bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
SceneGrok
Authors: Savva Manolis , Chang Angel X. , Hanrahan Pat , Fisher Matthew , Nießner Matthias
Published: November 2014

With modern computer graphics, we can generate enormous amounts of 3D scene data. It is now possible to capture high-quality 3D representations of large real-world environments. Large shape and scene databases, such as the Trimble 3D Warehouse, are publicly accessible and constantly growing. Unfortunately, while a great amount of 3D content exists, most of it is detached from the semantics and functionality of the objects it represents. In this paper, we present a method to establish a correlation between the geometry and the functionality of 3D environments. Using RGB-D sensors, we capture dense 3D reconstructions of real-world scenes, and observe and track people as they interact with the environment. With these observations, we train a classifier which can transfer interaction knowledge to unobserved 3D scenes. We predict a likelihood of a given action taking place over all locations in a 3D environment and refer to this representation as an
action map
over the scene. We demonstrate prediction of action maps in both 3D scans and virtual scenes. We evaluate our predictions against ground truth annotations by people, and present an approach for characterizing 3D scenes by functional similarity using action maps.
Dual strip weaving
Authors: Campen Marcel , Kobbelt Leif
Published: November 2014

We introduce
Dual Strip Weaving
, a novel concept for the interactive design of quad layouts, i.e. partitionings of freeform surfaces into quadrilateral patch networks. In contrast to established tools for the design of quad layouts or subdivision base meshes, which are often based on creating individual vertices, edges, and quads, our method takes a more global perspective, operating on a higher level of abstraction: the atomic operation of our method is the creation of an entire cyclic strip, delineating a large number of quad patches at once. The global consistency-preserving nature of this approach reduces demands on the user's expertise by requiring less advance planning. Efficiency is achieved using a novel method at the heart of our system, which automatically proposes geometrically and topologically suitable strips to the user. Based on this we provide interaction tools to influence the design process to any desired degree and visual guides to support the user in this task.
Morfit
Authors: Yin Kangxue , Huang Hui , Zhang Hao , Gong Minglun , Cohen-Or Daniel , Chen Baoquan
Published: November 2014

With significant data missing in a point scan, reconstructing a complete surface with sufficient geometric and topological fidelity is highly challenging. We present an interactive technique for surface reconstruction from incomplete and sparse scans of 3D objects possessing sharp features. A fundamental premise of our interaction paradigm is that directly editing data in 3D is not only counterintuitive but also ineffective, while working with 1D entities (i.e., curves) is a lot more manageable. To this end, we factor 3D editing into two "orthogonal" interactions acting on skeletal and profile curves of the underlying shape, controlling its topology and geometric features, respectively. For surface completion, we introduce a novel skeleton-driven
morph-to-fit
, or
morfit
, scheme which reconstructs the shape as an ensemble of generalized cylinders. Morfit is a hybrid operator which optimally interpolates between adjacent curve profiles (the "morph") and snaps the surface to input points (the "fit"). The interactive reconstruction iterates between user edits and morfit to converge to a desired final surface. We demonstrate various interactive reconstructions from point scans with sharp features and significant missing data.
Deep shading buffers on commodity GPUs
Authors: Clarberg Petrik , Munkberg Jacob
Published: November 2014

Real-time rendering with true motion and defocus blur remains an elusive goal for application developers. In recent years, substantial progress has been made in the areas of rasterization, shading, and reconstruction for stochastic rendering. However, we have yet to see an efficient method for decoupled sampling that can be implemented on current or near-future graphics processors. In this paper, we propose one such algorithm that leverages the capability of modern GPUs to perform unordered memory accesses from within shaders. Our algorithm builds per-pixel primitive lists in canonical shading space. All shading then takes place in a single, non-multisampled forward rendering pass using conservative rasterization. This pass exploits the rasterization and shading hardware to perform shading very efficiently, and only samples that are visible in the final image are shaded. Last, the shading samples are gathered and filtered to create the final image. The input to our algorithm can be generated using a variety of methods, of which we show examples of interactive stochastic and interleaved rasterization, as well as ray tracing.
Improving visual quality of view transitions in automultiscopic displays
Authors: Du Song-Pei , Didyk Piotr , Durand Frédo , Hu Shi-Min , Matusik Wojciech
Published: November 2014

Automultiscopic screens present different images depending on the viewing direction. This enables glasses-free 3D and provides motion parallax effect. However, due to the limited angular resolution of such displays, they suffer from hot-spotting, i. e., image quality is highly affected by the viewing position. In this paper, we analyze light fields produced by lenticular and parallax-barrier displays, and show that, unlike in real world, the light fields produced by such screens have a repetitive structure. This induces visual artifacts in the form of view discontinuities, depth reversals, and excessive disparities when viewing position is not optimal. Although the problem has been always considered as inherent to the technology, we demonstrate that light fields reproduced on automultiscopic displays have enough degrees of freedom to improve the visual quality. We propose a new technique that modifies light fields using global and local shears followed by stitching to improve their continuity when displayed on a screen. We show that this enhances visual quality significantly, which is demonstrated in a series of user experiments with an automultiscopic display as well as lenticular prints.
Windy trees
Authors: Pirk Sören , Niese Till , Hädrich Torsten , Benes Bedrich , Deussen Oliver
Published: November 2014

