Animation Sequences Research Articles

Looking at China from Abroad: intermediality as a tool for documentary

In 2020, due to the Coronavirus Pandemic, travel to China and around the world was mostly suspended. In the face of such restrictions, the ‘Looking China Youth Film Project’ took a different approach by inviting students from around the world to make documentary short films in remote mode. This meant employing different expressive resources and a mixed-media format, including techniques such as animation, graphics, typography, photographs, and paintings. The aim of this article is to shed light on this pioneering initiative from the point of view of the relationship between intermediality and forms and functions of the documentary genre. It opens with a discussion around the question of intermediality in the audiovisual media, considering how a realist impulse coexists in the cinema with its mixed-media nature, thus bringing together Bazin’s ontology of the photographic image and his case for cinema as an impure form of art. This is followed by a discussion about the recent field of the ‘animated documentary’, both as a practice and as a theoretical debate, which faces the apparent incongruity between film’s unique ability to record reality – which gave rise to the documentary genre, and animation’s creation of a world without any referent in reality. Finally, it considers the experience of the Looking China Youth Film Programme in 2020, with a special emphasis on six documentary films made from a mixture of live images, animation sequences, graphics and screens. The examples analysed allow me to delve into different aspects of the research on cinema and intermediality, including the animated documentary, the influence of the internet in audiovisual media, and the possibilities of a remote practice of film production.

Companion Vector-Borne Pathogens and Associated Risk Factors in Apparently Healthy Pet Animals (Dogs and Cats) in Khukhot City Municipality, Pathum Thani Province, Thailand.

Pet animals (dogs and cats) can be infected with several companion vector-borne pathogens (CVBPs). Morbidity and mortality have been reported in pet animals due to CVBP infections. Pet animals living in close proximity to humans are able to transmit zoonotic pathogens. This study used molecular techniques to investigate the prevalence of CVBPs in apparently healthy pet animals (dogs and cats) from Khukhot City Municipality, Pathum Thani province, Thailand. In total, 210 blood samples were randomly collected from 95 dogs and 115 cats for the detection of seven companion vector-borne pathogens (Anaplasma, Babesia, Bartonella, Ehrlichia, Hepatozoon, Mycoplasma, and Rickettsia) using polymerase chain reaction. The results showed that 10.5% (22/210) of apparently healthy pet animals were infected with at least one pathogen, comprising 6 dogs (6.3% of all dogs tested) and 16 cats (13.9% of all cats tested). Ehrlichia (6.3%) was present only in dogs; furthermore, 1.1% of the dogs were positive for Anaplasma. There was one dog case co-infected with two pathogens (1.1%). In cats, Mycoplasma (9.6%) was the predominant CVBP, followed by Rickettsia (4.4%). The DNA sequences of all positive animals were 97-99% homologous to those found in the GenBank™ database for all CVBPs identified, namely Ehrlichia canis, Anaplasma platys, Rickettsia felis, Mycoplasma haemofelis, and Candidatus Mycoplasma haemominutum. Additionally, the risk of infection with CVBPs in pets was significantly associated with age, with young dogs more likely to be infected with CVBPs than adult dogs (OR 8.5, 95% CI 1.4-50.1, p = 0.006), while adult cats were more likely to be infected with CVBPs than young cats (OR 3.8, 95% CI 1.0-14.0, p = 0.038). The detection of CVBPs demonstrated the potential risk of infection that may occur in apparently healthy pet animals in Pathum Thani province. These results confirmed that apparently healthy pet animals may still be at risk of vector-borne infections and could maintain the infection cycle in pet populations. Furthermore, sampling a greater number of apparently healthy pet animals may disclose predictors of CVBP positivity in domesticated animals in this area.

Detection and Molecular Characterization of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta Variant and the Specific Immune Response in Companion Animals in Switzerland.

