5,061 research outputs found
Can gender categorization influence the perception of animated virtual humans?
Animations have become increasingly realistic with the evolution of Computer
Graphics (CG). In particular, human models and behaviors were represented
through animated virtual humans, sometimes with a high level of realism. In
particular, gender is a characteristic that is related to human identification,
so that virtual humans assigned to a specific gender have, in general,
stereotyped representations through movements, clothes, hair and colors, in
order to be understood by users as desired by designers. An important area of
study is finding out whether participants' perceptions change depending on how
a virtual human is visually presented. Findings in this area can help the
industry to guide the modeling and animation of virtual humans to deliver the
expected impact to the audience. In this paper, we reproduce, through CG, a
perceptual study that aims to assess gender bias in relation to a simulated
baby. In the original study, two groups of people watched the same video of a
baby reacting to the same stimuli, but one group was told the baby was female
and the other group was told the same baby was male, producing different
perceptions. The results of our study with virtual babies were similar to the
findings with real babies. First, it shows that people's emotional response
change depending on the character gender attribute, in this case the only
difference was the baby's name. Our research indicates that by just informing
the name of a virtual human can be enough to create a gender perception that
impact the participant emotional answer.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, 2 table
Typical-Medium Theory of Mott-Anderson Localization
The Mott and the Anderson routes to localization have long been recognized as
the two basic processes that can drive the metal-insulator transition (MIT).
Theories separately describing each of these mechanisms were discussed long
ago, but an accepted approach that can include both has remained elusive. The
lack of any obvious static symmetry distinguishing the metal from the insulator
poses another fundamental problem, since an appropriate static order parameter
cannot be easily found. More recent work, however, has revisited the original
arguments of Anderson and Mott, which stressed that the key diference between
the metal end the insulator lies in the dynamics of the electron. This physical
picture has suggested that the "typical" (geometrically averaged) escape rate
from a given lattice site should be regarded as the proper dynamical order
parameter for the MIT, one that can naturally describe both the Anderson and
the Mott mechanism for localization. This article provides an overview of the
recent results obtained from the corresponding Typical-Medium Theory, which
provided new insight into the the two-fluid character of the Mott-Anderson
transition.Comment: to be published in "Fifty Years of Anderson localization", edited by
E. Abrahams (World Scientific, Singapore, 2010); 29 pages, 22 figures
Genome-wide changes in protein translation efficiency are associated with autism
We previously proposed that changes in the efficiency of protein translation are associated with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). This hypothesis connects environmental factors and genetic factors because each can alter translation efficiency. For genetic factors, we previously tested our hypothesis using a small set of ASD-associated genes, a small set of ASD-associated variants, and a statistic to quantify by how much a single nucleotide variant (SNV) in a protein coding region changes translation speed. In this study, we confirm and extend our hypothesis using a published set of 1,800 autism quartets (parents, one affected child and one unaffected child) and genome-wide variants. Then, we extend the test statistic to combine translation efficiency with other possibly relevant variables: ribosome profiling data, presence/absence of CpG dinucleotides, and phylogenetic conservation. The inclusion of ribosome profiling abundances strengthens our results for male–male sibling pairs. The inclusion of CpG information strengthens our results for female–female pairs, giving an insight into the significant gender differences in autism incidence. By combining the single-variant test statistic for all variants in a gene, we obtain a single gene score to evaluate how well a gene distinguishes between affected and unaffected siblings. Using statistical methods, we compute gene sets that have some power to distinguish between affected and unaffected siblings by translation efficiency of gene variants. Pathway and enrichment analysis of those gene sets suggest the importance of Wnt signaling pathways, some other pathways related to cancer, ATP binding, and ATP-ase pathways in the etiology of ASDs
The heats of formation of the haloacetylenes XCCY [X, Y = H, F, Cl]: basis set limit ab initio results and thermochemical analysis
The heats of formation of haloacetylenes are evaluated using the recent W1
and W2 ab initio computational thermochemistry methods. These calculations
involve CCSD and CCSD(T) coupled cluster methods, basis sets of up to spdfgh
quality, extrapolations to the one-particle basis set limit, and contributions
of inner-shell correlation, scalar relativistic effects, and (where relevant)
first-order spin-orbit coupling. The heats of formation determined using W2
theory are: \hof(HCCH) = 54.48 kcal/mol, \hof(HCCF) = 25.15 kcal/mol,
\hof(FCCF) = 1.38 kcal/mol, \hof(HCCCl) = 54.83 kcal/mol, \hof(ClCCCl) = 56.21
kcal/mol, and \hof(FCCCl) = 28.47 kcal/mol. Enthalpies of hydrogenation and
destabilization energies relative to acetylene were obtained at the W1 level of
theory. So doing we find the following destabilization order for acetylenes:
FCCF ClCCF HCCF ClCCCl HCCCl HCCH. By a combination of W1
theory and isodesmic reactions, we show that the generally accepted heat of
formation of 1,2-dichloroethane should be revised to -31.80.6 kcal/mol, in
excellent agreement with a very recent critically evaluated review. The
performance of compound thermochemistry schemes such as G2, G3, G3X and CBS-QB3
theories has been analyzed.Comment: Mol. Phys., in press (E. R. Davidson issue
Horizon effects with surface waves on moving water
Surface waves on a stationary flow of water are considered, in a linear model
that includes the surface tension of the fluid. The resulting gravity-capillary
waves experience a rich array of horizon effects when propagating against the
flow. In some cases three horizons (points where the group velocity of the wave
reverses) exist for waves with a single laboratory frequency. Some of these
effects are familiar in fluid mechanics under the name of wave blocking, but
other aspects, in particular waves with negative co-moving frequency and the
Hawking effect, were overlooked until surface waves were investigated as
examples of analogue gravity [Sch\"utzhold R and Unruh W G 2002 Phys. Rev. D 66
044019]. A comprehensive presentation of the various horizon effects for
gravity-capillary waves is given, with emphasis on the deep water/short
wavelength case kh>>1 where many analytical results can be derived. A
similarity of the state space of the waves to that of a thermodynamic system is
pointed out.Comment: 30 pages, 15 figures. Minor change
Determination of the branching ratios and
Improved branching ratios were measured for the decay in a
neutral beam at the CERN SPS with the NA31 detector: and .
From the first number an upper limit for and transitions in neutral kaon decay is derived. Using older results for the
Ke3/K3 fraction, the 3 branching ratio is found to be , about a factor three more
precise than from previous experiments
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