We present a novel method for combining developmental tree models with turbulent wind fields. The tree geometry is created from internal growth functions of the developmental model and its response to external stress is induced by a physically-plausible wind field that is simulated by Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH). Our tree models are dynamically evolving complex systems that (1) react in real-time to high-frequent changes of the wind simulation; and (2) adapt to long-term wind stress. We extend this process by wind-related effects such as branch breaking as well as bud abrasion and drying. In our interactive system the user can adjust the parameters of the growth model, modify wind properties and resulting forces, and define the tree's long-term response to wind. By using graphics hardware, our implementation runs at interactive rates for moderately large scenes composed of up to 20 tree models.
Capturing braided hairstyles
Authors: Hu Liwen , Ma Chongyang , Luo Linjie , Wei Li-Yi , Li Hao
Published: November 2014

From fishtail to princess braids, these intricately woven structures define an important and popular class of hairstyle, frequently used for digital characters in computer graphics. In addition to the challenges created by the infinite range of styles, existing modeling and capture techniques are particularly constrained by the geometric and topological complexities. We propose a data-driven method to automatically reconstruct braided hairstyles from input data obtained from a single consumer RGB-D camera. Our approach covers the large variation of repetitive braid structures using a family of compact procedural braid models. From these models, we produce a database of braid patches and use a robust random sampling approach for data fitting. We then recover the input braid structures using a multi-label optimization algorithm and synthesize the intertwining hair strands of the braids. We demonstrate that a minimal capture equipment is sufficient to effectively capture a wide range of complex braids with distinct shapes and structures.
Robust surface reconstruction via dictionary learning
Authors: Xiong Shiyao , Zhang Juyong , Zheng Jianmin , Cai Jianfei , Liu Ligang
Published: November 2014

Surface reconstruction from point cloud is of great practical importance in computer graphics. Existing methods often realize reconstruction via a few phases with respective goals, whose integration may not give an optimal solution. In this paper, to avoid the inherent limitations of multi-phase processing in the prior art, we propose a unified framework that treats geometry and connectivity construction as one joint optimization problem. The framework is based on dictionary learning in which the dictionary consists of the vertices of the reconstructed triangular mesh and the sparse coding matrix encodes the connectivity of the mesh. The dictionary learning is formulated as a constrained
ℓ
2,q
-optimization (0 <
q
< 1), aiming to find the vertex position and triangulation that minimize an energy function composed of point-to-mesh metric and regularization. Our formulation takes many factors into account within the same framework, including distance metric, noise/outlier resilience, sharp feature preservation, no need to estimate normal, etc., thus providing a global and robust algorithm that is able to efficiently recover a piecewise smooth surface from dense data points with imperfections. Extensive experiments using synthetic models, real world models, and publicly available benchmark show that our method outperforms the state-of-the-art in terms of accuracy, robustness to noise and outliers, geometric feature and detail preservation, and mesh connectivity.
SPGrid
Authors: Setaluri Rajsekhar , Aanjaneya Mridul , Bauer Sean , Sifakis Eftychios
Published: November 2014

We introduce a new method for fluid simulation on high-resolution adaptive grids which rivals the throughput and parallelism potential of methods based on uniform grids. Our enabling contribution is
SPGrid
, a new data structure for compact storage and efficient stream processing of sparsely populated uniform Cartesian grids. SPGrid leverages the extensive hardware acceleration mechanisms inherent in the x86 Virtual Memory Management system to deliver sequential and stencil access bandwidth comparable to dense uniform grids. Second, we eschew tree-based adaptive data structures in favor of storing simulation variables in a pyramid of sparsely populated uniform grids, thus avoiding the cost of indirect memory access associated with pointer-based representations. We show how the costliest algorithmic kernels of fluid simulation can be implemented as a composition of two kernel types: (a) stencil operations on a single sparse uniform grid, and (b) structured data transfers between
adjacent
levels of resolution, even when modeling non-graded octrees. Finally, we demonstrate an adaptive multigrid-preconditioned Conjugate Gradient solver that achieves resolution-independent convergence rates while admitting a lightweight implementation with a modest memory footprint. Our method is complemented by a new interpolation scheme that reduces dissipative effects and simplifies dynamic grid adaptation. We demonstrate the efficacy of our method in end-to-end simulations of smoke flow.
Generating and ranking diverse multi-character interactions
Authors: Won Jungdam , Lee Kyungho , O'Sullivan Carol , Hodgins Jessica K. , Lee Jehee
Published: November 2014

