Creative approaches to emotional expression animation

In facial expression research, it is well established that certain emotional expressions are universally recognized. Studies into observer perception of expressions have built upon this research by highlighting the importance of particular facial regions, actions, and movements to the recognition of emotions. In many studies, the stimuli for such studies have been generated through posing by non-experts or performances by trained actors. However, character animators are required to craft recognizable, believable emotional facial expressions as a part of their profession. In this poster, the authors discuss some of the creative processes employed in their research into emotional expressions, and how practice-led research into expression animation might offer a new perspective on the generation of believable emotional expressions

Considerations for believable emotional facial expression animation

Facial expressions can be used to communicate emotional states through the use of universal signifiers within key regions of the face. Psychology research has identified what these signifiers are and how different combinations and variations can be interpreted. Research into expressions has informed animation practice, but as yet very little is known about the movement within and between emotional expressions. A better understanding of sequence, timing, and duration could better inform the production of believable animation. This paper introduces the idea of expression choreography, and how tests of observer perception might enhance our understanding of moving emotional expressions

Investigating facial animation production through artistic inquiry

Studies into dynamic facial expressions tend to make use of experimental methods based on objectively manipulated stimuli. New techniques for displaying increasingly realistic facial movement and methods of measuring observer responses are typical of computer animation and psychology facial expression research. However, few projects focus on the artistic nature of performance production. Instead, most concentrate on the naturalistic appearance of posed or acted expressions. In this paper, the authors discuss a method for exploring the creative process of emotional facial expression animation, and ask whether anything can be learned about authentic dynamic expressions through artistic inquiry

Testing for Paleoindian Aggregations: Internal Site Structure at Bull Brook

Paleoindian research provides the earliest substantial evidence of how people coped with Late Pleistocene environmental fluctuations and low population density, while sharing aspects of culture across North America. From about 11,000 radiocarbon years ago, the well known fluted projectile points are highly visible but often scarce, which turns out to be a good combination for some research. The distribution of sites, artifact clusters and exotic raw materials provide unusually clear evidence of settlement pattern, in part because they are not blurred by abundance. The largest Paleoindian sites in the Northeast are often composed of separate clusters of artifacts (hut locations?) seemingly unobscured by repeated occupation. The large sites pose a problem, however, because they occur in areas that seem to have had low population densities. Do the large sites represent repeated occupations by a few families, or large groups coming together from great distances? These questions are important to understanding all mobile hunter-gatherers. The Bull Brook site in Ipswich, Massachusetts has over 40 loci that form a large ring-shaped pattern, the largest and most regular settlement plan known from the Late Pleistocene of North America. The site was excavated between 40 and 50 years ago in a cooperative effort between avocational archaeologists and professionals. The excavators insisted that the large ring-shaped pattern resembled a large camp circle, but anthropologists 40 years ago found this difficult to believe. Since then, the idea of large social gatherings among low density populations has become acceptable. Although the Bull Brook site is widely known, the evidence has not been published in sufficient detail to test some of the implications of the ring-shaped plan. With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Brian Robinson (Climate Change Institute, Alaska Project, and Anthropology Department at the University of Maine) will work with faculty, graduate students and colleagues from New England and Quebec, to test whether the settlement plan at Bull Brook reflects the organizational characteristics of ring-shaped settlements among recent hunter-gatherers. The Bull Brook site plan will be meticulously reconstructed from original records, with direct assistance from some of the original excavators. Aerial photography, field reconnaissance and subsurface coring of an adjacent marsh will be used to reconstruct the modern and ancient landscape. The entire Bull Brook collection (over 8000 artifacts) was donated to the Peabody Essex Museum by the excavators. It will be newly described with two lithic specialists among the senior personnel to identify stone sources. The structure of the Bull Brook settlement plan will be analyzed from the distribution of artifacts and materials in the 40 artifact concentrations.The history of research at Bull Brook reflects the interplay between discovery, changing theory and the quest for more precise evidence. Rare archaeological contexts that are particularly revealing must be revisited with new questions. The Bull Brook site has provided significant inspiration for theories on Paleoindian settlement and social organization. Although the site was destroyed long ago, it retains fundamental evidence of hunter-gatherer organization that is rarely preserved and excavated at a scale large enough to evaluate. The resulting monograph will be accompanied by a digital record of artifact catalogs and field records, allowing researchers to evaluate and address a wide variety of problems. A popular account of the remarkable salvage effort by the dedicated group of avocational archaeologists is also planned, for its broad appeal and educational value

Advancements in alternative energy applications for space conditioning.

