Computer animation data management: Review of evolution phases and emerging issues

The computer animation industry has been booming and prospering in recent thirty years. One of the significant changes faced by this industry is the evolution of computer-animation data and, yet, extant literature has offered very little insights into the evolution process and management issues pertinent to computer-animation data. Hence, many questions have surfaced in the extant literature of computer-animation data management. For example, to what extent has the data content expanded in terms of quantity and quality? To what extent has the information technology used to store and process the data changed? To what extent have the user and the community groups diversified in terms of their nature and number? Knowledge pertaining to these issues can provide new research directions to academics and also insights to practitioners for more effective and innovative management of computer-animation data. This conceptual paper, therefore, takes the pioneering step to address these issues by proposing four factors prudent for examining the evolution phases associated with computer-animation data management: technology, content, users, and community. Next, this paper presents a conceptual framework illustrating the inter-dependent relationships between these four factors together with associated theoretical and managerial issues. This paper, albeit limited by its conceptual nature, advances the extant literature of computer animation, information system, and open-product model

Virus efficacy of recombined Autographa californica M nucleopolyhedrovirus (AcMNPV) on tea pest Ectropis obliqua

Ectropis obliqua is a major tea pest and chitin synthase (CHS) plays a key role in the pest growth and development. A 192 bp conserved domain from E. obliqua CHS gene was cloned and it was used to construct recombined Autographa californica M nucleopolyhedrovirus (AcMNPV) with double-stranded RNA interference (dsRNAi) method. The recombined AcMNPV virus could propagate in host cells sf9. Injection test showed that the virus efficacy of the recombined AcMNPV on E. obliqua larvae was significantly enhanced. It is considered that the CHS dsRNAi mediated by the nuclear polyhedrosis virus will be interesting for development of alternative bio-pesticide to control the tea pest E. obliqua.Keywords: Chitin synthase, baculovirus, double-stranded RNA interference, Ectropis obliquaAfrican Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 9(33), pp. 5412-5418, 16 August, 201

Puppet Narrator: utilizing motion sensing technology in storytelling for young children

Using avatars in storytelling to assist narration has proved to be beneficial on promoting creativity, collaboration and intimacy among young children. Development of novel Human Computer Interaction (HCI) techniques provides us with new possibilities to explore the training aspects of storytelling by creating new ways of interaction. In this paper, we design and develop a novel digital puppetry storytelling system - Puppet Narrator for young children, utilizing depth motion sensing technology as the HCI method. More than merely allowing children to narrate orally, our system allows them to use hand gestures to play with a virtual puppet and manipulate it to interact with virtual items in virtual environment to assist narration. Under this novel pattern of interaction, children’s narrative ability can be trained and the competencies of cognition and motor coordination can also be nourished

Exploitation of Novel Multiplayer Gesture-based Interaction and Virtual Puppetry for Digital Storytelling to Develop Children’s Narrative Skills

In recent years, digital storytelling has demonstrated powerful pedagogical functions by improving creativity, collaboration and intimacy among young children. Saturated with digital media technologies in their daily lives, the young generation demands natural interactive learning environments which offer multimodalities of feedback and meaningful immersive learning experiences. Virtual puppetry assisted storytelling system for young children, which utilises depth motion sensing technology and gesture control as the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) method, has been proved to provide natural interactive learning experience for single player. In this paper, we designed and developed a novel system that allows multiple players to narrate, and most importantly, to interact with other characters and interactive virtual items in the virtual environment. We have conducted one user experiment with four young children for pedagogical evaluation and another user experiment with five postgraduate students for system evaluation. Our user study shows this novel digital storytelling system has great potential to stimulate learning abilities of young children through collaboration tasks

Spin transfer and polarization of antihyperons in lepton induced reactions

We study the polarization of antihyperon in lepton induced reactions such as $e^+e^-\to\bar H+X$ and $l+p\to l'+\bar H+X$ with polarized beams using different models for spin transfer in high energy fragmentation processes. We compare the results with the available data and those for hyperons. We make predictions for future experiments.Comment: 31 pages, 6 figures. submitted to Phys. Rev. D. content changed, references adde

Exploitation of multiplayer interaction and development of virtual puppetry storytelling using gesture control and stereoscopic devices

With the rapid development of human-computer interaction technologies, the new media generation demands novel learning experiences with natural interaction and immersive experience. Considering that digital storytelling is a powerful pedagogical tool for young children, in this paper, we design an immersive storytelling environment that allows multiple players to use naturally interactive hand gestures to manipulate virtual puppetry for assisting narration. A set of multimodal interaction techniques is presented for a hybrid user interface that integrates existing 3D visualization and interaction devices including head-mounted displays and depth motion sensor. In this system, the young players could intuitively use hand gestures to manipulate virtual puppets to perform a story and interact with props in a virtual stereoscopic environment. We have conducted a user experiment with four young children for pedagogical evaluation, as well as system acceptability and interactivity evaluation by postgraduate students. The results show that our framework has great potential to stimulate learning abilities of young children through collaboration tasks. The stereoscopic head-mounted display outperformed the traditional monoscopic display in a comparison between the two

Advanced ODE Based Head Modelling for Chinese Marionette Art Preservation

Puppetry has been a popular art form for many centuries in different cultures, which becomes a valuable and fascinating heritage assert. Traditional Chinese marionette art with over 2,000 years history is one of the most representative forms offering a mixture of stage performance of singing, dancing, music, poem, opera, story narrative and action. Apart from a set of string rules which controls the dynamics, head carving skill is another important pillar in this art form. This paper addresses the heritage preservation of the marionette head carving by digitalizing the head models with a novel modelling technique using ordinary differential equations (ODEs). The technique has been specially tailored to suit the modelling complexity and the need of accurate description of shapes. It offers smoothly sewing ODE swept patches to represent the distinct features of a marionette head with sharp variance of local geometry. Such features otherwise are difficult to model and capture accurately, which may require a great effort and tedious hand-crafting of an experienced modeller, when using other representation forms like polygons

PR-Set7 is Degraded in a Conditional Cul4A Transgenic Mouse Model of Lung Cancer.

BackgroundMaintenance of genomic integrity is essential to ensure normal organismal development and to prevent diseases such as cancer. PR-Set7 (also known as Set8) is a cell cycle regulated enzyme that catalyses monomethylation of histone 4 at Lys20 (H4K20me1) to promote chromosome condensation and prevent DNA damage. Recent studies show that CRL4CDT2-mediated ubiquitylation of PR-Set7 leads to its degradation during S phase and after DNA damage. This might occur to ensure appropriate changes in chromosome structure during the cell cycle or to preserve genome integrity after DNA damage.MethodsWe developed a new model of lung tumor development in mice harboring a conditionally expressed allele of Cul4A. We have therefore used a mouse model to demonstrate for the first time that Cul4A is oncogenic in vivo. With this model, staining of PR-Set7 in the preneoplastic and tumor lesions in AdenoCre-induced mouse lungs was performed. Meanwhile we identified higher protein level changes of γ-tubulin and pericentrin by IHC.ResultsThe level of PR-Set7 down-regulated in the preneoplastic and adenocarcinomous lesions following over-expression of Cul4A. We also identified higher levels of the proteins pericentrin and γ-tubulin in Cul4A mouse lungs induced by AdenoCre.ConclusionsPR-Set7 is a direct target of Cul4A for degradation and involved in the formation of lung tumors in the conditional Cul4A transgenic mouse model