Fast head modeling for animation
This paper describes an efficient method to make individual faces for animation from several possible inputs. We present a method to reconstruct a three-dimensional (3D) facial model for animation from two orthogonal pictures taken from front and side views, or from range data obtained from any available resources. It is based on extracting features on a face in a semiautomatic way and modifying a generic model with detected feature points. Then fine modifications follow if range data is available. Automatic texture mapping is employed using an image composed from the two images. The reconstructed 3D-face can be animated immediately with given expression parameters. Several faces by obtained one methodology applied to different input data to get a final animatable face are illustrated.

title: MPEG-4 compatible faces from orthogonal photos
abstract: MPEG-4 is scheduled to become an international standard in March 1999. The paper demonstrates an experiment for a virtual cloning method and animation system, which is compatible with the MPEG-4 standard facial object specification. Our method uses orthogonal photos (front and side view) as input and reconstructs the 3D facial model. The method is based on extracting MPEG-4 face definition parameters (FDP) from photos, which initializes a custom face in a more capable interface, and deforming a generic model. Texture mapping is employed using an image composed of the two orthogonal images, which is done completely automatically. A reconstructed head can be animated immediately inside our animation system, which is adapted to the MPEG-4 standard specification of face animation parameters (FAP). The result is integrated into our virtual human director (VHD) system.

title: Cloning and aging in a VR family
abstract: Face cloning and animation considering wrinkle formation and aging are an aspiring goal and a challenging task. This paper describes a cloning method and an aging simulation in a family. We reconstruct a father, mother, son and daughter of one family and mix their shapes and textures in 3D to get virtual persons with some variation. The idea of reconstruction of a head is to detect features from two orthogonal pictures, modify a generic model with an animation structure and use an automatic texture mapping method. It is followed by a simple method to do 3D-shape interpolation and 2D morphing based on triangulation for experiments of mixing 3D heads between family members. Finally, wrinkles within facial animation and aging are generated based on detected feature points. Experiments are made to generate aging wrinkles on the faces of the son and the daughter.

title: Personalized face and speech communication over the Internet
abstract: We present our system for personalized face and speech communication over the Internet. The overall system consists of three parts: the cloning of real human faces to use as the representative avatars; the Networked Virtual Environment System performing the basic task of network and device management; and the speech system which includes a text-to-speech engine and a real time phoneme extraction engine from natural speech. The combination of these three elements provides a system to allow real humans, represented by their virtual counterparts, to communicate with each other even when they are geographically remote. In addition to this, all elements present use MPEG-4 as a common communication and animation standard and were designed and tested on the Windows operating system (OS). The paper presents the main aim of the work, the methodology and the resulting communication system.

title: Face recognition using computer-generated database
abstract: Many face database and recognition systems have been constructed in specially designed studios with various illuminations, poses, and expressions. However, none of these databases yet satisfies a large variation of poses and illuminations that permit the study of systematic 3D human face information, which results in an unsatisfactory success rate. It is caused primarily by the difficulty of data collection of facial images to satisfy the large variation of poses and illuminations to fully represent the 3D characteristics of human faces. We present how computer-generated database can be used for face recognition experiment focused on multiview face recognition/descriptor. We show multiview face data collection using rendering of 3D models. We also illustrate our approach how to build a face descriptor containing 3D information of human face using multiview concepts. This multiview face recognition descriptor is a 3D descriptor using the concept how much powerful a view influences over nearby views, so called as "quasiview " size

title: Real Face Communication in a Virtual World
abstract: This paper describes an efficient method to make an individual face for animation from several possible inputs and how to use this result for a realistic talking head communication in a virtual world. We present a method to reconstruct 3D facial model from two orthogonal pictures taken from front and side views. The method is based on extracting features from a face in a semiautomatic way and deforming a generic model. Texture mapping based on cylindrical projection is employed using a composed image from the two images. A reconstructed head is animated immediately and is able to talk with given text, which is transformed to corresponding phonemes and visemes. We also propose a system for individualized face-to-face communication through network using MPEG4.

title: Building text classifiers using positive and unlabeled examples
abstract: We study the problem of building text classifiers using positive and unlabeled examples. The key feature of this problem is that there is no negative example for learning. Recently, a few techniques for solving this problem were proposed in the literature. These techniques are based on the same idea, which builds a classifier in two steps. Each existing technique uses a different method for each step. We first introduce some new methods for the two steps, and perform a comprehensive evaluation of all possible combinations of methods of the two steps. We then propose a more principled approach to solving the problem based on a biased formulation of SVM, and show experimentally that it is more accurate than the existing techniques.

title: Properties of Forward Pruning in Game-Tree Search
abstract: Forward pruning, or selectively searching a subset of moves, is now commonly used in game-playing programs to reduce the number of nodes searched with manageable risk. Forward pruning techniques should consider how pruning errors in a game-tree search propagate to the root to minimize the risk of making errors. In this paper, we explore forward pruning using theoretical analyses and Monte Carlo simulations and report on two findings. Firstly, we find that pruning errors propagate differently depending on the player to move, and show that pruning errors on the opponent's moves are potentially more serious than pruning errors on the player's own moves. This suggests that pruning on the player's own move can be performed more aggressively compared to pruning on the opponent's move. Secondly, we examine the ability of the minimax search to filter away pruning errors and give bounds on the rate of error propagation to the root. We find that if the rate of pruning error is kept constant, the growth of errors with the depth of the tree dominates the filtering effect, therefore suggesting that pruning should be done more aggressively near the root and less aggressively near the leaves.

title: Performance evaluation of a wireless hierarchical data dissemination system
abstract: Various techniques have been developed to improve the performance of wireless information services. Techniques such as information broadcasting, caching of frequently accessed data, and point-to-point channels for pull-based data requests are often used to reduce data access time. To efficiently utilize information broadcast, indexing and scheduling schemes are employed for the organization of data broadcast. Most of the studies in the literature focused either on individual technique or a combination of them with some restrictive assumptions. There is no study considering these techniques working together in an integrated manner. In this paper, we propose a dynamic data delivery model for wireless communication environments. An important feature of our model is that data are disseminated through various storage mediums according to the dynamically collected data access patterns. Various results are presented in a set of simulation studies, which give some of the intuitions behind the design of a wireless data delivery system.

title: Combining Indexing Technique with Path Dictionary for Nested Object Queries
abstract: A path dictionary encodes the connections among objects in the aggregation hierarchy. It has been shown to be an efficient mechanism for supporting nested object queries . In this paper, we present a new method, called the path dictionary index method, which combines indexing techniques with the path dictionary method. We describe the operations of the new mechanism and develop cost modeis for its storage overhead and query and update costs. Finally, we compare the new mechanism to the path index method 131. The result shows that the path dictionary index method is significantly better than the path index method over a wide range of parameters.

title: Anomaly detection using call stack information
abstract: The call stack of a program execution can be a very good information source for intrusion detection. There is no prior work on dynamically extracting information from the call stack and effectively using it to detect exploits. In this paper we propose a new method to do anomaly detection using call stack information. The basic idea is to extract return addresses from the call stack, and generate an abstract execution path between two program execution points. Experiments show that our method can detect some attacks that cannot be detected by other approaches, while its convergence and false positive performance is comparable to or better than the other approaches. We compare our method with other approaches by analyzing their underlying principles and thus achieve a better characterization of their performance, in particular on what and why attacks will be missed by the various approaches.