353 research outputs found

    From rule-based to learning-based image-conditional image generation

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    Visual contents, such as movies, animations, computer games, videos and photos, are massively produced and consumed nowadays. Most of these contents are the combination of materials captured from real-world and contents synthesized by computers. Particularly, computer-generated visual contents are increasingly indispensable in modern entertainment and production. The generation of visual contents by computers is typically conditioned on real-world materials, driven by the imagination of designers and artists, or a combination of both. However, creating visual contents manually are both challenging and labor intensive. Therefore, enabling computers to automatically or semi-automatically synthesize needed visual contents becomes essential. Among all these efforts, a stream of research is to generate novel images based on given image priors, e.g., photos and sketches. This research direction is known as image-conditional image generation, which covers a wide range of topics such as image stylization, image completion, image fusion, sketch-to-image generation, and extracting image label maps. In this thesis, a set of novel approaches for image-conditional image generation are presented. The thesis starts with an exemplar-based method for facial image stylization in Chapter 2. This method involves a unified framework for facial image stylization based on a single style exemplar. A two-phase procedure is employed, where the first phase searches a dense and semantic-aware correspondence between the input and the exemplar images, and the second phase conducts edge-preserving texture transfer. While this algorithm has the merit of requiring only a single exemplar, it is constrained to face photos. To perform generalized image-to-image translation, Chapter 3 presents a data-driven and learning-based method. Inspired by the dual learning paradigm designed for natural language translation [115], a novel dual Generative Adversarial Network (DualGAN) mechanism is developed, which enables image translators to be trained from two sets of unlabeled images from two domains. This is followed by another data-driven method in Chapter 4, which learns multiscale manifolds from a set of images and then enables synthesizing novel images that mimic the appearance of the target image dataset. The method is named as Branched Generative Adversarial Network (BranchGAN) and employs a novel training method that enables unconditioned generative adversarial networks (GANs) to learn image manifolds at multiple scales. As a result, we can directly manipulate and even combine latent manifold codes that are associated with specific feature scales. Finally, to provide users more control over image generation results, Chapter 5 discusses an upgraded version of iGAN [126] (iGANHD) that significantly improves the art of manipulating high-resolution images through utilizing the multi-scale manifold learned with BranchGAN

    Degradation and sequestration : cellular strategies to counteract proteotoxic stress

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    Maintenance of proteome homeostasis (proteostasis) is essential to preserve cellular function in response to intrinsic and extrinsic stress conditions. This is regulated by the proteostasis network, which is comprised of machineries for protein synthesis, folding, sequestering, and degradation. The collaboration of these machineries is to ensure the functionality, subcellular localization and appropriate protein abundance, thereby preventing proteotoxic stress. Disturbances in proteostasis can be caused by gene mutations, temperature fluctuations, alterations in synthesis or degradation, chemical insult, etc. If a disbalance in proteostasis is not addressed in a timely and correctly manner, aberrant proteins can accumulate and form insoluble aggregates, which are the hallmarks of the majority of neurodegenerative diseases and other so-called proteinopathies. Therefore, extending our knowledge and developing techniques to modulate the proteostasis network are important for the development of new therapeutic strategies for these disorders. The work presented in this thesis describes how the proteostasis network responds to different proteotoxic stress conditions, and how its modulation preserves proteome integrity. In paper Ⅰ, we describe that the sequestration of aberrant, newly synthesized proteins in cellular stress granules prevent impairment of the ubiquitin-proteasome system in the nuclear compartment in response to thermal stress. In stress granuledeficient cells, these newly synthesized proteins passively diffuse into the nucleus instead of being sequestered in cytoplasmic granules. The newly synthesized proteins translocate to nucleoli in an HSP70-dependent manner. Under stress, HSP70 interacts with newly synthesized proteins to maintain their conformation. Our data suggest that heat shock factor 1 is released from HSP70, thereby prematurely activating the heat shock response while recovering from thermal stress. In line with a premature heat shock response, we found enhanced SUMO2/3-dependent degradation of aggregation-prone proteins, and impairs proteasomal degradation in the nuclear compartment. In paper Ⅱ, we characterize the effect of the integrated stress response inhibitor ISRIB on the ubiquitin-proteasome system in response to thermal stress. During thermal stress, the integrated stress response is activated to inhibit protein translation, thereby preventing overloading of the proteostasis network with misfolded, newly synthesized proteins. However, ISRIB restores protein translation during stress, resulting in an increased amount of newly synthesized proteins. Part of the newly synthesized proteins under stress are dysfunctional and therefore polyubiquitinated targeted as substrates for proteasomal degradation. Meanwhile, we show that a large fraction of polyubiquitinated proteasome substrates converts to a detergent insoluble state. We propose that a limitation of ubiquitin availability results in the attenuation of ubiquitin proteasome system. In paper ⅱ, we studied the effect of a protein aggregation-preventing tag, the NT* domain, on an aggregation-prone protein. The NT* domain is a solubility tag derived from a spider silk protein. The fusion of this solubility tag with an aggregation-prone reporter protein prevented protein aggregation in mammalian cells in the cytosolic and nuclear compartments. This finding provides the possibility to reduce the burden if aggregation-prone proteins on proteostasis with natural anti-aggregation domains. In paper Ⅳ, we characterized CBK79 as a novel proteostasis inhibitor that impairs both proteolytic pathways: the ubiquitin-proteasome system and autophagy. As a consequence of the proteostasis collapse caused by CBK79, the compound activates the heat shock response and induces aggresome formation. Intriguingly, preconditioning of cells by thermal stress relieves the negative effect of CBK79 on ubiquitin-proteasome system but not on autophagy

