Clean Lines Research Articles

Residual stress–driven test technique for freestanding ultrathin films: Elastic behavior and residual strain

Abstract

Learning to Trace: Expressive Line Drawing Generation from Photographs

AbstractIn this paper, we present a new computational method for automatically tracing high‐resolution photographs to create expressive line drawings. We define expressive lines as those that convey important edges, shape contours, and large‐scale texture lines that are necessary to accurately depict the overall structure of objects (similar to those found in technical drawings) while still being sparse and artistically pleasing. Given a photograph, our algorithm extracts expressive edges and creates a clean line drawing using a convolutional neural network (CNN). We employ an end‐to‐end trainable fully‐convolutional CNN to learn the model in a data‐driven manner. The model consists of two networks to cope with two sub‐tasks; extracting coarse lines and refining them to be more clean and expressive. To build a model that is optimal for each domain, we construct two new datasets for face/body and manga background. The experimental results qualitatively and quantitatively demonstrate the effectiveness of our model. We further illustrate two practical applications.

Cytological methods of analysis of haploid plants-regenerants of cabbage (<i>Brassica oleracea</i> L.) obtained <i>in vitro</i>

Relevance Currently, in genetic studies and selection of cabbage cultures, biotechnological methods for creating clean lines — doubled haploids in the culture of anthers and in the culture of isolated microspores are widely used. A common feature of these technologies is that the plants obtained in vitro have different levels of ploidy and along with doubled haploids there are haploid, tetraploid and mixoploid forms. Therefore, the use of new cytological methods of analysis of haploid plants remains an urgent problem. Material and method The aim of this work is to establish the genetic nature of regenerated plants of Brassica oleracea L., obtained from reproductive organs in vitro. Isolated anthers and ovaries of white cabbage were cultivated on solid nutrient media containing mineral salts according to the recipe Murashige and Skoog (MS). The obtained regenerated plants were used to calculate the number of chromosomes in the root meristem, as well as the number of chloroplasts in the cells of the closing stomata of leaves using the new universal method of preparing preparations of plant chromosomes – “SteamDrop”. Results As a result of the research, the dependence of the level of ploidy on the cultivation conditions was studied. It has been shown that plants-regenerants of white cabbage, obtained in vitro from reproductive organs, had a different set of chromosomes (n, 3n, 5n). It was established that the number of chloroplasts in the stomatal cells of regenerated plants was from 9 to 45, while the original donor plants had 18–20.

Sunfish Sail and Sports Club by Pam Spremulli

Recognizing the contribution art has had in the Mayo Clinic environment since the original Mayo Clinic Building was finished in 1914, Mayo Clinic Proceedings features some of the numerous works of art displayed throughout the buildings and grounds on Mayo Clinic campuses as interpreted by the author.

Coupled Decorated Membrane Resonators with Large Willis Coupling

We report the experimental studies on an acoustic scatterer consisting of a pair of coupled decorated membrane resonators (DMRs) that exhibits near extreme contrast in reflection asymmetry and strong Willis coupling coefficient with amplitude of 2.5 and polarizability cross term of 1.1 x 10-8 ms2. The design is based on the theoretical analysis using the Greens function formulism we developed earlier. The clean line shapes of the real and the imaginary parts of the Willis coefficient clear show, even by visual inspection, that the Kramers-Kronig relations are satisfied. Theoretical analysis agrees well with the major features of the experimental results.

The Tchaikovsky Papers: Unlocking the Family Archive by Kostalevsky Marina (review)

