time, the image of the human body has been modified in the artistic production, thanks to the fact that, on one hand, death is more frequently presented in everyday life and, on the other, criminal groups have intensified their ways of exercising violence. This panorama made serious crimes become common, and little by little, the criminals execute new violent acts with new forms of relation and treatment with the human body. Though over the years organized crime has violated the human body in increasingly atrocious ways, also making an effort to make them visible and bring them closer to civil society, certain artists can see in this an opportunity to reflect on and work on notions of the body unpublished to this day, such as imagining a volatile body, as manifested in the work Vaporización (2001) by Sinaloan artist Teresa Margolles, where she proposes a space full of steam, the result of feeding condensers located inside the museum with water previously used to wash corpses in the morgue. The body presented here by Margolles cancels out all solid figuration and acquires the capacity to float and adhere to the skin and clothes of the visitor, who will leave the space carrying a millimetric human essence alien to his being. Another example is the human conceptions closer to the machine and high technology, typical of the investigations of mexican artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, who visualizes human bodies dependent on the binary code and which do not cease to be disturbing after recognizing that many of these technological artifacts are equally used by the army and by criminals in their abject acts. This Thesis starts from a contextual analysis of México recently, leaving chronologically the turning point of this escalation of violence - the year 2006 - about half of the period of time studied to have a before and after the Declaration of War by the State and allow a certain distance in the analysis of the repercussions in art of this warlike confrontation. The second part constitutes a theoretical corpus where reflections on violence, memory and grief converge, to later repair the human body and its multiple possibilities. This serves as a preamble to understand how human beings, in their total fragility, are affected by endogenous and exogenous agents that end up causing death - a death impregnated with greater or lesser doses of violence - and then investigate its correlations in the artistic field. This analysis provides a panorama of the work and thoughts around the body and allows us to see how violence has played an important role not only in the socio-political context of México, but also in the way of thinking and imagining the body. Finally, a lot of the richness of this research comes from the contributions of primary sources, such as the interviews I was able to conduct with more than twenty-five living artists, curators and researchers who, in their own words, help to understand the changes that México, its artists and the notion of body have undergone in the last three decades. / Méndez Landa, FJ. (2021). Cuerpo y violencia y en México (1988-2018). Un estudio sobre la permeabilidad de la violencia en las artes contemporáneas mexicanas y sus repercusiones en el entendimiento del cuerpo [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/162917 / TESIS

Thesis (MPH.) -- University of Limpopo, 2019 / The purpose of this study was to profile selected cardiovascular disease risk factors among HIV patients on ART in Bushbuckridge sub-district. Quantitative, crosssectional research was conducted to describe cardiovascular disease risk factors among HIV patients on ART in Bushbuckridge Sub-district. Data collection was done using researcher-administered questionnaires. Adult HIV patient on ART participated in the study (n=328). The study has highlighted cardiovascular disease risk factors and prevalence of cardiovascular disease risk factors among HIV patients on ART. The findings revealed the prevalence of hypertension is 34.6% among HIV patients on ART and men had a higher prevalence compared to women. There is an increase in body mass index and it is seen mostly among women. Alcohol consumption is highest in the young adults (18 to 24 years) both men and women. Health promotion and policymaking interventions need to improve strategies on management and prevention of cardiovascular disease risk factors. Key concepts HIV, ART, cardiovascular disease risk factors, prevalence, body mass index, Bushbuckridge

