bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Relative skeletal distribution of proliferating marrow in the adult dog determined using 3′‐deoxy‐3′‐[18F]fluorothymidine
Authors: Rowe Joshua A. , Morandi Federica , Osborne Dustin R. , Wall Jonathan S. , Kennel Stephen J. , Reed Robert B. , LeBlanc Amy K.
Published: October 2018

3′‐deoxy‐3′‐[18F]fluorothymidine (18FLT) is a radiopharmaceutical tracer used with positron emission tomography (PET), often in combination with computed tomography (CT), to image DNA synthesis, and thus, cellular proliferation. Characteristic accumulation of the tracer within haematopoietic bone marrow provides a noninvasive means to assess marrow activity and distribution throughout the living animal. The present study utilizes three‐dimensional analysis of 18FLT‐PET/CT scans to quantify the relative skeletal distribution of active marrow by anatomic site in the dog. Scans were performed on six healthy, adult (3–6 years of age), mixed‐breed dogs using a commercially available PET/CT scanner consisting of a 64‐slice helical CT scanner combined with an integrated four ring, high‐resolution LSO PET scanner. Regions of interest encompassing 11 separate skeletal regions (skull, cervical vertebral column, thoracic vertebral column, lumbar vertebral column, sacrum, ribs, sternum, scapulae, proximal humeri, ossa coxarum, and proximal femora) were manually drawn based on CT images and thresholded by standardized uptake value to delineate bone marrow activity. Activity within each skeletal region was then divided by the total skeletal activity to derive the per cent of overall marrow activity within an individual site. The majority of proliferative marrow was located within the vertebral column. Of the sites traditionally accessed clinically for marrow sampling, the proximal humerus contained the largest percentage, followed by the ossa coxarum, proximal femur, and sternum, respectively. This information may be used to guide selection of traditional marrow sampling sites as well as inform efforts to spare important sites of haematopoiesis in radiation therapy planning.
Comparing biologicals and small molecule drug therapies for chronic respiratory diseases: An EAACI Taskforce on Immunopharmacology position paper
Authors: Roth‐Walter Franziska , Adcock Ian M. , Benito‐Villalvilla Cristina , Bianchini Rodolfo , Bjermer Leif , Caramori Gaetano , Cari Luigi , Chung Kian Fan , Diamant Zuzana , Eguiluz‐Gracia Ibon , Knol Edward F. , Kolios Antonios G. A. , Levi‐Schaffer Francesca , Nocentini Giuseppe , Palomares Oscar , Puzzovio Pier Giorgio , Redegeld Frank A. , van Esch Betty C. A. M. , Stellato Cristiana
Published: October 2018

Chronic airway diseases such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), together with their comorbidities, bear a significant burden on public health. Increased appreciation of molecular networks underlying inflammatory airway disease needs to be translated into new therapies for distinct phenotypes not controlled by current treatment regimens. On the other hand, development of new safe and effective therapies for such respiratory diseases is an arduous and expensive process. Antibody‐based (biological) therapies are successful in treating certain respiratory conditions not controlled by standard therapies such as severe allergic and refractory eosinophilic severe asthma, while in other inflammatory respiratory diseases, such as COPD, biologicals are having a more limited impact. Small molecule drug (SMD)‐based therapies represent an active field in pharmaceutical research and development. SMDs expand biologicals’ therapeutic targets by reaching the intracellular compartment by delivery as either an oral or topically based formulation, offering both convenience and lower costs. Aim of this review was to compare and contrast the distinct pharmacological properties and clinical applications of SMDs‐ and antibody‐based treatment strategies, their limitations and challenges, in order to highlight how they should be integrated for their optimal utilization and to fill the critical gaps in current treatment for these chronic inflammatory respiratory diseases.
Volar locking plating versus percutaneous Kirschner wires for distal radius fractures in an adult population: a meta‐analysis
Authors: Youlden Daniel J. , Sundaraj Keran , Smithers Chris
Published: October 2018

Background

This paper compares volar locking plates (VLPs) and percutaneous Kirschner wire (K‐wire) fixation for distal radius fractures in an adult population up to and beyond 12 months. The aim of this review is to compare functional and radiological outcomes along with complication rates. A meta‐analysis was performed to investigate this.

Methods

A systematic review and meta‐analysis was performed using the PRISMA guidelines. A search of major databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) and CINAHL) was performed up to November 2017. Prospective and retrospective studies were included. Studies were assessed for quality using the Cochrane Risk of Bias tool. Meta‐analysis was performed using the ‘metafor’ package with R.

Results

A total of 14 studies (five randomized controlled trials and nine comparative studies) (n = 1535) were identified. Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand (DASH) scores were statistically significant for VLP at all follow‐up intervals up to and beyond 12 months. Wrist movements were statistically significant for VLP at 6 weeks. Grip strength was significantly different favouring VLP at 12 months and final follow‐up. VLP provided better restoration of ulnar variance at 6 weeks, but overall radiological outcomes were similar. These results were not clinically significant. K‐wires were associated with an 18% higher risk of complication but the reoperation rate was higher for VLP (4.6% versus 3.2%).

