bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Volcanic Skies: coupling explosive eruptions with atmospheric simulation to create consistent skyscapes
Authors: Pretorius P. C. , Gain J. , Lastic M. , Cordonnier G. , Chen J. , Rohmer D. , Cani M.‐P. 
Published: April 2024

AbstractExplosive volcanic eruptions rank among the most terrifying natural phenomena, and are thus frequently depicted in films, games, and other media, usually with a bespoke once‐off solution. In this paper, we introduce the first general‐purpose model for bi‐directional interaction between the atmosphere and a volcano plume. In line with recent interactive volcano models, we approximate the plume dynamics with Lagrangian disks and spheres and the atmosphere with sparse layers of 2D Eulerian grids, enabling us to focus on the transfer of physical quantities such as temperature, ash, moisture, and wind velocity between these sub‐models. We subsequently generate volumetric animations by noise‐based procedural upsampling keyed to aspects of advection, convection, moisture, and ash content to generate a fully‐realized volcanic skyscape. Our model captures most of the visually salient features emerging from volcano‐sky interaction, such as windswept plumes, enmeshed cap, bell and skirt clouds, shockwave effects, ash rain, and sheathes of lightning visible in the dark.
Perceptual Quality Assessment of NeRF and Neural View Synthesis Methods for Front‐Facing Views
Authors: Liang H. , Wu T. , Hanji P. , Banterle F. , Gao H. , Mantiuk R. , Öztireli C. 
Published: April 2024

AbstractNeural view synthesis (NVS) is one of the most successful techniques for synthesizing free viewpoint videos, capable of achieving high fidelity from only a sparse set of captured images. This success has led to many variants of the techniques, each evaluated on a set of test views typically using image quality metrics such as PSNR, SSIM, or LPIPS. There has been a lack of research on how NVS methods perform with respect to perceived video quality. We present the first study on perceptual evaluation of NVS and NeRF variants. For this study, we collected two datasets of scenes captured in a controlled lab environment as well as in‐the‐wild. In contrast to existing datasets, these scenes come with reference video sequences, allowing us to test for temporal artifacts and subtle distortions that are easily overlooked when viewing only static images. We measured the quality of videos synthesized by several NVS methods in a well‐controlled perceptual quality assessment experiment as well as with many existing state‐of‐the‐art image/video quality metrics. We present a detailed analysis of the results and recommendations for dataset and metric selection for NVS evaluation.
Predicting Perceived Gloss: Do Weak Labels Suffice?
Authors: Guerrero‐Viu Julia , Subias J. Daniel , Serrano Ana , Storrs Katherine R. , Fleming Roland W. , Masia Belen , Gutierrez Diego 
Published: April 2024

AbstractEstimating perceptual attributes of materials directly from images is a challenging task due to their complex, not fully‐understood interactions with external factors, such as geometry and lighting. Supervised deep learning models have recently been shown to outperform traditional approaches, but rely on large datasets of human‐annotated images for accurate perception predictions. Obtaining reliable annotations is a costly endeavor, aggravated by the limited ability of these models to generalise to different aspects of appearance. In this work, we show how a much smaller set of human annotations (“strong labels”) can be effectively augmented with automatically derived “weak labels” in the context of learning a low‐dimensional image‐computable gloss metric. We evaluate three alternative weak labels for predicting human gloss perception from limited annotated data. Incorporating weak labels enhances our gloss prediction beyond the current state of the art. Moreover, it enables a substantial reduction in human annotation costs without sacrificing accuracy, whether working with rendered images or real photographs.
Enhancing Spatiotemporal Resampling with a Novel MIS Weight
Authors: Pan Xingyue , Zhang Jiaxuan , Huang Jiancong , Liu Ligang 
Published: April 2024

