Watertight conversion of trimmed CAD surfaces to Clough-Tocher splines

The boundary representations (B-reps) that are used to represent shape in Computer-Aided Design systems create unavoidable gaps at the face boundaries of a model. Although these inconsistencies can be kept below the scale that is important for visualisation and manufacture, they cause problems for many downstream tasks, making it difficult to use CAD models directly for simulation or advanced geometric analysis, for example. Motivated by this need for watertight models, we address the problem of converting B-rep models to a collection of cubic C1C1 Clough–Tocher splines. These splines allow a watertight join between B-rep faces, provide a homogeneous representation of shape, and also support local adaptivity. We perform a comparative study of the most prominent Clough–Tocher constructions and include some novel variants. Our criteria include visual fairness, invariance to affine reparameterisations, polynomial precision and approximation error. The constructions are tested on both synthetic data and CAD models that have been triangulated. Our results show that no construction is optimal in every scenario, with surface quality depending heavily on the triangulation and parameterisation that are used.This research was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council through Grant EP/K503757/1.This is the final version. It was first published by Elsevier at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167839615000795

Who Left the Dogs Out? 3D Animal Reconstruction with Expectation Maximization in the Loop

We introduce an automatic, end-to-end method for recovering the 3D pose and shape of dogs from monocular internet images. The large variation in shape between dog breeds, significant occlusion and low quality of internet images makes this a challenging problem. We learn a richer prior over shapes than previous work, which helps regularize parameter estimation. We demonstrate results on the Stanford Dog dataset, an 'in the wild' dataset of 20,580 dog images for which we have collected 2D joint and silhouette annotations to split for training and evaluation. In order to capture the large shape variety of dogs, we show that the natural variation in the 2D dataset is enough to learn a detailed 3D prior through expectation maximization (EM). As a by-product of training, we generate a new parameterized model (including limb scaling) SMBLD which we release alongside our new annotation dataset StanfordExtra to the research community.GS

Fitting a 3D Morphable Model to Edges: A Comparison Between Hard and Soft Correspondences

We propose a fully automatic method for fitting a 3D morphable model to single face images in arbitrary pose and lighting. Our approach relies on geometric features (edges and landmarks) and, inspired by the iterated closest point algorithm, is based on computing hard correspondences between model vertices and edge pixels. We demonstrate that this is superior to previous work that uses soft correspondences to form an edge-derived cost surface that is minimised by nonlinear optimisation.Comment: To appear in ACCV 2016 Workshop on Facial Informatic

Creatures Great and SMAL: Recovering the Shape and Motion of Animals from Video

We present a system to recover the 3D shape and motion of a wide variety of quadrupeds from video. The system comprises a machine learning front-end which predicts candidate 2D joint positions, a discrete optimization which finds kinematically plausible joint correspondences, and an energy minimization stage which fits a detailed 3D model to the image. In order to overcome the limited availability of motion capture training data from animals, and the difficulty of generating realistic synthetic training images, the system is designed to work on silhouette data. The joint candidate predictor is trained on synthetically generated silhouette images, and at test time, deep learning methods or standard video segmentation tools are used to extract silhouettes from real data. The system is tested on animal videos from several species, and shows accurate reconstructions of 3D shape and pose.GlaxoSmithKlin

Order-randomized Laplacian mesh smoothing.

In this paper we compare three variants of the graph Laplacian smoothing. The first is the standard synchronous implementation, corresponding to multiplication by the graph Laplacian matrix. The second is a voter process inspired asynchronous implementation, assuming that every vertex is equipped with an independent exponential clock. The third is in-between the first two, with the vertices updated according to a random permutation of them. We review some well-known results on spectral graph theory and on voter processes, and we show that while the convergence of the synchronous Laplacian is graph dependent and, generally, does not converge on bipartite graphs, the asynchronous converges with high probability on all graphs. The differences in the properties of these three approaches are illustrated with examples including both regular grids and irregular meshes

The reactive metabolite target protein database (TPDB) – a web-accessible resource

BACKGROUND: The toxic effects of many simple organic compounds stem from their biotransformation to chemically reactive metabolites which bind covalently to cellular proteins. To understand the mechanisms of cytotoxic responses it may be important to know which proteins become adducted and whether some may be common targets of multiple toxins. The literature of this field is widely scattered but expanding rapidly, suggesting the need for a comprehensive, searchable database of reactive metabolite target proteins. DESCRIPTION: The Reactive Metabolite Target Protein Database (TPDB) is a comprehensive, curated, searchable, documented compilation of publicly available information on the protein targets of reactive metabolites of 18 well-studied chemicals and drugs of known toxicity. TPDB software enables i) string searches for author names and proteins names/synonyms, ii) more complex searches by selecting chemical compound, animal species, target tissue and protein names/synonyms from pull-down menus, and iii) commonality searches over multiple chemicals. Tabulated search results provide information, references and links to other databases. CONCLUSION: The TPDB is a unique on-line compilation of information on the covalent modification of cellular proteins by reactive metabolites of chemicals and drugs. Its comprehensiveness and searchability should facilitate the elucidation of mechanisms of reactive metabolite toxicity. The database is freely available a