    From transliteration to trans-scripting: Creativity and multilingual writing on the internet

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    Although research on multilingual writing has widely explored transliteration and, particularly, Romanization practices, we know little about how related phenomena are reconfigured in social media contexts where users can manipulate a wide range of writing resources and navigate between multiple intertwining audiences. By analysing more than one thousand tokens of forms that illustrate what appears as reversed Romanization (i.e. English-related forms written with Greek characters, engreek), the study aims to discover, first, how these forms are created and, second, for what purposes, and for whom, they are mobilised at given moments. In order to address these questions, I propose a translanguaging lens for the study of multilingual digital writing and draw on the notion of trans-scripting as key for understanding such writing practices as creative and performative. My findings reveal that there is a link between trans-scripting as a creative practice and digital orality, as users orient primarily to phonetic respellings of the English-related forms and associate such spellings with particular forms of stylized speech and social personas. The paper concludes with a critical discussion of the study’s implications to research on the role of English as a resource for multilingual writing and current debates about language diversity and fluidity in the digital mediascape

    Designing Digital Art and Communication Tools Inspired by Traditional Craft

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    Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

    Methods in prosody

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    This book presents a collection of pioneering papers reflecting current methods in prosody research with a focus on Romance languages. The rapid expansion of the field of prosody research in the last decades has given rise to a proliferation of methods that has left little room for the critical assessment of these methods. The aim of this volume is to bridge this gap by embracing original contributions, in which experts in the field assess, reflect, and discuss different methods of data gathering and analysis. The book might thus be of interest to scholars and established researchers as well as to students and young academics who wish to explore the topic of prosody, an expanding and promising area of study

