bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Global reduction in ship-tracks from sulfur regulations for shipping fuel
Authors: Yuan Tianle , Song Hua , Wood Robert , Wang Chenxi , Oreopoulos Lazaros , Platnick Steven E. , von Hippel Sophia , Meyer Kerry , Light Siobhan , Wilcox Eric
Published: July 2022

Ship-tracks are produced by ship-emitted aerosols interacting with low clouds. Here, we apply deep learning models on satellite data to produce the first global climatology map of ship-tracks. We show that ship-tracks are at the nexus of cloud physics, maritime shipping, and fuel regulation. Our map captures major shipping lanes while missing others because of background conditions. Ship-track frequency is more than 10 times higher than a previous survey, and its interannual fluctuations reflect variations in cross-ocean trade, shipping activity, and fuel regulations. Fuel regulation can alter both detected frequency and shipping routes due to cost. The 2020 fuel regulation, together with the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, reduced ship-track frequency to its lowest level in recent decades across the globe and may have ushered in an era of low frequency. The regulation reduces the aerosol indirect forcing from ship emissions by 46% or between 0.02 and 0.27 W m
−2
given its current estimates.
Snapshots of a light-induced metastable hidden phase driven by the collapse of charge order
Authors: Gao Frank Y. , Zhang Zhuquan , Sun Zhiyuan , Ye Linda , Cheng Yu-Hsiang , Liu Zi-Jie , Checkelsky Joseph G. , Baldini Edoardo , Nelson Keith A.
Published: July 2022

Nonequilibrium hidden states provide a unique window into thermally inaccessible regimes of strong coupling between microscopic degrees of freedom in quantum materials. Understanding the origin of these states allows the exploration of far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics and the development of optoelectronic devices with on-demand photoresponses. However, mapping the ultrafast formation of a long-lived hidden phase remains a longstanding challenge since the initial state is not recovered rapidly. Here, using state-of-the-art single-shot spectroscopy techniques, we present a direct ultrafast visualization of the photoinduced phase transition to both transient and long-lived hidden states in an electronic crystal, 1
T
-TaS
2
, and demonstrate a commonality in their microscopic pathways, driven by the collapse of charge order. We present a theory of fluctuation-dominated process that helps explain the nature of the metastable state. Our results shed light on the origin of this elusive state and pave the way for the discovery of other exotic phases of matter.
A clade C HIV-1 vaccine protects against heterologous SHIV infection by modulating IgG glycosylation and T helper response in macaques
Authors: Sahoo Anusmita , Jones Andrew T. , Cheedarla Narayanaiah , Gangadhara Sailaja , Roy Vicky , Styles Tiffany M. , Shiferaw Ayalnesh , Walter Korey L. , Williams LaTonya D. , Shen Xiaoying , Ozorowski Gabriel , Lee Wen-Hsin , Burton Samantha , Yi Lasanajak , Song Xuezheng , Qin Zhaohui S. , Derdeyn Cynthia A. , Ward Andrew B. , Clements John D. , Varadarajan Raghavan , Tomaras Georgia D. , Kozlowski Pamela A. , Alter Galit , Amara Rama Rao
Published: July 2022

The rising global HIV-1 burden urgently requires vaccines capable of providing heterologous protection. Here, we developed a clade C HIV-1 vaccine consisting of priming with modified vaccinia Ankara (MVA) and boosting with cyclically permuted trimeric gp120 (CycP-gp120) protein, delivered either orally using a needle-free injector or through parenteral injection. We tested protective efficacy of the vaccine against intrarectal challenges with a pathogenic heterologous clade C SHIV infection in rhesus macaques. Both routes of vaccination induced a strong envelope-specific IgG in serum and rectal secretions directed against V1V2 scaffolds from a global panel of viruses with polyfunctional activities. Envelope-specific IgG showed lower fucosylation compared with total IgG at baseline, and most of the vaccine-induced proliferating blood CD4
+
T cells did not express CCR5 and α4β7, markers associated with HIV target cells. After SHIV challenge, both routes of vaccination conferred significant and equivalent protection, with 40% of animals remaining uninfected at the end of six weekly repeated challenges with an estimated efficacy of 68% per exposure. Induction of envelope-specific IgG correlated positively with G1FB glycosylation, and G2S2F glycosylation correlated negatively with protection. Vaccine-induced TNF-α
+
IFN-γ
+
CD8
+
T cells and TNF-α
+
CD4
+
T cells expressing low levels of CCR5 in the rectum at prechallenge were associated with decreased risk of SHIV acquisition. These results demonstrate that the clade C MVA/CycP-gp120 vaccine provides heterologous protection against a tier2 SHIV rectal challenge by inducing a polyfunctional antibody response with distinct Fc glycosylation profile, as well as cytotoxic CD8 T cell response and CCR5-negative T helper response in the rectum.
TREM2 macrophages induced by human lipids drive inflammation in acne lesions
Authors: Do Tran H. , Ma Feiyang , Andrade Priscila R. , Teles Rosane , de Andrade Silva Bruno J. , Hu Chanyue , Espinoza Alejandro , Hsu Jer-En , Cho Chun-Seok , Kim Myungjin , Xi Jingyue , Xing Xianying , Plazyo Olesya , Tsoi Lam C. , Cheng Carol , Kim Jenny , Bryson Bryan D. , O’Neill Alan M. , Colonna Marco , Gudjonsson Johann E. , Klechevsky Eynav , Lee Jun Hee , Gallo Richard L. , Bloom Barry R. , Pellegrini Matteo , Modlin Robert L.
Published: July 2022