AbstractIn real‐time rendering, optimizing the sampling of large‐scale candidates is crucial. The spatiotemporal reservoir resampling (ReSTIR) method provides an effective approach for handling large candidate samples, while the Generalized Resampled Importance Sampling (GRIS) theory provides a general framework for resampling algorithms. However, we have observed that when using the generalized multiple importance sampling (MIS) weight in previous work during spatiotemporal reuse, variances gradually amplify in the candidate domain when there are significant differences. To address this issue, we propose a new MIS weight suitable for resampling that blends samples from different sampling domains, ensuring convergence of results as the proportion of non‐canonical samples increases. Additionally, we apply this weight to temporal resampling to reduce noise caused by scene changes or jitter. Our method effectively reduces energy loss in the biased version of ReSTIR DI while incurring no additional overhead, and it also suppresses artifacts caused by a high proportion of temporal samples. As a result, our approach leads to lower variance in the sampling results.
Enhancing image quality prediction with self‐supervised visual masking
Authors: Çoğalan U. , Bemana M. , Seidel HP. , Myszkowski K. 
Published: April 2024

AbstractFull‐reference image quality metrics (FR‐IQMs) aim to measure the visual differences between a pair of reference and distorted images, with the goal of accurately predicting human judgments. However, existing FR‐IQMs, including traditional ones like PSNR and SSIM and even perceptual ones such as HDR‐VDP, LPIPS, and DISTS, still fall short in capturing the complexities and nuances of human perception. In this work, rather than devising a novel IQM model, we seek to improve upon the perceptual quality of existing FR‐IQM methods. We achieve this by considering visual masking, an important characteristic of the human visual system that changes its sensitivity to distortions as a function of local image content. Specifically, for a given FR‐IQM metric, we propose to predict a visual masking model that modulates reference and distorted images in a way that penalizes the visual errors based on their visibility. Since the ground truth visual masks are difficult to obtain, we demonstrate how they can be derived in a self‐supervised manner solely based on mean opinion scores (MOS) collected from an FR‐IQM dataset. Our approach results in enhanced FR‐IQM metrics that are more in line with human prediction both visually and quantitatively.
PossibleImpossibles: Exploratory Procedural Design of Impossible Structures
Authors: Li Yuanbo , Ma Tianyi , Aljumayaat Zaineb , Ritchie Daniel 
Published: April 2024

AbstractWe present a method for generating structures in three‐dimensional space that appear to be impossible when viewed from specific perspectives. Previous approaches focus on helping users to edit specific structures and require users to have knowledge of structural positioning causing the impossibility. On the contrary, our system is designed to aid users without prior knowledge to explore a wide range of potentially impossible structures. The essence of our method lies in features we call visual bridges that confuse viewers regarding the depth of the resulting structure. We use these features as starting points and employ procedural modeling to systematically generate the result. We propose scoring functions for enforcing desirable spatial arrangement of the result and use Sequential Monte Carlo to sample outputs that score well under these functions. We also present a proof‐of‐concept user interface and demonstrate various results generated using our system.
Hierarchical Co‐generation of Parcels and Streets in Urban Modeling
Authors: Chen Zebin , Song Peng , Ortner F. Peter 
Published: April 2024

AbstractWe present a computational framework for modeling land parcels and streets. In the real world, parcels and streets are highly coupled with each other since a street network connects all the parcels in a certain area. However, existing works model parcels and streets separately to simplify the problem, resulting in urban layouts with irregular parcels and/or suboptimal streets. In this paper, we propose a hierarchical approach to co‐generate parcels and streets from a user‐specified polygonal land shape, guided by a set of fundamental urban design requirements. At each hierarchical level, new parcels are generated based on binary splitting of existing parcels, and new streets are subsequently generated by leveraging efficient graph search tools to ensure that each new parcel has a street access. At the end, we optimize the geometry of the generated parcels and streets to further improve their geometric quality. Our computational framework outputs an urban layout with a desired number of regular parcels that are reachable via a connected street network, for which users are allowed to control the modeling process both locally and globally. Quantitative comparisons with state‐of‐the‐art approaches show that our framework is able to generate parcels and streets that are superior in some aspects.
Strokes2Surface: Recovering Curve Networks From 4D Architectural Design Sketches
Authors: Rasoulzadeh S. , Wimmer M. , Stauss P. , Kovacic I. 
Published: April 2024

