INTERFACE is an integrated software implemented in Matlab© and created to speed-up the procedure for building an emotive/expressive talking head. Various processing tools, working on dynamic articulatory data physically extracted by an optotracking 3D movement analyzer called ELITE, were implemented to build the animation engine and also to create the correct WAV and FAP files needed for the an...

After years of strict bans on the media, local radio in post-Taliban Afghanistan is undergoing an intense period of reconstruction. This thesis uses a multi-sited ethnographic investigation to examine local Afghan radio's various relationships with women in Afghanistan. In examining both the production and consumption contexts of local radio, it pinpoints areas of disjuncture that can and do le...

Is the Norwegian welfare state model under pressure? In this article we argue that this model will persist to the extent that there is a relatively strong consensus among the majority of the national elites to support it. The empirical results presented indicate that the majority of the Norwegian elites at the time of the study (2000) supported the basic institutions and policies in the model a...

This paper has two main goals. First, it illuminates continuities between the ideas of “true Romanian-ness” as held by both the Romanian cultural elite and the Romanian political regimes in the interwar and communist periods. A manufactured definition of a “true” Romanian—as a Romanian Orthodox Christian, natively Romanian-speaking, and ethnically Romanian—formed the core of Romanian nationalis...

The aim of this paper is to present and critically discuss the long journey of the enterprise of culture from the modernist condition of “high culture” (or “elite culture”) to the contemporary postmodernist (?) condition of “popular culture” (or “mass culture”). It will particularly seek to illustrate and assess the nature, role and implications of the various “modes of reading and interpreting...

This article demonstrates that socioeconomic development, emancipative cultural change and democratization constitute a coherent syndrome of social progress – a syndrome whose common focus has not been properly specified by classical modernization theory. We specify this syndrome as ‘human development’, arguing that its three components have a common focus on broadening human choice. Socioecono...

PURPOSE This case study explores the lived experiences of an elite female Paralympic powerlifting athlete. The focus is on restrictions and coping responses employed to manage the daily hassles within the cultural and ethnic requirements for achieving athletic excellence. METHODS With an unstructured interview, the narrative was acquired which ranged to a total of 75 minutes (approx) and 20 s...

Type 2 diabetes mellitus is an escalating public health problem in India, associated with genetic susceptibility, dietary shift, and rapid lifestyle changes. Historically a disease of the urban elite, quantitative studies have recently confirmed rising prevalence rates among marginalized populations in rural India. To analyze the role of cultural and sociopolitical factors in diabetes onset and...

LUCIA, a new Italian talking head based on a modified version of the Cohen-Massaro’s labial coarticulation model is described. A semi-automatic minimization technique, working on real cinematic data, acquired by the ELITE optoelectronic system, was used to train the dynamic characteristics of the model. LUCIA is an MPEG-4 standard facial animation system working on standard FAP visual parameter...