    VOICES BY THE SEA: A DIALOGIC READING OF THE EXODUS NARRATIVE

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    It is known that the biblical account of Israel’s past consists of diverse generic, thematic and ideological elements, between which inconsistencies and tensions sometimes arise. This phenomenon is defined as ‘scriptural complexity’. From early times this complexity has been treated by source or redaction criticism; currently, canonical-theological and literary approaches are employed. This thesis adopts a Bakhtinian ‘dialogic’ approach to languages and literary voice, to study the ‘scriptural complexity’ in the book of Exodus, especially the narrative in chaps. 12-14 and the inserted song in chap. 15. After introducing the ‘scriptural complexity’ and the possible methods of dealing with it (Chapter 1), and the life and the concept of dialogism of Bakhtin (Chapter 2), the Bakhtinian concepts will be adopted and applied to the book of Exodus. A survey of the voices of the ‘speaking person’ in the book will be conducted, and the Passover instructions in Exodus 12 will be used as a test case to illustrate what results from a dialogic reading of the biblical text (Chapter 3). Based on this, a dialogic reading of the narrative of the Israelites crossing the Sea (Chapter 4) and the Song of the Sea (Chapter 5) will be performed. The voice of the narrator in the narrative of the Israelites’ crossing of the Sea will also be studied (Chapter 6). The reading shows that several different ‘voices’ are involved in the transmission of the tradition, and these represent a dialogue between different possible ideologies. This dialogue re-accentuates the authoritative voice of YHWH such that it allows later generations to participate truly and dialogically in the observance of the traditions. Exploring the multiple and complex dialogic relationships between the various voices indicates that the narrative in the Exodus events foregrounds the characters’ voices, and allows them to interact dialogically. It results in an enriched and multilayered understanding of the role of each ‘voice’ in the story. The exploration of the dialogic relationship between the singing voices of the inserted song and the narrative voices also enables the reader to understand and respond to the implicit significance of YHWH’s action in the narrative. Analysis of the Bakhtinian concept of ‘authoring’ also suggests that the narrator’s voice represents the authorial voice of the biblical narrative. By bestowing form to the verbal material, this authorial voice leads the reader to participate in a dialogue between the various voices and to co-author the values and significance according to various ‘dialogizing backgrounds’. This thesis argues that it is beneficial to read the biblical discourse as utterance with ‘voices’ rather than mere text, so that the reader can re-enter the once uttered discourse and participate in a living dialogue through the ‘scriptural complexity’

    Volume 5 Number 2

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    From Molecules to the Masses : Visual Exploration, Analysis, and Communication of Human Physiology