AbstractWe present Strokes2Surface, an offline geometry reconstruction pipeline that recovers well‐connected curve networks from imprecise 4D sketches to bridge concept design and digital modeling stages in architectural design. The input to our pipeline consists of 3D strokes' polyline vertices and their timestamps as the 4th dimension, along with additional metadata recorded throughout sketching. Inspired by architectural sketching practices, our pipeline combines a classifier and two clustering models to achieve its goal. First, with a set of extracted hand‐engineered features from the sketch, the classifier recognizes the type of individual strokes between those depicting boundaries (Shape strokes) and those depicting enclosed areas (Scribble strokes). Next, the two clustering models parse strokes of each type into distinct groups, each representing an individual edge or face of the intended architectural object. Curve networks are then formed through topology recovery of consolidated Shape clusters and surfaced using Scribble clusters guiding the cycle discovery. Our evaluation is threefold: We confirm the usability of the Strokes2Surface pipeline in architectural design use cases via a user study, we validate our choice of features via statistical analysis and ablation studies on our collected dataset, and we compare our outputs against a range of reconstructions computed using alternative methods.
Cinematographic Camera Diffusion Model
Authors: Jiang Hongda , Wang Xi , Christie Marc , Liu Libin , Chen Baoquan 
Published: April 2024

AbstractDesigning effective camera trajectories in virtual 3D environments is a challenging task even for experienced animators. Despite an elaborate film grammar, forged through years of experience, that enables the specification of camera motions through cinematographic properties (framing, shots sizes, angles, motions), there are endless possibilities in deciding how to place and move cameras with characters. Dealing with these possibilities is part of the complexity of the problem. While numerous techniques have been proposed in the literature (optimization‐based solving, encoding of empirical rules, learning from real examples,…), the results either lack variety or ease of control.In this paper, we propose a cinematographic camera diffusion model using a transformer‐based architecture to handle temporality and exploit the stochasticity of diffusion models to generate diverse and qualitative trajectories conditioned by high‐level textual descriptions. We extend the work by integrating keyframing constraints and the ability to blend naturally between motions using latent interpolation, in a way to augment the degree of control of the designers. We demonstrate the strengths of this text‐to‐camera motion approach through qualitative and quantitative experiments and gather feedback from professional artists. The code and data are available at https://github.com/jianghd1996/Camera-control.
DivaTrack: Diverse Bodies and Motions from Acceleration‐Enhanced Three‐Point Trackers
Authors: Yang Dongseok , Kang Jiho , Ma Lingni , Greer Joseph , Ye Yuting , Lee Sung‐Hee 
Published: April 2024

AbstractFull‐body avatar presence is important for immersive social and environmental interactions in digital reality. However, current devices only provide three six degrees of freedom (DOF) poses from the headset and two controllers (i.e. three‐point trackers). Because it is a highly under‐constrained problem, inferring full‐body pose from these inputs is challenging, especially when supporting the full range of body proportions and use cases represented by the general population. In this paper, we propose a deep learning framework, DivaTrack, which outperforms existing methods when applied to diverse body sizes and activities. We augment the sparse three‐point inputs with linear accelerations from Inertial Measurement Units (IMU) to improve foot contact prediction. We then condition the otherwise ambiguous lower‐body pose with the predictions of foot contact and upper‐body pose in a two‐stage model. We further stabilize the inferred full‐body pose in a wide range of configurations by learning to blend predictions that are computed in two reference frames, each of which is designed for different types of motions. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our design on a large dataset that captures 22 subjects performing challenging locomotion for three‐point tracking, including lunges, hula‐hooping, and sitting. As shown in a live demo using the Meta VR headset and Xsens IMUs, our method runs in real‐time while accurately tracking a user's motion when they perform a diverse set of movements.
Peripheral inflammation triggering central anxiety through the hippocampal glutamate metabolized receptor 1
Authors: Wang Jun‐Meng , Wang Yue‐Mei , Zhu Yuan‐Bing , Cui Chan , Feng Tong , Huang Qin , Liu Shu‐Qing , Wu Qiao‐Feng 
Published: April 2024

