CA-GAN: Weakly Supervised Color Aware GAN for Controllable Makeup Transfer

While existing makeup style transfer models perform an image synthesis whose results cannot be explicitly controlled, the ability to modify makeup color continuously is a desirable property for virtual try-on applications. We propose a new formulation for the makeup style transfer task, with the objective to learn a color controllable makeup style synthesis. We introduce CA-GAN, a generative model that learns to modify the color of specific objects (e.g. lips or eyes) in the image to an arbitrary target color while preserving background. Since color labels are rare and costly to acquire, our method leverages weakly supervised learning for conditional GANs. This enables to learn a controllable synthesis of complex objects, and only requires a weak proxy of the image attribute that we desire to modify. Finally, we present for the first time a quantitative analysis of makeup style transfer and color control performance

Effect of Surface Treatments on the Nanomechanical Properties of Human Hair.

The structural properties of hair are largely determined by the state of the surface. Advanced imaging modes of atomic force microscopy, where the surface mechanics can be correlated with surface topography, have been used to spatially map variations in hair surfaces following chemical and mechanical treatments. Through analysis of multilayered data obtained in this way, we show that the processes of bleaching and combing of hair not only alter the surface roughness, but also alter the mechanical stiffness, adhesion properties, and surface potential of hair, in terms of the mean values and their distributions. These treatments are shown to have a significant effect on the nanoscale surface properties, consistent with what has previously been observed at the macroscopic fiber-level scale.Unileve

An instrument for high-throughput measurements of fiber mechanical properties

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2005.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 173-177).In this thesis, an instrument is designed and constructed for the purpose of measuring the mechanical properties of single fibers. The instrument is intended to provide high throughput measurement of single fiber geometric properties, tensile properties, elastic properties, surface roughness properties, friction properties, bending properties, and torsion properties. The instrument is capable of performing all of these mechanical measurements automatically on a large number of sample fibers which are stored in the instrument during testing.by Grant William Kristofek.S.M