Conclusions

This study demonstrates similar clinical functional and radiological outcomes for VLP and K‐wire fixation in the short and intermediate term. There is a higher rate of overall complication with K‐wires, but the increased risk of reoperation must be considered when planning surgical fixation of these fractures.
Humidity a potential risk factor for prosthetic joint infection in a tropical Australian hospital
Authors: Armit Drew , Vickers Mark , Parr Adam , Van Rosendal Simon , Trott Nicholas , Gunasena Rivindi , Parkinson Benjamin
Published: October 2018

Background

Many pathogens of importance, including the staphylococcal species of concern in orthopaedics, demonstrate seasonal variations influenced by environmental factors. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of humidity as a risk factor for deep prosthetic joint infection following total knee arthroplasty (TKA) in a tropical Australian hospital.

Methods

A retrospective cohort study of all TKAs performed over a 13‐year period was conducted at the author's institution. Univariate analysis was used to individually assess for a range of risk factors including humidity >60% and apparent temperature >30°C (86°F). Odds ratios (ORs) were reported. P‐values <0.25 were considered as potentially important risk factors and P‐values <0.05 were considered statistically significant.

Results

A total of 1058 primary TKAs were performed with a deep prosthetic joint infection incidence of 2.7%. Four potential risk factors were identified with P‐values <0.25: (i) humidity >60% (OR 1.4; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.68–3.04; P = 0.221); (ii) apparent temperature >30°C (86°F) (OR 2.4; 95% CI 0.56–10.1; P = 0.174); (iii) male gender (OR 2.2; 95% CI 1.02–4.81; P = 0.057); and (iv) American Society of Anesthesiologists score of III or IV (OR 2.1; 95% CI 1.00–4.49; P = 0.064).

Conclusion

Humidity and apparent temperature may be potentially important risk factors for infection following TKA.
Preliminary report of a single‐channel applicator in high dose rate afterloading brachytherapy for cervical cancer
Authors: Li Dan , Wen En , Zhang Yingjie , Wu Zhouxue , Pang Haowen , Ren Peirong , Shang Changling , He Lijia , Zhang Jianwen , Xiang Li , Yang Hongru , Liu Qiaoli , Wen Qinglian , Fan Juan , Lin Sheng , Wu Jingbo
Published: October 2018

The aim of this study was to evaluate whether a patented single‐channel applicator, which was modified from the traditional tandem applicator and wrapped with an oval‐shield alloy around the source channel, has the same clinical efficacy and safety as the standard Fletcher‐type applicator in high dose rate (HDR) brachytherapy for carcinoma of the cervix. Between December 2011 and February 2017, 299 patients with pathologically confirmed International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (2009) stage Ib2‐IVa cervical cancer were recruited to the trial and finished the allocated intervention. Of the first 151 patients, 71 were allocated to the Fletcher group and 80 to the single‐channel group, satisfying the criteria for a preliminary analysis. All but 3 patients were treated with concurrent cisplatin chemotherapy and external beam radiotherapy followed by HDR brachytherapy. The 2‐year overall survival, progression‐free survival, and locoregional failure‐free survival was 80.3%, 77.5%, and 78.9%, respectively, for the Fletcher group, and 86.3%, 82.5%, and 83.8%, respectively, for the single‐channel group. The seriousness of acute treatment‐related toxicities was similar in the 2 groups. The cumulative rate of late rectal complications of grade 3‐4 in the Fletcher group and the single‐channel group was 2.8% and 2.5%, respectively. The cumulative rate of grade 3 bladder complications was 2.8% for the Fletcher group and 1.3% for the single‐channel group. The preliminary results of our study show that the patented single‐channel intracavitary applicator might be able to provide protection for the rectum and bladder and seems to have the same clinical efficacy as the standard Fletcher‐type 3‐channel applicator in HDR brachytherapy for carcinoma of the cervix. This trial was registered with the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (registration no. ChiCTR‐TRC‐12002321).
Conophylline suppresses pancreatic cancer desmoplasia and cancer‐promoting cytokines produced by cancer‐associated fibroblasts
Authors: Ishii Norihiro , Araki Kenichiro , Yokobori Takehiko , Hagiwara Kei , Gantumur Dorgormaa , Yamanaka Takahiro , Handa Tadashi , Tsukagoshi Mariko , Igarashi Takamichi , Watanabe Akira , Kubo Norio , Harimoto Norifumi , Masamune Atsushi , Umezawa Kazuo , Kuwano Hiroyuki , Shirabe Ken
Published: October 2018

Despite recent advances in cancer treatment, pancreatic cancer is a highly malignant tumor type with a dismal prognosis and it is characterized by dense desmoplasia in the cancer tissue. Cancer‐associated fibroblasts (CAF) are responsible for this fibrotic stroma and promote cancer progression. We previously reported that a novel natural compound conophylline (CnP) extracted from the leaves of a tropical plant reduced liver and pancreatic fibrosis by suppression of stellate cells. However, there have been no studies to investigate the effects of CnP on CAF, which is the aim of this work. Here, we showed that CAF stimulated indicators of pancreatic cancer malignancy, such as proliferation, invasiveness, and chemoresistance. We also showed that CnP suppressed CAF activity and proliferation, and inhibited the stimulating effects of CAF on pancreatic cancer cells. Moreover, CnP strongly decreased the various cytokines involved in cancer progression, such as interleukin (IL)‐6, IL‐8, C‐C motif chemokine ligand 2 (CCL2), and C‐X‐C motif chemokine ligand 12 (CXCL12), secreted by CAF. In vivo, CAF promoted tumor proliferation and desmoplastic formation in a mouse xenograft model, CnP reduced desmoplasia of tumors composed of pancreatic cancer cells + CAF, and combination therapy of CnP with gemcitabine remarkably inhibited tumor proliferation. Our findings suggest that CnP is a promising therapeutic strategy of combination therapy with anticancer drugs to overcome refractory pancreatic cancers.
Genetic evidence implies that primary and relapsed tumors arise from common precursor cells in primary central nervous system lymphoma
Authors: Hattori Keiichiro , Sakata‐Yanagimoto Mamiko , Kusakabe Manabu , Nanmoku Toru , Suehara Yasuhito , Matsuoka Ryota , Noguchi Masayuki , Yokoyama Yasuhisa , Kato Takayasu , Kurita Naoki , Nishikii Hidekazu , Obara Naoshi , Takano Shingo , Ishikawa Eiichi , Matsumura Akira , Muratani Masafumi , Hasegawa Yuichi , Chiba Shigeru
Published: October 2018

