A FACIAL ANIMATION FRAMEWORK WITH EMOTIVE/EXPRESSIVE CAPABILITIES

LUCIA is an MPEG-4 facial animation system developed at ISTC-CNR.. It works on standard Facial Animation Parameters and speaks with the Italian version of FESTIVAL TTS. To achieve an emotive/expressive talking head LUCIA was build from real human data physically extracted by ELITE optotracking movement analyzer. LUCIA can copy a real human by reproducing the movements of passive markers positioned on his face and recorded by the ELITE device or can be driven by an emotional XML tagged input text, thus realizing a true audio/visual emotive/expressive synthesis. Synchronization between visual and audio data is very important in order to create the correct WAV and FAP files needed for the animation. LUCIA\u27s voice is based on the ISTC Italian version of FESTIVAL-MBROLA packages, modified by means of an appropriate APML/VSML tagged language. LUCIA is available in two different versions: an open source framework and the "work in progress" WebG

A 3d talking head for mobile devices based on unofficial ios webgl support

In this paper we present the implementation of a WebGL Talking Head for iOS mobile devices (Apple iPhone and iPad). It works on standard MPEG-4 Facial Animation Parameters (FAPs) and speaks with the Italian version of FESTIVAL TTS. It is totally based on true real human data. The 3D kinematics information are used to create lips articulatory model and to drive directly the talking face, generating human facial movements. In the last year we developed the WebGL version of the avatar. WebGL, which is 3D graphic for the web, is currently supported in the major web browsers for desktop computers. No official support has been given for mobile device main platforms yet, although the Firefox beta version enables it on android phones. Starting from iOS 5 WebGL is enabled only for the advertisement library class (which is intended for placing ad-banners in applications). We have been able to use this feature to visualize and animate our WebGL talking head

Photoionization of hydrogen by a chirped, short X-ray pulse in the presence of a laser field

The ionization of hydrogen by a chirped XUV pulse in the presence of a few cycle infrared laser pulse is investigated. It is found that the combined action of the chirped pulse and the laser eld brings about asymmetries in the photoelectron momentum distribution that may be exploited for obtaining information on both the chirp and XUV pulse duration

RADIATIVE RECOMBINATION IN THE PRESENCE OF A FEW CYCLE LASER PULSE

We have investigated the laser-assisted radiative recombination in the presence of a few-cycle pulse with the aim of demonstrating means of controlling such process. Within the Coulomb-Volkov approach already employed to describe the radiative recombination assisted by a monochromatic laser field, we have found that the emitted photon spectrum is affected by both the cycle number n(c) and the carrier-envelope relative phase.. In particular, it has been shown that the minimum and the maximum values of the emitted photon energy may be controlled by varying nc and.. Finally, it has been found that the enhancement of radiative recombination occurring in the presence of a monochromatic field, takes place also by using a few-cycle laser pulse

LUCIA: An open source 3D expressive avatar for multimodal h.m.i.

LUCIA is an MPEG-4 facial animation system developed at ISTC-CNR . It works on standard Facial Animation Parameters and speaks with the Italian version of FESTIVAL TTS. To achieve an emotive/expressive talking head LUCIA was build from real human data physically extracted by ELITE optotracking movement analyzer. LUCIA can copy a real human by reproducing the movements of passive markers positioned on his face and recorded by the ELITE device or can be driven by an emotional XML tagged input text, thus realizing a true audio/visual emotive/expressive synthesis. Synchronization between visual and audio data is very important in order to create the correct WAV and FAP files needed for the animation. LUCIA\u27s voice is based on the ISTC Italian version of FESTIVAL-MBROLA packages, modified by means of an appropriate APML/VSML tagged language. LUCIA is available in two dif-ferent versions: an open source framework and the "work in progress" WebGL

A Statistical Assessment of Blending Hydrogen into Gas Networks

The deployment of low-carbon hydrogen in gas grids comes with strategic benefits in terms of energy system integration and decarbonization. However, hydrogen thermophysical properties substantially differ from natural gas and pose concerns of technical and regulatory nature. The present study investigates the blending of hydrogen into distribution gas networks, focusing on the steady-state fluid dynamic response of the grids and gas quality compliance issues at increasing hydrogen admixture levels. Two blending strategies are analyzed, the first of which involves the supply of NG–H2 blends at the city gate, while the latter addresses the injection of pure hydrogen in internal grid locations. In contrast with traditional case-specific analyses, results are derived from simulations executed over a large number (i.e., one thousand) of synthetic models of gas networks. The responses of the grids are therefore analyzed in a statistical fashion. The results highlight that lower probabilities of violating fluid dynamic and quality restrictions are obtained when hydrogen injection occurs close to or in correspondence with the system city gate. When pure hydrogen is injected in internal grid locations, even very low volumes (1% vol of the total) may determine gas quality violations, while fluid dynamic issues arise only in rare cases of significant hydrogen injection volumes (30% vol of the total)

Synthetic gas networks for the statistical assessment of low-carbon distribution systems

Most of the simulation studies on energy networks, including gas grids, derive their results from a limited number of network models. The findings of these works are therefore affected by a substantial case-specificity, which partially limits their validity and prevents their generalisation. To overcome this limitation, the present work proposes a novel statistical-based approach for studying distribution gas networks, enabled by a generator of random gas grids with accurate technical designs and structural features. Ten thousand random and unique networks are produced in three different tests, where increasingly tight constraints are applied to the synthetisation process for a higher control over the generated grids. The experiments verify the accuracy of the tool and highlight that substantial variations can be found in the hydraulic behaviour (pressures and gas velocities) and structural properties (pipe diameters and network volumes) of real-world gas networks. The observed 10,000 gas grids evidence the information gain offered by statistical-based approaches with respect to traditional case-specific studies. The tool opens a broad range of applications which include, but are not limited to, statistical analyses on the distributed injection of alternative gases, like hydrogen, in integrated, low-carbon, energy systems

The role of Attachment Insecurity in the emergency of anxiety symptoms in children and adolescent with migraine: an empirical study

Background: It is widely recognised that there are associations between headache, psychiatric comorbidity and attachment insecurity in both adults and children. The aims of this study were: 1) to compare perceived attachment security and anxiety in children and adolescents with migraine without aura and a healthy control group; 2) to test whether the child’s perceived security of attachment to the mother and the father mediated the association between migraine and anxiety. Methods: One hundred children and adolescents with Migraine without Aura were compared with a control group of 100 children without headache. The Security Scale (measures perceived security of attachments) and the Self-Administered Psychiatric Scales for Children and Adolescents, a measure of anxiety symptoms, were administered to all participants. Results: The clinical group had lower attachment security than the control group and higher scores on all anxiety scales. Anxiety was negatively correlated with attachment. Children’s attachment to their mother mediated the increase in global anxiety in the clinical group. Insecure paternal attachment was associated with greater insecurity in maternal attachment, suggesting that there is a complex pathway from migraine to anxiety symptoms mediated by perceived insecurity of paternal attachment and hence also by perceived insecurity of maternal attachment. Conclusion: These results suggest that insecure parental attachment may exacerbate anxiety in children and adolescents with migraine and point to the importance of multimodal interventions, perhaps taking account of family relationships, for children and adolescents with migraine