In many application areas, such as animation for pre-visualizing movie sequences and choreography for dance or other types of performance, only a high-level description of the desired scene is provided as input, either written or verbal. Such sparsity, however, lends itself well to the creative process, as the choreographer, animator or director can be given more choice and control of the final scene. Animating scenes with multi-character interactions can be a particularly complex process, as there are many different constraints to enforce and actions to synchronize. Our novel 'generate-and-rank' approach rapidly and semi-automatically generates data-driven multi-character interaction scenes from high-level graphical descriptions composed of simple clauses and phrases. From a database of captured motions, we generate a multitude of plausible candidate scenes. We then efficiently and intelligently rank these scenes in order to recommend a small but high-quality and diverse selection to the user. This set can then be refined by re-ranking or by generating alternatives to specific interactions. While our approach is applicable to any scenes that depict multi-character interactions, we demonstrate its efficacy for choreographing fighting scenes and evaluate it in terms of performance and the diversity and coverage of the results.
MoSh
Authors: Loper Matthew , Mahmood Naureen , Black Michael J.
Published: November 2014

Marker-based motion capture (mocap) is widely criticized as producing lifeless animations. We argue that important information about body surface motion is present in standard marker sets but is lost in extracting a skeleton. We demonstrate a new approach called MoSh (Motion and Shape capture), that automatically extracts this detail from mocap data. MoSh estimates body
shape
and pose together using sparse marker data by exploiting a parametric model of the human body. In contrast to previous work, MoSh solves for the
marker locations
relative to the body and estimates accurate body shape directly from the markers without the use of 3D scans; this effectively turns a mocap system into an approximate body scanner. MoSh is able to capture
soft tissue motions
directly from markers by allowing body shape to vary over time. We evaluate the effect of different marker sets on pose and shape accuracy and propose a new sparse marker set for capturing soft-tissue motion. We illustrate MoSh by recovering body shape, pose, and soft-tissue motion from archival mocap data and using this to produce animations with subtlety and realism. We also show
soft-tissue motion retargeting
to new characters and show how to magnify the 3D deformations of soft tissue to create animations with appealing exaggerations.
Hierarchical diffusion curves for accurate automatic image vectorization
Authors: Xie Guofu , Sun Xin , Tong Xin , Nowrouzezahrai Derek
Published: November 2014

Diffusion curve primitives are a compact and powerful representation for vector images. While several vector image
authoring
tools leverage these representations, automatically and accurately vectorizing
arbitrary
raster images using diffusion curves remains a difficult problem. We automatically generate sparse diffusion curve vectorizations of raster images by fitting curves in the Laplacian domain. Our approach is fast, combines
Laplacian
and
bilaplacian
diffusion curve representations, and generates a hierarchical representation that accurately reconstructs both vector art and natural images. The key idea of our method is to trace curves in the Laplacian domain, which captures both sharp and smooth image features, across scales, more robustly than previous image- and gradient-domain fitting strategies. The sparse set of curves generated by our method accurately reconstructs images and often closely matches tediously hand-authored curve data. Also, our hierarchical curves are readily usable in all existing editing frameworks. We validate our method on a broad class of images, including natural images, synthesized images with turbulent multi-scale details, and traditional vector-art, as well as illustrating simple multi-scale abstraction and color editing results.
High-quality capture of eyes
Authors: Bérard Pascal , Bradley Derek , Nitti Maurizio , Beeler Thabo , Gross Markus
Published: November 2014

Even though the human eye is one of the central features of individual appearance, its shape has so far been mostly approximated in our community with gross simplifications. In this paper we demonstrate that there is a lot of individuality to every eye, a fact that common practices for 3D eye generation do not consider. To faithfully reproduce all the intricacies of the human eye we propose a novel capture system that is capable of accurately reconstructing all the visible parts of the eye: the white
sclera
, the transparent
cornea
and the non-rigidly deforming colored
iris
. These components exhibit very different appearance properties and thus we propose a hybrid reconstruction method that addresses them individually, resulting in a complete model of both spatio-temporal shape and texture at an unprecedented level of detail, enabling the creation of more believable digital humans. Finally, we believe that the findings of this paper will alter our community's current assumptions regarding human eyes, and our work has the potential to significantly impact the way that eyes will be modelled in the future.
Leveraging depth cameras and wearable pressure sensors for full-body kinematics and dynamics capture
Authors: Zhang Peizhao , Siu Kristin , Zhang Jianjie , Liu C. Karen , Chai Jinxiang
Published: November 2014

We present a new method for full-body motion capture that uses input data captured by three depth cameras and a pair of pressure-sensing shoes. Our system is appealing because it is low-cost, non-intrusive and fully automatic, and can accurately reconstruct both full-body kinematics and dynamics data. We first introduce a novel tracking process that automatically reconstructs 3D skeletal poses using input data captured by three
Kinect
cameras and wearable pressure sensors. We formulate the problem in an optimization framework and incrementally update 3D skeletal poses with observed depth data and pressure data via iterative linear solvers. The system is highly accurate because we integrate depth data from multiple depth cameras, foot pressure data, detailed full-body geometry, and environmental contact constraints into a unified framework. In addition, we develop an efficient physics-based motion reconstruction algorithm for solving internal joint torques and contact forces in the quadratic programming framework. During reconstruction, we leverage Newtonian physics, friction cone constraints, contact pressure information, and 3D kinematic poses obtained from the kinematic tracking process to reconstruct full-body dynamics data. We demonstrate the power of our approach by capturing a wide range of human movements and achieve state-of-the-art accuracy in our comparison against alternative systems.
Mirror mirror
Authors: Zhu Jun-Yan , Agarwala Aseem , Efros Alexei A. , Shechtman Eli , Wang Jue
Published: November 2014

