A Data‐driven Segmentation for the Shoulder Complex

The human shoulder complex is perhaps the most complicated joint in the human body being comprised of a set of three bones, muscles, tendons, and ligaments. Despite this anatomical complexity, computer graphics models for motion capture most often represent this joint as a simple ball and socket. In this paper, we present a method to determine a shoulder skeletal model that, when combined with standard skinning algorithms, generates a more visually pleasing animation that is a closer approximation to the actual skin deformations of the human body. We use a data‐driven approach and collect ground truth skin deformation data with an optical motion capture system with a large number of markers (200 markers on the shoulder complex alone). We cluster these markers during movement sequences and discover that adding one extra joint around the shoulder improves the resulting animation qualitatively and quantitatively yielding a marker set of approximately 70 markers for the complete skeleton. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our skeletal model by comparing it with ground truth data as well as with recorded video. We show its practicality by integrating it with the conventional rendering/animation pipeline.     

Hybrid Simulation of Miscible Mixing with Viscous Fingering

By modeling mass transfer phenomena, we simulate solids and liquids dissolving or changing to other substances. We also deal with the very small‐scale phenomena that occur when a fluid spreads out at the interface of another fluid. We model the pressure at the interfaces between fluids with Darcy's Law and represent the viscous fingering phenomenon in which a fluid interface spreads out with a fractal‐like shape. We use hybrid grid‐based simulation and smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) to simulate intermolecular diffusion and attraction using particles at a computable scale. We have produced animations showing fluids mixing and objects dissolving.     

A Linear-Time Algorithm for Symmetric Convex Drawings of Internally Triconnected Plane Graphs

We study a crossing minimization problem of drawing a bipartite graph with a radial drawing of two orbits. Radial drawings are one of well-known drawing conventions in social network analysis and visualization, in particular, displaying centrality indices of actors (Wasserman and Faust, Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994). The main problem in this paper is called the one-sided radial crossing minimization, if the positions of vertices in the outer orbit are fixed. The problem is known to be NP-hard (Bachmaier, IEEE Trans. Vis. Comput. Graph. 13, 583–594, 2007), and a number of heuristics are available (Bachmaier, IEEE Trans. Vis. Comput. Graph. 13, 583–594, 2007). However, there is no approximation algorithm for the crossing minimization problem in radial drawings. We present the first polynomial time constant-factor approximation algorithm for the one-sided radial crossing minimization problem.     

Cascade of genetic algorithm and decision tree for cancer classification on gene expression data

Abstract: Cancer classification, through gene expression data analysis, has produced remarkable results, and has indicated that gene expression assays could significantly aid in the development of efficient cancer diagnosis and classification platforms. However, cancer classification, based on DNA array data, remains a difficult problem. The main challenge is the overwhelming number of genes relative to the number of training samples, which implies that there are a large number of irrelevant genes to be dealt with. Another challenge is from the presence of noise inherent in the data set. It makes accurate classification of data more difficult when the sample size is small. We apply genetic algorithms (GAs) with an initial solution provided by t statistics, called t‐GA, for selecting a group of relevant genes from cancer microarray data. The decision‐tree‐based cancer classifier is built on the basis of these selected genes. The performance of this approach is evaluated by comparing it to other gene selection methods using publicly available gene expression data sets. Experimental results indicate that t‐GA has the best performance among the different gene selection methods. The Z‐score figure also shows that some genes are consistently preferentially chosen by t‐GA in each data set.     

Guiding students to the right questions: adaptive navigation support in an E‐Learning system for Java programming

Rapid growth of the volume of interactive questions available to the students of modern E‐Learning courses placed the problem of personalized guidance on the agenda of E‐Learning researchers. Without proper guidance, students frequently select too simple or too complicated problems and ended either bored or discouraged. This paper explores a specific personalized guidance technology known as adaptive navigation support. We developed JavaGuide, a system, which guides students to appropriate questions in a Java programming course, and investigated the effect of personalized guidance a three‐semester long classroom study. The results of this study confirm the educational and motivational effects of adaptive navigation support.     

An improved differential evolution algorithm for vehicle routing problem with simultaneous pickups and deliveries and time windows

The vehicle routing problem with simultaneous pickups and deliveries and time windows (VRP-SPDTW) is the problem of optimally integrating forward (good distribution) and reverse logistics (returning materials) for cost saving and environmental protection. We constructed a general mixed integer programming model of VRP-SPDTW. The model contained some classical vehicle routing problems as special cases. We proposed an improved differential evolution algorithm (IDE) for solving this problem. In the algorithm, we firstly adopted the novel decimal coding to construct an initial population, then used some improved differential evolution operators unlike the existing algorithm, and in mutation operation, we used an integer order criterion based on natural number coding method. We introduced a penalty technical to publish the infeasible solution. In addition, in the crossover operation, we designed a self-adapting crossover probability that varied with iteration. We did some numerical experiments, and the results showed that the proposed method is effective for solving VRP-SPDTW.     

Modeling, microfabrication and experiments of a free–free cantilever bistable micro mechanism supported with a diamond configuration

Bistable micro mechanisms are gaining great attention in MEMS applications. This paper presents the mechanical modeling and experimental characterization of a bistable torsion/cantilever micro latching mechanism for performing low power bistable relay applications. The bistable micro mechanism consists of two cantilevers which form symmetrical rocker levers. The free–free cantilever is suspended by a diamond skeleton which in turn is attached to a torsion cantilever. A permanent magnet is placed beside for holding the closed state with a permalloy soft magnetic circuit. The special diamond support is designed to enhance the stiffness of the overhang beams. In order to deduce the spring stiffness of system, a mechanical modeling of the leveraged torsion/cantilever system was performed by Castigliano’s theorem. Meanwhile, the magnetostatic latching force was also deduced by the Maxwell electromagnetism theory. Then the device has been prepared by a laminated copper sacrificial layer process. This process can facilitate the fabrication complexities of traditional magnetic device with coil structures. Finally, mechanical performance was characterized by an atomic force microscopy, combined with finite element simulation using ANSYS^™ package and analysis model as well. Two stable states of the micro mechanism were hold successfully with no power consumption by interferoscope profilometry of WYKO optical profiling system.