This dissertation documents advancements made in passive, renewable energy applications for building space conditioning (heating and cooling). Since, for most climates across the US, space heating requires a much larger annual energy demand than space cooling, the majority of this dissertation is focused on the heating season. The dissertation is divided into five chapters, primarily covering computer simulations and experimental studies pertaining to specific space conditioning technologies. Chapter One discusses the significance of supplanting fossil fuel based energy production with clean, renewable sources, and provides further detail on the organization of this dissertation. Chapter Two provides background on the heat pipe augmented solar wall – a passive solar space heating technology. Additionally, the design, construction, and experimental analysis of the first full-scale prototype for this system are highlighted in the chapter. A new heat pipe system design, which improved heating performance over the original, is the focus of Chapter Three. A prototype of the new model was also constructed, and both models were tested side-by-side in a passive solar test facility, constructed on campus grounds. Exclusive focus on heating loads in Chapters Two and Three shifts to total space conditioning loads in Chapter Four. The heat pipe wall is still the subject of this chapter, in which the effectiveness of implemented system mechanisms in reducing unwanted thermal gains to the room during the cooling season was investigated. Chapter Five focuses on the cooling season only, and lays the groundwork for space cooling solutions by studying the potential of four different ambient sources to meet annual space cooling loads. This final chapter also considers the theoretical thermal storage that would be required, for each respective ambient source, to serve cooling loads throughout the US

A practice-led approach to facial animation research

In facial expression research, it is well established that certain emotional expressions are universally recognized. Studies into the observer perception of dynamic expressions have built upon this research by highlighting the importance of particular facial regions, timings, and temporal configurations to perception and interpretation. In many studies, the stimuli for such studies have been generated through posing by non-experts or performances by trained actors. However, skilled character animators are capable of crafting recognizable, believable emotional facial expressions as a part of their professional practice. ‘Emotional Avatars’ was conceived as an interdisciplinary research project which would draw upon the knowledge of animation practice and emotional psychology. The aim of the project was to jointly investigate the artistic generation and observer perception of emotional expression animation to determine whether the nuances of emotional facial expression could be artistically choreographed to enhance audience interpretation

Animating believable facial expressions:is it possible to choreograph perceptually valid emotional expressions?

In psychology research, the nuances of facial movement have been investigated to determine the key characteristics of emotional expressions. Studies have shown that movement alone can communicate emotion, that particular facial regions have varying degrees of importance to expression recognition, and that temporal factors might affect the appearance of facial regions during expressions. Furthermore, researchers have suggested that emotional expressions could have temporal configurations. If facial expressions have perceptually valid (or invalid) configurations of facial actions over time, then a detailed study of how configuration manipulation affects perception could inform the practice of character animation. Studies of facial expression - most notably Ekman and Friesen’s Facial Action Coding System – have had an impact on animation research and application. However, most studies have focused on static expressions. A better understanding of the choreography of authentic dynamic expressions (where choreography could be described as the sequence, timing, and duration of regional facial movement within and between expressions) could be of more value to practicing animators. In this paper, the authors discuss ‘Emotional Avatars’ - an interdisciplinary research project which aims to expand upon the findings of psychology-based methods in order to inform artistic practice. Drawing upon the experience of animators and psychologists, the primary aim of the project is to determine whether audiences perceive certain choreographies of facial movement to be more or less authentic. The current research concerns the sequence and timing of regional movement within and between expressions of emotion. Using existing resources as a basis for peak expression appearance the authors systematically generate and manipulate animated expressions of emotion based on the generally accepted ‘universal expressions’ (happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, and surprise). By producing a range of animations with variation in sequence, and then testing observer perception of the animations under controlled conditions, the goal of the current research is to identify potential valid and invalid emotional expression choreographies

Clinical Characteristics and Outcomes Among Individuals With Spinal Implant Infections: A Descriptive Study.

Little is known about the clinical presentation and outcomes associated with spinal implant infections. Here, we describe a single center's experience in a retrospective cohort of 109 individuals with spinal implant infections, including clinical, microbiological, therapeutic, and outcome data

On the structure of the new electromagnetic conservation laws

New electromagnetic conservation laws have recently been proposed: in the absence of electromagnetic currents, the trace of the Chevreton superenergy tensor, $H_{ab}$ is divergence-free in four-dimensional (a) Einstein spacetimes for test fields, (b) Einstein-Maxwell spacetimes. Subsequently it has been pointed out, in analogy with flat spaces, that for Einstein spacetimes the trace of the Chevreton superenergy tensor $H_{ab}$ can be rearranged in the form of a generalised wave operator $\square_L$ acting on the energy momentum tensor $T_{ab}$ of the test fields, i.e., $H_{ab}=\square_LT_{ab}/2$. In this letter we show, for Einstein-Maxwell spacetimes in the full non-linear theory, that, although, the trace of the Chevreton superenergy tensor $H_{ab}$ can again be rearranged in the form of a generalised wave operator $\square_G$ acting on the electromagnetic energy momentum tensor, in this case the result is also crucially dependent on Einstein's equations; hence we argue that the divergence-free property of the tensor $H_{ab}=\square_GT_{ab}/2$ has significant independent content beyond that of the divergence-free property of $T_{ab}$

A local potential for the Weyl tensor in all dimensions

In all dimensions and arbitrary signature, we demonstrate the existence of a new local potential -- a double (2,3)-form -- for the Weyl curvature tensor, and more generally for all tensors with the symmetry properties of the Weyl curvature tensor. The classical four-dimensional Lanczos potential for a Weyl tensor -- a double (2,1)-form -- is proven to be a particular case of the new potential: its double dual.Comment: 7 pages; Late