We describe a method for providing feedback on portrait expressions, and for selecting the most attractive expressions from large video/photo collections. We capture a video of a subject's face while they are engaged in a task designed to elicit a range of positive emotions. We then use crowdsourcing to score the captured expressions for their attractiveness. We use these scores to train a model that can automatically predict attractiveness of different expressions of a given person. We also train a cross-subject model that evaluates portrait attractiveness of novel subjects and show how it can be used to automatically mine attractive photos from personal photo collections. Furthermore, we show how, with a little bit ($5-worth) of extra crowdsourcing, we can substantially improve the cross-subject model by "fine-tuning" it to a new individual using active learning. Finally, we demonstrate a training app that helps people learn how to mimic their best expressions.
Imagining the unseen
Authors: Shao Tianjia , Monszpart Aron , Zheng Youyi , Koo Bongjin , Xu Weiwei , Zhou Kun , Mitra Niloy J.
Published: November 2014

Missing data due to occlusion is a key challenge in 3D acquisition, particularly in cluttered man-made scenes. Such partial information about the scenes limits our ability to analyze and understand them. In this work we abstract such environments as collections of cuboids and hallucinate geometry in the occluded regions by globally analyzing the physical stability of the resultant arrangements of the cuboids. Our algorithm extrapolates the cuboids into the un-seen regions to infer both their corresponding geometric attributes (e.g., size, orientation) and how the cuboids topologically interact with each other (e.g., touch or fixed). The resultant arrangement provides an abstraction for the underlying structure of the scene that can then be used for a range of common geometry processing tasks. We evaluate our algorithm on a large number of test scenes with varying complexity, validate the results on existing benchmark datasets, and demonstrate the use of the recovered cuboid-based structures towards object retrieval, scene completion, etc.
Automatic acquisition of high-fidelity facial performances using monocular videos
Authors: Shi Fuhao , Wu Hsiang-Tao , Tong Xin , Chai Jinxiang
Published: November 2014

This paper presents a facial performance capture system that automatically captures high-fidelity facial performances using uncontrolled monocular videos (
e.g
., Internet videos). We start the process by detecting and tracking important facial features such as the nose tip and mouth corners across the entire sequence and then use the detected facial features along with multilinear facial models to reconstruct 3D head poses and large-scale facial deformation of the subject at each frame. We utilize per-pixel shading cues to add fine-scale surface details such as emerging or disappearing wrinkles and folds into large-scale facial deformation. At a final step, we iterate our reconstruction procedure on large-scale facial geometry and fine-scale facial details to further improve the accuracy of facial reconstruction. We have tested our system on monocular videos downloaded from the Internet, demonstrating its accuracy and robustness under a variety of uncontrolled lighting conditions and overcoming significant shape differences across individuals. We show our system advances the state of the art in facial performance capture by comparing against alternative methods.
Monte Carlo Methods for Value-at-Risk and Conditional Value-at-Risk
Authors: Hong L. Jeff , Hu Zhaolin , Liu Guangwu
Published: November 2014

Value-at-risk (VaR) and conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) are two widely used risk measures of large losses and are employed in the financial industry for risk management purposes. In practice, loss distributions typically do not have closed-form expressions, but they can often be simulated (i.e., random observations of the loss distribution may be obtained by running a computer program). Therefore, Monte Carlo methods that design simulation experiments and utilize simulated observations are often employed in estimation, sensitivity analysis, and optimization of VaRs and CVaRs. In this article, we review some of the recent developments in these methods, provide a unified framework to understand them, and discuss their applications in financial risk management.
A Model for Context in the Design of Open Production Communities
Authors: Ziaie Pujan
Published: November 2014

Open production communities (OPCs) provide technical features and social norms for a vast but dispersed and diverse crowd to collectively accumulate content. In OPCs, certain mechanisms, policies, and technologies are provided for voluntary users to participate in community-related activities including content generation, evaluation, qualification, and distribution and in some cases even community governance. Due to the known complexities and dynamism of online communities, designing a successful community is deemed more an art than a science. Numerous studies have investigated different aspects of certain types of OPCs. Most of these studies, however, fall short of delivering a general view or prescription due to their narrow focus on a certain type of OPCs. In contribution to theories on technology-mediated social participation (TMSP), this study synthesizes the streams of research in the particular area of OPCs and delivers a theoretical framework as a baseline for adapting findings from one specific type of community on another. This framework consists of four primary dimensions, namely, platform features, content, user, and community. The corresponding attributes of these dimensions and the existing interdependencies are discussed in detail. Furthermore, a decision diagram for selecting features and a design guideline for “decontextualizing” findings are introduced as possible applications of the framework. The framework also provides a new and reliable foundation on which future research can extend its findings and prescriptions in a systematic way.
Matrix Calculus for Classical and Quantum Circuits
Authors: De Vos Alexis , De Baerdemacker Stijn
Published: November 2014

