Virtual characters with a realistic, human-like appearance are increasingly being used in video games and animation. However, increased realism does not necessarily imply increased acceptance and factors such as aberrant facial expression may evoke the Uncanny Valley phenomenon. In humans, personality traits such as anger, callousness, coldness, dominanc e, being unconcerned, and untrustworthin...

Modeling intonation, i.e., specifying adequate fundamental frequency (F0) contours, remains a challenging task for speech synthesis systems. This paper discusses the development of a system for phonetically specifying intonation contours for German. It deals with the problem of translating an abstract phonological representation of intonation namely the tone-sequence model into a concrete phone...

Ridges and valleys are useful geometric features for image analysis. Different characterizations have been proposed to formalize the intuitive notion of ridge/valley. In this paper, we review their principal characterizations and propose a new one. Subsequently, we evaluate these characterizations with respect to a list of desirable properties and their purpose in the context of representative ...

Generation of large currents, versatile functionality, and simple structures are of fundamental importance in the development of adiabatic quantum pump devices with nanoscale dimensions. In the present study, we propose an adiabatic quantum pump with a simple structure based on molybdenum disulfide, MoS2, to generate large spin and valley resolved currents. We show that pure and fully polarized...

Tethersonde, lidar, aircraft, and surface chemistry measurements from an intensive field campaign (Pacific ’93) in the Lower Fraser Valley (LFV) demonstrate the daytime advection of pollutants into a lake-filled valley adjoining a broad urbanized coastal valley. On three separate days (immediately before, during, and after a pollutant episode), elevated concentrations of ozone (O3) in the narro...

heavy metal pollution plays an important role in global biodiversity decline. however, there is paucity of information concerning the effects of metals on amphibians. in the present study, investigations were made on the accumulation of heavy metals, copper (cu) and lead (pb) in water, sediment and tadpoles inhabiting the water bodies of barak valley, assam. tadpoles of six different anuran spe...

to identify arbuscular mycorrhiza fungi (amf) associated with crataegus pontica c. koch, 54 soil samples were collected from the rhizosphere of this plant in ilam province, western iran. isolation of mycorrhizal spores was conducted by wet sieving followed by centrifuge. amf were identified based on morphological characteristics of spores. in this study, 13 species of amf belonging to five gene...

We theoretically demonstrate that 100% valley-polarized transport in monolayers of MoS2 and other group-VI dichalcogenides can be obtained using off-resonant circularly polarized light. By tuning the intensity of the off-resonant light the intrinsic band gap in one valley is reduced, while it is enhanced in the other valley, enabling single valley quantum transport. As a consequence, we predict...

The ‘Uncanny Valley’ refers to a sense of unease and discomfort when people look at increasingly realistic virtual humans. Despite growing academic interest in the Uncanny Valley our understanding is limited and there has been little rigorous questioning to determine if the phenomenon actually exists. The Uncanny Valley questions widely held assumptions about the correlation between realism and...

AIM An analysis of general practice data for rural communities in close proximity to coal mining and coal-fired power generation in the Hunter Valley region of NSW was conducted to identify unusual patterns of illness. METHODS Bettering the Evaluation and Care of Health general practice consultation data from the Hunter Valley region for 1998-2010 were compared with data from all other rural ...