HumanRF: High-Fidelity Neural Radiance Fields for Humans in Motion

Representing human performance at high-fidelity is an essential building block in diverse applications, such as film production, computer games or videoconferencing. To close the gap to production-level quality, we introduce HumanRF1, a 4D dynamic neural scene representation that captures full-body appearance in motion from multi-view video input, and enables playback from novel, unseen viewpoints. Our novel representation acts as a dynamic video encoding that captures fine details at high compression rates by factorizing space-time into a temporal matrix-vector decomposition. This allows us to obtain temporally coherent reconstructions of human actors for long sequences, while representing high-resolution details even in the context of challenging motion. While most research focuses on synthesizing at resolutions of 4MP or lower, we address the challenge of operating at 12MP. To this end, we introduce ActorsHQ, a novel multi-view dataset that provides 12MP footage from 160 cameras for 16 sequences with high-fidelity, per-frame mesh reconstructions2. We demonstrate challenges that emerge from using such high-resolution data and show that our newly introduced HumanRF effectively leverages this data, making a significant step towards production-level quality novel view synthesis

Use of in vitro human keratinocyte models to study the effect of cooling on chemotherapy drug-induced cytotoxicity

A highly distressing side-effect of cancer chemotherapy is chemotherapy-induced alopecia (CIA). Scalp cooling remains the only treatment for CIA, yet there is no experimental evidence to support the cytoprotective capacity of cooling. We have established a series of in vitro models for the culture of human keratinocytes under conditions where they adopt a basal, highly-proliferative phenotype thus resembling the rapidly-dividing sub-population of native hair-matrix keratinocytes. Using a panel of chemotherapy drugs routinely used clinically (docetaxel, doxorubicin and the active metabolite of cyclophosphamide 4-OH-CP), we demonstrate that although these drugs are highly-cytotoxic, cooling can markedly reduce or completely inhibit drug cytotoxicity, in agreement with clinical observations. By contrast, we show that cytotoxicity caused by specific combinatorial drug treatments cannot be adequately attenuated by cooling, supporting data showing that such treatments do not always respond well to cooling clinically. Importantly, we provide evidence that the choice of temperature may be critical in determining the efficacy of cooling in rescuing cells from drug-mediated toxicity. Therefore, despite their reductive nature, these in vitro models have provided experimental evidence for the clinically-reported cytoprotective role of cooling and represent useful tools for future studies on the molecular mechanisms of cooling-mediated cytoprotection

Ubiquinone-8 Stimulates Phagocytosis in Macrophages by Modulation of the Kinetics of the Fc Receptor

The effect of exogenous ubiquinone-8 (Q8) on IgG- and C3b-mediated phagocytosis of sensitized sheep red blood cells and of opsonized Staphylococcus aureus by macrophages was studied by morphological and quantitative methods. Q8 stimulated the initial events of phagocytosis, that is, attachment and ingestion, in which occupancy of the Fe receptor by IgG was shown to be of critical significance. The kinetics of competitive inhibition of phagocytosis of opsonized bacteria by macrophages by using Fe fragments suggested the intimate role of the kinetics of the Fe receptor in the initial events of phagocytosis and, further, the modulation of the kinetics of the Fe receptor by Q8 as the basis of enhanced phagocytosis by Q

Metastasis rates and sites after treatment for choroidal melanoma by proton beam irradiation or by enucleation