Quantum computation on
w
qubits is represented by the infinite unitary group U(2

w

); classical reversible computation on
w
bits is represented by the finite symmetric group
S
2

w

. In order to establish the relationship between classical reversible computing and quantum computing, we introduce two Lie subgroups XU(
n
) and ZU(
n
) of the unitary group U(
n
). The former consists of all unitary
n
×
n
matrices with all line sums equal to 1; the latter consists of all unitary diagonal
n
×
n
matrices with first entry equal to 1. Such a group structure also reveals the relationship between matrix calculus and diagrammatic zx-calculus of quantum circuits.
Spermine oxidase maintains basal skeletal muscle gene expression and fiber size and is strongly repressed by conditions that cause skeletal muscle atrophy
Authors: Bongers Kale S. , Fox Daniel K. , Kunkel Steven D. , Stebounova Larissa V. , Murry Daryl J. , Pufall Miles A. , Ebert Scott M. , Dyle Michael C. , Bullard Steven A. , Dierdorff Jason M. , Adams Christopher M.
Published: November 2014

Skeletal muscle atrophy is a common and debilitating condition that remains poorly understood at the molecular level. To better understand the mechanisms of muscle atrophy, we used mouse models to search for a skeletal muscle protein that helps to maintain muscle mass and is specifically lost during muscle atrophy. We discovered that diverse causes of muscle atrophy (limb immobilization, fasting, muscle denervation, and aging) strongly reduced expression of the enzyme spermine oxidase. Importantly, a reduction in spermine oxidase was sufficient to induce muscle fiber atrophy. Conversely, forced expression of spermine oxidase increased muscle fiber size in multiple models of muscle atrophy (immobilization, fasting, and denervation). Interestingly, the reduction of spermine oxidase during muscle atrophy was mediated by p21, a protein that is highly induced during muscle atrophy and actively promotes muscle atrophy. In addition, we found that spermine oxidase decreased skeletal muscle mRNAs that promote muscle atrophy (e.g., myogenin) and increased mRNAs that help to maintain muscle mass (e.g., mitofusin-2). Thus, in healthy skeletal muscle, a relatively low level of p21 permits expression of spermine oxidase, which helps to maintain basal muscle gene expression and fiber size; conversely, during conditions that cause muscle atrophy, p21 expression rises, leading to reduced spermine oxidase expression, disruption of basal muscle gene expression, and muscle fiber atrophy. Collectively, these results identify spermine oxidase as an important positive regulator of muscle gene expression and fiber size, and elucidate p21-mediated repression of spermine oxidase as a key step in the pathogenesis of skeletal muscle atrophy.
Occurrence of Newcastle Disease and Infectious Bursal Disease Virus Antibodies in Double-Spurred Francolins in Nigeria
Authors: Oluwayelu Daniel Oladimeji , Adebiyi Adebowale Idris , Olaniyan Ibukunoluwa , Ezewele Phyllis , Aina Oluwasanmi
Published: November 2014

The double-spurred francolin Francolinus bicalcaratus has been identified as a good candidate for future domestication due to the universal acceptability of its meat and its adaptability to anthropogenically altered environments. Therefore, in investigating the diseases to which they are susceptible, serum samples from 56 francolins in a major live-bird market (LBM) in Ibadan, southwestern Nigeria, were screened for antibodies against Newcastle disease (ND) and infectious bursal disease (IBD) viruses. Haemagglutination inhibition (HI) test and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) revealed 25.0% and 35.7% prevalence of ND virus (NDV) antibodies, respectively, while 5.4% and 57.1% prevalence of IBD virus (IBDV) antibodies was detected by agar gel precipitation test (AGPT) and ELISA, respectively. This first report on the occurrence of NDV and IBDV antibodies in apparently healthy, unvaccinated double-spurred francolins from a LBM suggests that they were subclinically infected with either field or vaccine viruses and could thus serve as possible reservoirs of these viruses to domestic poultry. Furthermore, if they are to be domesticated for intensive rearing, a vaccination plan including ND and IBD should be developed and implemented.
Combination of the DVZ Method, Particle Filter, and Fuzzy Controller for Electric Wheelchair Navigation
Authors: Njah Malek , Jallouli Mohamed
Published: November 2014

Electric wheelchair is one of the many engines used for the movement of aged and disabled people. This paper introduces an obstacle avoidance using deformable virtual zone (DVZ), particle filter to improve localization and fuzzy controller to join desired target. This controller is developed to increase the independence of disabled and aged people, specifically those who suffer not only disability in the lower limbs but also visual disturbances. To overcome these problems, different perceptive abilities or sensors were introduced. In this context, we developed a control system composed by fuzzy controller to join a target, DVZ method for obstacle avoidance, and particle filter for localization. Also, we present the simulation results of the wheelchair navigation system.
Hydrodynamic Study of Oil Leakage in Pipeline via CFD
Authors: de Vasconcellos Araújo Morgana , de Farias Neto Severino Rodrigues , de Lima Antonio Gilson Barbosa , de Luna Flávia Daylane Tavares
Published: November 2014

