4,707 research outputs found
Social music in cars
This paper builds an understanding of how music is currently experienced by a social group travelling together in a car - how songs are chosen for playing, how music both reflects and influences the groupâs mood and social interaction, who supplies the music, the hardware/software that supports song selection and presentation. This fine-grained context emerges from a qualitative analysis of a rich set of ethnographic data (participant observations and interviews) focusing primarily on the experience of in-car music on moderate length and long trips. We suggest features and functionality for music software to enhance the social experience when travelling in cars, and prototype and test a user interface based on design suggestions drawn from the data
Improving Facial Analysis and Performance Driven Animation through Disentangling Identity and Expression
We present techniques for improving performance driven facial animation,
emotion recognition, and facial key-point or landmark prediction using learned
identity invariant representations. Established approaches to these problems
can work well if sufficient examples and labels for a particular identity are
available and factors of variation are highly controlled. However, labeled
examples of facial expressions, emotions and key-points for new individuals are
difficult and costly to obtain. In this paper we improve the ability of
techniques to generalize to new and unseen individuals by explicitly modeling
previously seen variations related to identity and expression. We use a
weakly-supervised approach in which identity labels are used to learn the
different factors of variation linked to identity separately from factors
related to expression. We show how probabilistic modeling of these sources of
variation allows one to learn identity-invariant representations for
expressions which can then be used to identity-normalize various procedures for
facial expression analysis and animation control. We also show how to extend
the widely used techniques of active appearance models and constrained local
models through replacing the underlying point distribution models which are
typically constructed using principal component analysis with
identity-expression factorized representations. We present a wide variety of
experiments in which we consistently improve performance on emotion
recognition, markerless performance-driven facial animation and facial
key-point tracking.Comment: to appear in Image and Vision Computing Journal (IMAVIS
Analisis Perbandingan Sambungan Pengelasan dan Knock Down pada Bulbous Bow Kapal Ferry Ro-Ro 2000 GT Terhadap Fatigue Life Menggunakan Metode Elemen Hingga
A shipyard company constructed a 2000GT Ro-ro ferry in 2021. The ship operates on the route fromTanjung Perak port to Lembar NTB port via the Flores Sea along the northern coast of Bali Island. During its sailingactivities serving passengers, the owner intends to add a bulbous bow to the ship to reduce resistance and improve theefficiency of the ship's main engine. The installation plan includes insights for using a knock-down joint for the bulbousbow. Therefore, this research simulates the use of knock-down joint design and compares it with welded joints toestimate its fatigue life. The simulation process employs Ansys Workbench and includes variations of welded joints,bolted joints, and stud welding. The simulations are conducted by applying loading due to hydrostatic pressure andvariations of stress caused by slamming loads. The research results estimate the fatigue life through calculations basedon the ABS Guide for Fatigue Assessment of Offshore Structures (2020), with the longest estimated life being 28.9years and the shortest being 3.67 years. So, the implementation of knockdown joints in the installation of the bulbousbow is less effective because, at high slamming intensity, the fatigue life value of the knockdown joints does not exceedthe threshold set by ABS
Reversed cortical over-activity during movement imagination following neurofeedback treatment for central neuropathic pain
Objective:
One of the brain signatures of the central neuropathic pain (CNP) is the theta band over-activity of wider cortical structures, during imagination of movement. The objective of the study was to investigate whether this over-activity is reversible following the neurofeedback treatment of CNP.
Methods:
Five paraplegic patients with pain in their legs underwent from twenty to forty neurofeedback sessions that significantly reduced their pain. In order to assess their dynamic cortical activity they were asked to imagine movements of all limbs a week before the first and a week after the last neurofeedback session. Using timeâfrequency analysis we compared EEG activity during imagination of movement before and after the therapy and further compared it with EEG signals of ten paraplegic patients with no pain and a control group of ten able-bodied people.
Results:
Neurofeedback treatment resulted in reduced CNP and a wide spread reduction of cortical activity during imagination of movement. The reduction was significant in the alpha and beta band but was largest in the theta band. As a result cortical activity became similar to the activity of other two groups with no pain.
Conclusions:
Reduction of CNP is accompanied by reduced cortical over-activity during movement imagination.
Significance:
Understanding causes and consequences mechanism through which CNP affects cortical activity
Recanalization of the Chronically Occluded Internal Carotid Artery: Review of the Literature.
Introduction: We reviewed the literature on interventions for patients with medically refractory chronically occluded internal carotid artery (COICA) to assess the risks and/or benefits after recanalization via an endovascular technique (ET) or hybrid surgery (HS, i.e., ET plus carotid endarterectomy).
Methods: A systematic search of the electronic databases was performed. Patients with COICA were classified into 4 different categories according to Hasan et al classification.
Results: Eighteen studies satisfied the inclusion criteria. Only 6 studies involved an HS procedure. We identified 389 patients with COICA who underwent ET or HS; 91% were males. The overall perioperative complication rate was 10.1% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 7.4%-13.1%). For types A and B, the successful recanalization rate was 95.4% (95% CI: 86.5%-100%), with a 13.7% (95% CI: 2.3%-27.4%) complication rate. For type C, the success rate for ET was 45.7% (95% CI: 17.8%-70.7%), with a complication rate of 46.0% (95% CI: 20.0%-71.4%) for ET and for the HS technique 87.6% (95% CI: 80.9%-94.4%), with a complication rate of 14.0% (95% CI: 7.0%-21.8%). For type D, the success rate of recanalization was 29.8% (95% CI: 7.8%-52.8%), with a 29.8% (95% CI: 6.1%-56.3%) complication rate. Successful recanalization resulted in a symmetrical perfusion between both cerebral hemispheres, resolution of penumbra, normalization of the mean transit time, and improvement in Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) score (ÎMoCA = 9.80 points; P = 0.004).
Conclusions: Type A and B occlusions benefit from ET, especially in the presence of a large penumbra. Type C occlusions can benefit from HS. Unfortunately, we did not identify an intervention to help patients with type D occlusions. A phase 2b randomized controlled trial is needed to confirm these findings
Patient attitudes to sternotomy and thoracotomy scars
Young adults with congenital heart defects expressed dissatisfaction with their surgical scar. The impact extended to their social life and ability to form close relationships, and has implications for holistic practice. Presented at Association for European Paediatric Cardiology conference in Munich
Space-Time Projection Optical Tomography: Search Space and Orbit Determination
In a companion article, we discussed the radiometric sensitivity and
resolution of a new passive optical sensing technique, Space-Time Projection
Optical Tomography (SPOT), to detect and track sub-cm and larger space debris
for Space Situational Awareness. SPOT is based on the principle that long
synthetic exposure can be achieved if the phase-space trajectory of a
hypothetical point-source is precisely predictable within a very wide telescope
field-of-view, which is the case for orbiting debris. This article discusses
the computational search space for debris mining as well as a recursive
measure-and-fit algorithm based on a generalized Hough transform for orbit
determination.Comment: Space Situational Awarenes
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