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We propose a layout estimation method for multi-layered ink using a measurement of the line spread function (LSF) and machine learning. The three-dimensional printing market for general consumers focuses on the reproduction of realistic appearance. In particular, for the reproduction of human skin, it is important to control translucency by adopting a multilayer structure. Traditionally, layer design has depended on the experience of designers. We, therefore, developed an efficient layout estimation to provide arbitrary skin color and translucency. In our method, we create multi-layered color patches of human skin and measure the LSF as a metric of translucency, and we employ a neural network trained with the data to estimate the layout. As an evaluation, we measured the LSF from the computer-graphics-created skin and fabricate skin using the estimated layout; evaluation with root-mean-square error showed that we can obtain color and translucency that are close to the target.

In recent years, the problem of declining birthrate has occurred, and how to increase the working-age population has been discussed as a problem to be tackled immediately. The rise in the unmarried rate also contributes to a decline in the birth rate. To solve these problems, you need a way to choose a partner appropriately. In this study, we investigated the relationship between heart rate variability (HRV) and sexual attractiveness while heterosexual men observed the photos and self-introduction movies of women. We measured the indicators of HRV, including low-frequency (LF) and high-frequency (HF) HRV, by computing R–R intervals of the heartbeat waveform. We also demonstrated the time-varying transition of HRV parameters during the self-introduction movies. We found that higher attractiveness evaluation scores were proportional to the transition of LF/HF. The LF/HF value increased when subjects watched videos of females who had been judged as having high attractiveness.

In this paper, we proposed a useful calculation method to perform the perception-based selection of lighting position that emphasizes the material appearance of CG object. The proposed method is based on the conventional viewpoint entropy which is used to find an appropriate viewing angle. To find an appropriate shot for material appearance, we first identified the important surface that has information of gloss reflection related to material appearance with eye tracking equipment. Next, we modified the equation of viewpoint entropy by adding a weight coefficient for emphasizing at important surface. Since this viewpoint entropy retains the independency for object shape, light direction, and viewing direction, our proposed method can extract only important light position which is most representative of the material appearance. From the results of verification with changing shape and material of CG object, we confirmed that our selection of lighting position accomplishes the fine agreement with subjective evaluation which is imposed on the selection of appropriate scene with emphasis of material appearance.

We evaluated a method for building a psychophysically based model of graininess perception for a device-independent graininess-reproduction system. The model was developed through experiments that explored the relationship between physical parameters of graininess objects, subjective rating, and the maximum luminance of the displays used to present the objects. The graininess model was generated via multiple regression analysis of the parameters and was used to calculate curved surfaces for which graininess perception was equalized. Even if the values of maximum luminance on the display are changed in the model, the value of graininess under the changed luminance is held by changing the physical parameters of graininess generation in the model. We found that the proposed model and process for device-independent graininess reproduction were effective for our adopted displays with various maximum luminances.

Non-contact HR measurement is becoming an active research area. Recently, remote photoplethysmography (rPPG) measurement based on simple skin optics model has been proposed and shown to be effective. In this paper, we propose an accurate remote observation of the heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) based on hemoglobin component estimation which is based on a detailed skin optics model. We perform experiments to measure subjects at rest and under cognitive stress with the proposed method putting a polarized filter in front of the camera to evaluate the principle of the framework. From the results of the experiments, the proposed method shows a high correlation with the electrocardiograph (ECG) which is assumed as the ground truth. We also evaluate the proposed method without putting any polarized filter and confirm the usefulness for the remote observation of HRV which requires accurate detection of HR.

In this paper, we investigated the consistency of visual perception for the change of reflection images in an augmented reality setting. Reflection images with distortion and magnification were generated by changing the capture position of the environment map. Observers evaluated the distortion and magnification in reflection images where the reflected objects were arranged symmetrically or asymmetrically. Our results confirmed that the observers’ visual perception was more sensitive to changes in distortion than in magnification in the reflection images. Moreover, the asymmetrical arrangement of reflected objects effectively expands the acceptable range of distortion compared with the symmetrical arrangement.

In this paper, we consider the use of an environment map as a photographic support tool for understanding the condition of surrounding light. It is well known that an environment map should be captured at a position directly above the target object. However, this is not always possible. Therefore, we developed a practical transformation method for an environment map that was captured from a different position. The proposed method is effective in an indoor scene where the direction of a light source differs significantly depending on the captured position. A mapping for a rectangular parallelepiped (cuboid), and perspective information estimated from a corner position of a room is used to calculate the transformed environment map at the target position. The method was applied to the transformation for an actual room, and it was verified that the transformed environment map almost corresponds to the ground truth of the environment map captured at the target position.