This paper describes the transient dynamics behavior of oil flow in a pipe with the presence of one or two leaks through fluid dynamics simulations using the Ansys CFX commercial software. The pipe section is three-dimensional with a pipe length of 10 m, a pipe diameter of 20 cm, and leak diameter of 1.6 mm. The interest of this work is to evaluate the influence of the flow velocity, and the number and position of leaks on the transient pressure behavior. These new data may provide support for more efficient detection systems. Thus, this work intends to contribute to the development of tools of operations in oil and gas industry.
Transitional Cell Carcinoma in Orthotopic Ileal Neobladder
Authors: Cakmak Ozgur , Tarhan Huseyin , Celik Orcun , Kucuk Ulku , Ilbey Yusuf Ozlem
Published: November 2014

Urothelial carcinoma developing in orthotopic ileal neobladder is an extremely rare entity. Fewer than 10 cases have been reported in the literature describing urothelial carcinoma recurrence in orthotopic ileal neobladder. We report a case of transitional cell carcinoma recurrence in orthotopic ileal neobladder after 11 years of surgery.
Neuroprotective Effects of Geniposide in SH-SY5Y Cells and Primary Hippocampal Neurons Exposed to Aβ42
Authors: Sun Ping , Ding Haimin , Liang Mi , Li Xiaojing , Mo Weichuan , Wang Xu , Liu Ying , He Rongqiao , Hua Qian
Published: November 2014

Our former studies have suggested that TongLuoJiuNao (TLJN) is clinically efficacious in the treatment of dementia and improving learning and memory in AD models. When Aβaggregated with oligomer, it is known to be able to induce cellular toxicity as well as cognitive impairment. We tested the possibility that TLJN affects the formation of Aβoligomers. In our experiment, TLJN improved cell viability, inhibited LDH release, and promoted the outgrowth of neurites of neurons treated with Aβ. Geniposide, the main component of TLJN, could increase the cell viability of SY5Y-APP695sw cells. The cytotoxicity of pretreated Aβwith geniposide was decreased in a dose-dependent manner. SDS-PAGE and Western blotting showed that geniposide and TLJN stimulated Aβoligomer assembly. Compared with the control, more and longer fibrils of Aβin the presence of geniposide were observed under electron microscope though the fibrils became less sensitive to thioflavin T staining. In sum, geniposide is able to protect neurons from Aβ-induced damage by remodeling Aβ.
Estimation and Statistical Analysis of Human Voice Parameters to Investigate the Influence of Psychological Stress and to Determine the Vocal Tract Transfer Function of an Individual
Authors: Mongia Puneet Kumar , Sharma R. K.
Published: November 2014

In this study the principal focus is to examine the influence of psychological stress (both positive and negative stress) on the human articulation and to determine the vocal tract transfer function of an individual using inverse filtering technique. Both of these analyses are carried out by estimating various voice parameters. The outcomes of the analysis of psychological stress indicate that all the voice parameters are affected due to the influence of stress on humans. About 35 out of 51 parameters follow a unique course of variation from normal to positive and negative stress in 32% of the total analyzed signals. The upshot of the analysis is to determine the vocal tract transfer function for each vowel for an individual. The analysis indicates that it can be computed by estimating the mean of the pole zero plots of that individual’s vocal tract estimated for the whole day. Besides this, an analysis is presented to find the relationship between the LPC coefficients of the vocal tract and the vocal tract cavities. The results of the analysis indicate that all the LPC coefficients of the vocal tract are affected due to change in the position of any cavity.
Annual Energy Usage Reduction and Cost Savings of a School: End-Use Energy Analysis
Authors: Roslizar Aiman , Alghoul M. A. , Bakhtyar B. , Asim Nilofar , Sopian K.
Published: November 2014

Buildings are among the largest consumers of energy. Part of the energy is wasted due to the habits of users and equipment conditions. A solution to this problem is efficient energy usage. To this end, an energy audit can be conducted to assess the energy efficiency. This study aims to analyze the energy usage of a primary school and identify the potential energy reductions and cost savings. A preliminary audit was conducted, and several energy conservation measures were proposed. The energy conservation measures, with reference to the MS1525:2007 standard, were modelled to identify the potential energy reduction and cost savings. It was found that the school’s usage of electricity exceeded its need, incurring an excess expenditure of RM 2947.42. From the lighting system alone, it was found that there is a potential energy reduction of 5489.06 kWh, which gives a cost saving of RM 2282.52 via the improvement of lighting system design and its operating hours. Overall, it was found that there is a potential energy reduction and cost saving of 20.7% when the energy conservation measures are earnestly implemented. The previous energy intensity of the school was found to be 50.6 kWh/m2/year, but can theoretically be reduced to 40.19 kWh/mm2/year.
Epidemiological Transition in Urban Population of Maharashtra
Authors: Koli Rahul , Goli Srinivas , Doshi Riddhi
Published: November 2014