Chryssanthi Koutsandrea, Marilita M Moschos, Michael Dimissianos, Gerasimos Georgopoulos, Ioannnis Ladas, Michael ApostolopoulosDepartment of Ophthalmology, Athens University, Athens, GreecePurpose: To investigate tumor thickness and location, the interval of time between treatment for choroidal melanoma (proton beam irradiation or enucleation) and diagnosis of metastatic disease, and rates and sites of metastasis.Design: Retrospective, interventional, noncomparative case series.Methods: Follow-up of 152 patients with primary choroidal melanoma, between 1992 and 2006 (14 years). One hundred and twenty-one patients were treated with proton beam irradiation and 31 patients were treated with enucleation. Baseline and annual or semiannual ophthalmic examination, B-scan ultrasonography, systemic and laboratory evaluations (liver enzymes, chest X-ray, ultrasonography or magnetic resonance imaging of the liver) were performed according to a standard protocol.Results: Nineteen patients (12.5%) were diagnosed with metastasis during follow-up time after treatment for choroidal melanoma. Thirteen patients (10.7%) of the irradiation group and 6 patients (19.3%) of the enucleation group were diagnosed with metastasis. Eight patients (6.6%) of the irradiation group and 5 patients (16.1%) of the enucleation group were diagnosed with liver metastasis. Ocular complications after proton beam irradiation were recorded. Fifty-nine patients (48.7%) of the irradiation group presented with cataract. Other complications were retinal detachment, retinopathy, vitreous haemorrhage, iris neovascularization, neovascular glaucoma, optic neuropathy, and corneal opacification.Conclusions: In our series, 10.7% of the irradiation group and 19.3% of the enucleation group were diagnosed with metastasis. The liver was the most common site of metastasis in both groups. Cataract was the most common complication in the irradiation group.Keywords: melanoma, metastasis, irradiation, enucleatio

REASSEMBLY OF ROCK SEGMENTS, THE CASE OF AREOPAGUS HILL

There are no specifications and/or standards for the restoration of collapsed masses of rocks, as in most cases the rocks bear no historical/archaeological value and their restoration would require significant budget and resources. But plenty of colossal statues, ancient temples, tombs and whole cities are carved on the surface or even expand in the interior of solid natural rocks. These so-called rock-cut monuments are located all around the globe and, in most cases, are made on a grand scale. Earthquakes, rock’s faults, erosion and karst can lead to massive rock collapses.The purpose of this paper is to establish an integrated methodology for the relocation of detached rock segments to their original positions. Specifically, the proposed methodology is based on the case of the Areopagus Hill and involves the generation of 3d models of the rock segments, their virtual reassembly and their utilization for the reconstruction of a part of the peak of the hill

Attentive Learning of Sequential Handwriting Movements: A Neural Network Model

Defense Advanced research Projects Agency and the Office of Naval Research (N00014-95-1-0409, N00014-92-J-1309); National Science Foundation (IRI-97-20333); National Institutes of Health (I-R29-DC02952-01)

Two-dimensional discrete wavelet analysis of multiparticle event topology in heavy ion collisions

The event-by-event analysis of multiparticle production in high energy hadron and nuclei collisions can be performed using the discrete wavelet transformation. The ring-like and jet-like structures in two-dimensional angular histograms are well extracted by wavelet analysis. For the first time the method is applied to the jet-like events with background simulated by event generators, which are developed to describe nucleus-nucleus collisions at LHC energies. The jet positions are located quite well by the discrete wavelet transformation of angular particle distribution even in presence of strong background.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure

CONVENTIONAL OR AUTOMATED PHOTOGRAMMETRY FOR CULTURAL HERITAGE DOCUMENTATION?

During the past 15 years photogrammetric practice has experienced an unprecedented change by the influence of computer vision algorithms, which support an almost completely automated processing. It is widely acknowledged that this fact has “democratized” Photogrammetry a lot, in the sense that it has become almost everyone’s tool. However, this radical change has been met by scepticism by traditional photogrammetrists, who claim that such tools may lead to geometrically wrong and inaccurate results if not accompanied by thorough projection and error checks and evaluation of the correctness of results.In this paper, the two approaches are briefly described on the basis of the geometric documentation of a cultural heritage funerary monument situated in the archaeological site of Messini in Southern Greece. An effort is made for highlighting the obvious advantages of each approach but also indicating their disadvantages. Applications, subject to different requirements and processing procedures are identified, rationalizing that conventional photogrammetric procedures still cannot be easily replaced.</p