CONTEXT Face masks are recommended for patients with respiratory symptoms to reduce influenza transmission. Little knowledge exists regarding actual utilization and acceptance of face masks in primary care. OBJECTIVE Compare distribution of face masks to clinic and community trends in respiratory infection (RI) and influenza-like illness (ILI); estimate the annual need for face masks in prima...

A new direction in improving modern dialogue systems is to make a human-machine dialogue more similar to a human-human dialogue. This can be done by adding more input modalities. One additional modality for automatic dialogue systems is the facial expression of the human user. A common problem in a human-machine dialogue where the angry face may give a clue is the recurrent misunderstanding of ...

The perception of a stimulus can be impaired when presented in the context of a masking pattern. To determine the timing and the nature of face processing, the effect of various masks on the discriminability of faces was investigated. Results reveal a strong configural effect: the magnitude of masking depends on the similarity between mask and target. Masking is absent for non-face masks (noise...

With certain masks used in Japanese Noh drama the apparent facial expression is a function of the vertical viewing angle. Rotation in depth produces changes in the retinal image of the face which viewers may confound with the distortion of features due to muscular action. In particular, as the mask is tilted forward it appears to smile, and as it is tilted backwards it appears sad. We explored ...

In this study, we compared the effects of using neutral face masks vs non-face pattern masks on amygdala activity to masked fearful faces. Twenty-seven subjects viewed 18 s blocks of either fearful or happy faces masked with either neutral faces or patterns, while their brain activity was measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Results replicated increased amygdala activation to f...

In this paper, we propose a novel local feature descriptor, Local Gaussian Structural Pattern (LGSP), for face recognition that encodes the directional information of the face’s textures (i.e., the texture’s structure), producing a more discriminant code than other state-of-the-art methods. Each micro-pattern’s structure is computed by using a derivative-Gaussian compass mask, which is more rob...

Noninvasive ventilation (NIV) has been widely used to decrease the complications associated with tracheal intubation in mechanically ventilated patients. However, nasal ulcerations may occur when conventional masks are used for continuous ventilation. A total face mask, which has no contact with the more sensitive areas of the face, is a possible option. We describe 3 patients with acute respi...

BACKGROUND Air pollution exposure increases cardiovascular morbidity and mortality and is a major global public health concern. OBJECTIVES We investigated the benefits of reducing personal exposure to urban air pollution in patients with coronary heart disease. METHODS In an open randomized crossover trial, 98 patients with coronary heart disease walked on a predefined route in central Beij...

Sleep apnea is a syndrome that is characterized by sudden breathing halts while sleeping. One of the common treatments involves wearing a mask that delivers continuous air flow into the nostrils so as to maintain a steady air pressure. These masks are designed for an average facial model and are often difficult to adjust due to poor fit to the actual patient. The incompatibility is characterize...

The structure of the mask stimulus is crucial in backward masking studies and we recently demonstrated such an effect when masking faces. Specifically, we showed that activity of the amygdala is increased to fearful facial expressions masked with neutral faces and decreased to fearful expressions masked with a pattern mask-but critically both masked conditions discriminated fearful expressions ...