Primary central nervous system lymphoma (PCNSL) is a rare subtype of lymphoma that arises within the brain or the eyes. PCNSL recurs within the central nervous system (CNS) in most relapsed cases, whereas extra‐CNS relapse is experienced in rare cases. The present study aimed at identifying the presence of common precursor cells (CPC) for primary intra‐ and relapsed extra‐CNS tumors, and further assessing the initiating events in bone marrow (BM). Targeted deep sequencing was carried out for five paired primary intra‐ and relapsed extra‐CNS tumors of PCNSL. Two to five mutations were shared by each pair of intra‐ and extra‐CNS tumors. In particular, MYD88 mutations, L265P in three and P258L in one, were shared by four pairs. Unique somatic mutations were observed in all five intra‐CNS tumors and in four out of five extra‐CNS tumors. Remarkably, IgH clones in the intra‐ and the extra‐CNS tumors in two pairs were distinct from each other, whereas one pair of tumors shared identical monoclonal IgH rearrangement. In a cohort of 23 PCNSL patients, L265P MYD88 mutations were examined in tumor‐free BM mononuclear cells (MNC) in which the PCNSL tumors had L265P MYD88 mutations. L265P MYD88 mutations were detected by a droplet digital PCR method in nine out of 23 bone marrow mononuclear cells. These results suggest that intra‐ and extra‐tumors are derived from CPC with MYD88 mutations in most PCNSL, arising either before or after IgH rearrangement. The initiating MYD88 mutations may occur during B‐cell differentiation in BM.
Design, synthesis and antitrypanosomatid activities of 3,5‐diaryl‐isoxazole analogues based on neolignans veraguensin, grandisin and machilin G
Authors: Trefzger Ozildéia S. , das Neves Amarith R. , Barbosa Natália V. , Carvalho Diego B. , Pereira Indiara C. , Perdomo Renata T. , Matos Maria F. C. , Yoshida Nidia C. , Kato Massuo J. , de Albuquerque Sérgio , Arruda Carla C. P. , Baroni Adriano C. M.
Published: October 2018

Using bioisosterism as a medicinal chemistry tool, 16 3,5‐diaryl‐isoxazole analogues of the tetrahydrofuran neolignans veraguensin, grandisin and machilin G were synthesized via 1,3‐dipolar cycloaddition reactions, with yields from 43% to 90%. Antitrypanosomatid activities were evaluated against Trypanosoma cruzi, Leishmania (L.) amazonensis and Leishmania (V.) braziliensis. All compounds were selective for the Leishmania genus and inactive against T. cruzi. Isoxazole analogues showed a standard activity on both promastigotes of L. amazonensis and L. braziliensis. The most active compounds were 15, 16 and 19 with IC50 values of 2.0, 3.3 and 9.5 μM against L. amazonensis and IC50 values of 1.2, 2.1 and 6.4 μM on L. braziliensis, respectively. All compounds were noncytotoxic, showing lower cytotoxicity (>250 μM) than pentamidine (78.9 μM). Regarding the structure–activity relationship (SAR), the methylenedioxy group was essential to antileishmanial activity against promastigotes. Replacement of the tetrahydrofuran nucleus by an isoxazole core improved the antileishmanial activity.
Combined administration of anti‐IL‐13 and anti‐IL‐17A at individually sub‐therapeutic doses limits asthma‐like symptoms in a mouse model of Th2/Th17 high asthma
Authors: Kim Dasom , McAlees Jaclyn W. , Bischoff Lindsay J. , Kaur Davinder , Houshel Lauren K. , Gray Jerilyn , Hargis Julie , Davis Xenia , Dudas Paul L. , Deshmukh Hitesh , Lewkowich Ian P.
Published: October 2018

Background

Recent studies have demonstrated that Th2 responses have the ability to antagonize Th17 responses. In mouse models of allergic asthma, blockade of Th2‐effector cytokines results in elaboration of Th17 responses and associated increases in pulmonary neutrophilia. While these can be controlled by simultaneous blockade of Th17‐associated effector cytokines, clinical trials of anti‐IL‐17/IL‐17RA blocking therapies have demonstrated increased of risk of bacterial and fungal infections. Identification of minimally effective doses of cytokine‐blocking therapies with the goal of reducing the potential emergence of infection‐related complications is a translationally relevant goal.

Objective

In the current report, we examine whether combined blockade of IL‐13 and IL‐17A, at individually sub‐therapeutic levels, can limit the development of allergic asthma while sparing expression of IL‐17A‐associated anti‐microbial effectors.