In human beings, there are five reported variants of concern of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2). However, in contrast to human beings, descriptions of infections of animals with specific variants are still rare. The aim of this study is to systematically investigate SARS-CoV-2 infections in companion animals in close contact with SARS-CoV-2-positive owners ("COVID-19 households") with a focus on the Delta variant. Samples, obtained from companion animals and their owners were analyzed using a real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) and next-generation sequencing (NGS). Animals were also tested for antibodies and neutralizing activity against SARS-CoV-2. Eleven cats and three dogs in nine COVID-19-positive households were RT-qPCR and/or serologically positive for the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant. For seven animals, the genetic sequence could be determined. The animals were infected by one of the pangolin lineages B.1.617.2, AY.4, AY.43 and AY.129 and between zero and three single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were detected between the viral genomes of animals and their owners, indicating within-household transmission between animal and owner and in multi-pet households also between the animals. NGS data identified SNPs that occur at a higher frequency in the viral sequences of companion animals than in viral sequences of humans, as well as SNPs, which were exclusively found in the animals investigated in the current study and not in their owners. In conclusion, our study is the first to describe the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant transmission to animals in Switzerland and provides the first-ever description of Delta-variant pangolin lineages AY.129 and AY.4 in animals. Our results reinforce the need of a One Health approach in the monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 in animals.

Extremal varvec{{ p, q }}-Animals

An animal is a planar shape formed by attaching congruent regular polygons along their edges. Usually, these polygons are a finite subset of tiles of a regular planar tessellation. These tessellations can be parameterized using the Schläfli symbol {p,q}, where p denotes the number of sides of the regular polygon forming the tessellation and q is the number of edges or tiles meeting at each vertex. If (p-2)(q-2)> 4, =4, or <4, then the tessellation corresponds to the geometry of the hyperbolic plane, the Euclidean plane, or the sphere, respectively. In 1976, Harary and Harborth studied animals defined on regular tessellations of the Euclidean plane, finding extremal values for their vertices, edges, and tiles, when any one of these parameters is fixed. They named animals attaining these extremal values as extremal animals. Here, we study hyperbolic extremal animals. For each {p,q} corresponding to a hyperbolic tessellation, we exhibit a sequence of spiral animals and prove that they attain the minimum numbers of edges and vertices within the class of animals with n tiles. We also give the first results on enumeration of extremal hyperbolic animals by finding special sequences of extremal animals that are unique extremal animals, in the sense that any animal with the same number of tiles which is distinct up to isometries cannot be extremal.

Comparison between indicine and taurine cattle DNA methylation reveals epigenetic variation associated to differences in morphological adaptive traits

ABSTRACT Indicine and taurine subspecies present distinct morphological traits as a consequence of environmental adaptation and artificial selection. Although the two subspecies have been characterized and compared at genome-wide level and at specific loci, their epigenetic diversity has not yet been explored. In this work, Reduced Representation Bisulphite Sequencing (RRBS) profiling of the taurine Angus (A) and indicine Nellore (N) cattle breeds was applied to identify methylation differences between the two subspecies. Genotyping by sequencing (GBS) of the same animals was performed to detect single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) at cytosines in CpG dinucleotides and remove them from the differential methylation analysis. A total of 660,845 methylated cytosines were identified within the CpG context (CpGs) across the 10 animals sequenced (5 N and 5 A). A total of 25,765 of these were differentially methylated (DMCs). Most DMCs clustered in CpG stretches nearby genes involved in cellular and anatomical structure morphogenesis. Also, sequences flanking DMC were enriched in SNPs compared to all other CpGs, either methylated or unmethylated in the two subspecies. Our data suggest a contribution of epigenetics to the regulation and divergence of anatomical morphogenesis in the two subspecies relevant for cattle evolution and sub-species differentiation and adaptation.

Role of let-7 family in the invasion and metastasis of osteosarcoma.

Role of let-7 family in the invasion and metastasis of osteosarcoma.

The Effects of Symbol Format and Psycholinguistic Features on Receptive Syntax Outcomes of Children Without Disability.

