An Appetite for the Tasteless: An Evaluation of Off-Color Humor in Adult Animations and Video Games, Presented Through a Proposed Interactive Narrative via a Procedurally Generated Material Library

Off-color humor has propelled adult animation into its Golden Age. The success of this genre has prompted media studios to begin developing original series for subscription video-on-demand services. The technology used for these over the top (OTT) streaming services have improved to the point that providers have begun developing cloud-based gaming. These improvements, along with developments in rendering systems, have made it possible to create interactive media across both video and gaming platforms using similar assets. This document will detail the successes of adult animation and the proposal for more interactive narrative media within this category. Accompanying the text will be a procedural material library fitting within the theme and style of adult animation. In recent years media studios have been adapting to tools for a fully procedural texture creation workflow. The focus will be on the creation and implementation of a base material library, as well as examine the benefits and capabilities of said materials across multiple entertainment industries

Vibration Suppression of a Rotationally Periodic Structure Using an Adaptive/PPF Control Law

For a compressor disk, effective vibration suppression requires broadband control, and the elimination of inter-blade coupling forces. Previous researchers achieved this using an active/passive piezoelectric shunt network. Unfortunately, optimal tuning of the shunt requires prior knowledge of the coupling strength, which is not well defined. This thesis uses an adaptive parameter estimator to eliminate the inter-blade coupling forces. In addition, the passive shunt is replaced with an analogous positive position feedback method. The resulting control law was used on a simulated four and eight bladed system. While substantial reductions in system response were achieved for the Adaptive/PPF control technique, the parameter estimates did not always converge to the correct solution. Similar reductions in the response were achieved using PPF control by itself

Determination of Iron(II) Concentrations in Seawater Using Flow Injection Analysis and Chemiluminescence

Phytoplankton are a major consumer of carbon dioxide. In theory, if phytoplankton are limited in number, more carbon dioxide will be present in the atmosphere and contribute to the greenhouse effect. An increased concentration of iron would, therefore, promote phytoplankton blooms that would consume carbon dioxide. There would then be less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to prevent heat from radiating away from earth. In 1996, an iron seeding experiment was performed in the open ocean to determine whether phytoplankton density would be increased. Phytoplankton rapidly increased in number. The research project results suggested that iron seeding the polar oceans would cause atmospheric carbon dioxide to decrease by as much as 10%.19 Decreasing atmospheric carbon dioxide is beneficial because over abundance of this substance in the atmosphere causes the Green House Effect. Carbon dioxide prevents radiant heat from leaving earth, thereby increasing the overall temperature.Iron can be present in ion form or metal form. The ion forms come in two ways: either iron (II) or iron(III). It is the iron (II) that is the important nutrient for phytoplankton and the iron being assessed. lron(III), however, forms an organic complex that is used by protozoan and . I zooplankton as an uptake nutrient.1 The development of special iron (II) defecting systems would allow a better understanding of the relationship between iron(II) concentrations and phytoplankton growth. Currently, the relationship is poorly understood among scientists. Knowing the iron (II) concentrations will, therefore, enhance our knowledge of the biochemical processes in ocean waters

Escape rates for Gibbs measures

In this paper we study the asymptotic behaviour of the escape rate of a Gibbs measure supported on a conformal repeller through a small hole. There are additional applications to the convergence of the Hausdorff dimension of the survivor set

Causal graphical models in systems genetics: A unified framework for joint inference of causal network and genetic architecture for correlated phenotypes

Causal inference approaches in systems genetics exploit quantitative trait loci (QTL) genotypes to infer causal relationships among phenotypes. The genetic architecture of each phenotype may be complex, and poorly estimated genetic architectures may compromise the inference of causal relationships among phenotypes. Existing methods assume QTLs are known or inferred without regard to the phenotype network structure. In this paper we develop a QTL-driven phenotype network method (QTLnet) to jointly infer a causal phenotype network and associated genetic architecture for sets of correlated phenotypes. Randomization of alleles during meiosis and the unidirectional influence of genotype on phenotype allow the inference of QTLs causal to phenotypes. Causal relationships among phenotypes can be inferred using these QTL nodes, enabling us to distinguish among phenotype networks that would otherwise be distribution equivalent. We jointly model phenotypes and QTLs using homogeneous conditional Gaussian regression models, and we derive a graphical criterion for distribution equivalence. We validate the QTLnet approach in a simulation study. Finally, we illustrate with simulated data and a real example how QTLnet can be used to infer both direct and indirect effects of QTLs and phenotypes that co-map to a genomic region.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/09-AOAS288 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Pax3:Fkhr interferes with embryonic Pax3 and Pax7 function: implications for alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma cell of origin.

Journal ArticleTo investigate the role of the translocation-associated gene Pax3:Fkhr in alveolar rhabdomyosarcomas, we generated a Cre-mediated conditional knock-in of Pax3:Fkhr into the mouse Pax3 locus. Exploring embryonic tumor cell origins, we replaced a Pax3 allele with Pax3:Fkhr throughout its expression domain, causing dominant-negative effects on Pax3 and paradoxical activation of the Pax3 target gene, c-Met. Ectopic neuroprogenitor cell proliferation also occurs. In contrast, activation later in embryogenesis in cells that express Pax7 results in viable animals with a postnatal growth defect and a moderately decreased Pax7+ muscle satellite cell pool, phenocopying Pax7 deficiency but remarkably not leading to tumors

Non-white frequency noise in spin torque oscillators and its effect on spectral linewidth

We measure the power spectral density of frequency fluctuations in nanocontact spin torque oscillators over time scales up to 50 ms. We use a mixer to convert oscillator signals ranging from 10 GHz to 40 GHz into a band near 70 MHz before digitizing the time domain waveform. We analyze the waveform using both zero crossing time stamps and a sliding Fourier transform, discuss the different limitations and advantages of these two methods, and combine them to obtain a frequency noise spectrum spanning more than five decades of Fourier frequency $f$. For devices having a free layer consisting of either a single Ni$_{\text{}80}$Fe$_{\text{}20}$ layer or a Co/Ni multilayer we find a frequency noise spectrum that is white at large $f$ and varies as \emph{$1/f$} at small $f$. The crossover frequency ranges from \approx\unit[10^{4}]{Hz} to \approx\unit[10^{6}]{Hz} and the $1/f$ component is stronger in the multilayer devices. Through actual and simulated spectrum analyzer measurements, we show that $1/f$ frequency noise causes both broadening and a change in shape of the oscillator's spectral line as measurement time increases. Our results indicate that the long term stability of spin torque oscillators cannot be accurately predicted from models based on thermal (white) noise sources