Methods

House dust mite was given intratracheally to A/J mice. Anti‐IL‐13 and anti‐IL‐17A antibodies were administered individually, or concomitantly at sub‐therapeutic doses. Airway hyper‐reactivity, lung inflammation, magnitude of Th2‐ and Th17‐associated cytokine production and expression of IL‐13‐ and IL‐17A‐induced genes in the lungs was assessed.

Results

Initial dosing studies identified sub‐therapeutic levels of IL‐13 and IL‐17A blocking mAbs that have a limited effect on asthma parameters and do not impair responses to microbial products or infection. Subsequent studies demonstrated that combined sub‐therapeutic dosing with IL‐13 and IL‐17A blocking mAbs resulted in significant improvement in airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) and expression of IL‐13‐induced gene expression. Importantly, these doses neither exacerbated nor inhibited production of Th17‐associated cytokines, or IL‐17A‐associated gene expression.

Conclusion

This study suggests that combining blockade of individual Th2 and Th17 effector cytokines, even at individually sub‐therapeutic levels, may be sufficient to limit disease development while preserving important anti‐microbial pathways. Such a strategy may therefore have reduced potential for adverse events associated with blockade of these pathways.
A 5α‐reductase (SRD5A2) polymorphism is associated with serum testosterone and sex hormone–binding globulin in men, while aromatase (CYP19A1) polymorphisms are associated with oestradiol and luteinizing hormone reciprocally
Authors: Yeap Bu B. , Knuiman Matthew W. , Handelsman David J. , Ho Ken K. Y. , Hui Jennie , Divitini Mark L. , Arscott Gillian M. , McQuillan Brendan , Hung Joseph , Beilby John P.
Published: October 2018

Context

Pituitary luteinizing hormone (LH) stimulates testicular production of testosterone (T) which is metabolized to dihydrotestosterone (DHT) by 5α‐reductase and to oestradiol (E2) by aromatase. How the activity of population variants in these enzymes impacts on gonadal function is unclear. We examined whether polymorphisms in 5α‐reductase (SRD5A2) and aromatase (CYP19A1) genes predict circulating sex hormone concentrations.

Design

Cross‐sectional analysis of 1865 community‐dwelling men aged 50.4 ± 16.8 years.

Measurements

Early morning sera assayed for T, DHT and E2 (mass spectrometry), and SHBG and LH (immunoassay). Two SRD5A2 and eleven CYP19A1 polymorphisms were analysed by PCR. Regression models were adjusted for age and cardiometabolic risk factors.

Results

SRD5A2 polymorphism rs9282858 GA vs. GG was associated with higher serum T (+1.5 nmol/L, P < 0.001) and higher SHBG (+3.3 nmol/L, P = 0.001). CYP19A1 polymorphisms were associated with higher serum E2 and lower LH in reciprocal fashion, from which the two‐copy haplotype rs10046 = T/rs2899470 = G/rs11575899 = I/rs700518 = G/rs17703883 = T was associated with higher E2 (63.4 vs. 56.5 pmol/L, P = 0.001) and lower LH (3.9 vs. 4.5 IU/L, P = 0.001) compared to null copies. Conversely, rs10046 = C/rs2899470 = T/rs11575899 = D/rs700518 = A/rs17703883 = C was associated with lower E2 (51.8 vs. 62.0 pmol/L, P = 0.001) and higher LH (5.7 vs. 3.9 IU/L, P < 0.001). These haplotypes were associated primarily with differences in E2 in men <65 years and LH in men ≥65 years.

Conclusions

A 5α‐reductase polymorphism predicts circulating T and SHBG, while aromatase polymorphisms predict E2 and LH in reciprocal fashion. Age and aromatase polymorphisms interact to affect E2 and LH. How these functional polymorphisms impact on male reproductive and general health outcomes requires further study.
Semantic Reconstruction: Reconstruction of Semantically Segmented 3D Meshes via Volumetric Semantic Fusion
Authors: Jeon Junho , Jung Jinwoong , Kim Jungeon , Lee Seungyong
Published: October 2018

Semantic segmentation partitions a given image or 3D model of a scene into semantically meaning parts and assigns predetermined labels to the parts. With well‐established datasets, deep networks have been successfully used for semantic segmentation of RGB and RGB‐D images. On the other hand, due to the lack of annotated large‐scale 3D datasets, semantic segmentation for 3D scenes has not yet been much addressed with deep learning. In this paper, we present a novel framework for generating semantically segmented triangular meshes of reconstructed 3D indoor scenes using volumetric semantic fusion in the reconstruction process. Our method integrates the results of CNN‐based 2D semantic segmentation that is applied to the RGB‐D stream used for dense surface reconstruction. To reduce the artifacts from noise and uncertainty of single‐view semantic segmentation, we introduce adaptive integration for the volumetric semantic fusion and CRF‐based semantic label regularization. With these methods, our framework can easily generate a high‐quality triangular mesh of the reconstructed 3D scene with dense (i.e., per‐vertex) semantic labels. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our semantic segmentation results of 3D scenes achieves the state‐of‐the‐art performance compared to the previous voxel‐based and point cloud‐based methods.
Light Optimization for Detail Highlighting
Authors: Gkaravelis Anastasios , Papaioannou Georgios
Published: October 2018