Acne affects 1 in 10 people globally, often resulting in disfigurement. The disease involves excess production of lipids, particularly squalene, increased growth of
Cutibacterium acnes
, and a host inflammatory response with foamy macrophages. By combining single-cell and spatial RNA sequencing as well as ultrahigh-resolution Seq-Scope analyses of early acne lesions on back skin, we identified TREM2 macrophages expressing lipid metabolism and proinflammatory gene programs in proximity to hair follicle epithelium expressing squalene epoxidase. We established that the addition of squalene induced differentiation of TREM2 macrophages in vitro, which were unable to kill
C. acnes
. The addition of squalene to macrophages inhibited induction of oxidative enzymes and scavenged oxygen free radicals, providing an explanation for the efficacy of topical benzoyl peroxide in the clinical treatment of acne. The present work has elucidated the mechanisms by which TREM2 macrophages and unsaturated lipids, similar to their involvement in atherosclerosis, may contribute to the pathogenesis of acne.
Clinical diagnosis of seasonal influenza by physicians: a retrospective observational study
Authors: Maita Hiroki , Kobayashi Tadashi , Akimoto Takashi , Matsuoka Fumihiko , Funakoshi Shigeki , Osawa Hiroshi , Kato Hiroyuki
Published: July 2022

Objective

To elucidate the diagnostic accuracy of pretest probability of influenza (%) by physicians and the factors affecting the clinical diagnosis.

Design

Retrospective, single-centre observational study.

Setting

A community primary care clinic in Japan.

Participants

The participants were recruited from a database of studies conducted during the influenza season from December 2017 to April 2019.

Primary outcome measure

Sensitivity and specificity of the physician’s clinical diagnosis of influenza recorded in the medical record as pretest probability.

Results

A total of 335 patients (median age, 31 years; male, 66.6%) were analysed in this study. The area under the curve (AUC) of the physician’s pretest probability was 0.77. At a cut-off value of 30%, the sensitivity and negative likelihood ratio were 92.0% (95% CI 86.7 to 95.7) and 0.19 (95% CI 0.11 to 0.33), respectively. At a cut-off value of 80%, the specificity and positive likelihood ratio were 90.8% (95% CI 85.4 to 94.6) and 4.01 (95% CI 2.41 to 6.66), respectively. The AUCs of patients who had and had not taken any medications before visiting the clinic were 0.77 (95% CI 0.69 to 0.85) and 0.78 (95% CI 0.71 to 0.84), respectively. The AUCs of patients with type A and B influenza were 0.78 (95% CI 0.72 to 0.84) and 0.76 (95% CI 0.70 to 0.82), respectively. The AUCs of vaccinated and unvaccinated patients were 0.80 (95% CI 0.72 to 0.88) and 0.76 (95% CI 0.63 to 0.89), respectively. The AUC for patients less than 12 hours after onset was 0.69 (95% CI 0.51 to 0.88), and that for patients aged younger than 6 years was 0.69 (95% CI 0.49 to 0.88).

Conclusions

The physician’s pretest probability of influenza (%) may be useful for both definitive and exclusionary diagnoses within the limits of our study.
Essential core competencies for scope of practice of paediatric oncology nurses in Latin America: a scoping review protocol
Authors: Lopes-Júnior Luís Carlos , Lima Regina Aparecida Garcia , Maia Edmara Bazoni Soares , Ribeiro Karina de Cássia Braga , Fuentes-Alabí Soad , Sullivan Courtney E , Abraham Monnie , Weber Lorena Segovia , Ponce Liliana Vásquez
Published: July 2022

Introduction

Nurses comprise the largest group of health workers globally and are essential to the provision of care necessary for delivering curative therapy to children with cancer. In high-income countries, previous studies of the nurse workforce have shown an association between patient morbidity and mortality and nursing-related factors such as staffing, education and the nursing practice environment. There is currently limited evidence available to define the scope of essential core competencies for paediatric oncology nursing (PON) practice internationally and specifically in Latin America. Clearly defined essential core competencies contribute to establishing nurses’ scope of practice within clinical practice, education and research settings. Here, we aimed to map and synthesise the available evidence on the scope of PON practices in the context of clinical practice, educational training and research settings in Latin America.

Methods

A scoping review (ScR) protocol is reported, adhering to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols statement and guided by The Joanna Briggs Institute. MEDLINE/PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, CINAHL, Web of Science, Scopus, Science Direct and Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences Literature, plus additional sources: The ProQuest Dissertation & Theses Global, The British Library, Google Scholar, medRXiv, ClinicalTrials.gov and WHO-ICTRP will be searched. No date or language restrictions will be employed. Two independent researchers will conduct all the steps of this ScR. The findings will be presented through tables, charts, narrative summaries and assessed based on the outcomes. The search strategy will be updated in May 2022. The expected completion date for this ScR is November 2022.

