Web-based visualisation of head pose and facial expressions changes: monitoring human activity using depth data

Despite significant recent advances in the field of head pose estimation and facial expression recognition, raising the cognitive level when analysing human activity presents serious challenges to current concepts. Motivated by the need of generating comprehensible visual representations from different sets of data, we introduce a system capable of monitoring human activity through head pose and facial expression changes, utilising an affordable 3D sensing technology (Microsoft Kinect sensor). An approach build on discriminative random regression forests was selected in order to rapidly and accurately estimate head pose changes in unconstrained environment. In order to complete the secondary process of recognising four universal dominant facial expressions (happiness, anger, sadness and surprise), emotion recognition via facial expressions (ERFE) was adopted. After that, a lightweight data exchange format (JavaScript Object Notation-JSON) is employed, in order to manipulate the data extracted from the two aforementioned settings. Such mechanism can yield a platform for objective and effortless assessment of human activity within the context of serious gaming and human-computer interaction.Comment: 8th Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, (CEEC 2016), University of Essex, UK, 6 page

Local Governance through Organic Farming. The bio-district of the Vara Valley, a private/public partnership to assure vitality to a rural area

Organic farming became an issue in the Vara Valley, Liguria, NW Italy, during the end of the 90s. The conversion of local cattle farmers to organic, fostered development, identity, co-operation, labour and finally gave a well deserved nickname of the Organic valley (la Valle del Biologico) that attracted tourism to the area. The Bio-district Val di Vara is formally and legally recognised by the Regional Council of Liguria, by the regional law 66/2009. The law itself sets the criteria to reach the recognition as Bio-distretto. The share of organic farms over the total farms of the bio-district area is 22%, and it is considerably larger both of the regional share (1,9%) and the national one (2,8%). The share of Utilised Agricultural Area (UAA) of organic fams is 50 % of total farmland of the bio-district. One hectar out of two is certified organic. To foster rural vitality is the clear objective of the biodistrict, but also to expand its international network of relations, seeking fruitful partnerships in order to exchange experiences, and learn from good practices

GEOCHEMICAL MODELING OF ABANDONED SULFIDIC FLOTATION MILL TAILINGS: THE CASE OF KIRKI, NE GREECE

Το εργοστάσιο εμπλουτισμού της Κίρκης εντοπίζεται περίπου 5 km νότια του μεταλλείου του Αγίου Φιλίππου. Τα απορρίμματα της επεξεργασίας του μεταλλεύματος είναι εκτεθειμένα στις ατμοσφαιρικές συνθήκες, με αποτέλεσμα τη συσσώρευση μετεωρικού νερού στην επιφάνειά τους. Τα επιφανειακά ρευστά αλληλεπιδρούν με το λεπτόκοκκο υλικό με υψηλό φορτίο βαρέων μετάλλων, με τελικό αποτέλεσμα τη δημιουργία όξινων και οξειδωτικών διαλυμάτων με υψηλό φορτίο μετάλλων στην επιφάνεια των απορριμμάτων. Τα απορρίμματα της επεξεργασίας αποτελούνται κυρίως από σύνδρομα ορυκτά της μεταλλοφορίας (χαλαζίας, δικίτης/καολινίτης, πυροφυλλίτης και άστριοι), ενώ τα κυριότερα δευτερογενή ορυκτά που εντοπίζονται αφορούν ορυκτά της ομάδας του γιαροσίτη, γύψο και αγκλεσίτη. Μοναδική πρωτογενής φάση της μεταλλοφορίας που εντοπίζεται στα απορρίμματα είναι ο σιδηροπυρίτης. Ο λεπτόκοκκος χαρακτήρας των απορριμμάτων της επεξεργασίας ευνοεί ταχύτατες αντιδράσεις μεταξύ των επιφανειακών ρευστών με το υλικό των απορριμμάτων. Το γεωχημικό πρόγραμμα PHRΕEQC, με χρήση της βάσης δεδομένων MINTEQ, εφαρμόσθηκε για τη διερεύνηση της λειτουργίας του συστήματος «επιφανειακό διάλυμα - δευτερογενή ορυκτά», με την ανάπτυξη τριών διαφορετικών μοντέλων, «Άμεση Καθίζηση», «Ανάμιξη με Μετεωρικό Νερό» και «Εξάτμιση». Σε κάθε μοντέλο εξετάζεται ο μηχανισμός με τον οποίο βαρέα μέταλλα δεσμεύονται στο πλέγμα δευτερογενών ορυκτών, αλλά και αποδεσμεύονται/διαλυτοποιούνται μετά από διαλυτοποίηση μετασταθών φάσεων.The Kirki flotation plant is located approximately 5 km south of the Agios Filippos open pit mine (Thrace, NE Greece), and unconfined mill tailings are exposed to atmospheric conditions. Rain water accumulates on the surface of the tailings and interacts with the solids, resulting in highly acidic and oxidative surface solutions with increased heavy metal content. The tailings material is dominated by gangue minerals with very low acid buffering capacity, including quartz, kaolinite/dickite, pyrophyllite and minor orthoclase. Secondary phases identified include mainly species of the jarosite group, gypsum and anglesite. No primary ore minerals besides pyrite are identified. The finegrained character of the tailings material favors fast reactions between the surface waters and the solids. The speciation/mass transfer computer code PHREEQC-2 and the MINTEQ database were employed for geochemical modeling of the acidic surface waters of the tailings dams T1 and T2. Three different scenarios were employed, “Direct Precipitation”, “Mixing with Rainwater” and “Evaporation” to check the equilibrium between the developed surface solutions and the secondary minerals identified in the tailings. The purpose of this work is to understand the way heavy metals may be locked to the lattice of secondary minerals, or dispersed/dissolved after dissolution of unstable secondary phases