In this paper we propose an effective technique for the automatic arrangement of spot lights and other luminaires on or near user‐provided arbitrary mounting surfaces in order to highlight the geometric details of complex objects. Since potential applications include the lighting design for exhibitions and similar installations, the method takes into account obstructing geometry and potential occlusion from visitors and other non‐permanent blocking geometry. Our technique generates the most appropriate position and orientation for light sources based on a local contrast maximization near salient geometric features and a clustering mechanism, producing consistent and view‐independent results, with minimal user intervention. We validate our method with realistic test cases including multiple and disjoint exhibits as well as high occlusion scenarios.
Fast Global Illumination with Discrete Stochastic Microfacets Using a Filterable Model
Authors: Wang Beibei , Wang Lu , Holzschuch Nicolas
Published: October 2018

Many real‐life materials have a sparkling appearance, whether by design or by nature. Examples include metallic paints, sparkling varnish but also snow. These sparkles correspond to small, isolated, shiny particles reflecting light in a specific direction, on the surface or embedded inside the material. The particles responsible for these sparkles are usually small and discontinuous. These characteristics make it difficult to integrate them efficiently in a standard rendering pipeline, especially for indirect illumination. Existing approaches use a 4‐dimensional hierarchy, searching for light‐reflecting particles simultaneously in space and direction. The approach is accurate, but still expensive. In this paper, we show that this 4‐dimensional search can be approximated using separate 2‐dimensional steps. This approximation allows fast integration of glint contributions for large footprints, reducing the extra cost associated with glints be an order of magnitude.
Controlling Stroke Size in Fast Style Transfer with Recurrent Convolutional Neural Network
Authors: Yang Lingchen , Yang Lumin , Zhao Mingbo , Zheng Youyi
Published: October 2018

Controlling stroke size in Fast Style Transfer remains a difficult task. So far, only a few attempts have been made towards it, and they still exhibit several deficiencies regarding efficiency, flexibility, and diversity. In this paper, we aim to tackle these problems and propose a recurrent convolutional neural subnetwork, which we call recurrent stroke‐pyramid, to control the stroke size in Fast Style Transfer. Compared to the state‐of‐the‐art methods, our method not only achieves competitive results with much fewer parameters but provides more flexibility and efficiency for generalizing to unseen larger stroke size and being able to produce a wide range of stroke sizes with only one residual unit. We further embed the recurrent stroke‐pyramid into the Multi‐Styles and the Arbitrary‐Style models, achieving both style and stroke‐size control in an entirely feed‐forward manner with two novel run‐time control strategies.
Reformulating Hyperelastic Materials with Peridynamic Modeling
Authors: Xu Liyou , He Xiaowei , Chen Wei , Li Sheng , Wang Guoping
Published: October 2018

Peridynamics is a formulation of the classical elastic theory that is targeted at simulating deformable objects with discontinuities, especially fractures. Till now, there are few studies that have been focused on how to model general hyperelastic materials with peridynamics. In this paper, we target at proposing a general strain energy function of hyperelastic materials for peridynamics. To get an intuitive model that can be easily controlled, we formulate the strain energy density function as a function parameterized by the dilatation and bond stretches, which can be decomposed into multiple one‐dimensional functions independently. To account for nonlinear material behaviors, we also propose a set of nonlinear basis functions to help design a nonlinear strain energy function more easily. For an anisotropic material, we additionally introduce an anisotropic kernel to control the elastic behavior for each bond independently. Experiments show that our model is flexible enough to approximately regenerate various hyperelastic materials in classical elastic theory, including St. Venant‐Kirchhoff and Neo‐Hookean materials.
Parallel Multigrid for Nonlinear Cloth Simulation
Authors: Wang Zhendong , Wu Longhua , Fratarcangeli Marco , Tang Min , Wang Huamin
Published: October 2018

Accurate high‐resolution simulation of cloth is a highly desired computational tool in graphics applications. As single‐resolution simulation starts to reach the limit of computational power, we believe the future of cloth simulation is in multi‐resolution simulation. In this paper, we explore nonlinearity, adaptive smoothing, and parallelization under a full multigrid (FMG) framework. The foundation of this research is a novel nonlinear FMG method for unstructured meshes. To introduce nonlinearity into FMG, we propose to formulate the smoothing process at each resolution level as the computation of a search direction for the original high‐resolution nonlinear optimization problem. We prove that our nonlinear FMG is guaranteed to converge under various conditions and we investigate the improvements to its performance. We present an adaptive smoother which is used to reduce the computational cost in the regions with low residuals already. Compared to normal iterative solvers, our nonlinear FMG method provides faster convergence and better performance for both Newton's method and Projective Dynamics. Our experiment shows our method is efficient, accurate, stable against large time steps, and friendly with GPU parallelization. The performance of the method has a good scalability to the mesh resolution, and the method has good potential to be combined with multi‐resolution collision handling for real‐time simulation in the future.
Few‐shot Learning of Homogeneous Human Locomotion Styles
Authors: Mason I. , Starke S. , Zhang H. , Bilen H. , Komura T.
Published: October 2018