SEER, 97, 3, JULY 2019 550 komicheskaia. Sarti wrote the music for the settings of poetry by Lomonosov as well as a chunk of Euripides, offering a ‘stylized representation of Ancient Greek music’ in the four solemn choruses of Act V which were ‘conceived as the artistic apex of the entire work’ (Bella Brover-Lubovsky, ‘The Early Reign of Oleg: Catherine the Great, Giuseppe Sarti, and the musica antica revival’, in A. Sitarz (ed.), Early Music: Context and Ideas 2, Kraków, 2008, p. 275). Contemporary commentators Matthew Guthrie and N. A. L´vov wrote of the affinity between Russian art and that of Ancient Greece. In combining the two elements of Russian and Byzantine culture within Oleg and presenting it on a grand Baroque scale (which was by 1790 an extravagance both musically and financially), Catherine makes an imperious statement of intent regarding her Greek project. Conversely, in its return to the artistic principles of Ancient Greece, Oleg is also forward-looking, anticipating the clean classical lines of late Gluck and early Mozart which ended the hegemony of opera seria. Opera Settecento, London Miranda Houghton Kostalevsky, Marina (ed.). The Tchaikovsky Papers: Unlocking the Family Archive. Translated by Stephen Pearl. Adapted from the Russian edition, compiled and edited by Polina E. Vaidman. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT and London, 2018. xix + 297 pp. Illustrations. Music examples. Chronology. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $45.00: £35.00. This compilation of materials relating to Chaikovskii’s life contains much that was previously unknown to English readers. Drawn from his archive in Perm´, it consists of six main sections. The first is of correspondence between the composer’s parents, very much in the sentimental manner of the times. The second, letters from Fanny Dürbach (1822–1901), governess to Chaikovskii and his brothers for four years in Votkinsk, later to meet him again after some fifty years. From here we can learn about his early reading, although there are no great surprises. The composer’s own letters, which form the third and largest section, are likely to be the most interesting part of the book for the majority of readers, as they fill in the gaps left by both tsarist and Soviet censorship. The latter took exception to Chaikovskii’s respect for the royal family and Orthodox Church, whilst both were uncomfortable with his occasional obscenities and transparent references to homosexuality. Several Soviet ideological distortions of his works will be well-known to his admirers, such as the somewhat inept replacement of the tsarist anthem at the end of one of his least favourite works, the 1812 Overture by the ‘Glory’ chorus from Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar (itself, of course, to be renamed by the Soviet censor). The composer’s REVIEWS 551 working practices and concerns also emerge clearly from the letters, including his intense restlessness when without creative activity, and his serious doubts about some of his weaker works, as well as disgust at the incompetence of proof readers; other major themes in this section are money and health, both relating to his relatives and servants. Another interesting part of the book is entitled ‘Musical Souvenirs’, comprising messages and jokes sometimes destined for albums or as lively letters and squibs to friends, revealing a sense of humour that is rare but not completely absent in his mostly passionate and emotional or gently sentimental work. The book’s next section, entitled ‘Key Documents’, begins with his birth certificate and continues with documents relating to his ‘personal and professional life in the administrative, economic and political context of the time’ also shedding ‘new light on the composer’s public image and social status in Imperial Russia’ (p. 199). Finally, a brief Chronology will help readers to follow the considerable peregrinations of Chaikovskii and his family. This composer’s great popularity has survived waves of snobbery in the twentieth century and continues strongly more than a century after his death. It must therefore be assumed that all aspects of his musical and personal heritage will be of interest not only to musicologists but also to a far wider public. This English-language version of the ground-breaking original Russian text has been prepared...

“I noticed that his attention was fixed upon my clock:” masculinity and the queer film interior

Depression-era Hollywood’s on-screen representations of queer and gender-non-conforming characters went beyond costume, gesture, and plot lines to include interior décor and carefully-chosen objects as assembled and arranged by art directors and set decorators in service to character development and narrative richness. A close look at Otto Preminger’s Laura (1944) and at the visual codes surrounding its queer protagonist Waldo Lydecker, suggests that everything from the cut of his suits, to his flowery language, and especially his lavish New York penthouse filled with exotic bibelots and antiques combined to create an image of the effete, narcissistic, yet powerful “homosexual” widely feared at the time. In film noir productions, like the classic Laura, ornate interiors were often used not simply to suggest wealth and power but also moral corruption of the sort associated in some viewers minds with wealth in the decades following the Depression. Moreover, with the gradual spread of Modern architecture and design in the US, together with the notion that transparent glass walls, clean lines and smooth white surfaces conveyed objective, masculine and morally superior values, applied ornament and gilded surfaces of the sort we see in Lydecker’s home frequently came to encode messages of weakness and self-indulgence associated with femininity and, especially, effeminacy. All of these underlying messages are present in the set decoration of Laura, and especially in the material and visual representation of the evil Waldo Lydecker, whose obsession with his former protegée Laura Hunt drives him to murder.