Ethics/dissemination

This protocol does not require ethical approval. The dissemination plans comprise peer-reviewed publication and conference presentations, to be shared with International Oncology Societies/International Nursing Societies and advisory groups to inform discussions on future research. We expect that our results will be of interest to nurse professionals, especially, PON and nurse scholars concerned with this particular issue.
Still poorly adopted in male professional football: but teams that used the Nordic Hamstring Exercise in team training had fewer hamstring injuries – a retrospective survey of 17 teams of the UEFA Elite Club Injury Study during the 2020–2021 season
Authors: Ekstrand Jan , Bengtsson Håkan , Walden Markus , Davison Michael , Hagglund Martin
Published: July 2022

Objectives

The primary objective was to study the adoption of the NHE programme in European football teams in the 2020/21 season and to compare it to the previous study. A second objective was to compare hamstring injury rates between teams that used the NHE programme in the team training and teams that used the NHE only for players with previous or current hamstring injuries.

Methods

Data about the implementation of the NHE programme and injury rates were included for 17 teams participating in the Elite Club Injury Study during the 2020/2021 season.

Results

One team (6%) used the full original NHE programme, and another four teams used it for all or most players in the team (team training group, n=5). Eleven teams used NHE only for players with a previous or current hamstring injury (individual training group), and one team did not use NHE. The team training group had fewer hamstring injuries (5 vs 11 per team, p=0.008) and a lower injury burden (12 vs 35 lay-off days per 1000 hours, p=0.003) than the individual training group.

Conclusion

Similar to previous reports, low adoption of the NHE programme was seen in the 2020/2021 season. The low adoption rate (13%) relates to the number of teams fully or partly using NHE programmes. Teams that used NHE for the whole team or most players had a lower hamstring injury burden than teams that used NHE only for individual players.
Using meconium to establish prenatal alcohol exposure in the UK: ethical, legal and social considerations
Authors: Arkell Rachel , Lee Ellie
Published: July 2022

An expanding policy framework aimed at monitoring alcohol consumption during pregnancy has emerged. The primary justification is prevention of harm from what is termed ‘prenatal alcohol exposure’ (PAE), by enabling more extensive diagnosis of the disability labelled fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD). Here we focus on proposals to include biomarkers as a PAE ‘screening tool’, specifically those found in meconium (the first newborn excrement), which are discussed as an ‘objective’ measure of PAE.

We ask the overarching question, ‘Can routine screening of meconium to establish PAE be ethically or legally justified’, and we answer, ‘No’. To reach this conclusion, we discuss three areas. First, we consider the reasons why meconium screening should not be deemed ‘typical’ within the scope of accepted screening tools. We argue that given the aim and necessary timing of the screen, it cannot achieve what it promises. Second, we outline why patient autonomy and consent are not properly accounted for and cannot be reconciled with the ‘routinisation’ of the proposed ‘screening’. Last, we outline why the benefit of such a screen is not clear, focusing on the significance of trust in healthcare professionals (HCP) for the best interests of the future child and pregnant woman.

While recognising the adverse effects of heavy alcohol consumption during pregnancy, we emphasise the case for robust ethical, legal and social considerations and the central need for trust between HCP and patients in maternity care. We conclude the permissibility of meconium screening has not been proven, and it is not justified.
Percutaneous embolization of sinus pericranii
Authors: Hoffman Haydn , Koutsouras George W , Oh Justin , Suryadevara Neil , Gould Grahame C
Published: July 2022

Sinus pericranii is a rare vascular anomaly involving a venous sinus that drains into a subgaleal collection of veins through an emissary vein. Data regarding presentation, management, and outcomes are limited to case reports and small case series. There are no technical videos detailing the technique for percutaneous embolization. We present the case of a child with an enlarging, symptomatic accessory type sinus pericranii with connection to the torcula, who underwent percutaneous embolization after unsuccessful transvenous embolization. Embolization was performed with 3.4 cc Onyx-34 under live fluoroscopy and serial control superior sagittal sinus venograms . Significant reduction of flow into the sinus pericranii was achieved and the lesion had nearly completely resolved at the 3-week follow-up. Percutaneous embolization of the sinus pericranii is a reasonable alternative to transvenous embolization, but additional data are needed to determine the optimal treatment. The technical details and practical considerations discussed here may help neurointerventionalists adopt this treatment. The video also includes references 1–4 which are relevant to this topic.

Video 1

Case presentation and technique for percutaneous embolization of sinus pericranii­
Building a home ventilation programme: population, equipment, delivery and cost
Authors: Toussaint Michel , Wijkstra Peter J , McKim Doug , Benditt Joshua , Winck Joao Carlos , Nasiłowski Jacek , Borel Jean-Christian
Published: July 2022