Using neural networks for learning motion controllers from motion capture data is becoming popular due to the natural and smooth motions they can produce, the wide range of movements they can learn and their compactness once they are trained. Despite these advantages, these systems require large amounts of motion capture data for each new character or style of motion to be generated, and systems have to undergo lengthy retraining, and often reengineering, to get acceptable results. This can make the use of these systems impractical for animators and designers and solving this issue is an open and rather unexplored problem in computer graphics. In this paper we propose a transfer learning approach for adapting a learned neural network to characters that move in different styles from those on which the original neural network is trained. Given a pretrained character controller in the form of a Phase‐Functioned Neural Network for locomotion, our system can quickly adapt the locomotion to novel styles using only a short motion clip as an example. We introduce a canonical polyadic tensor decomposition to reduce the amount of parameters required for learning from each new style, which both reduces the memory burden at runtime and facilitates learning from smaller quantities of data. We show that our system is suitable for learning stylized motions with few clips of motion data and synthesizing smooth motions in real‐time.
Reconstructing Flowers from Sketches
Authors: Bobenrieth Cédric , Seo Hyewon , Cordier Frédéric , Habibi Arash
Published: October 2018

As the symbol of beauty, floral objects have been one of the most popular subjects of artistic drawing. However, designing 3D floral models is generally time‐ and resource‐consuming, because of their structural and geometrical complexity. In this paper, we address the problem of reconstructing floral objects from sketch input. The user draws a relatively clean sketch of a flower and a few additional guide markings from an arbitrary view to rapidly create quality geometric models of flowers. Our system offers a novel modeling scheme compared to several existing flower modelers accepting sketch as input, where the user is required to work with different views, providing step‐by‐step sketch input. Given the silhouette and the guide strokes, an assumed, common botanical structure is estimated, i.e. a cone for each ring of petals. The cones and the silhouette sketch that we segment into elementary curves are used to retrieve model elements from the pre‐constructed shape database. These elements are then placed together around the cone, where an additional, per‐element deformation is performed so as to maximize the silhouette similarity between the user sketch and the 3D flower model from the chosen view. Our system has shown to robustly create a variety of flowers in various configurations, including flower models with several petal layers and various blooming degrees, drawn from different views.
Uncut Aerial Video via a Single Sketch
Authors: Yang Hao , Xie Ke , Huang Shengqiu , Huang Hui
Published: October 2018

Nowadays UAV filming is getting popular, more and more stunning aerial videos appearing online. Nonetheless, making a good uncut aerial video with only one‐long‐shot for the large‐scale outdoor scenes is still quite challenging, no many eye‐catching pieces available yet. It requires users to have both consummate drone controlling skill and good perception of filming aesthetics. If totally manual, the user has to simultaneously adjust the drone position and the mounted camera orientation during the whole flyby while trying to keep all operation changes executed smoothly. Recent research has proposed a number of planning tools for automatic or semi‐automatic aerial videography, however, most requires rather complex user inputs and heavy computations.

In this paper, we propose a user‐friendly system designed to simplify the input and automatically generate continuous camera moves to capture compelling aerial videos that users prefer to see without any post cutting or editing. Assume a rough 2.5D scene model that includes all the regions of interest are available, users are only required to casually draw a single sketch on the 2D map. Our system will analyze this rough sketch input, compute the corresponding quality views in 3D safe flying zone, and then create a globally optimal camera trajectory passing through regions of user interest via solving a combinatorial problem. At end, we optimize the drone flying speed locally to make the resulting aerial videos more visually pleasing.
A Practical Approach to Physically‐Based Reproduction of Diffusive Cosmetics
Authors: Kim Goanghun , Ko Hyeong‐Seok
Published: October 2018

In this paPer, we introduce so‐called the bSX method as a new way to utilize the Kubelka‐Munk (K‐M) model. Assuming the material is completely diffusive, the K‐M model gives the reflectance and transmittance of the material from the observation of the material applied on a backing, where the observation includes the thickness of the material application. By rearranging the original K‐M equation, we propose that the reflectance and transmittance can be calculated without knowing the thickness. This is a practically useful contribution. Based on the above finding, we develop the bSX method which can (1) capture the material specific parameters from the two photos – taken before and after the material application, and (2) reproduce its effect on a novel backing. We exPerimented the proposed method in various cases related to virtual cosmetic try‐on, which include (1) capture from a single color backing, (2) capture from human skin backing, (3) reproduction of varying thickness effect, (4) reproduction of multi‐layer cosmetic application effect, (5) applying the proposed method to makeup transfer. Compared to previous image‐based makeup transfer methods, the bSX method reproduces the feel of the cosmetics more accurately.
Piecewise linear mapping optimization based on the complex view
Authors: Golla Björn , Seidel Hans‐Peter , Chen Renjie
Published: October 2018

We present an efficient modified Newton iteration for the optimization of nonlinear energies on triangle meshes. Noting that the linear mapping between any pair of triangles is a special case of harmonic mapping, we build upon the results of Chen and Weber [CW17]. Based on the complex view of the linear mapping, we show that the Hessian of the isometric energies has a simple and compact analytic expression. This allows us to analytically project the per‐element Hessians to positive semidefinite matrices for efficient Newton iteration. We show that our method outperforms state‐of‐the‐art methods on 2D deformation and parameterization. Further, we inspect the spectra of the per triangle energy Hessians and show that given an initial mapping, simple global scaling can shift the energy towards a more convex state. This allows Newton iteration to converge faster than starting from the given initial state. Additionally, our formulations support adding an energy smoothness term to the optimization with little additional effort, which improves the mapping results such that concentrated distortions are reduced.
Generative Adversarial Image Super‐Resolution Through Deep Dense Skip Connections
Authors: Zhu Xiaobin , Li Zhuangzi , Zhang Xiaoyu , Li Haisheng , Xue Ziyu , Wang Lei
Published: October 2018