Finite element human body models have in recent years become widely used in the area of vehicle safety evaluations. They make it possible to predict injury risk in specific areas, down to the organ level in the human body. An existing human body model, SAFER HBM includes a rib cage representing an average male. However, humans have a large variability in rib geometry and material properties leading to uncertainties in non-linear phenomena such as rib fracture risk. Hence, it cannot be known if predictions based on an average male representation are applicable to other similar individuals. In simulation studies with the SAFER HBM, rib cortical bone thickness, rib cross-sectional width, and rib cortical bone material properties have been identified as the most influential for the magnitude of rib strains and thus, they have a large influence on the strain-based rib fracture risk. This means that the predicted injury outcome is sensitive to the particular rib properties of an individual, and in a real-world scenario, a distribution of injury outcomes is expected across a population. Knowledge of the injury risk distribution can aid vehicle designers in developing safer vehicles. This distribution can be found through repeated human body model simulations with various rib properties, but due to the lengthy simulation times, this is not feasible. This thesis aims to predict human body model rib strain histories, given variations in the three biomechanical parameters, rib cortical bone thickness, rib cross-section width and rib cortical bone material with the help of graph neural networks (GNNs) for both single and mixed impact scenarios. Several variations of GNNs were used and implemented with help of PyTorch and PyTorch Geometric. An extensive hyperparameter study was performed on a small part of one human body model rib, to find the optimal combinations of hyperparameters and GNNs. The data used in training and evaluation of the networks was generated in LS-DYNA with SAFER HBM v10 and post-processed in Meta post processor. To be able to generate many training examples, the HBM was subjected to a simplified impact scenario consisting of a pendulum impact to the chest. As final verification, the trained GNNs were applied to predict rib strains in a vehicle impact scenario. Evaluation of the GNNs' prediction accuracy on the whole rib cage for all impact scenarios was made by studying the root mean square error along with differences in predicted and actual peak strain, rib fracture risk, time the peak strain occurs and the euclidean distance between the locations within the rib of real and predicted peak strains. The results showed that it is possible to accurately predict strain histories. Further, a multilayer perceptron (MLP) model consistently achieved the lowest errors in all measurements for mixed impacts. However, the trained model produced slightly unexpected errors for test data extracted from vehicle simulations compared to simplified simulations. This is an indication that retraining the model on data from vehicle simulations may be necessary. In conclusion, this thesis has shown the possibility to predict strain histories from a SAFER HBM rib cage extracted from simplified simulations and simulations including the full vehicle model, the SAFER HBM and all safety systems, to investigate the effects of human variability in the rib cage.

The dissertation thesis, Ornament in Nature, Science and Art, deals with the theme of ornaments in contemporary art, design and architecture. Individual chapters are dedicated to exploring nature and science as sources of inspiration for contemporary art. The chapter, Body and Ornament, is about ornaments for the human bodies and patterns created from the form of human bodies. Art creations by the author and her students make up an integral part of the main text. An individual chapter is dedicated to the Bodyornament project. Bodyornament is a project involving artistic, educational and research elements. Its primary body of work took place as an art performance in the Veletržní palace in Prague. Through the active participation of the students, patterns and ornaments made from their bodies were created. The process was documented by means of photography. The photographs together with the students' written reflections about the experience comprise the primary research documents. In this dissertation, these documents were analyzed and interpreted by using a combination of specific forms of qualitative research and art-based research. Our research model was based on three degree reflexive analysis according to Donald Schön. Through interpretation of the research results, thoughts of possible...

Nude through the lens of two male photographers and two female photographers: Jan Saudek, Robert Vano, Tereza of Davle, Michaela Brachtlová Presented diploma thesis deals with display of the female and male nude in photography from the perspective of four selected photographers, which are Jan Saudek, Robert Vano, Tereza of Davle and Michaela Brachtlová. This work is mainly focused on their photographic work, which is primarily focused on this photographic genre.The purpose of this work is to compare and evaluate the similarities and differences in the display of naked male and female body by the lens these men and women. I will focus on the issues of eroticism, vulgarity or influence a sexual orientation to above mentioned artists on their photographic work. The work will contain an interview with these artists and artist.

