Interactive Extraction of High-Frequency Aesthetically-Coherent Colormaps

Color transfer functions (i.e. colormaps) exhibiting a high frequency luminosity component have proven to be useful in the visualization of data where feature detection or iso-contours recognition is essential. Having these colormaps also display a wide range of color and an aesthetically pleasing composition holds the potential to further aid image understanding and analysis. However producing such colormaps in an efficient manner with current colormap creation tools is difficult. We hereby demonstrate an interactive technique for extracting colormaps from artwork and pictures. We show how the rich and careful color design and dynamic luminance range of an existing image can be gracefully captured in a colormap and be utilized effectively in the exploration of complex datasets

Semi-automatic transfer function generation for non-domain specific direct volume rendering

The field of volume rendering is focused on the visualization of three-dimensional data sets. Although it is predominantly used in biomedical applications, volume rendering has proven useful in fields such as meteorology, physics, and fluid dynamics as a means of analyzing features of interest in three-dimensional scalar fields. The features visualized by volume rendering differ by application, though most applications focus on providing the user with a model for understanding the physical structure represented in the data such as materials or the boundaries between materials. One form of volume rendering, direct volume rendering (DVR), has proven to be a particularly powerful tool for visualizing material and boundary structures represented in volume data through the use of transfer functions which map each unit of the data to optical properties such as color and opacity. Specifying these transfer functions in a manner that yields an informative rendering is often done manually by trial and error and has become the topic of much research. While automated techniques for transfer function creation do exist, many rely on domain-specific knowledge and produce less informative renderings than those generated by manually constructed transfer functions. This thesis presents a novel extension to a successful semi-automated transfer function technique in an effort to minimize the time and effort required in creation of informative transfer functions. In particular, the method proposed provides a means for the semi-automatic generation of transfer functions which highlight and classify material boundaries in a non-domain specific manner

Addressing vaccine inequity during the COVID-19 pandemic: the TRIPS intellectual property waiver proposal & beyond

This article examines global vaccine inequality during the COVID-19 pandemic. We critique intellectual property (IP) law under the 1995 WTO TRIPS Agreement, and specifically, the role that IP plays in enabling the inequities of production, distribution and pricing in the COVID-19 vaccine context. Given the failure of international response mechanisms, including COVAX and C-TAP, to address vaccine inequity, we argue the TRIPS waiver proposal offers a necessary and proportionate legal measure for clearing IP barriers that cannot be achieved by TRIPS flexibilities. Finally, we reflect on the waiver in the wider context of TRIPS

The Language of Jokes in the Digital Age

In this accessible book, Delia Chiaro provides a fresh overview of the language of jokes in a globalized and digitalized world. The book shows how, while on the one hand the lingua-cultural nuts and bolts of jokes have remained unchanged over time, on the other, the time-space compression brought about by modern technology has generated new settings and new ways of joking and playing with language. The Language of Jokes in the Digital Age covers a wide range of settings from social networks, e-mails and memes, to more traditional fields of film and TV (especially sitcoms and game shows) and advertising. Chiaro’s consideration of the increasingly virtual context of jokes delights with both up-to-date examples and frequent reference to the most central theories of comedy. This lively book will be essential reading for any student or researcher working in the area of language and humour and will be of interest to those in language and media and sociolinguistics

The New Hampshire, Vol. 67, No. 09 (Oct. 12, 1976)

An independent student produced newspaper from the University of New Hampshire