Home mechanical ventilation (HMV) improves quality of life and survival in patients with neuromuscular disorders (NMD). Developing countries may benefit from published evidence regarding the prevalence, cost of equipment, technical issues and organisation of HMV in NMD, facilitating the development of local turn-key HMV programmes. Unfortunately, such evidence is scattered in the existing literature. We searched Medline for publications in English and French from 2005 to 2020. This narrative review analyses 24 international programmes of HMV. The estimated prevalence (min–max) of HMV is ±7.3/100 000 population (1.2–47), all disorders combined. The prevalence of HMV is associated with the gross domestic product per capita in these 24 countries. The prevalence of NMD is about 30/100 000 population, of which ±10% would use HMV. Nocturnal (8/24 hour), discontinuous (8–16/24 hours) and continuous (>16/24 hours) ventilation is likely to concern about 60%, 20% and 20% of NMD patients using HMV. A minimal budget of about 168€/patient/year (504€/100 000 population), including the cost of equipment solely, should address the cost of HMV equipment in low-income countries. When services and maintenance are included, the budget can drastically increase up to between 3232 and 5760€/patient/year. Emerging programmes of HMV in developing countries reveal the positive impact of international cooperation. Today, at least 12 new middle, and low-income countries are developing HMV programmes. This review with updated data on prevalence, technical issues, cost of equipment and services for HMV should trigger objective dialogues between the stakeholders (patient associations, healthcare professionals and politicians); potentially leading to the production of workable strategies for the development of HMV in patients with NMD living in developing countries.
Prenatal Exercise and Cardiovascular Health (PEACH) Study: impact of pregnancy and exercise on rating of perceived exertion during non-weight-bearing exercise
Authors: Brislane Áine , Matenchuk Brittany A. , Skow Rachel J. , Steinback Craig D. , Davenport Margie H.
Published: July 2022

The purpose of this study was to determine if rating of perceived exertion (RPE) during non-weight-bearing exercise is influenced by gestational age and exercise training. We conducted a randomized controlled trial to examine the influence of gestational age and exercise training (three to four times per week for 25–40 minutes at 50%–70% of heart rate reserve) on RPE during an exhaustive cycling exercise test. We observed no influence of gestational age, or exercise training status on RPE responses to non-weight-bearing exercise during pregnancy. Trial registration number: NCT02948439.

Novelty:

Gestational age and/or exercise training does not influence rate of perceived exertion during non-weight-bearing exercise.
Spatial separation of mycobionts in the giant, differentiated root system of Cyrtosia septentrionalis, a fully myco-heterotrophic orchid
Authors: Umata Hidetaka , Ota Yuko , Gale Stephan W. , Chuman Sadaharu , Nishi Munetaka , Ashihara Seiichi , Yagi Fumio
Published: July 2022

The rare achlorophyllous orchid Cyrtosia septentrionalis (Rchb.f.) Garay is thought to switch mycobiont from a Physisporinus species (‘TK-10’) to an Armillaria species as it develops. We conducted morphological, chemical, and molecular analyses of the root system of three adult plants growing sympatrically in Japan to assess reliance on different mycorrhizae. The root systems were found to comprise several long primary roots that radiate outwards from the emergent stem and many shorter lateral ones. Long roots branched most vigorously where they encountered Armillaria gallica in the soil, and the resulting lateral roots contained the highest density of intra-radical rhizomorphs. One plant was associated with ‘TK-10’ and the other two with A. gallica, but only the apical portion of long roots and a few lateral roots were colonized. Mycobionts isolated from the base of long roots proved incapable of germinating C. septentrionalis seeds. Whereas glucose was the dominant monosaccharide in non-mycorrhizal roots, galactose was in mycorrhizal ones. Lateral roots are specialized in mycorrhization and their velamen, and mucilage may play a key role in preventing desiccation. We hypothesize that C. septentrionalis can associate with either fungus from germination to adulthood, but that detection of A. gallica in the soil can prompt replacement of ‘TK-10’.
Trapped in a graben: deposition of Huronian gold-bearing conglomerates in a fault-influenced, valley-confined, fluvial system in the southern Cobalt Basin, Ontario, Canada
Authors: Long D.G.F. , Rainbird Robert H.
Published: July 2022

Isopachs of Huronian strata of the Elliot and Hough Lake groups in the southern part of the Cobalt Basin can be used to define the geometry of a 4 km wide valley system that directly influenced the location of gravel-bed rivers bearing detrital gold and auriferous pyrite in the Mississagi Formation. Distribution and thickness of these and underlying formations can be directly linked to initial valley formation parallel to existing north-south-oriented faults in the Archean basement. Thickness distributions were directly influenced by active subsidence associated with transverse, east-south-east (ESE)-oriented, normal faults, related to extension along the Huronian transform-rift margin further south. Strata underlying the Mississagi Formation were largely removed by erosion in the northern part of the paleovalley system, but thickened and then thinned south of the ESE faults. Pyrite and detrital gold in the Mississagi Formation may have been concentrated from reworking of coarse clastic rocks of the Matinenda and Ramsay Lake formations, along with significant contributions from erosion of proximal Archean basement within 3–5 km of the preserved basin margins. There is strong evidence to suggest that stream flow was initially concentrated in three main structurally influenced valley systems in the north, with one lateral tributary in the south-eastern part of the basin. The fluvial systems merged, and thickened, south of the Tee Lake fault, possibly reflecting trans-tensional influences on the basin margin faults.
Radiocarbon dates and late Quaternary vertebrates from cave deposits in the central Canadian Rocky Mountains
Authors: Jass Christopher N. , Horne Greg , Critchley Dave , Tirlea Diana , Allan Timothy
Published: July 2022

