Real Time Animation of Virtual Humans: A Trade-off Between Naturalness and Control

Virtual humans are employed in many interactive applications using 3D virtual environments, including (serious) games. The motion of such virtual humans should look realistic (or ‘natural’) and allow interaction with the surroundings and other (virtual) humans. Current animation techniques differ in the trade-off they offer between motion naturalness and the control that can be exerted over the motion. We show mechanisms to parametrize, combine (on different body parts) and concatenate motions generated by different animation techniques. We discuss several aspects of motion naturalness and show how it can be evaluated. We conclude by showing the promise of combinations of different animation paradigms to enhance both naturalness and control

Engineering biocomputers in mammalian cells

Endowing cells with enhanced decision-making capacities is essential for creating smarter therapeutics and for dissecting phenotypes. Implementation of synthetic gene circuits affords a means for enhanced cellular control and genetic processing; however, genetic circuits for mammalian cells often require extensive fine-tuning to perform as intended. Here, a robust, general, and scalable system, called 'Boolean logic and arithmetic through DNA excision' (BLADE) is presented that is used to engineer genetic circuits with multiple inputs and outputs in mammalian cells with minimal optimization. The reliability of BLADE arises from its reliance on site-specific recombinases that regulate genes under the control of a single promoter that integrates circuit signals on a single transcriptional layer. Using BLADE, >100 circuits were tested in human embryonic kidney and Jurkat T cells and a quantitative metric was used to evaluate their performance. The circuits include a 3-input, two-output full adder; a 6-input, one-output Boolean logic look-up table; and circuits that incorporate CRISPR–Cas9 to regulate endogenous genes. Moreover, a large library of over 15 small-molecule, light and temperature-inducible recombinases has been established for fine-tuned control. BLADE enables execution of sophisticated cellular computation in mammalian cells, with applications in cell and tissue engineering

Stimulating Personal Development and Knowledge Sharing

Koper, R., Stefanov, K., & Dicheva, D. (Eds.) (2009). Proceedings of the 5th International TENCompetence Open Workshop "Stimulating Personal Development and Knowledge Sharing". October, 30-31, 2008, Sofia, Bulgaria: TENCompetence Workshop.The fifth open workshop of the TENCompetence project took place in Sofia, Bulgaria, from 30th to 31st October 2008. These proceedings contain the papers that were accepted for publication by the Program Committee.The work on this publication has been sponsored by the TENCompetence Integrated Project that is funded by the European Commission's 6th Framework Programme, priority IST/Technology Enhanced Learning. Contract 027087 [http://www.tencompetence.org