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    Det overordnede mÄlet med denne avhandlingen er tverrfaglig anvendelse av medisinske illustrasjons- og visualiseringsteknikker for Ä utforske, analysere og formidle aspekter ved fysiologi til publikum med ulik faglig nivÄ og bakgrunn. Fysiologi beskriver de biologiske prosessene som skjer i levende vesener over tid. Vitenskapen om fysiologi er kompleks, men samtidig kritisk for vÄr forstÄelse av hvordan levende organismer fungerer. Fysiologi dekker en stor bredde romlig-temporale skalaer og fordrer behovet for Ä kombinere og bygge bro mellom basalfagene (biologi, fysikk og kjemi) og medisin. De senere Ärene har det vÊrt en eksplosjon av nye, avanserte eksperimentelle metoder for Ä detektere og karakterisere fysiologiske data. Volumet og kompleksiteten til fysiologiske data krever effektive strategier for visualisering for Ä komplementere dagens standard analyser. Hvilke tilnÊrminger som benyttes i visualiseringen mÄ nÞye balanseres og tilpasses formÄlet med bruken av dataene, enten dette er for Ä utforske dataene, analysere disse eller kommunisere og presentere dem. Arbeidet i denne avhandlingen bidrar med ny kunnskap innen teori, empiri, anvendelse og reproduserbarhet av visualiseringsmetoder innen fysiologi. FÞrst i avhandlingen er en rapport som oppsummerer og utforsker dagens kunnskap om muligheter og utfordringer for visualisering innen fysiologi. Motivasjonen for arbeidet er behovet forskere innen visualiseringsfeltet, og forskere i ulike anvendelsesomrÄder, har for en sammensatt oversikt over flerskala visualiseringsoppgaver og teknikker. Ved Ä bruke sÞk over et stort spekter av metodiske tilnÊrminger, er dette den fÞrste rapporten i sitt slag som kartlegger visualiseringsmulighetene innen fysiologi. I rapporten er faglitteraturen oppsummert slik at det skal vÊre enkelt Ä gjÞre oppslag innen ulike tema i rom-og-tid-skalaen, samtidig som litteraturen er delt inn i de tre hÞynivÄ visualiseringsoppgavene data utforsking, analyse og kommunikasjon. Dette danner et enkelt grunnlag for Ä navigere i litteraturen i feltet og slik danner rapporten et godt grunnlag for diskusjon og forskningsmuligheter innen feltet visualisering og fysiologi. Basert pÄ arbeidet med rapporten var det sÊrlig to omrÄder som det er Þnskelig for oss Ä fortsette Ä utforske: (1) utforskende analyse av mangefasetterte fysiologidata for ekspertbrukere, og (2) kommunikasjon av data til bÄde eksperter og ikke-eksperter. Arbeidet vÄrt av mangefasetterte fysiologidata er oppsummert i to studier i avhandlingen. Hver studie omhandler prosesser som foregÄr pÄ forskjellige romlig-temporale skalaer og inneholder konkrete eksempler pÄ anvendelse av metodene vurdert av eksperter i feltet. I den fÞrste av de to studiene undersÞkes konsentrasjonen av molekylÊre substanser (metabolitter) ut fra data innsamlet med magnetisk resonansspektroskopi (MRS), en avansert biokjemisk teknikk som brukes til Ä identifisere metabolske forbindelser i levende vev. Selv om MRS kan ha svÊrt hÞy sensitivitet og spesifisitet i medisinske anvendelser, er analyseresultatene fra denne modaliteten abstrakte og vanskelige Ä forstÄ ogsÄ for medisinskfaglige eksperter i feltet. VÄr designstudie som undersÞkte oppgavene og kravene til ekspertutforskende analyse av disse dataene fÞrte til utviklingen av SpectraMosaic. Dette er en ny applikasjon som gjÞr det mulig for domeneeksperter Ä analysere konsentrasjonen av metabolitter normalisert for en hel kohort, eller etter prÞveregion, individ, opptaksdato, eller status pÄ hjernens aktivitetsnivÄ ved undersÞkelsestidspunktet. I den andre studien foreslÄs en metode for Ä utfÞre utforskende analyser av flerdimensjonale fysiologiske data i motsatt ende av den romlig-temporale skalaen, nemlig pÄ populasjonsnivÄ. En effektiv arbeidsflyt for utforskende dataanalyse mÄ kritisk identifisere interessante mÞnstre og relasjoner, noe som blir stadig vanskeligere nÄr dimensjonaliteten til dataene Þker. Selv om dette delvis kan lÞses med eksisterende reduksjonsteknikker er det alltid en fare for at subtile mÞnstre kan gÄ tapt i reduksjonsprosessen. Isteden presenterer vi i studien DimLift, en iterativ dimensjonsreduksjonsteknikk som muliggjÞr brukeridentifikasjon av interessante mÞnstre og relasjoner som kan ligge subtilt i et datasett gjennom dimensjonale bunter. NÞkkelen til denne metoden er brukerens evne til Ä styre dimensjonalitetsreduksjonen slik at den fÞlger brukerens egne undersÞkelseslinjer. For videre Ä undersÞke kommunikasjon til eksperter og ikke-eksperter, studeres i neste arbeid utformingen av visualiseringer for kommunikasjon til publikum med ulike nivÄer av ekspertnivÄ. Det er naturlig Ä forvente at eksperter innen et emne kan ha ulike preferanser og kriterier for Ä vurdere en visuell kommunikasjon i forhold til et ikke-ekspertpublikum. Dette pÄvirker hvor effektivt et bilde kan benyttes til Ä formidle en gitt scenario. Med utgangspunkt i ulike teknikker innen biomedisinsk illustrasjon og visualisering, gjennomfÞrte vi derfor en utforskende studie av kriteriene som publikum bruker nÄr de evaluerer en biomedisinsk prosessvisualisering mÄlrettet for kommunikasjon. Fra denne studien identifiserte vi muligheter for ytterligere konvergens av biomedisinsk illustrasjon og visualiseringsteknikker for mer mÄlrettet visuell kommunikasjonsdesign. SÊrlig beskrives i stÞrre dybde utviklingen av semantisk konsistente retningslinjer for farging av molekylÊre scener. Hensikten med slike retningslinjer er Ä heve den vitenskapelige kompetansen til ikke-ekspertpublikum innen molekyler visualisering, som vil vÊre spesielt relevant for kommunikasjon til befolkningen i forbindelse med folkehelseopplysning. All kode og empiriske funn utviklet i arbeidet med denne avhandlingen er Äpen kildekode og tilgjengelig for gjenbruk av det vitenskapelige