Recently, image super‐resolution works based on Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) and Generative Adversarial Nets (GANs) have shown promising performance. However, these methods tend to generate blurry and over‐smoothed super‐resolved (SR) images, due to the incomplete loss function and powerless architectures of networks. In this paper, a novel generative adversarial image super‐resolution through deep dense skip connections (GSR‐DDNet), is proposed to solve the above‐mentioned problems. It aims to take advantage of GAN's ability of modeling data distributions, so that GSR‐DDNet can select informative feature representation and model the mapping across the low‐quality and high‐quality images in an adversarial way. The pipeline of the proposed method consists of three main components: 1) The generator of a novel dense skip connection network with the deep structure for learning robust mapping function is proposed to generate SR images from low‐resolution images; 2) The feature extraction network based on VGG‐19 is adopted to capture high frequency feature maps for content loss; and 3) The discriminator with Wasserstein distance is adopted to identify the overall style of SR and ground‐truth images. Experiments conducted on four publicly available datasets demonstrate the superiority against the state‐of‐the‐art methods.
DMAT: Deformable Medial Axis Transform for Animated Mesh Approximation
Authors: Yang Baorong , Yao Junfeng , Guo Xiaohu
Published: October 2018

Extracting a faithful and compact representation of an animated surface mesh is an important problem for computer graphics. However, the surface‐based methods have limited approximation power for volume preservation when the animated sequences are extremely simplified. In this paper, we introduce Deformable Medial Axis Transform (DMAT), which is deformable medial mesh composed of a set of animated spheres. Starting from extracting an accurate and compact representation of a static MAT as the template and partitioning the vertices on the input surface as the correspondences for each medial primitive, we present a correspondence‐based approximation method equipped with an As‐Rigid‐As‐Possible (ARAP) deformation energy defined on medial primitives. As a result, our algorithm produces DMAT with consistent connectivity across the whole sequence, accurately approximating the input animated surfaces.
Improved Use of LOP for Curve Skeleton Extraction
Authors: Li Lei , Wang Wencheng
Published: October 2018

It remains a challenge to robustly and rapidly extract high quality curve skeletons from 3D models of closed surfaces, especially when there are nearby surface sheets. In this paper, we address this challenge by improving the use of LOP (Locally Optimal Projection) to adaptively contract medial surfaces of 3D models. LOP was originally designed to optimize a raw scanned point cloud to its corresponding geometry surface. It has the effect of contraction, and the contraction amplitude is controlled by a support radius. Our improvements are twofold. First, we constrain the LOP operator applied in the 2D medial surface instead of in the 3D space and take a local region growing strategy to find neighborhoods for implementing LOP. Thus, we avoid interference between disconnected surface parts and accelerate the process due to the reduced search space. Second, we adaptively adjust the support radii to have different parts of the medial surface contracted adaptively and synchronously for generating connected skeletal curves. In this paper, we demonstrate that our method allows for each part of the medial surface to be contracted symmetrically to its center line and is insensitive to surface noises. Thus, with our method, centered and connected high quality curve skeletons can be extracted robustly and rapidly, even for models with nearby surface sheets. Experimental results highlight the effectiveness and high efficiency of the method, even for noisy and topologically complex models, making it superior to other state‐of‐the‐art methods.
Sit & Relax: Interactive Design of Body‐Supporting Surfaces
Authors: Leimer Kurt , Birsak Michael , Rist Florian , Musialski Przemyslaw
Published: October 2018

We propose a novel method for interactive design of well‐fitting body‐supporting surfaces that is driven by the pressure distribution on the body's surface. Our main contribution is an interactive modeling system that utilizes captured body poses and computes an importance field that is proportional to the pressure distribution on the body for a given pose. This distribution indicates where the body should be supported in order to easily hold a particular pose, which is one of the measures of comfortable sitting. Using our approximation, we propose the entire workflow for interactive design of C2 smooth surfaces which serve as seats, or generally, as body supporting furniture for comfortable sitting. Finally, we also provide a design tool for Rhinoceros/Grasshopper that allows for interactive creation of single designs or entire multi‐person sitting scenarios. We also test the tool with design students and present several results. Our method aims at interactive design in order to help designers to create appropriate surfaces digitally without additional empirical design passes.
Modeling Fonts in Context: Font Prediction on Web Designs
Authors: Zhao Nanxuan , Cao Ying , Lau Rynson W.H.
Published: October 2018

Web designers often carefully select fonts to fit the context of a web design to make the design look aesthetically pleasing and effective in communication. However, selecting proper fonts for a web design is a tedious and time‐consuming task, as each font has many properties, such as font face, color, and size, resulting in a very large search space. In this paper, we aim to model fonts in context, by studying a novel and challenging problem of predicting fonts that match a given web design. To this end, we propose a novel, multi‐task deep neural network to jointly predict font face, color and size for each text element on a web design, by considering multi‐scale visual features and semantic tags of the web design. To train our model, we have collected a CTXFont dataset, which consists of 1k professional web designs, with labeled font properties. Experiments show that our model outperforms the baseline methods, achieving promising qualitative and quantitative results on the font selection task. We also demonstrate the usefulness of our method in a font selection task via a user study.
Binocular Tone Mapping with Improved Overall Contrast and Local Details
Authors: Zhang Zhuming , Hu Xinghong , Liu Xueting , Wong Tien‐Tsin
Published: October 2018