New radiocarbon dates on biological remains from cave deposits in the Canadian Rocky Mountains range in age from infinite to modern but are largely restricted to the Holocene (9560±40 years B.P. to modern). The consistency in radiocarbon ages is interpreted as resulting from geologic processes associated with deglaciation and may reflect timeframes when cave conditions in some areas of the Canadian Rocky Mountains became suitable for deposition and preservation of biological remains. When considered at taxonomic levels permitted by morphological identification, recovered vertebrate remains from cave deposits are consistent with the modern biota of the region, suggesting early post-Late Glacial Maximum establishment of the modern biota and relative stability of mammal assemblages through the Holocene. Preliminary evaluation of recovered plant remains highlights a potentially underevaluated source of palaeoecological data for higher elevations.
Noncommutative quantum cosmology for the FLRW model in Unimodular Gravity
Authors: Astorga-Moreno J. A. , García-Aspeitia Miguel A. , Mena-Barboza E. A.
Published: July 2022

It is well known that classical Unimodular Gravity (UG) is equivalent to General Relativity, but the equivalence at the quantum level is not clear. Here we exhibit, in the UG framework, the Quantum Cosmology (QC) for a Friedmann–Lemaitre–Robertson–Walker (FLRW) universe, considering an inflationary scenario and also introducing a deformation on the commutation relations for the minisuperspace variables (NCC).
Implication of multifractal analysis for quantitative evaluation of mineral resources in the Central Kunlun area, Xinjiang, China
Authors: Zhang Yuepeng , Ye Xiaofeng , Xie Shuyun , Zhou Xiaoying , Awadelseid Salah Fadlallah , Yaisamut Oraphan , Meng Fanxing
Published: July 2022

Extensive research has been conducted to evaluate mineral resource potential based on geochemical data, but this work is still challenging due to the existence of multiple evaluation solutions based on different methods. In this paper, we combine the multifractal analysis method with typical multivariate statistical methods to analyse the spatial characteristics of geochemical stream sediment data, aiming to quantitatively study the ore-forming potential of the elements in the Central Kunlun area of Xinjiang, China. An
R
-type cluster analysis, Pearson correlation analysis, and principal component analysis are used to explore the correlations among the 12 target elements. The multifractal model is constructed using the method of moments to analyse the spatial distribution patterns of the elements, and corresponding multifractal parameters are extracted to quantitatively describe their ore-forming strengths in the study area. The results show that Co, V, Ti, Fe
2
O
3
, MgO and Cu compose a group of elements closely related to the regional geological background, while Pb, Zn, Bi, Sn, Au and Ba are potential metallogenic elements with relatively high ore-forming strengths and favourable ore-forming potential. Multifractal theory further validates and evaluates the favourable ore-forming element group obtained through conventional geochemical multivariate statistical methods, thus providing a new idea for small-scale geochemical prospecting.

Thematic collection:
This article is part of the Applications of Innovations in Geochemical Data Analysis collection available at:
https://www.lyellcollection.org/cc/applications-of-innovations-in-geochemical-data-analysis
Building GC-free Key-value Store on HM-SMR Drives with ZoneFS
Authors: Zhang Yiwen , Yao Ting , Wan Jiguang , Xie Changsheng
Published: July 2022

Host-managed shingled magnetic recording drives (HM-SMR) are advantageous in capacity to harness the explosive growth of data. For key-value (KV) stores based on log-structured merge trees (LSM-trees), the HM-SMR drive is an ideal solution owning to its capacity, predictable performance, and economical cost. However, building an LSM-tree-based KV store on HM-SMR drives presents severe challenges in maintaining the performance and space utilization efficiency due to the redundant cleaning processes for applications and storage devices (i.e., compaction and garbage collection). To eliminate the overhead of on-disk garbage collection (GC) and improve compaction efficiency, this article presents
GearDB
, a GC-free KV store tailored for HM-SMR drives. GearDB improves the write performance and space efficiency through three new techniques: a new on-disk data layout, compaction windows, and a novel gear compaction algorithm. We further augment the read performance of GearDB with a new SSTable layout and read ahead mechanism. We implement GearDB with LevelDB, and use zonefs to access a real HM-SMR drive. Our extensive experiments confirm that GearDB achieves both high performance and space efficiency, i.e., on average 1.7× and 1.5× better than LevelDB in random write and read, respectively, with up to 86.9% space efficiency.
NIMBLE
Authors: Li Yuwei , Zhang Longwen , Qiu Zesong , Jiang Yingwenqi , Li Nianyi , Ma Yuexin , Zhang Yuyao , Xu Lan , Yu Jingyi
Published: July 2022

Emerging Metaverse applications demand reliable, accurate, and photorealistic reproductions of human hands to perform sophisticated operations as if in the physical world. While real human hand represents one of the most intricate coordination between bones, muscle, tendon, and skin, state-of-the-art techniques unanimously focus on modeling only the skeleton of the hand. In this paper, we present NIMBLE, a novel parametric hand model that includes the missing key components, bringing 3D hand model to a new level of realism. We first annotate muscles, bones and skins on the recent Magnetic Resonance Imaging hand (MRI-Hand) dataset [Li et al. 2021] and then register a volumetric template hand onto individual poses and subjects within the dataset. NIMBLE consists of 20 bones as triangular meshes, 7 muscle groups as tetrahedral meshes, and a skin mesh. Via iterative shape registration and parameter learning, it further produces shape blend shapes, pose blend shapes, and a joint regressor. We demonstrate applying NIMBLE to modeling, rendering, and visual inference tasks. By enforcing the inner bones and muscles to match anatomic and kinematic rules, NIMBLE can animate 3D hands to new poses at unprecedented realism. To model the appearance of skin, we further construct a photometric HandStage to acquire high-quality textures and normal maps to model wrinkles and palm print. Finally, NIMBLE also benefits learning-based hand pose and shape estimation by either synthesizing rich data or acting directly as a differentiable layer in the inference network.
Learning high-DOF reaching-and-grasping via dynamic representation of gripper-object interaction
Authors: She Qijin , Hu Ruizhen , Xu Juzhan , Liu Min , Xu Kai , Huang Hui
Published: July 2022

