Scientists, I once heard, have an easier time of it than composers and artists. In a ‘‘new’’ field, such as molecular biology, anything that happened more than three weeks ago is ancient history (as Sidney Brenner once said). We bold scientific searchers, like born agains, rise each morning to fashion a new world, with our own discoveries in the form of facts, lots of them (check out the length...

This paper presents an implemented system, called LEONARD, that classifies simple spatial motion events, such as pick up and put down, from video input. Unlike previous systems that classify events based on their motion profile, LEONARD uses changes in the state of force-dynamic relations, such as support, contact, and attachment, to distinguish between event types. This paper presents an overv...