Autour d'une question fondamentale comme celle de la présence, nous mobilisons une littérature interdisciplinaire grâce à laquelle les contributions de l'anthropologie et de la géographie sociale, de la théorie du théâtre et du cinéma, des performance studies, de la psychanalyse et de la sociologie, sont articulées dans la perspective de la phénoménologie et des sciences de l'information et de la communication. Notre façon d'habiter le monde a changé : l'être-en-ligne se révèle alors comme étant la nouvelle condition existentielle. La connexion au réseau, le web, les applications, dans leur ensemble, disposent les choses et les personnes selon des relations opérationnelles de proximité spatio-temporelle. Notre espace est un espace performatif, car il se produit à partir de nos actions, nos postures et nos gestes, gestes photo-graphiques, éminemment réflexifs, qui créent la mise en scène numérique. En allant au-delà du modèle de « l'interface », cette mise en scène est devenue la spatialité de raccordement de tous nos espaces d'action. Nous identifions alors la performativité du direct et de l’enregistrement, la performativité de l’être en train de…, de l’attention présentielle et du « suspens gestuel », la performativité des algorithmes et des notifications, la performativité des emoji et de tout ce qui «fait visage»; et encore, la performativité des questions et des messages automatiques derrière lesquels parfois il y quelqu’un et d’autres fois il n’y a personne (comme lorsqu’on sonne à la porte dans une scène de La cantatrice chauve). A la lumière d'une analyse socio-sémiotique de la gestuelle numérique, des écrans, du graphisme propre aux réseaux sociaux et aux applications de messagerie instantanée tout comme des « protocoles de la vie quotidienne », nous décrivons la présence comme étant toujours l'effet d'une médiation. Cette médiation est, à la fois, disjonction et fiction, car elle se manifeste dans l'écart et dans la différence aussi bien que dans la fiction de l'hypermédiatété. Il y a de la présence, en somme, s'il y a du jeu, au sens spatiale de l'expression « il y a du jeu » mais aussi au sens fictionnel et ludique du jouer à.…. Comme le garçon du café décrit par Sartre, nous jouons, fictionnons et de-fictionnons le réel, en faisant « comme si » était vrai ce qui, par ailleurs, l'est vraiment. / Around the fundamental question of presence, I draw on interdisciplinary literature whose contributions from the fields of anthropology and social geography, theatre and cinema theory, performance studies, psychoanalysis and sociology are articulated from the perspective of phenomenology and information and communication sciences. Our way of inhabiting the world has changed: online-being is the new fundamental existential condition. Our space is a performative space, because it is produced through our actions, our gestures, eminently reflexive photographic gestures, which create our digital mise en scène. This space has become the space which links together all of our active and social spaces. Here, I single out live and recorded performativity, the performativity of do-ing, the performativity of algorithms and of questions, of emojis and of all that which “fait visage”. After a socio-semiotic analysis of digital gestures, screens, the graphics of social networks and presence protocols, I describe presence as always being a mediation effect. This mediation is at once disjunction and fiction, beacause it works as a difference and as the fiction of hypermediality. Presence exists where there is play (jeu) as in the french expression “il y a du jeu”, refering to space, and in its fictional sense of play-acting. As with Sartre's café waiter, we play act in order to create reality and consciousness through fiction.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Human-looking computer interfaces, including humanoid robots and animated humans, may elicit in their users eerie feelings. This effect, often called the uncanny valley, emphasizes our heightened ability to distinguish between the human and merely humanlike using both perceptual and cognitive approaches. Although reactions to uncanny characters are captured more accurately with emotional descriptors (e.g., eerie and creepy) than with cognitive descriptors (e.g., strange), and although previous studies suggest the psychological processes underlying the uncanny valley are more perceptual and emotional than cognitive, the deep roots of the concept of humanness imply the application of category boundaries and cognitive dissonance in distinguishing among robots, androids, and humans. First, laddering interviews (N = 30) revealed firm boundaries among participants’ concepts of animated, robotic, and human. Participants associated human traits like soul, imperfect, or intended exclusively with humans, and they simultaneously devalued the autonomous accomplishments of robots (e.g., simple task, limited ability, or controlled). Jerky movement and humanlike appearance were associated with robots, even though the presented robotic stimuli were humanlike. The facial expressions perceived in robots as improper were perceived in animated characters as mismatched. Second, association model testing indicated that the independent evaluation based on the developed indices is a viable quantitative technique for the laddering interview. Third, from the interviews several candidate items for the eeriness index were validated in a large representative survey (N = 1,311). The improved eeriness index is nearly orthogonal to perceived humanness (r = .04). The improved indices facilitate plotting relations among rated characters of varying human likeness, enhancing perspectives on humanlike robot design and animation creation.