We approach the problem of high-DOF reaching-and-grasping via learning joint planning of grasp and motion with deep reinforcement learning. To resolve the sample efficiency issue in learning the high-dimensional and complex control of dexterous grasping, we propose an effective representation of grasping state characterizing the spatial interaction between the gripper and the target object. To represent gripper-object interaction, we adopt Interaction Bisector Surface (IBS) which is the Voronoi diagram between two close by 3D geometric objects and has been successfully applied in characterizing spatial relations between 3D objects. We found that IBS is surprisingly effective as a state representation since it well informs the finegrained control of each finger with spatial relation against the target object. This novel grasp representation, together with several technical contributions including a fast IBS approximation, a novel vector-based reward and an effective training strategy, facilitate learning a strong control model of high-DOF grasping with good sample efficiency, dynamic adaptability, and cross-category generality. Experiments show that it generates high-quality dexterous grasp for complex shapes with smooth grasping motions. Code and data for this paper are at https://github.com/qijinshe/IBS-Grasping.
Rapid design of articulated objects
Authors: Lee Joon Hyub , Kim Hanbit , Bae Seok-Hyung
Published: July 2022

Designing articulated objects is challenging because, unlike with static objects, it requires complex decisions to be made regarding the form, parts, rig, poses, and motion. We present a novel 3D sketching system for rapidly authoring concepts of articulated objects for the early stages of design, when designers make such decisions. Compared to existing CAD software, which focuses on slowly but elaborately producing models consisting of precise surfaces and volumes, our system focuses on quickly but roughly producing models consisting of key curves through a small set of coherent pen and multi-touch gestures. We found that professional designers could easily learn and use our system and author compelling concepts in a short time, showing that 3D sketching can be extended to designing articulated objects and is generally applicable in film, animation, game, and product design.
Perception of letter glyph parameters for InfoTypography
Authors: Lang Johannes , Nacenta Miguel A.
Published: July 2022

The advent of variable font technologies---where typographic parameters such as weight, x-height and slant are easily adjusted across a range---enables encoding ordinal, interval or ratio data into text that is still readable. This is potentially valuable to represent additional information in text labels in visualizations (e.g., font weight can indicate city size in a geographical visualization) or in text itself (e.g., the intended reading speed of a sentence can be encoded with the font width). However, we do not know how different parameters, which are complex variations of shape, are perceived by the human visual system. Without this information it is difficult to select appropriate parameters and mapping functions that maximize perception of differences within the parameter range. We provide an empirical characterization of seven typographical parameters of Latin fonts in terms of absolute perception and just noticeable differences (JNDs) to help visualization designers to choose typographic parameters for visualizations that contain text, as well as support typographers and type designers when selecting which levels of these parameters to implement to achieve differentiability between normal text, emphasized text and different headings.
NeAT
Authors: Rückert Darius , Wang Yuanhao , Li Rui , Idoughi Ramzi , Heidrich Wolfgang
Published: July 2022

In this paper, we present Neural Adaptive Tomography (NeAT), the first adaptive, hierarchical neural rendering pipeline for tomography. Through a combination of neural features with an adaptive explicit representation, we achieve reconstruction times far superior to existing neural inverse rendering methods. The adaptive explicit representation improves efficiency by facilitating empty space culling and concentrating samples in complex regions, while the neural features act as a neural regularizer for the 3D reconstruction.

The NeAT framework is designed specifically for the tomographic setting, which consists only of semi-transparent volumetric scenes instead of opaque objects. In this setting, NeAT outperforms the quality of existing optimization-based tomography solvers while being substantially faster.

https://github.com/darglein/NeAT
Shape dithering for 3D printing
Authors: Morsy Mostafa Morsy Abdelkader , Brunton Alan , Urban Philipp
Published: July 2022

We present an efficient, purely geometric, algorithmic, and parameter free approach to improve surface quality and accuracy in voxel-controlled 3D printing by counteracting quantization artifacts. Such artifacts arise due to the discrete voxel sampling of the continuous shape used to control the 3D printer, and are characterized by low-frequency geometric patterns on surfaces of any orientation. They are visually disturbing, particularly on small prints or smooth surfaces, and adversely affect the fatigue behavior of printed parts. We use implicit shape dithering, displacing the part's signed distance field with a high-frequent signal whose amplitude is adapted to the (anisotropic) print resolution. We expand the reverse generalized Fourier slice theorem by shear transforms, which we leverage to optimize a 3D blue-noise mask to generate the anisotropic dither signal. As a point process it is efficient and does not adversely affect 3D halftoning. We evaluate our approach for efficiency, geometric accuracy and show its advantages over the state of the art.
Face deblurring using dual camera fusion on mobile phones
Authors: Lai Wei-Sheng , Shih Yichang , Chu Lun-Cheng , Wu Xiaotong , Tsai Sung-Fang , Krainin Michael , Sun Deqing , Liang Chia-Kai
Published: July 2022

