A Real-Time Facial Expression Recognition System for Online Games

Multiplayer online games (MOGs) have become increasingly popular because of the opportunity they provide for collaboration, communication, and interaction. However, compared with ordinary human communication, MOG still has several limitations, especially in communication using facial expressions. Although detailed facial animation has already been achieved in a number of MOGs, players have to use text commands to control the expressions of avatars. In this paper, we propose an automatic expression recognition system that can be integrated into an MOG to control the facial expressions of avatars. To meet the specific requirements of such a system, a number of algorithms are studied, improved, and extended. In particular, Viola and Jones face-detection method is extended to detect small-scale key facial components; and fixed facial landmarks are used to reduce the computational load with little performance degradation in the recognition accuracy

A real-time facial expression recognition system for online games

Multiplayer online games (MOGs) have become increasingly popular because of the opportunity they provide for collaboration, communication, and interaction. However, compared with ordinary human communication, MOG still has several limitations, especially in communication using facial expressions. Although detailed facial animation has already been achieved in a number of MOGs, players have to use text commands to control the expressions of avatars. In this paper, we propose an automatic expression recognition system that can be integrated into an MOG to control the facial expressions of avatars. To meet the specific requirements of such a system, a number of algorithms are studied, improved, and extended. In particular, Viola and Jones face-detection method is extended to detect small-scale key facial components; and fixed facial landmarks are used to reduce the computational load with little performance degradation in the recognition accuracy

Outracing Human Racers with Model-based Planning and Control for Time-trial Racing

Autonomous racing has become a popular sub-topic of autonomous driving in recent years. The goal of autonomous racing research is to develop software to control the vehicle at its limit of handling and achieve human-level racing performance. In this work, we investigate how to approach human expert-level racing performance with model-based planning and control methods using the high-fidelity racing simulator Gran Turismo Sport (GTS). GTS enables a unique opportunity for autonomous racing research, as many recordings of racing from highly skilled human players can served as expert emonstrations. By comparing the performance of the autonomous racing software with human experts, we better understand the performance gap of existing software and explore new methodologies in a principled manner. In particular, we focus on the commonly adopted model-based racing framework, consisting of an offline trajectory planner and an online Model Predictive Control-based (MPC) tracking controller. We thoroughly investigate the design challenges from three perspective, namely vehicle model, planning algorithm, and controller design, and propose novel solutions to improve the baseline approach toward human expert-level performance. We showed that the proposed control framework can achieve top 0.95% lap time among human-expert players in GTS. Furthermore, we conducted comprehensive ablation studies to validate the necessity of proposed modules, and pointed out potential future directions to reach human-best performance.Comment: 16 pages, 13 figures, 3 table

Magnetic-dielectric properties of NiFe2O4/PZT particulate composites

Particulate composites of lead–zirconate–titanate (PZT) and NiFe2O4 were prepared using conventional ceramic processing. The measured magnetoelectric (ME) response demonstrated strong dependence on the volume fraction of NiFe2O4 , the magnetic field, and the angle between the magnetic field and polarization in the ceramics. A large ME voltage coefficient of about 80 m V cm −1 Oe−1 was observed for 0.32NiFe2O4/0.68PZT composite ceramic. In particular, at low magnetic fields, the ceramics were found to have a large ME response, linearly varying with both dc and ac magnetic fields

Magnetic properties of composites of Tb028Dy072Fe2 and polyvinylidene fluoride

Bi-ferroic particulate composites with Tb0.28Dy0.72Fe2 (Terfenol-D) particles randomly dispersed in ferroelectric polyvinylidene fluoride matrix prepared by a simple hot-pressing procedure were investigated. With increasing concentration of Terfenol-D, the magnetic susceptibility, saturation magnetization and initial permeability of the composites increases. The dependence of the effective magnetostriction on applied bias for the composites is similar to that for bulk Terfenol-D, but the effective magnetostriction strongly depends on the volume fraction of Terfenol-D. The observed behaviour of the composite is reasonably described by using effective medium theories

