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This chapter presents a novel human arm gesture tracking and recognition technique based on fuzzy logic and nonlinear Kalman filtering with applications in crane guidance. A Kinect visual sensor and a Myo armband sensor are jointly utilised to perform data fusion to provide more accurate and reliable information on Euler angles, angular velocity, linear acceleration and electromyography data in real time. Dynamic equations for arm gesture movement are formulated with Newton–Euler equations based on Denavit–Hartenberg parameters. Nonlinear Kalman filtering techniques, including the extended Kalman filter and the unscented Kalman filter, are applied in order to perform reliable sensor fusion, and their tracking accuracies are compared. A Sugeno-type fuzzy inference system is proposed for arm gesture recognition. Hardware experiments have shown the efficacy of the proposed method for crane guidance applications.

Nearly every monograph and textbook that discusses the work of G. H. Mead considers the “game” as one of the important concepts with which he worked. Wittgenstein in his work too used the concept of game to illustrate his claim that the meaning of a word is its place in a language-game which is a “form of life.”

Few organisations exhibit the importance of physicality in leadership as explicitly as the symphony orchestra. While usually attributed to the direction of the conductor my own experience suggests that leading in orchestral performance is grounded in physical relations between individuals and among instrumental groups across the orchestra as much as in the interaction between musicians and maestro. In order to further interrogate this experience while enhancing our understanding of onstage relations among orchestral musicians, I recently undertook research that employed an autoethnographic methodology underpinned by the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty (2002, 2004) and the sense-making ideas of Weick (1995, 2001a). Using this method while drawing on ideas such as kinaesthetic empathy (Pallaro, 1995; Parviainen, 2002), the picture presented in what follows is one of leadership embedded in physical interaction among colleagues.

This interaction is, I suggest, based on sense-making and sense-giving activity that occurs in a ‘kinaesthetic loop’ that draws on and is generated by auditory, visual and gestural information given and received by individual musicians. This activity in turn mediates the acoustic space between musicians and thus, ultimately, determines how leadership and coordination in the orchestra are constituted. Rather than being disembodied products of dictatorial direction dispensed through the orchestra’s hierarchy, orchestral performance and leadership emerge in this more nuanced account as co-creative processes in which all the musicians on stage share responsibility.

In this chapter, I re-frame leading in organizing as teaching and identify physical movement as a core mechanism through which leaders are sensitive and responsive to the progress of their group’s learning. To demonstrate this, I analyze interview data with choral and orchestral conductors in terms of Sheets-Johnstone’s (1999/2011) four qualities of movement: tension, linearity, amplitude, and projection. These four qualities serve as a grammar or set of basic categories to better understand how and why leaders move in certain ways in relation to their followers, for the sake of the latter’s learning and the collective ability to accomplish organizational goals. The ability to categorize conductors’ physical movements and the movement of the ensemble’s learning can help practitioners and scholars to assess the congruence between the two. With this grammar in hand, leaders can better assess and articulate what kinds of movements can be performed when, in order to guide the progress of their group’s collective learning.

Two basic theses of G. H. Meads social psychology are: (1) Using gestures that influence sender and receiver in similar ways contains a reinforcing effect for both. (2) Under specific circumstances they also create new psychic domains, for example, consciousness of meaning, object, and the Self. The elementary levels of these processes are studied in social psychology, infant psychology, and lately in neuroscience.

One arena for studying these processes in adults is dancing, where spontaneity, emotionality, childish physical identification processes, and trajectories of the Self can coexist with cognitive planning and social regulation. I interpret this in a session of “Lunch Beat,” analyzing a layman interview on dancing during lunch break. The arena includes the differences between work obligations and the temporary freedom under lunch. One point is the creativity that may grow in the abrupt meeting of work demands and free physical sociality in dancing.

Interpretations conclude that participants’ experiences are: (1) energy production, (2) experiencing the world outside of “the box,” (3) expanding by denying “musts” for an hour, (4) meeting new people in both Others and Self, (5) creativity in changing arena from work to free time, and (6) meeting the not expected.

All interpretations are drawn back to basic theses in Mead.

Purpose – This chapter demonstrates the social organization practices evident in early childhood disputes in order to promote a greater understanding of the role of non-verbal, embodied actions within the dispute process. In doing so, this chapter offers insight into children's co-construction of disputes and has practical implications for early childhood teachers.

Methodology – Ethnomethodology (EM), conversation analysis (CA) and membership categorization analysis (MCA) are applied to the current study of children's disputes in order to offer insight into the sequences of social organization processes evident in children's disagreements.

Findings – This chapter presents a detailed analysis of the everyday disputes which four-year-old children engage in during their morning playtime at a primary school in Wales, UK. It reveals the children's use of physical gestures to support their verbal actions in order to maximize intersubjectivity between the participants. This joint understanding was necessary during the social organization process.

Practical implications – Managing children's physical disputes within an educational context is recognized as a very difficult aspect of a teacher's routine as the timing and level of intervention are so subjective (Bateman, 2011a). This chapter offers insight into the organization of physical disputes between young children, and so enables teachers to make an informed decision in their practice.