Motion blur of fast-moving subjects is a longstanding problem in photography and very common on mobile phones due to limited light collection efficiency, particularly in low-light conditions. While we have witnessed great progress in image deblurring in recent years, most methods require significant computational power and have limitations in processing high-resolution photos with severe local motions. To this end, we develop a novel face deblurring system based on the dual camera fusion technique for mobile phones. The system detects subject motion to dynamically enable a reference camera, e.g., ultrawide angle camera commonly available on recent premium phones, and captures an auxiliary photo with faster shutter settings. While the main shot is low noise but blurry (Figure 1(a)), the reference shot is sharp but noisy (Figure 1(b)). We learn ML models to align and fuse these two shots and output a clear photo without motion blur (Figure 1(c)). Our algorithm runs efficiently on Google Pixel 6, which takes 463 ms overhead per shot. Our experiments demonstrate the advantage and robustness of our system against alternative single-image, multi-frame, face-specific, and video deblurring algorithms as well as commercial products. To the best of our knowledge, our work is the first mobile solution for face motion deblurring that works reliably and robustly over thousands of images in diverse motion and lighting conditions.
Dark stereo
Authors: Wolski Krzysztof , Zhong Fangcheng , Myszkowski Karol , Mantiuk Rafał K.
Published: July 2022

It is often desirable or unavoidable to display Virtual Reality (VR) or stereoscopic content at low brightness. For example, a dimmer display reduces the flicker artefacts that are introduced by low-persistence VR headsets. It also saves power, prolongs battery life, and reduces the cost of a display or projection system. Additionally, stereo movies are usually displayed at relatively low luminance due to polarization filters or other optical elements necessary to separate two views. However, the binocular depth cues become less reliable at low luminance. In this paper, we propose a model of stereo constancy that predicts the precision of binocular depth cues for a given contrast and luminance. We use the model to design a novel contrast enhancement algorithm that compensates for the deteriorated depth perception to deliver good-quality stereoscopic images even for displays of very low brightness.
Simulation and optimization of magnetoelastic thin shells
Authors: Chen Xuwen , Ni Xingyu , Zhu Bo , Wang Bin , Chen Baoquan
Published: July 2022

Magnetoelastic thin shells exhibit great potential in realizing versatile functionalities through a broad range of combination of material stiffness, remnant magnetization intensity, and external magnetic stimuli. In this paper, we propose a novel computational method for forward simulation and inverse design of magnetoelastic thin shells. Our system consists of two key components of forward simulation and backward optimization. On the simulation side, we have developed a new continuum mechanics model based on the Kirchhoff-Love thin-shell model to characterize the behaviors of a megnetolelastic thin shell under external magnetic stimuli. Based on this model, we proposed an implicit numerical simulator facilitated by the magnetic energy Hessian to treat the elastic and magnetic stresses within a unified framework, which is versatile to incorporation with other thin shell models. On the optimization side, we have devised a new differentiable simulation framework equipped with an efficient adjoint formula to accommodate various PDE-constraint, inverse design problems of magnetoelastic thin-shell structures, in both static and dynamic settings. It also encompasses applications of magnetoelastic soft robots, functional Origami, artworks, and meta-material designs. We demonstrate the efficacy of our framework by designing and simulating a broad array of magnetoelastic thin-shell objects that manifest complicated interactions between magnetic fields, materials, and control policies.
A clebsch method for free-surface vortical flow simulation
Authors: Xiong Shiying , Wang Zhecheng , Wang Mengdi , Zhu Bo
Published: July 2022

We propose a novel Clebsch method to simulate the free-surface vortical flow. At the center of our approach lies a level-set method enhanced by a wave-function correction scheme and a wave-function extrapolation algorithm to tackle the Clebsch method's numerical instabilities near a dynamic interface. By combining the Clebsch wave function's expressiveness in representing vortical structures and the level-set function's ability on tracking interfacial dynamics, we can model complex vortex-interface interaction problems that exhibit rich free-surface flow details on a Cartesian grid. We showcase the efficacy of our approach by simulating a wide range of new free-surface flow phenomena that were impractical for previous methods, including horseshoe vortex, sink vortex, bubble rings, and free-surface wake vortices.
Implicit neural representation for physics-driven actuated soft bodies
Authors: Yang Lingchen , Kim Byungsoo , Zoss Gaspard , Gözcü Baran , Gross Markus , Solenthaler Barbara
Published: July 2022

Active soft bodies can affect their shape through an internal actuation mechanism that induces a deformation. Similar to recent work, this paper utilizes a differentiable, quasi-static, and physics-based simulation layer to optimize for actuation signals parameterized by neural networks. Our key contribution is a general and implicit formulation to control active soft bodies by defining a function that enables a continuous mapping from a spatial point in the material space to the actuation value. This property allows us to capture the signal's dominant frequencies, making the method discretization agnostic and widely applicable. We extend our implicit model to mandible kinematics for the particular case of facial animation and show that we can reliably reproduce facial expressions captured with high-quality capture systems. We apply the method to volumetric soft bodies, human poses, and facial expressions, demonstrating artist-friendly properties, such as simple control over the latent space and resolution invariance at test time.
GANimator
Authors: Li Peizhuo , Aberman Kfir , Zhang Zihan , Hanocka Rana , Sorkine-Hornung Olga
Published: July 2022

