Loca Motion

In Loca Motion, Michelle Habell-Pall argues that performances like Diva L.A. play a vital role in shaping and understanding contemporary transnational social dynamics.

2006 Honorable Mention for MLA Prize in US Latina and Latino and Chicana and Chicano Literary and Cultural Studies In the summer of 1995, El Vez, the “Mexican Elvis,“along with his backup singers and band, The Lovely Elvettes and the Memphis Mariachis, served as master of ceremony for a ground-breaking show, “Diva L.A.: A Salute to L.A.’s Latinas in the Tanda Style.” The performances were remarkable not only for the talent displayed, but for their blend of linguistic, musical, and cultural traditions. In Loca Motion, Michelle Habell-Pallán argues that performances like Diva L.A. play a vital role in shaping and understanding contemporary transnational social dynamics. Chicano/a and Latino/a popular culture, including spoken word, performance art, comedy, theater, and punk music aesthetics, is central to developing cultural forms and identities that reach across and beyond the Americas, from Mexico City to Vancouver to Berlin. Drawing on the lives and work of a diverse group of artists,Habell-Pallán explores new perspectives that defy both traditional forms of Latino cultural nationalism and the expectations of U.S. culture. The result is a sophisticated rethinking of identity politics and an invaluable lens from which to view the complex dynamics of race, class, gender, and sexuality.

This monograph discusses the existence and regularity properties of local times associated to a continuous semimartingale, as well as excursion theory for Brownian paths. Realizations of Brownian excursion processes may be translated in terms of the realizations of a Wiener process under certain conditions. With this aim in mind, the monograph presents applications to topics which are not usually treated with the same tools, e.g.: arc sine law, laws of functionals of Brownian motion, and the Feynman-Kac formula.

Although it is now possible to integrate many millions of transistors on a single chip, traditional digital circuit technology is now reaching its limits, facing problems of cost and technical efficiency when scaled down to ever-smaller feature sizes. The analysis of biological neural systems, especially for visual processing, has allowed engineers to better understand how complex networks can effectively process large amounts of information, whilst dealing with difficult computational challenges. Analog and parallel processing are key characteristics of biological neural networks. Analog VLSI circuits using the same features can therefore be developed to emulate brain-style processing. Using standard CMOS technology, they can be cheaply manufactured, permitting efficient industrial and consumer applications in robotics and mobile electronics. This book explores the theory, design and implementation of analog VLSI circuits, inspired by visual motion processing in biological neural networks. Using a novel approach pioneered by the author himself, Stocker explains in detail the construction of a series of electronic chips, providing the reader with a valuable practical insight into the technology. Analog VLSI Circuits for the Perception of Visual Motion: analyses the computational problems in visual motion perception; examines the issue of optimization in analog networks through high level processes such as motion segmentation and selective attention; demonstrates network implementation in analog VLSI CMOS technology to provide computationally efficient devices; sets out measurements of final hardware implementation; illustrates the similarities of the presented circuits with the human visual motion perception system; includes an accompanying website with video clips of circuits under real-time visual conditions and additional supplementary material. With a complete review of all existing neuromorphic analog VLSI systems for visual motion sensing, Analog VLSI Circuits for the Perception of Visual Motion is a unique reference for advanced students in electrical engineering, artificial intelligence, robotics and computational neuroscience. It will also be useful for researchers, professionals, and electronics engineers working in the field.

In six parts, this book considers the extent to which computational, neural, and ecological constraints have shaped the mechanisms underlying motion vision: - Early Motion Vision - Motion Signals for Local and Global Analysis - Optical Flow Patterns - Motion Vision in Action - Neural Coding of Motion - Motion in Natural Environments Each topic is introduced by a keynote chapter which is accompanied by several companion articles. Written by an international group of experts in neurobiology, psychophysics, animal behaviour, machine vision, and robotics, the book is designed to explore as comprehensively as possible the present state of knowledge concerning the principal factors that have guided the evolution of motion vision.