The graphic symbol is the foundation of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) for many preliterate individuals; however, research has focused primarily on static graphic symbol sequences despite mainstream commercial technologies such as animation. The goal of this study was to compare static and animated symbol sequences across receptive communication outcome measures and psycholinguistic features (e.g., word frequency). A counterbalanced, 2 × 2 × 2 mixed design was used to investigate the effects of symbol format (animated and static), first condition (animated or static), and first experimental task (identification or labeling) on identification accuracy and labeling accuracy of graphic symbol sequences (five symbols) in 24 children with typical development ages 7 and 8 years old. Additionally, three 2 × 2 repeated-measures analyses of variance were conducted using symbol format (animated and static) and (a) word frequency (low, high), (b) imageability (low, high), and (c) concreteness (low, high). In addition to superior identification and labeling accuracy of animated sequences, a significant interaction between symbol format and the first condition was observed for both experimental tasks. When the animation format was the first condition, then the children's performance improved in the subsequent static condition. Finally, word frequency, imageability, and concreteness ratings for all verbs and prepositions had significant effects on labeling accuracy of verbs and prepositions. Significant interactions between symbol format and psycholinguistic features were also found. For example, highly imageable, animated verbs were labeled with greater accuracy when compared with all other variables. Animation technology appears to alleviate some of the burden associated with word- and sentence-level outcomes in children with typical development. Moreover, animation appears to reduce the effects of psycholinguistic features such as word frequency and imageability by increasing the transparency of the symbol. Given the increase in research in this area, speech-language pathologists may consider adopting animated graphic symbols on a case-by-case basis as a tool to augment the learning of word classes in which movement is integral to comprehension.

Efficient Light Probes for Real-Time Global Illumination

Reproducing physically-based global illumination (GI) effects has been a long-standing demand for many real-time graphical applications. In pursuit of this goal, many recent engines resort to some form of light probes baked in a precomputation stage. Unfortunately, the GI effects stemming from the precomputed probes are rather limited due to the constraints in the probe storage, representation or query. In this paper, we propose a new method for probe-based GI rendering which can generate a wide range of GI effects, including glossy reflection with multiple bounces, in complex scenes. The key contributions behind our work include a gradient-based search algorithm and a neural image reconstruction method. The search algorithm is designed to reproject the probes' contents to any query viewpoint, without introducing parallax errors, and converges fast to the optimal solution. The neural image reconstruction method, based on a dedicated neural network and several G-buffers, tries to recover high-quality images from low-quality inputs due to limited resolution or (potential) low sampling rate of the probes. This neural method makes the generation of light probes efficient. Moreover, a temporal reprojection strategy and a temporal loss are employed to improve temporal stability for animation sequences. The whole pipeline runs in realtime (&gt;30 frames per second) even for high-resolution (1920×1080) outputs, thanks to the fast convergence rate of the gradient-based search algorithm and a light-weight design of the neural network. Extensive experiments on multiple complex scenes have been conducted to show the superiority of our method over the state-of-the-arts.

Investigation of genotype diversity of 7,804 norovirus sequences in humans and animals of China.

Norovirus is a prominent enteric virus responsible for severe acute gastroenteritis disease burden worldwide. In our current study, we analyzed 7,804 norovirus sequences of human and animals in China which were detected from 1980 to 2020 from GenBank. The GenBank database was searched up to May 2021 with the following search terms: "norovirus" or "norwalk virus" and "China." The 7,804 norovirus sequences were collected and evaluated by phylogenetic analysis using MEGA X software package. The online typing tool (https://www.rivm.nl/mpf/typingtool/norovirus/) was used to confirm the genotypes. There were 36 norovirus genotypes prevailing in China. GII.4 was the most prevalent genotype, and GII.2, GII.3 and GII.17 also emerged during different time periods. Most sequences were detected in East China (41.72%, 3,256/7,804), but different norovirus genotypes were distributed widely across the country. A variety of norovirus genotypes, including GI, GII, GIII, GIV, GV, GVI, GVII and GX, were reported in different animals. Furthermore, a GI.3 sequence detected from animal had high identity with norovirus detected in human from the same region, indicating the potential norovirus zoonotic transmission in China. In conclusion, these results indicated that norovirus sequences with considerable genetic diversity distributed widely in China, with potential reverse zoonotic transmission from human to animals.