We present GANimator, a generative model that learns to synthesize novel motions from a single, short motion sequence. GANimator generates motions that resemble the core
elements
of the original motion, while simultaneously synthesizing novel and diverse movements. Existing data-driven techniques for motion synthesis require a large motion dataset which contains the desired and specific skeletal structure. By contrast, GANimator only requires training on a
single
motion sequence, enabling novel motion synthesis for a variety of skeletal structures
e.g.
, bipeds, quadropeds, hexapeds, and more. Our framework contains a series of generative and adversarial neural networks, each responsible for generating motions in a specific frame rate. The framework progressively learns to synthesize motion from random noise, enabling hierarchical control over the generated motion content across varying levels of detail. We show a number of applications, including crowd simulation, key-frame editing, style transfer, and interactive control, which all learn from a single input sequence. Code and data for this paper are at https://peizhuoli.github.io/ganimator.
DCT-net
Authors: Men Yifang , Yao Yuan , Cui Miaomiao , Lian Zhouhui , Xie Xuansong
Published: July 2022

This paper introduces DCT-Net, a novel image translation architecture for few-shot portrait stylization. Given limited style exemplars (~100), the new architecture can produce high-quality style transfer results with advanced ability to synthesize high-fidelity contents and strong generality to handle complicated scenes (e.g., occlusions and accessories). Moreover, it enables full-body image translation via one elegant evaluation network trained by partial observations (i.e., stylized heads). Few-shot learning based style transfer is challenging since the learned model can easily become overfitted in the target domain, due to the biased distribution formed by only a few training examples. This paper aims to handle the challenge by adopting the key idea of "calibration first, translation later" and exploring the augmented global structure with locally-focused translation. Specifically, the proposed DCT-Net consists of three modules: a content adapter borrowing the powerful prior from source photos to calibrate the content distribution of target samples; a geometry expansion module using affine transformations to release spatially semantic constraints; and a texture translation module leveraging samples produced by the calibrated distribution to learn a fine-grained conversion. Experimental results demonstrate the proposed method's superiority over the state of the art in head stylization and its effectiveness on full image translation with adaptive deformations. Our code is publicly available at https://github.com/menyifang/DCT-Net.
DeltaConv
Authors: Wiersma Ruben , Nasikun Ahmad , Eisemann Elmar , Hildebrandt Klaus
Published: July 2022

Learning from 3D point-cloud data has rapidly gained momentum, motivated by the success of deep learning on images and the increased availability of 3D data. In this paper, we aim to construct anisotropic convolution layers that work directly on the surface derived from a point cloud. This is challenging because of the lack of a global coordinate system for tangential directions on surfaces. We introduce DeltaConv, a convolution layer that combines geometric operators from vector calculus to enable the construction of anisotropic filters on point clouds. Because these operators are defined on scalar- and vector-fields, we separate the network into a scalar- and a vector-stream, which are connected by the operators. The vector stream enables the network to explicitly represent, evaluate, and process directional information. Our convolutions are robust and simple to implement and match or improve on state-of-the-art approaches on several benchmarks, while also speeding up training and inference.
Estimation of yarn-level simulation models for production fabrics
Authors: Sperl Georg , Sánchez-Banderas Rosa M. , Li Manwen , Wojtan Chris , Otaduy Miguel A.
Published: July 2022

This paper introduces a methodology for inverse-modeling of yarn-level mechanics of cloth, based on the mechanical response of fabrics in the real world. We compiled a database from physical tests of several different knitted fabrics used in the textile industry. These data span different types of complex knit patterns, yarn compositions, and fabric finishes, and the results demonstrate diverse physical properties like stiffness, nonlinearity, and anisotropy.

We then develop a system for approximating these mechanical responses with yarn-level cloth simulation. To do so, we introduce an efficient pipeline for converting between fabric-level data and yarn-level simulation, including a novel swatch-level approximation for speeding up computation, and some small-but-necessary extensions to yarn-level models used in computer graphics. The dataset used for this paper can be found at http://mslab.es/projects/YarnLevelFabrics.
EARS
Authors: Rath Alexander , Grittmann Pascal , Herholz Sebastian , Weier Philippe , Slusallek Philipp
Published: July 2022

Russian roulette and splitting are widely used techniques to increase the efficiency of Monte Carlo estimators. But, despite their popularity, there is little work on how to best apply them. Most existing approaches rely on simple heuristics based on, e.g., surface albedo and roughness. Their efficiency often hinges on user-controlled parameters. We instead iteratively learn optimal Russian roulette and splitting factors during rendering, using a simple and lightweight data structure. Given perfect estimates of variance and cost, our fixed-point iteration provably converges to the optimal Russian roulette and splitting factors that maximize the rendering efficiency. In our application to unidirectional path tracing, we achieve consistent and significant speed-ups over the state of the art.