Our objective is to assess epidemiological transition in urban Maharashtra in India in past two decades. We used the medically certified causes of death (MCCD) data from urban areas of Maharashtra, 1990–2006. Cause-specific death rate was estimated, standardized for age groups, and projected by using an exponential linear regression model. The results indicate that the burden of mortality due to noncommunicable conditions increased by 25% between 1990 and 2006 and will add 20% more by 2020. Among specific causes, the “diseases of the circulatory system” were consistently the leading CoD between 1990 and 2006. The “infectious and parasitic disease” and “diseases related to respiratory system” were the second and third leading causes of death, respectively. For children and young population, the leading cause of death was the “certain conditions originating in the prenatal period” and “injury and poisoning,” respectively, among both sexes. Among adults, the leading cause of death was “infectious and parasitic diseases.” In case of the adult female and elderly population, “diseases of circulatory system” caused the most deaths. Overall the findings foster that socioeconomically developed and demographically advanced urban Maharashtra bears the double burden of disease-specific mortality.
Association of Serum Magnesium Levels with Frequency of Acute Exacerbations in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: A Prospective Study
Authors: Gumus Aziz , Haziroglu Muge , Gunes Yilmaz
Published: November 2014

Background. The course of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is accompanied by acute exacerbations. The purpose of this study is to determine the association of serum magnesium level with acute exacerbations in COPD (COPD-AE).Materials and Methods. Eighty-nine patients hospitalized with COPD-AE were included. Hemogram, biochemical tests, and arterial blood gases were analyzed. Pulmonary function tests were performed in the stable period after discharge. Patients were followed up at 3 monthly periods for one year.Results. Mean age of the patients was70.4±7.8(range 47–90) years. Mean number of COPD-AE during follow-up was4.0±3.6(range 0–15). On Spearman correlation analysis there were significant negative correlations between number of COPD-AE and predicted FEV1% (P=0.001), total protein (P=0.024), globulin (P=0.001), creatinine (P=0.001), and uric acid levels (P=0.036). There were also significant positive correlations between number of COPD-AE and serum magnesium level (P<0.001) and platelet count (P=0.043). According to linear regression analysis predicted FEV1% (P=0.011), serum magnesium (P<0.001), and globulin (P=0.006) levels were independent predictors of number of COPD-AE.Conclusions. In this small prospective observational study we found that serum magnesium level during exacerbation period was the most significant predictor of frequency of COPD-AE.
Research on a Fast Human‐Detection Algorithm for Unmanned Surveillance Area in Bulk Ports
Authors: Mi Chao , He Xin , Liu Haiwei , Huang Youfang , Mi Weijian
Published: November 2014

With the development of port automation, most operational fields utilizing heavy equipment have gradually become unmanned. It is therefore imperative to monitor these fields in an effective and real‐time manner. In this paper, a fast human‐detection algorithm is proposed based on image processing. To speed up the detection process, the optimized histograms of oriented gradients (HOG) algorithm that can avoid the large number of double calculations of the original HOG and ignore insignificant features is used to describe the contour of the human body in real time. Based on the HOG features, using a training sample set consisting of scene images of a bulk port, a support vector machine (SVM) classifier combined with the AdaBoost classifier is trained to detect human. Finally, the results of the human detection experiments on Tianjin Port show that the accuracy of the proposed optimized algorithm has roughly the same accuracy as a traditional algorithm, while the proposed algorithm only takes 1/7 the amount of time. The accuracy and computing time of the proposed fast human‐detection algorithm were verified to meet the security requirements of unmanned port areas.
Microcirculation Approach in HELLP Syndrome Complicated by Posterior Reversible Encephalopathy Syndrome and Massive Hepatic Infarction
Authors: Sarmento Stephanno Gomes Pereira , Santana Eduardo Feliz Martins , Campanharo Felipe Favorette , Araujo Júnior Edward , Machado Flavia Ribeiro , Sass Nelson , Moron Antonio Fernandes
Published: November 2014

HELLP syndrome is a complication of severe forms of preeclampsia and occurs mainly in the third trimester of pregnancy. In extreme cases, it may evolve unfavorably and substantially increase maternal mortality. We present the case of an 18-year-old pregnant woman who was admitted to our emergency service in her 31st week, presenting with headache, visual disturbances, and epigastralgia, with progression to a severe condition of HELLP syndrome followed by posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome (PRES) and hepatic infarction. We highlight the approach taken towards this patient and the case management, in which, in addition to the imaging examinations routinely available, we also used the sidestream dark field (SDF) technique to evaluate the systemic microcirculation.
New Bioactive Oleanane Type Compounds fromCoriandrum sativumLinn.
Authors: Iqbal Muhammad , Bilal Muhammad , Iqbal Rubina , Akram Muhammad , Bakhsh Baloch Imam , Baloch Musa Kaleem
Published: November 2014

