Automatic modeling of virtual humans and body clothing

Highly realistic virtual human models are rapidly becoming commonplace in computer graphics. These models, often represented by complex shape and requiring labor-intensive process, challenge the problem of automatic modeling. The problem and solutions to automatic modeling of animatable virtual humans are studied. Methods for capturing the shape of real people, parameterization techniques for modeling static shape (the variety of human body shapes) and dynamic shape (how the body shape changes as it moves) of virtual humans are classified, summarized and compared. Finally, methods for clothed virtual humans are reviewe

A Systems Approach to Dissecting the Role of the Mucosal Microbiome in Disease

The microbial community harbored by the mammalian gastrointestinal tract, collectively called the gut microbiota, plays a critical role in host health, metabolism, and immunity. Quantifiable changes in the gut microbiota have been implicated in a myriad of pathologies, including autoimmune, metabolic, and neurodegenerative diseases. Because of the gut microbiota’s plasticity, manipulating this community for therapeutic benefit presents as a novel strategy to combat modern diseases. Yet, only a fraction of the total microbial diversity that exists within the gut has been successfully cultured in a laboratory, leaving the clinical implications and functional attributes of many gut microbes undetermined. To address this issue, studies in this dissertation focused on bioinformatically investigating (i) the role of dietary and genetic factors on the gut microbiota in metabolic syndrome and (ii) the anatomic niche and immunomodulating antigens of the culture-resistant commensal, Segmented Filamentous Bacteria (SFB). Comprehensive characterization of the cecal microbial community in normal and metabolic syndrome-susceptible mice revealed that dietary factors overshadow the effects of host genetics and are determinist of the microbial patterns that emerge in metabolically healthy or diseased hosts. Moreover, we identified a microbial community proximal to the Peyer’s Patches that was phylogenetically distinct from the cecum. Through a multi-omics approach, we show that independent of mouse genetics, vendor, age, or gender, SFB are highly abundant in the Peyer’s Patches mucosa. Our in silico antigen prediction analyses identified thirty-five potential antigens within the reference proteome of SFB. Shotgun proteomics of the murine ileal mucosa confirmed the in situ presence of several potential antigens expressed by SFB, of which included multiple flagellar proteins. To experimentally valid bioinformatically-inferred antigen targets, we developed a collection of broad-host bacterial vectors to enable microbial products of interest to be precisely expressed in vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo. Collectively, our studies reveal important findings about the mechanisms by which (i) exogenous factors modulate the gut microbiota and (ii) an endogenous microbe modulates the host immune system and provides a novel molecular platform by which microbial products of interest can be causally investigated in polymicrobial communities

Easy Rigging of Face by Automatic Registration and Transfer of Skinning Parameters

International audiencePreparing a facial mesh to be animated requires a laborious manualrigging process. The rig specifies how the input animation datadeforms the surface and allows artists to manipulate a character.We present a method that automatically rigs a facial mesh based onRadial Basis Functions and linear blend skinning approach.Our approach transfers the skinning parameters (feature points andtheir envelopes, ie. point-vertex weights),of a reference facial mesh (source) - already rigged - tothe chosen facial mesh (target) by computing an automaticregistration between the two meshes.There is no need to manually mark the correspondence between thesource and target mesh.As a result, inexperienced artists can automatically rig facial meshes and startright away animating their 3D characters, driven for instanceby motion capture data

Evolution of AANAT: expansion of the gene family in the cephalochordate amphioxus

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The arylalkylamine <it>N</it>-acetyltransferase (AANAT) family is divided into structurally distinct vertebrate and non-vertebrate groups. Expression of vertebrate AANATs is limited primarily to the pineal gland and retina, where it plays a role in controlling the circadian rhythm in melatonin synthesis. Based on the role melatonin plays in biological timing, AANAT has been given the moniker "the Timezyme". Non-vertebrate AANATs, which occur in fungi and protists, are thought to play a role in detoxification and are not known to be associated with a specific tissue.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We have found that the amphioxus genome contains seven <it>AANAT</it>s, all having non-vertebrate type features. This and the absence of <it>AANATs </it>from the genomes of Hemichordates and Urochordates support the view that a major transition in the evolution of the <it>AANATs </it>may have occurred at the onset of vertebrate evolution. Analysis of the expression pattern of the two most structurally divergent <it>AANAT</it>s in <it>Branchiostoma lanceolatum </it>(<it>bl</it>) revealed that they are expressed early in development and also in the adult at low levels throughout the body, possibly associated with the neural tube. Expression is clearly not exclusively associated with the proposed analogs of the pineal gland and retina. blAANAT activity is influenced by environmental lighting, but light/dark differences do not persist under constant light or constant dark conditions, indicating they are not circadian in nature. bfAANATα and bfAANATδ' have unusually alkaline (> 9.0) optimal pH, more than two pH units higher than that of vertebrate AANATs.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The substrate selectivity profiles of bfAANATα and δ' are relatively broad, including alkylamines, arylalkylamines and diamines, in contrast to vertebrate forms, which selectively acetylate serotonin and other arylalkylamines. Based on these features, it appears that amphioxus AANATs could play several roles, including detoxification and biogenic amine inactivation. The presence of seven AANATs in amphioxus genome supports the view that arylalkylamine and polyamine acetylation is important to the biology of this organism and that these genes evolved in response to specific pressures related to requirements for amine acetylation.</p

Statistical Shape Spaces for 3D Data: A Review

International audienceMethods and systems for capturing 3D geometry are becoming increasingly commonplace–and with them a plethora of 3D data. Much of this data is unfortunately corrupted by noise, missing data, occlusions or other outliers. However, when we are interested in the shape of a particular class of objects, such as human faces or bodies, we can use machine learning techniques, applied to clean, registered databases of these shapes, to make sense of raw 3D point clouds or other data. This has applications ranging from virtual change rooms to motion and gait analysis to surgical planning depending on the type of shape. In this chapter, we give an overview of these techniques, a brief review of the literature, and comparative evaluation of two such shape spaces for human faces

Semi Automatic Segmentation of a Rat Brain Atlas

A common approach to segment an MRI dataset is to use a standard atlas to identify different regions of interest. Existing 2D atlases, prepared by freehand tracings of templates, are seldom complete for 3D volume segmentation. Although many of these atlases are prepared in graphics packages like Adobe Illustrator® (AI), which present the geometrical entities based on their mathematical description, the drawings are not numerically robust. This work presents an automatic conversion of graphical atlases suitable for further usage such as creation of a segmented 3D numerical atlas. The system begins with DXF (Drawing Exchange Format) files of individual atlas drawings. The drawing entities are mostly in cubic spline format. Each segment of the spline is reduced to polylines, which reduces the complexity of data. The system merges overlapping nodes and polylines to make the database of the drawing numerically integrated, i.e. each location within the drawing is referred by only one point, each line is uniquely defined by only two nodes, etc. Numerous integrity diagnostics are performed to eliminate duplicate or overlapping lines, extraneous markers, open-ended loops, etc. Numerically intact closed loops are formed using atlas labels as seed points. These loops specify the boundary and tissue type for each area. The final results preserve the original atlas with its 1272 different neuroanatomical regions which are complete, non-overlapping, contiguous sub-areas whose boundaries are composed of unique polyline