AbstractAimsThis study aimed to investigate the relationship between ulcerative colitis (UC) and anxiety and explore its central mechanisms using colitis mice.MethodsAnxiety‐like behavior was assessed in mice induced by 3% dextran sodium sulfate (DSS) using the elevated plus maze and open‐field test. The spatial transcriptome of the hippocampus was analyzed to assess the distribution of excitatory and inhibitory synapses, and Toll‐like receptor 4 (TLR4) inhibitor TAK‐242 (10 mg/kg) and AAV virus interference were used to examine the role of peripheral inflammation and central molecules such as Glutamate Receptor Metabotropic 1 (GRM1) in mediating anxiety behavior in colitis mice.ResultsDSS‐induced colitis increased anxiety‐like behaviors, which was reduced by TAK‐242. Spatial transcriptome analysis of the hippocampus showed an excitatory‐inhibitory imbalance mediated by glutamatergic synapses, and GRM1 in hippocampus was identified as a critical mediator of anxiety behavior in colitis mice via differential gene screening and AAV virus interference.ConclusionOur work suggests that the hippocampus plays an important role in brain anxiety caused by peripheral inflammation, and over‐excitation of hippocampal glutamate synapses by GRM1 activation induces anxiety‐like behavior in colitis mice. These findings provide new insights into the central mechanisms underlying anxiety in UC and may contribute to the development of novel therapeutic strategies for UC‐associated anxiety.
Less efficient skin penetration of the metal allergen Pd2+ compared to Ni2+ and Co2+ from patch test preparations
Authors: Simon Konstantin , Reichardt Philipp , Luch Andreas , Roloff Alexander , Siewert Katherina , Riedel Franziska 
Published: April 2024

AbstractBackgroundContrary to Ni2+‐ and Co2+‐induced allergic contact dermatitis (ACD), reactions against Pd2+ are rare. However, Pd2+ activates a larger T cell fraction in vitro, suggesting an inefficient skin penetration.ObjectivesThis study compares Ni2+, Co2+ and Pd2+ skin penetration from commonly used diagnostic patch test preparations (PTPs) and aqueous metal salt solutions.MethodsUsing Franz diffusion cell assays, we applied the metals in PTPs (5% NiSO4, 1% CoCl2, 2% PdCl2 and 3% Na2PdCl4) and in solution to pigskin for 48 h, thereby mirroring the time frame of a patch test. The different compartments were analysed individually by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry.ResultsMetal ions were mainly retained in the upper stratum corneum layers. After application of PTPs, concentrations in the viable skin were lower for Pd2+ (1 and 7 μM) compared to Ni2+ and Co2+ (54 and 17 μM).ConclusionsNi2+ and Co2+ penetrated the skin more efficiently than Pd2+ and thus may sensitize and elicit ACD more easily. This was observed for ions applied in petrolatum and aqueous solutions. We hypothesize that the differently charged metal complexes are responsible for the varying skin penetration behaviours.
Global International Society of University Colon and Rectal Surgeons in collaboration with European Society of Coloproctology audit on office‐based and surgical treatment of haemorrhoidal disease: Study protocol
Authors: Dulskas Audrius , Cerkauskaite Dovile , Nunoo‐Mensah Joseph , Fortunato Richard , Gallo Gaetano , El Hussuna Alaa , Lohsiriwat Varut , Aukstikalnis Tomas , Samalavicius Narimantas E. 
Published: April 2024

AbstractAimHaemorrhoidal disease (HD) is one of the most common anal disorders in the adult population. Despite that, treatment options differ among different countries and specialists, even for the same grade of HD. The aim of this study is to evaluate the differences in patient demographics, surgeon preference for the treatment option, outcomes as well as patient satisfaction rate for the procedure using an office‐based or surgical approach for the treatment of HD among International Society of University Colon and Rectal Surgeons (ISUCRS) and European Society of Coloproctology (ECSP) fellows.MethodA panel of the ISUCRS and ECSP members will answer questions that are included in a questionnaire about the treatment of HD. The questionnaire will be distributed electronically to ISUCRS and ECSP fellows included in our database and will remain open from 1 April 2024 to 31 May 2024.ConclusionThis multicentre, global prospective audit will be delivered by consultant colorectal and general surgeons as well as trainees. The data obtained will lead to a better understanding of the incidence of HD, treatment and diagnostic possibilities. This snapshot audit will be hypothesis generating and inform areas the need future prospective study.
The pharmacist will see you now: Pharmacist prescriptive authority and access to care
Authors: Shakya Shishir , Plemmons Alicia , Bae Kihwan , Timmons Edward 
Published: April 2024

