[huml-comment] Re: more on gait: (was: Fwd: gait characterizationresearch Re: walk)

[James Landrum <james.landrum@ndsu.nodak.edu>]

see also

Gait and Communication; Gait as a Signal
http://evolution.anthro.univie.ac.at/institutes/urbanethology/gait.html

another BBC article on hominid gait (dated January 31,2003)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2709797.stm

U. Liverpool, UK, Research Intelligence: A walk on the wild side
http://www.liv.ac.uk/researchintelligence/issue9/a.html

and one on determinants of gait:
http://www.goanimal.com/movement/theory/gait_deter/

James Landrum wrote:

> I reviewed article, and discovered most links to researchers web sites 
> were broken, and among other things, the BBC news goofed on name of 
> Southampton researcher, (Mark Nixon, not Mark Dixon) so I checked the 
> institutions' web sites and found the following:.
> Main researchers are
> Aaron Bobick, Georgia Tech;  http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~afb/
> Gait Research at ISIS, U. of Southampton; 
> http://www.isis.ecs.soton.ac.uk/image/gait/
> Also, not so long ago, there was a TV documentary on "walking with 
> Prehistoric Beasts, including a short segment on animation of hominids 
> walking, based on fossil skeletal evidence of australopithecines,  
> homo habilis, homo erectus, and that research was also conducted in 
> UK,but I don't recall specifics at this time.  lots of other gait 
> research underway at various institutions, just type in following 
> keywords, hominid and gait in any search engine.
>
> Rex Brooks wrote:
>
>> I thought I would pass this tidbit along.
>>
>> Ciao,
>> Rex
>>
>>> Date: Sun, 02 Feb 2003 19:54:08 -0700
>>> From: "cognite@zianet.com" <cognite@zianet.com>
>>> X-Accept-Language: en-us, en
>>> To: "L. Reafsnyder" <budoka42@mindspring.com>,  rexb@starbourne.com
>>> Subject: gait characterization research Re: walk
>>> X-Rcpt-To: <rexb@starbourne.com>
>>> X-DPOP: Version number supressed
>>> Status: U
>>>
>>> some tracking down of this research might be relevant to the HuML 
>>> work. The researchers involved aren't named in this, but it looks 
>>> related to the Native Dancer material perhaps.
>>> SC
>>>
>>> received:
>>>
>>>> Saturday, 1 February, 2003, 09:24 GMT
>>>> Walk offers clues to identity
>>>>   Everyone walks in their distinctive way
>>>>  A new technique of personal identification
>>>>  is being developed that uses something as simple as the way you 
>>>> walk to work out who you are, as BBC World ClickOnline's Andrew 
>>>> Webb reports.
>>>>   Each and every one of us has our own distinctive way of walking, 
>>>> called our gait. Many of us share general characteristics, but 
>>>> physical differences make a difference in the way we move.
>>>>  Because they have wider pelvises, women sway their hips more than 
>>>> men.
>>>>  And people from one country can have a different gait to those in 
>>>> another.
>>>>  What is of particular interest to scientists is trying to make a 
>>>> computer do what we all do instinctively - know within a split 
>>>> second that the lolloping or swaggering figure coming towards us is 
>>>> a close relative, a complete stranger, or one of our best friends.
>>>>  Researchers at Georgia Tech in the US city of Atlanta are trying 
>>>> to teach computers to record the precise way we move.
>>>>  Checking identities
>>>>  Volunteers walk through a studio while wearing metallic disks. A 
>>>> computer monitors the position of each disk and builds up a digital 
>>>> picture of the person's gait.
>>>>   Person's walk broken down into a computer image
>>>> When the computer analyses film shot in a different location, it 
>>>> identifies the volunteer as being the same person.
>>>>  "Right now we're at the stage of verification," said Professor 
>>>> Aaron Bobick, associate professor of computational vision at 
>>>> Georgia Tech.
>>>>  "If somebody comes in with an ID that says that's John, and then I 
>>>> see this person walking around outside can the computer tell that 
>>>> it really is John? The current performance levels are getting us 
>>>> close to being able to do that pretty well."
>>>>  The security industry is interested in the technology as a way of 
>>>> picking a criminal out in a crowd.
>>>>  The real challenge for scientists is to be able to recognise 
>>>> someone's gait out in the real world.
>>>>  Lines of symmetry
>>>>  At the University of Southampton in England, gait aficionados 
>>>> believe they are cracking that problem.
>>>>  So we put them to the test. The first step was to generate a 
>>>> computer image of me walking through their lab.
>>>>  Mark Dixon of Southampton University explained: "We film as you 
>>>> walk and then we bung the film into computers.
>>>>  "These then pull out a series of numbers, and each time you walk 
>>>> past the camera you should get the same set of numbers.
>>>>  "A different person walks past and they produce a different set of 
>>>> numbers. We then recognise you by that set of numbers," he said.
>>>>  Each person's walk is broken down into a computer image marking 
>>>> out lines of symmetry as the body moves.
>>>>  Gait monitoring
>>>>  The technique has only become possible in recent years as the 
>>>> power of microprocessors has accelerated.
>>>>  The question is whether the 7,000 gigabyte memory bank can tell me 
>>>> apart from everyone else it has stored.
>>>>  In a bustling street the computer has difficulty separating me 
>>>> from all the other movement, but when I am the only person in shot 
>>>> there is no problem.
>>>>  Another way to confuse the computer is to radically alter my walk. 
>>>> The lines of symmetry generated are so different to my normal walk 
>>>> that the computer is unable to recognise me.
>>>>  If gait technology ever catches on as a security weapon could it 
>>>> be that criminals start looking for inventive ways to avoid being 
>>>> recognised?
>>>>  Perhaps adopting someone else's walk will become the ideal way of 
>>>> foxing tomorrow's gait monitoring police.
>>>>  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2712995.stm
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>

-- 
From the Desk of James E. Landrum III
Database Manager
Archaeology Technologies Laboratory (ATL; http://atl.ndsu.edu)
Digital Archive Network for Anthropology (DANA; http://atl.ndsu.edu/archive)
North Dakota State University, Fargo, North Dakota 58105
Ph: 701-231-7115 (my desk) and ATL 701-231-6434
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email: james.landrum@ndsu.nodak.edu