Laboratory spectroscopic study of the 15N isotopomers of cyanamide, H2NCN, and a search for them toward IRAS 16293−2422 B

Context. Cyanamide is one of the few interstellar molecules containing two chemically different N atoms. It was detected recently toward the solar-type protostar IRAS 16293−2422 B together with H2N13CN and HDNCN in the course of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) Protostellar Interferometric Line Survey (PILS). The detection of the 15N isotopomers or the determination of upper limits to their column densities was hampered by the lack of accurate laboratory data at the frequencies of the survey. Aims. We wanted to determine spectroscopic parameters of the 15N isotopomers of cyanamide that are accurate enough for predictions well into the submillimeter region and to search for them in the PILS data. Methods. We investigated the laboratory rotational spectra of H215NCN and H2NC15N in the selected region between 192 and 507 GHz employing a cyanamide sample in natural isotopic composition. Additionally, we recorded transitions of H2N13CN. Results. We obtained new or improved spectroscopic parameters for the three isotopic species. Neither of the 15N isotopomers of cyanamide were detected unambiguously in the PILS data. Two relatively clean lines can be tentatively assigned to H215NCN. If confirmed, their column densities would imply a low 14N/15N ratio for cyanamide toward this source. Conclusions. The resulting line lists should be accurate enough for observations up to about 1 THz. More sensitive observations, potentially at different frequencies, may eventually lead to the astronomical detection of these isotopic species.

Dual Precisionism

“Precisionism” is a notoriously slippery word. This short article asks readers to think critically and expansively about the term. The essay suggests that Precisionism might be defined most aptly in a dual sense, as describing a set of works that favor mechanical subjects and bear stylistic affinities with products crafted by machines. Works by George Ault and Charles Sheeler, for example, suggest that the term characterizes not only hard-edged depictions of factories, machines, and machine parts, but also works that appear as though they could have been produced or improved by such apparatuses. This is especially the case with etchings by Armin Landeck and lithographs by Sheeler and Louis Lozowick. In these works, the printing press itself figures as one such machine facilitating the production of the clean lines, flattened forms, emphatic contours, and localized colors that the Precisionist artists sought.

On the iron ionization balance of cool stars

Abstract High-resolution spectroscopic studies of solar-type stars have revealed higher iron abundances derived from singly ionized species compared to neutral, violating the ionization equilibrium under the assumption of local thermodynamic equilibrium. In this work, we investigate the overabundances of Fe ii lines reported in our previous work for a sample of 451 solar-type HARPS stars in the solar neighborhood. The spectroscopic surface gravities of this sample, which emerge from the ionization balance, appear underestimated for the K-type stars. In order to understand this behaviour, we search our Fe ii line list for unresolved blends and outliers. First, we use the Vienna Atomic Line Database to identify possible unresolved blends around our lines and calculate which ones are strong enough to cause overestimations in the equivalent width measurements. Second, for our sample we use reference parameters (effective temperature and metallicity) and the Gaia DR2 parallaxes to derive surface gravities (trigonometric gravities) and calculate the Fe i and Fe ii abundances from different line lists. We exclude the Fe ii lines which produce overabundances above 0.10 dex. The derived surface gravities from the clean line list are now in agreement with the trigonometric. Moreover, the difference between Fe i and Fe ii abundance does not show now a correlation with the effective temperature. Finally, we show that the ionization balance of Ti can provide better estimates of surface gravities than iron. With this analysis, we provide a solution to the ionization balance problem observed in the atmospheres of cool dwarfs.

A complete hand-drawn sketch vectorization framework

Vectorizing hand-drawn sketches is an important but challenging task. Many businesses rely on fashion, mechanical or structural designs which, sooner or later, need to be converted in vectorial form. For most, this is still a task done manually. This paper proposes a complete framework that automatically transforms noisy and complex hand-drawn sketches with different stroke types in a precise, reliable and highly-simplified vectorized model. The proposed framework includes a novel line extraction algorithm based on a multi-resolution application of Pearson's cross correlation and a new unbiased thinning algorithm that can get rid of scribbles and variable-width strokes to obtain clean 1-pixel lines. Other contributions include variants of pruning, merging and edge linking procedures to post-process the obtained paths. Finally, a modification of the original Schneider's vectorization algorithm is designed to obtain fewer control points in the resulting Bezier splines. All the steps presented in this framework have been extensively tested and compared with state-of-the-art algorithms, showing (both qualitatively and quantitatively) their outperformance. Moreover they exhibit fast real-time performance, making them suitable for integration in any computer graphics toolset.