Shutter/Shudder to Think: Cinema after Cage

When invited by Martin Scorsese to compose an original soundtrack for Shutter Island, Robbie Robertson, The Band’s guitarist and Scorsese’s long-time collaborator, proposed a selection of works by modern composers instead. Among those were Root of an Unfocus (1944) and Music for Marcel Duchamp (1947) by the avant-garde composer John Cage. The first is a prepared piano piece conceived at a pivotal moment in Cage’s career as he moved away from composing for percussion orchestra; the second accompanied the color animation sequence in Dreams that Money Can Buy by the Dadaist painter and filmmaker Hans Richter. Employing indeterminate methods to “circumvent any conscious or unconscious communication of his own subjectivity through his music,” Cage’s “aleatory” approach has subsequently been deployed by artists and filmmakers, its anarchic possibilities steadily infiltrating a range of filmic practices. Taking as my point of departure Cage’s largely unacknowledged influence on mainstream cinema, I explore the inventive potentials of his methods and consider them in light of Adorno’s aesthetic category of the “shudder”, a novel concept of spontaneity involving “involuntary and free receptivity before the unknown.” I conclude by focusing on cinema after Cage in three geographic regions: Asia, Europe, and North America.

Identification of Genomic Variants Causing Variation in Quantitative Traits: A Review

Many of the important traits of livestock are complex or quantitative traits controlled by thousands of variants in the DNA sequence of individual animals and environmental factors. Identification of these causal variants would be advantageous for genomic prediction, to understand the physiology and evolution of important traits and for genome editing. However, it is difficult to identify these causal variants because their effects are small and they are in linkage disequilibrium with other DNA variants. Nevertheless, it should be possible to identify probable causal variants for complex traits just as we do for simple traits provided we compensate for the small effect size with larger sample size. In this review we consider eight types of evidence needed to identify causal variants. Large and diverse samples of animals, accurate genotypes, multiple phenotypes, annotation of genomic sites, comparisons across species, comparisons across the genome, the physiological role of candidate genes and experimental mutation of the candidate genomic site.

Molecular characterization of buffalo αs1-casein gene

The caseins (Alpha s1, Alpha s2, beta and kappa) comprise the major protein component of ruminant milk and are secreted in the form of stable calcium phosphate micelles. The present study was proposed to characterize αs1-casein gene in buffalo at the molecular level to determine complete αs1-casein cDNA sequence. Sequencing results were analyzed and aligned with available mRNA GenBank sequences of other domestic animals (Accession AAB34797, NM_001009795, X72221, AY344966, NM_181029, AY948385 and BC109618). The complete amino acid coding region of the buffalo αs1- casein was deduced from cloned cDNA generated from mammary tissue mRNA. Amino acid sequence comprises of 199 amino acid residues. When aligned with previously reported buffalo sequence (Accession-AY948385) it showed one amino acid (Glutamine) deletion at amino acid position 78.

Ghost on the Windshield: Employing a Virtual Human Character to Communicate Pedestrian Acknowledgement and Vehicle Intention

Pedestrians base their street-crossing decisions on vehicle-centric as well as driver-centric cues. In the future, however, drivers of autonomous vehicles will be preoccupied with non-driving related activities and will thus be unable to provide pedestrians with relevant communicative cues. External human–machine interfaces (eHMIs) hold promise for filling the expected communication gap by providing information about a vehicle’s situational awareness and intention. In this paper, we present an eHMI concept that employs a virtual human character (VHC) to communicate pedestrian acknowledgement and vehicle intention (non-yielding; cruising; yielding). Pedestrian acknowledgement is communicated via gaze direction while vehicle intention is communicated via facial expression. The effectiveness of the proposed anthropomorphic eHMI concept was evaluated in the context of a monitor-based laboratory experiment where the participants performed a crossing intention task (self-paced, two-alternative forced choice) and their accuracy in making appropriate street-crossing decisions was measured. In each trial, they were first presented with a 3D animated sequence of a VHC (male; female) that either looked directly at them or clearly to their right while producing either an emotional (smile; angry expression; surprised expression), a conversational (nod; head shake), or a neutral (neutral expression; cheek puff) facial expression. Then, the participants were asked to imagine they were pedestrians intending to cross a one-way street at a random uncontrolled location when they saw an autonomous vehicle equipped with the eHMI approaching from the right and indicate via mouse click whether they would cross the street in front of the oncoming vehicle or not. An implementation of the proposed concept where non-yielding intention is communicated via the VHC producing either an angry expression, a surprised expression, or a head shake; cruising intention is communicated via the VHC puffing its cheeks; and yielding intention is communicated via the VHC nodding, was shown to be highly effective in ensuring the safety of a single pedestrian or even two co-located pedestrians without compromising traffic flow in either case. The implications for the development of intuitive, culture-transcending eHMIs that can support multiple pedestrians in parallel are discussed.

