1,828 research outputs found
FacEMOTE: Qualitative Parametric Modifiers for Facial Animations
We propose a control mechanism for facial expressions by applying a few carefully chosen parametric modifications to preexisting expression data streams. This approach applies to any facial animation resource expressed in the general MPEG-4 form, whether taken from a library of preset facial expressions, captured from live performance, or entirely manually created. The MPEG-4 Facial Animation Parameters (FAPs) represent a facial expression as a set of parameterized muscle actions, given as intensity of individual muscle movements over time. Our system varies expressions by changing the intensities and scope of sets of MPEG-4 FAPs. It creates variations in “expressiveness” across the face model rather than simply scale, interpolate, or blend facial mesh node positions. The parameters are adapted from the Effort parameters of Laban Movement Analysis (LMA); we developed a mapping from their values onto sets of FAPs. The FacEMOTE parameters thus perturb a base expression to create a wide range of expressions. Such an approach could allow real-time face animations to change underlying speech or facial expression shapes dynamically according to current agent affect or user interaction needs
Are spiral galaxies optically thin or thick?
The opacity of spiral galaxies is examined by modelling the dust and stellar
content of individual galaxies. The model is applied to five late-type spiral
galaxies (NGC 4013, IC 2531, UGC 1082, NGC 5529 and NGC 5907). Having analyzed
a total of seven galaxies thus far, the five galaxies mentioned above plus UGC
2048 and NGC 891 presented in (Xilouris et al. 1997, 1998), we are able to draw
some general conclusions, the most significant of which are: 1) The face-on
central optical depth is less than one in all optical bands indicating that
typical spiral galaxies like the ones that we have modelled would be completely
transparent if they were to be seen face-on. 2) The dust scaleheight is about
half that of the stars, which means that the dust is more concentrated near the
plane of the disk. 3) The dust scalelength is about 1.4 times larger than that
of the stars and the dust is more radially extended than the stars. 4) The dust
mass is found to be about an order of a magnitude more than previously measured
using the IRAS fluxes, indicating the existence of a cold dust component. The
gas-to-dust mass ratio calculated is close to the value derived for our Galaxy.
5) The derived extinction law matches quite well the Galactic extinction law,
indicating a universal dust behaviour.Comment: 13 pages. Accepted for publication in A&
The securitization of the real estate market in Korea : future impacts to the Korean real estate market
Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1999.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 67-68).The real estate policy of the Korean government had until recently only focused on restraining speculative investment in the real estate market, which was the prevalent consensus in the country in the 1970's and the 1980's. These strict measures in the real estate market have been a serious obstacle to the government, in their active efforts to gain foreign capital in order to overcome the economic crisis since the International Monetary Fund $55 billion bailout to the Korean government. During the Asian crisis, both large institutional companies and small businesses went bankrupt due to financial distress caused by over-leverage. Consequently, the government has changed the paradigm of real estate policies on the basis of a free market principle, and has completely opened the real estate market to foreign investors in order to solve some of the current financial problems and to provide a momentum to redevelop the Korean economy. As part of the ongoing effort to stabilize the Korea economy, securitization in the real estate market is inevitable. In this thesis, the securitization efforts undertaken by the government will be examined to infer their future impacts on the real estate market of Korea. With the first issuance of asset backed-securities (ABS) by the Korea Asset Management Corporation (KAMCO), a resolution trust formed by the Korean government to liquidate non-performing loans, the outlook of the Korean economy is positive yet with a degree of uncertainty. In addition, the introduction of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and real estate investment trusts (REITs) could have a profound effect on the Korean financial markets.by Joon Ho Byun and Tommy Shih-I Chao.S.M
Representing and Parameterizing Agent Behaviors
The last few years have seen great maturation in understanding how to use computer graphics technology to portray 3D embodied characters or virtual humans. Unlike the off-line, animator-intensive methods used in the special effects industry, real-time embodied agents are expected to exist and interact with us live . They can be represent other people or function as autonomous helpers, teammates, or tutors enabling novel interactive educational and training applications. We should be able to interact and communicate with them through modalities we already use, such as language, facial expressions, and gesture. Various aspects and issues in real-time virtual humans will be discussed, including consistent parameterizations for gesture and facial actions using movement observation principles, and the representational basis for character believability, personality, and affect. We also describe a Parameterized Action Representation (PAR) that allows an agent to act, plan, and reason about its actions or actions of others. Besides embodying the semantics of human action, the PAR is designed for building future behaviors into autonomous agents and controlling the animation parameters that portray personality, mood, and affect in an embodied agent
Optical observations of NEA 162173 (1999 JU3) during the 2011-2012 apparition
Near-Earth asteroid 162173 (1999 JU3) is a potential target of two asteroid
sample return missions, not only because of its accessibility but also because
of the first C-type asteroid for exploration missions. The lightcurve-related
physical properties of this object were investigated during the 2011-2012
apparition. We aim to confirm the physical parameters useful for JAXA's
Hayabusa 2 mission, such as rotational period, absolute magnitude, and phase
function. Our data complement previous studies that did not cover low phase
angles. With optical imagers and 1-2 m class telescopes, we acquired the
photometric data at different phase angles. We independently derived the
rotational lightcurve and the phase curve of the asteroid. We have analyzed the
lightcurve of 162173 (1999 JU3), and derived a synodic rotational period of
7.625 +/- 0.003 h, the axis ratio a/b = 1.12. The absolute magnitude H_R =
18.69 +/- 0.07 mag and the phase slope of G = -0.09 +/- 0.03 were also obtained
based on the observations made during the 2011-2012 apparition.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
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