miljÞet og offentligheten. Metodene og funnene presentert i denne avhandlingen danner et grunnlag for tverrfaglig biomedisinsk illustrasjon og visualiseringsforskning, og Äpner flere muligheter for fortsatt arbeid med visualisering av fysiologiske prosesser.The overarching theme of this thesis is the cross-disciplinary application of medical illustration and visualization techniques to address challenges in exploring, analyzing, and communicating aspects of physiology to audiences with differing expertise. Describing the myriad biological processes occurring in living beings over time, the science of physiology is complex and critical to our understanding of how life works. It spans many spatio-temporal scales to combine and bridge the basic sciences (biology, physics, and chemistry) to medicine. Recent years have seen an explosion of new and finer-grained experimental and acquisition methods to characterize these data. The volume and complexity of these data necessitate effective visualizations to complement standard analysis practice. Visualization approaches must carefully consider and be adaptable to the user's main task, be it exploratory, analytical, or communication-oriented. This thesis contributes to the areas of theory, empirical findings, methods, applications, and research replicability in visualizing physiology. Our contributions open with a state-of-the-art report exploring the challenges and opportunities in visualization for physiology. This report is motivated by the need for visualization researchers, as well as researchers in various application domains, to have a centralized, multiscale overview of visualization tasks and techniques. Using a mixed-methods search approach, this is the first report of its kind to broadly survey the space of visualization for physiology. Our approach to organizing the literature in this report enables the lookup of topics of interest according to spatio-temporal scale. It further subdivides works according to any combination of three high-level visualization tasks: exploration, analysis, and communication. This provides an easily-navigable foundation for discussion and future research opportunities for audience- and task-appropriate visualization for physiology. From this report, we identify two key areas for continued research that begin narrowly and subsequently broaden in scope: (1) exploratory analysis of multifaceted physiology data for expert users, and (2) communication for experts and non-experts alike. Our investigation of multifaceted physiology data takes place over two studies. Each targets processes occurring at different spatio-temporal scales and includes a case study with experts to assess the applicability of our proposed method. At the molecular scale, we examine data from magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), an advanced biochemical technique used to identify small molecules (metabolites) in living tissue that are indicative of metabolic pathway activity. Although highly sensitive and specific, the output of this modality is abstract and difficult to interpret. Our design study investigating the tasks and requirements for expert exploratory analysis of these data led to SpectraMosaic, a novel application enabling domain researchers to analyze any permutation of metabolites in ratio form for an entire cohort, or by sample region, individual, acquisition date, or brain activity status at the time of acquisition. A second approach considers the exploratory analysis of multidimensional physiological data at the opposite end of the spatio-temporal scale: population. An effective exploratory data analysis workflow critically must identify interesting patterns and relationships, which becomes increasingly difficult as data dimensionality increases. Although this can be partially addressed with existing dimensionality reduction techniques, the nature of these techniques means that subtle patterns may be lost in the process. In this approach, we describe DimLift, an iterative dimensionality reduction technique enabling user identification of interesting patterns and relationships that may lie subtly within a dataset through dimensional bundles. Key to this method is the user's ability to steer the dimensionality reduction technique to follow their own lines of inquiry. Our third question considers the crafting of visualizations for communication to audiences with different levels of expertise. It is natural to expect that experts in a topic may have different preferences and criteria to evaluate a visual communication relative to a non-expert audience. This impacts the success of an image in communicating a given scenario. Drawing from diverse techniques in biomedical illustration and visualization, we conducted an exploratory study of the criteria that audiences use when evaluating a biomedical process visualization targeted for communication. From this study, we identify opportunities for further convergence of biomedical illustration and visualization techniques for more targeted visual communication design. One opportunity that we discuss in greater depth is the development of semantically-consistent guidelines for the coloring of molecular scenes. The intent of such guidelines is to elevate the scientific literacy of non-expert audiences in the context of molecular visualization, which is particularly relevant to public health communication. All application code and empirical findings are open-sourced and available for reuse by the scientific community and public. The methods and findings presented in this thesis contribute to a foundation of cross-disciplinary biomedical illustration and visualization research, opening several opportunities for continued work in visualization for physiology.Doktorgradsavhandlin
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