Thomas Buckley

Interactive segmentation for manipulation in unstructured environments

To perform successful manipulation, robots depend on information about objects in their environment. In unstructured environments, such information cannot be given to the robot a priori. It is thus critical for the robot to be able to continuously acquire task-specific information about objects. Towards this goal, we present a robust perceptual skill for identifying, tracking, and segmenting objects in a cluttered environment. We increase the robots perceptual capabilities by closely coupling them with the robots manipulation skills. The robots interaction with objects in the environment creates a perceptual signal, i.e. motion, that renders segmentation and tracking robust and reliable. In addition, the resulting perceptual signal reveals the type of segmentation most relevant to manipulation, namely a segmentation of rigidly connected physical bodies. We demonstrate our approach with experiments on a real world mobile manipulation platform with multiple objects in a cluttered scene.

The Material Culture of the Chumash Interaction Sphere. Volume IV: Ceremonial Paraphernalia, Games, and Amusements

Contains a general description of ceremonial painting. The Chumash painted grave markers, canoes, bowls, and other wooden objects. Ritual connected with the winter solstice seems to have been the purpose for painting rock art. A tradition of ground painting also existed although there are no surviving examples for obvious reasons. Gives examples of movable painted rocks and pebbles.

Yurok speech registers and ontology

Aspects of the precontact ontology of the Yurok Indians of northwestern California may be explored through analysis of lexical and semantic shifts that occur between two speech registers in Yurok: “ordinary” speech and an auxiliary. “high,” or esoteric, speech style. In the “high” register, use of which was the prerogative of a social and spiritual elite, a variety of mechanisms are implemented in altering “ordinary” lexation and in attributing different meanings to parts of the “ordinary” lexicon. These include circumlocution, antonymy, attribution, and, most significantly, the shifting of referential focus. Semantic shifts are systematic within specifiable lexical sets and implicitly comprise subtle ontological exegeses. (Ritual languages, speech registers, translation, world view, Native North America)