Artists portray human faces with the Fourier statistics of complex natural scenes

When artists portray human faces, they generally endow their portraits with properties that render the faces esthetically more pleasing. To obtain insight into the changes introduced by artists, we compared Fourier power spectra in photographs of faces and in portraits by artists. Our analysis was restricted to a large set of monochrome or lightly colored portraits from various Western cultures and revealed a paradoxical result. Although face photographs are not scale-invariant, artists draw human faces with statistical properties that deviate from the face photographs and approximate the scale-invariant, fractal-like properties of complex natural scenes. This result cannot be explained by systematic differences in the complexity of patterns surrounding the faces or by reproduction artifacts. In particular, a moderate change in gamma gradation has little influence on the results. Moreover, the scale-invariant rendering of faces in artists' portraits was found to be independent of cultural variables, such as century of origin or artistic techniques. We suggest that artists have implicit knowledge of image statistics and prefer natural scene statistics (or some other rules associated with them) in their creations. Fractal-like statistics have been demonstrated previously in other forms of visual art and may be a general attribute of esthetic visual stimuli.     

Conjoint analysis to measure the perceived quality in volume rendering

Visualization algorithms can have a large number of parameters, making the space of possible rendering results rather high-dimensional. Only a systematic analysis of the perceived quality can truly reveal the optimal setting for each such parameter. However, an exhaustive search in which all possible parameter permutations are presented to each user within a study group would be infeasible to conduct. Additional complications may result from possible parameter co-dependencies. Here, we will introduce an efficient user study design and analysis strategy that is geared to cope with this problem. The user feedback is fast and easy to obtain and does not require exhaustive parameter testing. To enable such a framework we have modified a preference measuring methodology, conjoint analysis, that originated in psychology and is now also widely used in market research. We demonstrate our framework by a study that measures the perceived quality in volume rendering within the context of large parameter spaces.     

Proteomics in ocular fluids

The focus of this article is to review recent techniques in proteomic analysis of ocular fluids. These fluids include tears, aqueous humor, and vitreous, they will also be compared to serum analysis. Furthermore, we attempt to summarize some disease correlated biomarkers in ocular fluids that were discovered through different proteomic techniques in eye diseases like dry eye, glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, uveitis, or diabetic retinopathy. This review is trying to point out the importance of these biomarkers for clinical applications.     

Subacute proteome changes following traumatic injury of the developing brain: Implications for a dysregulation of neuronal migration and neurite arborization

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality among children and adolescents. To gain insight into developmental events influenced by TBI, we analyzed subacute mouse brain proteome changes in a percussion head trauma model at P7 ipsi- and contralateral to the site of injury. The comparison of brain proteomes of trauma mice and controls revealed reproducible changes in the intensity of 28 proteins (30 protein spots) in response to trauma. The changes detected suggest that TBI leads to apoptosis, inflammation, and oxidative stress. These changes were consistent with our results of histological and biochemical evaluation of the brains which revealed widespread apoptotic neurodegeneration, microglia activation, and increased levels of protein carbonyls. Furthermore, we detected changes in proteins involved in neuronal migration as well as axonal and dendritic growth and guidance, suggesting interference of trauma with these developmental events.     

Dense versus Sparse Approaches for Estimating the Fundamental Matrix

There are two main strategies for solving correspondence problems in computer vision: sparse local feature based approaches and dense global energy based methods. While sparse feature based methods are often used for estimating the fundamental matrix by matching a small set of sophistically optimised interest points, dense energy based methods mark the state of the art in optical flow computation. The goal of our paper is to show that this separation into different application domains is unnecessary and can be bridged in a natural way. As a first contribution we present a new application of dense optical flow for estimating the fundamental matrix. Comparing our results with those obtained by feature based techniques we identify cases in which dense methods have advantages over sparse approaches. Motivated by these promising results we propose, as a second contribution, a new variational model that recovers the fundamental matrix and the optical flow simultaneously as the minimisers of a single energy functional. In experiments we show that our coupled approach is able to further improve the estimates of both the fundamental matrix and the optical flow. Our results prove that dense variational methods can be a serious alternative even in classical application domains of sparse feature based approaches.     

Improved practical support for large-scale requirements prioritising

An efficient, accurate and practical process for prioritising requirements is of great importance in commercial software developments. This article improves an existing cost-value approach in which stakeholders compare all unique pairs of candidate requirements according to their value and their cost of implementation. Techniques for reducing the required number of comparisons are suggested, thus making the process more efficient. An initial approach for managing requirements interdependencies is proposed. A support tool for the improved process has been developed to make the process more practical in commercial developments. The improved process and its support tool have been applied and evaluated in an industrial project at Ericsson Radio Systems AB. The results indicate a pressing need for mature processes for prioritising requirements, and the work presented here is an important step in that direction.     

TEM Investigations of Fine Niobium Precipitates in HSLA Steel

Commercially produced 0.03 % C, 0.08 % Nb, 0.01 % Ti high strength low alloyed (HSLA) steel in the form of 20 mm thick plates was investigated. The steel was thermomechanically processed and the mechanical properties of the steel were evaluated by tensile testing. Using analytical and high resolution transmission electron microscopy the distribution, morphology, composition, crystal structure and particle size of niobium and titanium carbonitrides were observed and identified in these steels. The distribution of the precipitates was found to be nearly random, with occasional occurrence of precipitation free zones. Complex agglomerates with a cubic TiN seed crystal overgrown by a cubic NbC particle were the most commonly observed precipitates. Further TEM analysis in the accelerated cooled and tempered specimens in 1/4 plate thickness did not reveal any evidence that additional precipitation in the ferrite occurred. Precipitation in ferrite was only detected after subsequent cold deformation and tempering of the same samples. By a combination of EFTEM, STEM, HRTEM in addition to EDX spectroscopy, a large population of strain induced NbC precipitates with fcc crystal structure ranging in size down to 2 nm were identified in the ferrite matrix.     

Multipurpose modular experimental station for the DiProI beamline of Fermi@Elettra free electron laser

We present a compact modular apparatus with a flexible design that will be operated at the DiProI beamline of the Fermi@Elettra free electron laser (FEL) for performing static and time-resolved coherent diffraction imaging experiments, taking advantage of the full coherence and variable polarization of the short seeded FEL pulses. The apparatus has been assembled and the potential of the experimental setup is demonstrated by commissioning tests with coherent synchrotron radiation. This multipurpose experimental station will be open to general users after installation at the Fermi@Elettra free electron laser in 2011.