In this paper, we propose using earth mover's distance (EMD) to obtain the appropriate similarity between each histogram for segmentation of abnormal liver regions with mapping of the distances by multidimensional scaling. Conventionally, the similarity between each histogram is calculated by integrating the difference between each bin of the histograms. However, this similarity is unsuitable for appropriate comparison of the histograms because the number of bins for calculating the local histograms of computed tomography images varies. We used EMD to resolve this problem regarding the difference in bin numbers, and the obtained distances are used for mapping the local histograms by multidimensional scaling to low-dimensional space. In the low-dimensional space, the abnormal liver region was well segmented by support vector machine in the test datasets.

Research combining the analysis of coral distribution in volcanically acidified waters with laboratory culture experiments indicates that reef communities may shift from reef-building hard corals to non-reef-building soft corals under CO2 partial pressure (pCO2) levels of 550–970 μatm that are predicted to occur by the end of this century.

Nanotubes are generally prepared from their constituent elements at high temperatures, and thus it is difficult to control their size, shape and electronic states. One useful approach for synthesizing well-defined nanostructures involves the use of building blocks such as metal ions and organic molecules. Here, we show the successful creation of an assembly of infinite square prism-shaped metal-organic nanotubes obtained from the simple polymerization of a square-shaped metal-organic frame. The constituent nanotube has a one-dimensional (1D) channel with a window size of 5.9×5.9 Å(2), and can adsorb water (H(2)O) and alcohol vapours, whereas N(2) and CO(2) do not adhere. It consists of four 1D covalent chains that constitute a unique electronic structure of 'charge-density wave (CDW) quartets' on crystallization. Moreover, exchanging structural components and guest molecules enables us to control its semiconductive bandgap. These findings demonstrate the possibility of bottom-up construction of new porous nanotubes, where their degrees of freedom in both pore space and framework can be used.

New varieties of quasi-one-dimensional transition metal (M)-halide (X) compounds, $$(\hbox{C}_8\hbox{H}_6\hbox{N}_4)[\hbox{Pt}(\hbox{C}_2\hbox{H}_8\hbox{N}_2)\hbox{Cl}]_2\hbox{Cl}(\hbox{ClO}_4)_3\cdot \hbox{H}_2\hbox{O}$$ and $$(\hbox{C}_{10}\hbox{H}_8\hbox{N}_2)[\hbox{Pt}(\hbox{C}_4\hbox{H}_{13}\hbox{N}_3)\hbox{Br}]_2\hbox{Br}_4\cdot 2\hbox{H}_2\hbox{O},$$ comprising two-leg ladders of mixed-valent platinum complexes, are theoretically investigated with particular emphasis on their photoresponses. Observations of the polarized optical conductivity prove the interchain valence arrangement to be in phase in the former but out of phase in the latter. Possible nonlinear lattice relaxation originating with a photogenerated exciton is also simulated in an attempt to further elucidate the contrast between them.

The acceptor specificity of a rat brain glucuronyltransferase, GlcAT-P, associated with biosynthesis of the HNK-1 epitope on glycoproteins, was investigated using asialoorosomucoid as a model acceptor substrate. Structural analysis of N-linked oligosaccharides, to which glucuronic acid was transferred by GlcAT-P, by means of two-dimensional mapping of pyridylamino-oligosaccharides and MS spectrometry, demonstrated that the enzyme transferred glucuronic acid to bi-, tri-, and tetra-antennary complex type sugar chains, with almost equal efficiency, indicating that the enzyme has no preference as to the number of acceptor sugar branches. Next, we studied the branch specificity of this enzyme by means of the selective branch scission method involving two step exoglycosidase digestion using authentic pyridylamino-oligosaccharides. The GlcAT-P is highly specific for the terminal N-acetyllactosamine structure and no glucuronic acid was incorporated into a Galβ1-3GlcNAc moiety. The GlcAT-P transferred glucuronic acid to the galactose residues in the N-acetyllactosamine branches of bi-, tri-, and tetra-antennary oligosaccharide chains, with different efficiencies and most preferentially to those in the Galβ1-4GlcNAcβ1-4Manα1-3 branch.

In this electron microscopic study of cardiocytes during regression of left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR), nifedipine (SHR-N) and lisinopril (SHR-L) were given to 15-week-old SHR (SHR-C15) for 20 weeks. In untreated SHR, cardiocytes were enlarged, lateral branches (LBs) multiplied and intracellular organelles became degenerated between 15 and 35 weeks of age. In SHR-N, despite a slight reduction in blood pressure (BP), LVH regressed and cell width and the number of LBs were preserved at the level found in SHR-C15. In SHR-L, LVH regressed with moderate suppression of BP; cell width, cell length and the number of LBs reverted to those in agematched Wistar Kyoto rats. In both SHR-N and SHR-L, intracellular ultrastructures were nearly normalized. These findings suggest that, in addition to BP reduction, other pharmacological factors play a role in structural repair of hypertrophied cardiocytes.