The range of missions performed by Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) has been steadily growing in the past decades thanks to continued development in several disciplines. The goal of increasing the autonomy of UAS's is widening the range of tasks which can be carried out without, or with minimal, external help. This thesis presents methods for increasing specific aspects of autonomy of UAS's operating both in outdoor and indoor environments where cameras are used as the primary sensors. First, a method for fusing color and thermal images for object detection, geolocation and tracking for UAS's operating primarily outdoors is presented. Specifically, a method for building saliency maps where human body locations are marked as points of interest is described. Such maps can be used in emergency situations to increase the situational awareness of first responders or a robotic system itself. Additionally, the same method is applied to the problem of vehicle tracking. A generated stream of geographical locations of tracked vehicles increases situational awareness by allowing for qualitative reasoning about, for example, vehicles overtaking, entering or leaving crossings. Second, two approaches to the UAS indoor localization problem in the absence of GPS-based positioning are presented. Both use cameras as the main sensors and enable autonomous indoor ight and navigation. The first approach takes advantage of cooperation with a ground robot to provide a UAS with its localization information. The second approach uses marker-based visual pose estimation where all computations are done onboard a small-scale aircraft which additionally increases its autonomy by not relying on external computational power.

In this dissertation, we address the problem of understanding human activities in videos by developing a two-pronged approach: coarse level modeling of scene activities and fine level modeling of individual activities. At the coarse level, where the resolution of the video is low, we rely on person tracks. At the fine level, richer features are available to identify different parts of the human body, therefore we rely on the body joint tracks. There are three main goals of this dissertation: (1) identify unusual activities at the coarse level, (2) recognize different activities at the fine level, and (3) predict the behavior for synthesizing and tracking activities at the fine level. The first goal is addressed by modeling activities at the coarse level through two novel and complementing approaches. The first approach learns the behavior of individuals by capturing the patterns of motion and size of objects in a compact model. Probability density function (pdf) at each pixel is modeled as a multivariate Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM), which is learnt using unsupervised expectation maximization (EM). In contrast, the second approach learns the interaction of object pairs concurrently present in the scene. This can be useful in detecting more complex activities than those modeled by the first approach. We use a 14-dimensional Kernel Density Estimation (KDE) that captures motion and size of concurrently tracked objects. The proposed models have been successfully used to automatically detect activities like unusual person drop-off and pickup, jaywalking, etc. The second and third goals of modeling human activities at the fine level are addressed by employing concepts from theory of chaos and non-linear dynamical systems. We show that the proposed model is useful for recognition and prediction of the underlying dynamics of human activities. We treat the trajectories of human body joints as the observed time series generated from an underlying dynamical system. The observed data is used to reconstruct a phase (or state) space of appropriate dimension by employing the delay-embedding technique. This transformation is performed without assuming an exact model of the underlying dynamics and provides a characteristic representation that will prove to be vital for recognition and prediction tasks. For recognition, properties of phase space are captured in terms of dynamical and metric invariants, which include the Lyapunov exponent, correlation integral, and correlation dimension. A composite feature vector containing these invariants represents the action and will be used for classification. For prediction, kernel regression is used in the phase space to compute predictions with a specified initial condition. This approach has the advantage of modeling dynamics without making any assumptions about the exact form (polynomial, radial basis, etc.) of the mapping function. We demonstrate the utility of these predictions for human activity synthesis and tracking.