Numerical simulations of hydrogen auto-ignition in a turbulent co-flow of heated air

Our research objective is the performance of Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) with the first order Conditional Moment Closure (CMC) of the test case experimentally studied by Markides and Mastorakos [1]. The experiment concerns auto-ignition of hydrogen, diluted with nitrogen, in a co-flow of heated air. A 19 step, nine species detailed mechanism is used for the reaction. Simulations reveal that the injected hydrogen mixes with co-flowing air and a diffusion flame is established. The configuration is sensitive to inlet boundary conditions, as all major turbulence effects are expected to be dominated by the inflow conditions. Preliminary LES results are presented. Stand-alone chemistry calculations are also presented to illustrate sensitivity on chemistry mechanisms

Simulation of hydrogen auto-ignition in a turbulent co-flow of heated air with LES and CMC approach

Large-Eddy Simulations (LES) with the first order Conditional Moment Closure (CMC) approach of a nitrogen-diluted hydrogen jet, igniting in a turbulent co-flowing hot air stream, are discussed. A detailed mechanism (nine species, 19 reactions) is used to represent the chemistry. Our study covers the following aspects: CFD mesh resolution; CMC mesh resolution; inlet boundary conditions and conditional scalar dissipation rate modelling. The Amplitude Mapping Closure for the conditional scalar dissipation rate produces acceptable results. We also compare different options to calculate conditional quantities in CMC resolution. The trends in the experimental observations are in general well reproduced. The auto-ignition length decreases with an increase in co-flow temperature and increases with increase in co-flow velocity. The phenomena are not purely chemically controlled: the turbulence and mixing play also affect the location of auto-ignition. In order to explore the effect of turbulence, two options were applied: random noise and turbulence generator based on digital filter. It was found that stronger turbulence promotes ignition

Magnetorheological Elastomers

National audienceMagnetorheological elastomers (MREs) are ferromagnetic particle impregnated rubbers whose mechanical properties are altered by the application of external magnetic fields. Due to their coupled magnetoelastic response, MREs are finding an increasing number of engineering applications. In this work, we present a combined experimental and theoretical study of the macroscopic response of a particular MRE consisting of a rubber matrix phase with spherical carbonyl iron particles. The MRE specimens used in this work are cured in the presence of strong magnetic fields leading to the formation of particle chain structures and thus to an overall transversely isotropic composite. The MRE samples are tested experimentally under uniaxial stresses as well as under simple shear in the absence or in the presence of magnetic fields and for different initial orientations of their particle chains with respect to the mechanical and magnetic loading direction. Using the theoretical framework for finitely strained MREs introduced earlier by the author, we propose a transversely isotropic energy density function that is able to reproduce the experimentally measured magnetization, magnetostriction and simple shear curves under different prestresses, initial particle chain orientations and magnetic fields. Microscopic mechanisms are also proposed to explain i) the counterintuitive effect of dilation under zero or compressive applied mechanical loads for the magnetostriction experiments and ii) the importance of a finite strain constitutive formulation even at small magnetostrictive strains. The model gives an excellent agreement with experiments for relatively moderate magnetic fields but has also been satisfactorily extended to include magnetic fields near saturation

AVISA: anisotropic visco-ISA model and its performance at cyclic loading

In this work, a constitutive model able to capture the strain rate dependency, small strain effects and the inherent anisotropy is proposed considering the influence of the overconsolidation ratio (OCR). Small strain effects are captured by using an extended ISA plasticity formulation (Fuentes and Triantafyllidis in Int J Numer Anal Methods Geomech 39(11):1235–1254, 2015). The strain rate dependency is reproduced by incorporating a third strain rate mechanism (in addition to the elastic and hypoplastic strain rate). A loading surface has been incorporated to define a three-dimensional (3D) overconsolidation ratio and to account for its effects on the simulations. Experimental investigations using Kaolin Clay and Lower Rhine Clay with horizontal bedding plane have shown that under undrained cycles of small strain amplitudes (<10$^{-4}$), the effective stress path in the p–q space is significantly inclined towards the left upper corner of the p - q plane. Consequently, a transversely (hypo)elastic stiffness has been successfully formulated to capture this behaviour. The performance of the model has been inspected by simulating the database of approximately 50 cyclic undrained triaxial (CUT) tests on low-plasticity Kaolin Clay (Wichtmann and Triantafyllidis) considering different deviatoric stress amplitudes, initial stress ratios, displacement rate, overconsolidation ratio and cutting direction. Furthermore, 4 CUT tests conducted on high-plasticity Lower Rhine Clay were simulated, whereby the influence of the displacement rate, as well as the deviatoric stress amplitude, has been analysed. The simulations showed a good congruence with the experimental observations