Plagues upon the Earth: Disease and the Course of Human History, by Kyle Harper

This is a prodigious historical synthesis. Reaching back before the birth of Homo sapiens, it glides through pre-history to documentary history as late as our present struggles with COVID-19 and further pathogenic forces on the horizon. This history has not taken the usual path of concentrating on epidemics; rather, it integrates numerous endemic diseases with epidemics and spends more space on endemic killers, which have weighed more heavily on human populations, from hunters and gatherers to the present, than the more studied pandemics. I know of no wide-ranging historical work to have so meticulously integrated the epidemic with the endemic. To examine the long story of how humans acquired their ‘distinctive disease pool’, Kyle Harper focuses his book on four ‘transformative energy revolutions’. The first is fire and begins well before Homo sapiens’ rise with australopithecines in Africa around four million years ago. The second is the Neolithic Revolution of farming, c.10,000 years ago. The third begins with Christopher Columbus and ‘regular crossing of the Atlantic Ocean’ (p. 8), and the fourth concerns the harnessing of fossil fuels that extracted ‘eons of congealed sunlight’ from coal, oil and gas. One timely strand is Harper’s charting of new evidence on the interactions between humans and their parasites derived from the work of geneticists, bioarchaeologists, physical anthropologists and other scholars over the past three decades. These scientific endeavours have created two new archives: ancient DNA of pathogens, and phylogenetic trees constructed from genome sequencing of present-day humans, animals and plants.

Mutations of TRPM8 channels: Unraveling the molecular basis of activation by cold and ligands.

The cation nonselective channel TRPM8 is activated by multiple stimuli, including moderate cold and various chemical compounds (i.e., menthol and icilin [Fig. 1], among others). While research continues growing on the understanding of the physiological involvement of TRPM8 channels and their role in various pathological states, the information available on its activation mechanisms has also increased, supported by mutagenesis and structural studies. This review compiles known information on specific mutations of channel residues and their consequences on channel viability and function. Besides, the comparison of sequence of animals living in different environments, together with chimera and mutagenesis studies are helping to unravel the mechanism of adaptation to different temperatures. The results of mutagenesis studies, grouped by different channel regions, are compared with the current knowledge of TRPM8 structures obtained by cryo-electron microscopy. Trying to make this review self-explicative and highly informative, important residues for TRPM8 function are summarized in a figure, and mutants, deletions and chimeras are compiled in a table, including also the observed effects by different methods of activation and the corresponding references. The information provided by this review may also help in the design of new ligands for TRPM8, an interesting biological target for therapeutic intervention.

The Combination of Mesyl-Phosphoramidate Inter-Nucleotide Linkages and 2'-O-Methyl in Selected Positions in the Antisense Oligonucleotide Enhances the Performance of RNaseH1 Active PS-ASOs.

Antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) that mediate RNA target degradation by RNase H1 are used as drugs to treat various diseases. Previously we found that introduction of a single 2′-O-methyl (2′-OMe) modification in position 2 of the central deoxynucleotide region of a gapmer phosphorothioate (PS) ASO, in which several residues at the termini are 2′-methoxyethyl, 2′ constrained ethyl, or locked nucleic acid, dramatically reduced cytotoxicity with only modest effects on potency. More recently, we demonstrated that replacement of the PS linkage at position 2 or 3 in the gap with a mesyl-phosphoramidate (MsPA) linkage also significantly reduced toxicity without meaningful loss of potency and increased the elimination half-life of the ASOs. In this study, we evaluated the effects of the combination of MsPA linkages and 2′-OMe nucleotides on PS ASO performance. We found that two MsPA modifications at the 5′ end of the gap or in the 3′-wing of a Gap 2′-OMe PS ASO substantially increased the activity of ASOs with OMe at position 2 of the gap without altering the safety profile. Such effects were observed with multiple sequences in cells and animals. Thus, the MsPA modification improves the RNase H1 cleavage rate of PS ASOs with a 2′-OMe in the gap, significantly reduces binding of proteins involved in cytotoxicity, and prolongs elimination half-lives.

A multiresolution network architecture for deferred neural lighting

AbstractWe present a novel multiresolution network architecture for deferred neural lighting. The key idea is to explicitly separate the processing of appearance at different spatial resolutions, leading to considerably improved high‐frequency details as well as temporal stability in animation sequences with varying view conditions. Moreover, our network is only half the size of the original one, and requires less training data to converge to satisfactory results. The network is tested over five captured datasets from deferred neural lighting and may be extended to other neural appearance techniques, such as NeRF or neural textures.

Molecular and Computational Strategies to Increase the Efficiency of CRISPR-Based Techniques.

The prokaryote-derived Clustered Regularly Interspaced Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR)/Cas mediated gene editing tools have revolutionized our ability to precisely manipulate specific genome sequences in plants and animals. The simplicity, precision, affordability, and robustness of this technology have allowed a myriad of genomes from a diverse group of plant species to be successfully edited. Even though CRISPR/Cas, base editing, and prime editing technologies have been rapidly adopted and implemented in plants, their editing efficiency rate and specificity varies greatly. In this review, we provide a critical overview of the recent advances in CRISPR/Cas9-derived technologies and their implications on enhancing editing efficiency. We highlight the major efforts of engineering Cas9, Cas12a, Cas12b, and Cas12f proteins aiming to improve their efficiencies. We also provide a perspective on the global future of agriculturally based products using DNA-free CRISPR/Cas techniques. The improvement of CRISPR-based technologies efficiency will enable the implementation of genome editing tools in a variety of crop plants, as well as accelerate progress in basic research and molecular breeding.

Enhancing Visual Literacy and Performance through Motion Graphics in Learners

The study sought to determine the effect of animated motion sequences on visual literacy for Grade 8 biology learners. This study included a series of case studies to probe deeply into the visual literacy skills. Following the completion of 15 animations created with Flash Mx software package guided by the ACE model, pretests were administered at the start of the study followed by the animations and then the posttests and summative tests. The tests addressed the seven visual literacy indicators namely identify, find, understand, evaluate, use, create and extract indicators. It was observed that students from low, average and high performing schools scored improved marks. Regarding the seven visual literacy indicators, an increase in the mean marks and mean ranks through the Wilcoxon matched-pairs test was noted for the indicators. Gender-wise it was observed that girls had a higher mean percentage than for boys except for the “essence” and “understand” indicators.

Developing novel visual messages for a video screen hand sanitizer: a co-design study with students

This paper reports on the results of a series of co-design workshops devised to generate new messaging ideas for a novel hand sanitizer unit that features a video screen and feedback system. Students of different nationalities, ages and genders were involved in the process either to prime design sessions, or devise/evaluate new ideas for the screen to display in a university setting. The project aimed not only to produce animated designs for subsequent testing but also to elicit key preferences for hand hygiene message tone, content and visual appearance. Research findings revealed a clear preference in the student community for positive, caring and playful approaches to hand hygiene messaging in contrast to many messaging approaches featured in previous studies. In terms of visual approach, students expressed a preference for colourful illustrations rather than photographs or word-based messages. The paper highlights some particularly rich ideas developed to exploit the novelty of the device, such as specific animated sequences or immediate visual rewards of internet memes as ways to engage the student audience. Co-design proved valuable in devising new insights for the hygiene communication community.