Aberrant Localization of FUS and TDP43 Is Associated with Misfolding of SOD1 in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Background: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is incurable and characterized by progressive paralysis of the muscles of the limbs, speech and swallowing, and respiration due to the progressive degeneration of voluntary motor neurons. Clinically indistinguishable ALS can be caused by genetic mutations of Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase (SOD1), TAR-DNA binding protein 43 (TDP43), or fused in sarcoma/translocated in liposarcoma (FUS/TLS), or can occur in the absence of known mutation as sporadic disease. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that FUS/TLS and TDP43 gain new pathogenic functions upon aberrant accumulation in the cytosol that directly or indirectly include misfolding of SOD1. Methodology/Principal Findings: Patient spinal cord necropsy immunohistochemistry with SOD1 misfolding-specific antibodies revealed misfolded SOD1 in perikarya and motor axons of SOD1-familial ALS (SOD1-FALS), and in motor axons of R521C-FUS FALS and sporadic ALS (SALS) with cytoplasmic TDP43 inclusions. SOD1 misfolding and oxidation was also detected using immunocytochemistry and quantitative immunoprecipitation of human neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y cells as well as cultured murine spinal neural cells transgenic for human wtSOD1, which were transiently transfected with human cytosolic mutant FUS or TDP43, or wtTDP43. Conclusion/Significance: We conclude that cytosolic mislocalization of FUS or TDP43 in vitro and ALS in vivo may kindle wtSOD1 misfolding in non-SOD1 FALS and SALS. The lack of immunohistochemical compartmental co-localization o

Real-life use of vitamin D_3-fortified bread and milk during a winter season: the effects of CYP2R1 and GC genes on 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations in Danish families, the VitmaD study.

Common genetic variants rs10741657 and rs10766197 in CYP2R1 and rs4588 and rs842999 in GC and a combined genetic risk score (GRS) of these four variants influence late summer 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) concentrations. The objectives were to identify those who are most at risk of developing low vitamin D status during winter and to assess whether vitamin D(3)-fortified bread and milk will increase 25(OH)D concentrations in those with genetically determined low 25(OH)D concentrations at late summer. We used data from the VitmaD study. Participants were allocated to either vitamin D(3)-fortified bread and milk or non-fortified bread and milk during winter. In the fortification group, CYP2R1 (rs10741657) and GC (rs4588 and rs842999) were statistically significantly associated with winter 25(OH)D concentrations and CYP2R1 (rs10766197) was borderline significant. There was a negative linear trend between 25(OH)D concentrations and carriage of 0–8 risk alleles (p < 0.0001). No association was found for the control group (p = 0.1428). There was a significant positive linear relationship between different quintiles of total vitamin D intake and the increase in 25(OH)D concentrations among carriers of 0–2 (p = 0.0012), 3 (p = 0.0001), 4 (p = 0.0118) or 5 (p = 0.0029) risk alleles, but not among carriers of 6–8 risk alleles (p = 0.1051). Carriers of a high GRS were more prone to be vitamin D deficient compared to carriers of a low GRS. Furthermore, rs4588-AA carriers have a low but very stable 25(OH)D concentration, and interestingly, also low PTH level. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s12263-014-0413-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Longevity of daily oral Vitamin D3 supplementation:Differences in 25OHD and 24,25(OH)2D observed 2 years after cessation of a 1-year randomized controlled trial (VICtORy RECALL)

Purpose To determine the longevity of vitamin D status following cessation of vitamin D3 supplementation, 2 and 3 years after a 1 year randomised double blind placebo controlled trial: (Vitamin D and Cardiovascular Risk (VICtORY)); and to investigate possible predictive factors. Method Of the 305 Caucasian non-smoking postmenopausal women randomised to ViCtORY (2009-2010), participants who had not taken vitamin D supplements since the trial ended were invited to attend follow up visits. Total 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25OHD) and 24,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (24,25OH2D) were measured by dual tandem mass spectrometry of serum samples following removal of protein and de-lipidation; the original RCT samples were re-analysed simultaneously. Vitamin D binding protein (VDBP) was measured by monoclonal immunoassay. Results In March 2012 and March 2013, 159 women (mean (SD) age 67.6 (2.1) years) re-attended, distributed between the original treatment groups: daily vitamin D3 400IU; 1000IU; and placebo. One month after the RCT ended (March 2010) the proportion of women in placebo, 400IU, and 1000IU vitamin D3 groups, respectively, with 25OHD0.001, n=46,44,54); 42%, 33%, 12% (2y, p=0.002,n=50,48,57) and 45%, 27%, 29% (3y, p=0.138, n=47,45,51,). VDBP was a predictor of circulating 25OHD longevity (beta for VDBP in µg/ml:0.736; 95% CI 0.216-1.255,p=0.006) but not 24,25OH2D

Dietary intake of micronutrients and the risk of developing bladder cancer: results from the Belgian case–control study on bladder cancer risk

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to investigate the effect of dietary intake of micronutrients that are metabolized and excreted via the urinary tract on bladder cancer risk. METHODS: A semi-quantitative 322 item food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) was used to collect dietary data from 200 bladder cancer cases and 386 control subjects participating in the Belgian case-control study on bladder cancer risk. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated using unconditional logistic regression adjusting for age, sex, smoking characteristics, occupational exposures, and energy intake. RESULTS: We observed a positive association between calcium intake and bladder cancer (OR: 1.77; 95% CI: 1.00-3.15; p-trend = 0.049) and increased odds, although not statistically significant, for highest tertile of phosphorus intake (OR: 1.82; 95% CI: 0.95-3.49; p-trend = 0.06). We identified possible modification of the effects of both calcium and phosphorus by level of magnesium intake. Increased odds of bladder cancer were also observed for participants with highest intake of phosphorus and lowest intake of vitamin D (OR: 4.25; 95% CI: 1.44-12.55) and among older participants with the highest intakes of calcium (OR: 1.90; 95% CI: 1.08-3.36) and phosphorus (OR: 2.02; 95% CI: 1.05-3.92). CONCLUSION: The positive associations we observed between bladder cancer and intake of calcium and phosphorus require confirmation by other studies. The balances between inter-related micronutrients also warrant further examination