Innovation in cosmetics - innovative makeup products: efficacy and safety

Trabalho Final de Mestrado Integrado, Ciências Farmacêuticas, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Farmácia, 2017Unlike other industries that remain largely constant, the Cosmetics Industry is continuously changing. New products are created for hair, skin, makeup and personal care on a regular basis in order to meet the consumers’ needs and expectations. Cosmetic products have a lot to live up to these days, not only do they have to be innovative but also be effective and safe for the consumers and the environment. This dissertation presents the several types of innovation within the makeup branch of the cosmetics industry. Innovation can be done by adding new or improved ingredients to a formulation, making it different because of its properties; by changing the formulation itself, creating a product different from every other on the market, safer and easier to apply or use; by innovating the packaging, which is also becoming a huge trend because consumers are more demanding of unique, unusual and original packages that match their personality. Technology also takes a big part in the cosmetics industry, helping to develop products closer to the consumer needs and creating new connections and experiences between consumers and products. On a different level, cosmetics companies’ mentalities are also changing. Not only consumers are becoming more responsible and aware about environmental, ethical and social issues but they demand for the industry to share their concerns and evolve in a more conscious way. Innovation, at this pace, leads to the fast growth of the cosmetics industry. Investing in the development of a new product leads to a more complete, and varied market that provides a bigger, more effective and safer selection of products available to better suit the fast-changing consumer needs.Contrariamente a outras industrias que se mantem relativamente constantes, a industria cosmética está em constante mudança e renovação. Novos produtos cosméticos são constantemente introduzidos no mercado de forma a satisfazer as necessidades e as espectativas, cada vez mais exigentes e desafiantes, dos consumidores, tornando-o assim um dos mercados mais competitivo e com maior ritmo de inovação. Os produtos cosméticos e em particular o sector da maquilhagem é desafiado, cada vez mais, de forma a desenvolver produtos que para além de eficazes, sejam também seguros para os consumidores e para o ambiente, bem como desenvolvidos e produzidos em conformidade com os valores dos consumidores e da sociedade atual. Existem diversas formas de inovar no sector da cosmética, sendo uma delas ao nível dos ingredientes que constituem a formulação. Desta forma, podem ser adicionados ingrediente novos, nunca usados em contexto cosmético, e cujas propriedades revolucionam o método de atuação do produto; ou simplesmente a combinação de diversos ingredientes nunca antes conjugados que aliados conferem à formulação novas ou modificadas propriedades, consideradas disruptivas e superiores em relação aos restantes produtos disponíveis no mercado. Outra forma de inovar consiste em alterar o próprio tipo de formulação de forma a criar um produto completamente diferente. A aplicação de um tipo de formulação num contexto ou produto diferente do que é comum, com as devidas adaptações às novas funções e local de aplicação, é uma forma de inovação a este nível. Ao nível da embalagem do produto a inovação, criatividade e diferenciação tem ganho grande relevância entre os consumidores. A forma como o produto é armazenado e a sua embalagem, transmitem muito mais do que apenas integridade e proteção, criam também um posicionamento e transmitem uma mensagem, influenciado a forma como o produto é percecionado e desenvolvendo uma imagem de marca facilmente reconhecida pelos consumidores. A tecnologia é parte intrínseca da vida em sociedade e não é exceção no que concerne o desenvolvimento de produtos cosméticos. Não só torna o processo de investigação, fabrico e armazenagem mais rápido e eficiente como contribui para a produção de produtos cada vez mais eficazes, seguros e adaptados às necessidades mais especificas dos consumidores. Relativamente à mentalidade e aos valores da industria cosmética e das suas marcas constituintes, estes têm também sofrido alterações de forma a inovar e se adaptarem às regras de ética, sustentabilidade ecológica e responsabilidade social que vigoram na sociedade atual. As novas gerações de consumidores são cada vez mais responsáveis e conscientes acerca de questões ambientais, éticas e sociais, exigindo que a indústria compartilhe destas mesmas preocupações e altere os seus valores de forma a que estes se harmonizarem com os seus. Desta forma, o ritmo de inovação da industria cosmética leva ao seu rápido crescimento e desenvolvimento, tornando-a assim uma das mais dinâmicas e inovadoras do mercado. Cada novo produto desenvolvido ou aperfeiçoado contribui para um mercado mais completo e diversificado que oferece uma maior seleção de produtos mais eficazes, seguros e em maior conformidade com as necessidades e valores dos consumidores, contribuindo assim para a harmonização da relação industria – produto – consumidor

Analysis and Construction of Engaging Facial Forms and Expressions: Interdisciplinary Approaches from Art, Anatomy, Engineering, Cultural Studies, and Psychology

The topic of this dissertation is the anatomical, psychological, and cultural examination of a human face in order to effectively construct an anatomy-driven 3D virtual face customization and action model. In order to gain a broad perspective of all aspects of a face, theories and methodology from the fields of art, engineering, anatomy, psychology, and cultural studies have been analyzed and implemented. The computer generated facial customization and action model were designed based on the collected data. Using this customization system, culturally-specific attractive face in Korean popular culture, “kot-mi-nam (flower-like beautiful guy),” was modeled and analyzed as a case study. The “kot-mi-nam” phenomenon is overviewed in textual, visual, and contextual aspects, which reveals the gender- and sexuality-fluidity of its masculinity. The analysis and the actual development of the model organically co-construct each other requiring an interwoven process. Chapter 1 introduces anatomical studies of a human face, psychological theories of face recognition and an attractive face, and state-of-the-art face construction projects in the various fields. Chapter 2 and 3 present the Bezier curve-based 3D facial customization (BCFC) and Multi-layered Facial Action Model (MFAF) based on the analysis of human anatomy, to achieve a cost-effective yet realistic quality of facial animation without using 3D scanned data. In the experiments, results for the facial customization for gender, race, fat, and age showed that BCFC achieved enhanced performance of 25.20% compared to existing program Facegen , and 44.12% compared to Facial Studio. The experimental results also proved the realistic quality and effectiveness of MFAM compared with blend shape technique by enhancing 2.87% and 0.03% of facial area for happiness and anger expressions per second, respectively. In Chapter 4, according to the analysis based on BCFC, the 3D face of an average kot-mi-nam is close to gender neutral (male: 50.38%, female: 49.62%), and Caucasian (66.42-66.40%). Culturally-specific images can be misinterpreted in different cultures, due to their different languages, histories, and contexts. This research demonstrates that facial images can be affected by the cultural tastes of the makers and can also be interpreted differently by viewers in different cultures