Tone mapping is a commonly used technique that maps the set of colors in high‐dynamic‐range (HDR) images to another set of colors in low‐dynamic‐range (LDR) images, to fit the need for print‐outs, LCD monitors and projectors. Unfortunately, during the compression of dynamic range, the overall contrast and local details generally cannot be preserved simultaneously. Recently, with the increased use of stereoscopic devices, the notion of binocular tone mapping has been proposed in the existing research study. However, the existing research lacks the binocular perception study and is unable to generate the optimal binocular pair that presents the most visual content. In this paper, we propose a novel perception‐based binocular tone mapping method, that can generate an optimal binocular image pair (generating left and right images simultaneously) from an HDR image that presents the most visual content by designing a binocular perception metric. Our method outperforms the existing method in terms of both visual and time performance.
Single‐sided deafness and cochlear implantation in congenital and acquired hearing loss in children
Authors: Ramos Macías Ángel , Borkoski‐Barreiro Silvia A. , Falcón González Juan C. , de Miguel Martínez Isabel , Ramos de Miguel Ángel
Published: October 2018

Objective

To determine the audiological and clinical results of cochlear implantation in children below the age of 12 years old with congenital and acquired single‐sided deafness.

Design

Observational, descriptive, transversal study.

Main outcome measures

Speech reception thresholds, Cortical responses, Auditory Lateralization Test and SSQ questionnaire.

Participants

Children < 12 implanted for congenital or acquired SSD.

Results

All the children with congenital SSD showed positive cortical responses. Positive results were obtained in the Auditory Lateralization Test for the following modalities: 0º, 45º and 90º.

With respect to the Speech Test, the children with acquired SSD showed the following results: 92% and 100% in recognition and 48% and 68% (Azimuth modalities), Signal CI side 52% and 68% and Signal normal hearing side 44% ‐ 60% (p < 0.05).

In both group the processor was used for 6‐12 hours.

With respect to the SSQ questionnaire results, the parents were more satisfied within the post‐operative period than within the pre‐operative period (P<0.001).

Conclusions

Cochlear implant provides children with congenital SSD with significant audiological and subjective benefits. Children with congenital SSD and implanted after a longer period may not have an important benefit (binaural) although other bilateral effects can be achieved. Children with post‐lingual unilateral deafness and after a short period of hearing deprivation probably integrated the normal acoustic hearing with the cochlear implant electrical signal and showed binaural benefits.
Laryngeal stroboscopy—Normative values for amplitude, open quotient, asymmetry and phase difference in young adults
Authors: Sielska‐Badurek Ewelina M. , Jędra Katarzyna , Sobol Maria , Niemczyk Kazimierz , Osuch‐Wójcikiewicz Ewa
Published: October 2018

Objective

To provide the normative values for laryngeal stroboscopy (LS) concerning amplitude, open quotient, asymmetry and phase difference in healthy, young subjects.

Study design

Prospective case‐control study.

Setting

Patients treated at a single institute.

Methods

A total of 68 healthy subjects were included in the study (35 women, 33 men), aged 18‐35 years. After obtaining LS recordings, image processing was performed to attain parameters of vocal fold vibration.

Results

In women, the location of the maximum vibration amplitude is approximately in the 1/3 posterior part of the glottis, while in men, the location is moved to the glottis centre. In males, the relative amplitude vibration of the vocal folds in the 1/3 anterior part of the glottis was significantly higher than in females (P = 0.029). Women showed significantly higher open quotients (OQ) at the posterior part of the glottis than the male subjects (P < 0.001) and men presented significantly higher OQ at the anterior part of the glottis than the females (P < 0.001). The average OQ values for both sexes were almost the same. Females showed significantly higher relative glottal gap area (P = 0.044). Women presented a significantly lower amplitude asymmetry than men (P = 0.002). The weighted absolute left‐right phase difference reached up to 24° and remained insignificantly higher in the men than the women (P = 0.142).

Conclusions

The study provides normative values for LS in young adults for the measurement of therapy outcomes in patients with voice disorders and realisation of evidence‐based medicine. The LS parametrisation is easy to perform in clinical practice.
The Candy Container Competition: Reinforcing Gross Weight, Balance, and Stowage in Intermodal Transportation
Authors: Rossetti Christian L.
Published: October 2018

The described exercise uses competition and the promise of a sugar‐high to motivate students to appreciate the importance load management in an intermodal setting. Using material available from a local supermarket or general merchandise store, student teams load their "container" for two customers. One customer requires palletized square candy, and the second customer requires barrels (Dixie cups) of smaller odd‐shaped candy. Students receive a worksheet that contains the weights of each type of candy in their customer kit packs, the tare weight of the container, and the approximate weight of their cardboard pallets. Students secure the contents of their pallets with shrink‐wrap (household plastic wrap) and ensure that their cargo doesn't shift using dunnage (bubble wrap). Students compete to approach but not exceed the 500‐gram maximum gross weight of their container while meeting two constraints: withstanding a 30° tilt and no more than a 20% weight differential between the ends of the container. A debrief reinforces the importance of our responsibility as supply chain professionals for the safety of transportation and material handling workers. The winning team is awarded extra credit points, and all participants are allowed to eat their customers’ shipments.