AbstractIn 2018, Idaho became the first state to grant broad prescriptive authority to pharmacists for select medications, such as rescue inhalers (a drug to prevent and treat asthmatic symptoms) and insulin pen needles (for people with diabetes). We analyze the impact of this reform on Medicare beneficiaries' access to these time‐sensitive treatments. Our findings reveal increased Medicare Part D claims, 30‐day fills, and 30‐day supplies of albuterol sulfate and insulin pen needles following expanded pharmacist authority. This translates to approximately three additional patients per pharmacist receiving timely care, potentially preventing costly alternatives such as emergency room visits.
Harnessing tetrahedral framework nucleic acids for enhanced delivery of microRNA‐149‐3p: A new frontier in oral squamous cell carcinoma therapy
Authors: Xu Siqi , Qin Xin , Liang Jiale , Fu Xiao , Xiao Dexuan , Lin Yunfeng , Wang Tao 
Published: April 2024

AbstractOral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), a type of malignant tumour that primarily occurs in the oral mucosa, has drawn considerable attention owing to its aggressive growth and potentially high metastatic rate. Surgical resection is the primary treatment method for OSCC and is typically combined with radiation therapy and chemotherapy. microRNA‐149‐3p (miR‐149) is a negative regulator of the Pi3k/Akt pathway and can effectively inhibit the proliferation of tumour cells. However, the application of miR‐149 is limited owing to its relatively low efficiency of cellular uptake and poor stability when used alone. To overcome these challenges, this study adopted a novel nucleic acid nanostructured material, tetrahedral framework nucleic acids (tFNAs). The use of tFNAs as carriers to assemble the T‐miR‐149 complex reduced the expression of Pi3k and Akt involved in tumorigenesis and alterations in proteins related to cell apoptosis. The results indicated that the bionic drug delivery system has an effective tumour suppressive effect on OSCC in mice, revealing its potential clinical value in the treatment of OSCC.
Assessing the feasibility of time in tight range (TITR) targets with advanced hybrid closed loop (AHCL) use in children and adolescents: A single‐centre real‐world study
Authors: Eviz Elif , Killi Nesrin Ecem , Karakus Kagan Ege , Can Ecem , Gokce Tugba , Yesiltepe Mutlu Gul , Hatun Sukru 
Published: April 2024

AbstractAimsTime in Tight Range (TITR) is a novel glycaemic metric in monitoring type 1 diabetes (T1D) management. The aim of this study was to assess the attainability of the TITR target in children and adolescents using the advanced hybrid closed loop (AHCL).MethodsThe 2128‐day CGM data from 56 children and adolescents with T1D using AHCL (Minimed‐780G) were analysed. Time in Range (TIR) (3.9–10 mmol/L), TITR (3.9–7.7 mmol/L), and other glycaemic parameters were separately analysed in terms of whole day, daytime (06.00–23:59), and nighttime (00.00–05.59) results. The participants were divided into two groups by autocorrection rate where Group 1 had a rate of <30% and Group 2 had a rate of ≥30.ResultsAll glycaemic parameters indicated a better glycaemic outcome in the nighttime with higher TIR and TITR values compared with daytime (for TIR 87.5 ± 9.5% vs. 78.8 ± 8%, p < 0.001, and TITR 68.2 ± 13.5% vs. 57.5 ± 8.8%, p < 0.001). The rates of TITR >50% and >60% were 87% and 52%, respectively. When those with TITR >60% (n: 29) and those without (n: 27) were evaluated in terms of hypoglycaemia, no statistically significant difference was found in time below range (TBR) 3–3.9 mmol/L (0.3% vs. 2.1%, p: 0.084) and TBR < 3 mmol/L (0.47% vs. 0.3%, p: 0.298). Group 1 had a significantly higher TIR and TITR compared to Group 2 (82.6 ± 6.1% vs. 75.6 ± 8.6%, p: 0.008 and 62.1 ± 7.5% vs. 53.8 ± 7.5%, p: 0.002, respectively).ConclusionsMost children and adolescents on AHCL achieved the 50% target for TITR whereas more than half achieved the >60% target. A target of >50% for TITR seems realistic in children with T1D using AHCL.