Pathogen Populations Evolve to Greater Race Complexity in Agricultural Systems – Evidence from Analysis of Rhynchosporium secalis Virulence Data

Fitness cost associated with pathogens carrying unnecessary virulence alleles is the fundamental assumption for preventing the emergence of complex races in plant pathogen populations but this hypothesis has rarely been tested empirically on a temporal and spatial scale which is sufficient to distinguish evolutionary signals from experimental error. We analyzed virulence characteristics of ∼1000 isolates of the barley pathogen Rhynchosporium secalis collected from different parts of the United Kingdom between 1984 and 2005. We found a gradual increase in race complexity over time with a significant correlation between sampling date and race complexity of the pathogen (r20 = 0.71, p = 0.0002) and an average loss of 0.1 avirulence alleles (corresponding to an average gain of 0.1 virulence alleles) each year. We also found a positive and significant correlation between barley cultivar diversity and R. secalis virulence variation. The conditions assumed to favour complex races were not present in the United Kingdom and we hypothesize that the increase in race complexity is attributable to the combination of natural selection and genetic drift. Host resistance selects for corresponding virulence alleles to fixation or dominant frequency. Because of the weak fitness penalty of carrying the unnecessary virulence alleles, genetic drift associated with other evolutionary forces such as hitch-hiking maintains the frequency of the dominant virulence alleles even after the corresponding resistance factors cease to be used

Global, local and focused geographic clustering for case-control data with residential histories

BACKGROUND: This paper introduces a new approach for evaluating clustering in case-control data that accounts for residential histories. Although many statistics have been proposed for assessing local, focused and global clustering in health outcomes, few, if any, exist for evaluating clusters when individuals are mobile. METHODS: Local, global and focused tests for residential histories are developed based on sets of matrices of nearest neighbor relationships that reflect the changing topology of cases and controls. Exposure traces are defined that account for the latency between exposure and disease manifestation, and that use exposure windows whose duration may vary. Several of the methods so derived are applied to evaluate clustering of residential histories in a case-control study of bladder cancer in south eastern Michigan. These data are still being collected and the analysis is conducted for demonstration purposes only. RESULTS: Statistically significant clustering of residential histories of cases was found but is likely due to delayed reporting of cases by one of the hospitals participating in the study. CONCLUSION: Data with residential histories are preferable when causative exposures and disease latencies occur on a long enough time span that human mobility matters. To analyze such data, methods are needed that take residential histories into account

The Spatial Association of Gene Expression Evolves from Synchrony to Asynchrony and Stochasticity with Age

For multicellular organisms, different tissues coordinate to integrate physiological functions, although this systematically and gradually declines in the aging process. Therefore, an association exists between tissue coordination and aging, and investigating the evolution of tissue coordination with age is of interest. In the past decade, both common and heterogeneous aging processes among tissues were extensively investigated. The results on spatial association of gene changes that determine lifespan appear complex and paradoxical. To reconcile observed commonality and heterogeneity of gene changes among tissues and to address evolution feature of tissue coordination with age, we introduced a new analytical strategy to systematically analyze genome-wide spatio-temporal gene expression profiles. We first applied the approach to natural aging process in three species (Rat, Mouse and Drosophila) and then to anti-aging process in Mouse. The results demonstrated that temporal gene expression alteration in different tissues experiences a progressive association evolution from spatial synchrony to asynchrony and stochasticity with age. This implies that tissue coordination gradually declines with age. Male mice showed earlier spatial asynchrony in gene expression than females, suggesting that male animals are more prone to aging than females. The confirmed anti-aging interventions (resveratrol and caloric restriction) enhanced tissue coordination, indicating their underlying anti-aging mechanism on multiple tissue levels. Further, functional analysis suggested asynchronous DNA/protein damage accumulation as well as asynchronous repair, modification and degradation of DNA/protein in tissues possibly contributes to asynchronous and stochastic changes of tissue microenvironment. This increased risk for a variety of age-related diseases such as neurodegeneration and cancer that eventually accelerate organismal aging and death. Our study suggests a novel molecular event occurring in aging process of multicellular species that may represent an intrinsic molecular mechanism of aging