Five (1–5) new bioactive oleanane type triterpenoids have been isolated from ethyl acetate soluble fraction of ethanolic extract ofCoriandrum sativumLinn. of Umbelliferae family. Ethanolic extract of the whole plant was fractionated in organic solvents. Ethyl acetate fraction was subjected to column chromatography on HPLC RP-18 to get 1-oxo-11β,21β-dihydroxy-oleanane (1), 1-oxo-11β-hydroxy-21β-O-acetyloleanane (2), 1-oxo-11β-hydroxy-21β-O-angeloyloleanane (3), 1-oxo-11β-O-angeloyl-21β-O-acetyloleanane (4), and 1-oxo-11β,21β-O-dibenzoyloleanane (5). The structures were elucidated after analysis of spectroscopic data, UV, IR, NMR (1H,13C, 1D, and 2D), and mass measurements. Suspension in water of crude ethyl acetate extract was employed to treat sheep with ringworm disease. All isolated compounds (1–5) displayed excellent activity in terms of inhibition zones, MICs, MBCs, and MFCs against both bacteria and fungi. Ethyl acetate extract showed excellent antiringworm activity in sheep.
Design and Fabrication of Multipurpose Diagnostic in IR-T1 Tokamak
Authors: Lafouti M. , Ghoranneviss M. , Salar Elahi A. , Meshkani S.
Published: November 2014

The first results of the movable multipurpose probe (MPP) experiments performed on the IR-T1 Tokamak are presented. For this purpose, a moveable MPP was designed, constructed, and installed on the IR-T1 Tokamak for the first time. MPP can measure radial variation of floating potential and ion saturation current, electrostatic fluctuation, magnetic fluctuation, and flow velocity simultaneously. The relation between gradient of Reynolds stress and poloidal particle flux can be investigated by MPP. It can measure the radial variation of radial electric field and poloidal electric field. The most advantage of MPP is to measure electric and magnetic plasma fluctuations simultaneously. MPP is composed of three sections: electrical part, magnetic part, and flow measurement section. This is a compact probe in which do not disturb plasma. The results are presented and discussed.
Effect of Phosphoric Acid Concentration on the Optical Properties of Partially Phosphorylated PVA Complexes
Authors: Mohamed Saat Asmalina , Johan Mohd Rafie
Published: November 2014

Partially phosphorylated polyvinyl alcohol (PPVA) films were prepared at five mole ratios of phosphoric acid (PA) using solution casting technique. The optical properties of the PPVA films were examined using UV-visible (UV) and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. The UV absorption spectra reveal that the absorption peaks are blue-shifted with an increase in PA concentration added to the pure PVA. The PL spectra show the presence of peaks which are characteristic of isotactic (389–398, 460–462 nm), syndiotactic (418–420 nm), and atactic (440–446 nm) configurations of the PPVA. The results also show the peak of O–P–O bonding at a wavelength range of 481–489 nm.
Simulation of Broadband Noise Sources of an Axial Fan under Rotating Stall Conditions
Authors: Zhang Lei , Wang Rui , Wang Songling
Published: November 2014

Study on the influence of rotating stall on the aerodynamic noise of axial fan has important value to warn of the occurrence of stall through monitoring the noise variations. The present work is to analyze the aerodynamic noise before and after the phenomenon of rotating stall by solving Navier-Stokes equations, coupled with the throttle condition and the broadband noise sources model. The impeller exit rotational Mach number and rotational Reynolds number are separately 0.407 and 8.332 × 106. The results show that the aerodynamic noise source of the fan is mainly the rotation noise under the design condition. The vortex noise accounts for the major part of fan noise after the occurrence of stall, and the maximum acoustic power level of the fan appears in the rotor domains. In the evolution process from the stall inception to the stall cell, the high noise regions of the rotor develop along the radial, circumferential, and axial directions, and the area occupied by high noise regions increases from 33% to 46% impeller channels area. On rotating stall condition, the high noise regions occupying about 46% impeller channels area propagate with the stall cell along the circumferential direction at a half of rotor speed.
Bioactive Paper Sensor Based on the Acetylcholinesterase for the Rapid Detection of Organophosphate and Carbamate Pesticides
Authors: Badawy Mohamed E. I. , El-Aswad Ahmed F.
Published: November 2014

In many countries, people are becoming more concerned about pesticide residues which are present in or on food and feed products. For this reason, several methods have been developed to monitor the pesticide residue levels in food samples. In this study, a bioactive paper-based sensor was developed for detection of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitors including organophosphate and carbamate pesticides. Based on the Ellman colorimetric assay, the assay strip is composed of a paper support (1×10 cm), onto which a biopolymer chitosan gel immobilized in crosslinking by glutaraldehyde with AChE and 5,5′-dithiobis(2-nitrobenzoic) acid (DTNB) and uses acetylthiocholine iodide (ATChI) as an outside reagent. The assay protocol involves introducing the sample to sensing zone via dipping of a pesticide-containing solution. Following an incubation period, the paper is placed into ATChI solution to initiate enzyme catalyzed hydrolysis of the substrate, causing a yellow color change. The absence or decrease of the yellow color indicates the levels of the AChE inhibitors. The biosensor is able to detect organophosphate and carbamate pesticides with good detection limits (methomyl=6.16×10-4 mM andprofenofos=0.27 mM) and rapid response times (~5 min). The results show that the paper-based biosensor is rapid, sensitive, inexpensive, portable, disposable, and easy-to-use.