Intertextuality and Iconography in Sergei Iukhimov\u27s Illustrations for The Lord of the Rings: Five Case Studies

Intertextuality and Iconography in Sergei Iukhimov’s Illustrations for The Lord of the Rings: Five Case Studies Abstract J.R.R. Tolkien once remarked in a letter to his publisher that his friends had been so impressed by Pauline Baynes’ illustrations for Farmer Giles of Ham that they labelled his text a “commentary on the drawings”. This apparently light-hearted anecdote conceals an interesting truth: the relationship between text and image can be problematic and the reading of an illustration depends largely on the culturally acquired discursive precedents which an individual viewer brings to the act of looking. This situation may be further complicated when account is taken of any incidences of visual borrowing present within an illustration. The primary purpose of this article therefore is to identify and evaluate such incidences of visual borrowing and, by extension, intertextual meaning in five of Sergei Iukhimov’s Soviet era illustrations for Natalya Grigor’eva and Vladimir Grushetskij’s 1993 Russian translation of The Lord of the Rings. I begin by defining the two distinct types of visual borrowing detectable within the Iukhimov case studies: general correspondence and direct visual prototype. I then establish my methodological approach, describing how semiotic and iconographic elements are synthesised to form a new interpretive model. Subsequent analysis of the case studies reveals a diversity of borrowed motifs, derived from sources such as frescoes, hagiographic paintings and manuscript miniatures. I also demonstrate how, in several case studies, certain borrowed motifs retain enough of their original iconography that, when combined with the new Tolkienian motif, give rise to polysemy. To conclude, I hypothesise that Iukhimov’s corpus functions most effectively when viewed as a visual affirmation of the plurality of images which existed outside of Soviet totalitarianism

Final Report to NSF of the Standards for Facial Animation Workshop

The human face is an important and complex communication channel. It is a very familiar and sensitive object of human perception. The facial animation field has increased greatly in the past few years as fast computer graphics workstations have made the modeling and real-time animation of hundreds of thousands of polygons affordable and almost commonplace. Many applications have been developed such as teleconferencing, surgery, information assistance systems, games, and entertainment. To solve these different problems, different approaches for both animation control and modeling have been developed

Learning to Live with Machine Translation

Rapid advancements in technologies of text and image generation have increasingly put the perceived autonomy of human creativity under threat. Even before ChatGPT and other large-language models sent such anxieties into overdrive, literary critics were arguing for a hermeneutics of automatic writing and revisiting long-held assumptions about artistic originality. Few, however, gave much thought to these model's quirky cousins—a family branch that once ruled over the utopian dreams invested in AI: machine translation (MT). This essay reflects on why translation has been lost in all the recent talk about these models and offers a necessary corrective. It considers what a critical response to MT might look like when reframed around an understanding of current technologies and a vision of MT as potential collaborator rather than human replacement. First, it offers an overview of current neural-based MT and the theories of translation that underwrite it. It then uses literary texts as a limit case for surveying the technology's most visible gaps, providing a deep, qualitative analysis of Japanese literary texts machine translated into English. Finally, it takes a speculative turn and considers what "good enough" machine translation of a large corpus of world literature might be good for in a future of ubiquitous and ever more accessible MT. The results hint at more immediate ways that MT invites inquiry into the present conditions of world literature, but also to a future where the entanglement of human translation and agency with the material agency of the technology bring forth potentials in both