Vectorization of Line Drawings via Polyvector Fields

Image tracing is a foundational component of the workflow in graphic design, engineering, and computer animation, linking hand-drawn concept images to collections of smooth curves needed for geometry processing and editing. Even for clean line drawings, modern algorithms often fail to faithfully vectorize junctions, or points at which curves meet; this produces vector drawings with incorrect connectivity. This subtle issue undermines the practical application of vectorization tools and accounts for hesitance among artists and engineers to use automatic vectorization software. To address this issue, we propose a novel image vectorization method based on state-of-the-art mathematical algorithms for frame field processing. Our algorithm is tailored specifically to disambiguate junctions without sacrificing quality.

Evaluation of operation indicators of the working units of transporting devices made of polymeric materials

In this paper we presents the results of production tests of a new transporting devices type made of with using new polymeric materials based on ultrahigh-molecular polyethylene (UHMWPE). It is possible to improve the operational properties of technological cleaning lines for grain seeds and improve the quality of grain cleaning.

Vreemde bedgenoten: publiek-private samenwerking in de Nederlandse ruimtelijke ordening 1950-1980

This contribution investigates the public-private partnerships between local officials and property developers in the Dutch field of urban planning during the post-war period, with a focus on the redevelopment agendas for the central areas of larger cities such as Utrecht and Amsterdam. I argue that we should see the ties between the public and private sector in this field as the outcome of a structural dependency of the state on private investments. Indeed, even at the zenith of the social-democratic welfare state, local governments very much leaned on the market to get urban redevelopment off the ground. Thus, we should be careful to draw a clean line between the golden age of state involvement in urban planning from the end of the Second World War to the economic crises of the 1970s and the neoliberal policies of the 1980s. While the case studies in this article display some features of urban neoliberalism, such as a belief in market efficiency and the advancement of interurban competition, these were never the means nor the ends of urban policies. By working with a wide array of primary sources and employing the theories of urban scholars such David Harvey and Hank Savitch and Paul Kantor, I argue for a more comprehensive and multifaceted narrative of the involvement of property developers in local affairs and the partnerships and growth coalitions they built with government bodies.

Sugar Maples and Red Tree by Charles Beck

Charles Beck was born on January 23, 1923, in Fergus Falls, Minnesota. He attended Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, but his education was cut short due to the advent of World War II, in which he became a naval air pilot captain. After the war, Beck returned to Fergus Falls, where he worked as a sign painter and in 1960 he began teaching art at the Minnesota State Community and Technical College. He maintained a studio in his home until 2009, after which he commenced using a public gallery. After experiencing a stroke in 2013, he began painting trees from his new residence – Broen Memorial Home – a nursing home facility in Fergus Falls. Beck's detailed woodcut prints have become iconic and can be found in many museums and public displays throughout Minnesota. His wood cut technique relied on strong texture, clean lines, and minimalistic vision.1Lamb J. Iconic Rural Minn. Artist Charles Beck Dies at 94.http://www.westfargopioneer.com/news/4327547-iconic-rural-minn-artist-charles-beck-dies-94Date accessed: February 15, 2018Google Scholar He died on Tuesday, September 12, 2017, at the age of 94.1Lamb J. Iconic Rural Minn. Artist Charles Beck Dies at 94.http://www.westfargopioneer.com/news/4327547-iconic-rural-minn-artist-charles-beck-dies-94Date accessed: February 15, 2018Google Scholar Sugar Maples and Red Tree, both 22×31-inches, reflect the vibrant crimson and golden hues of traditional fall foliage in Minnesota. A favorite fall activity often includes scenic drives along rural roads to catch glimpses of such trees as those represented in Sugar Maples and Red Tree. Sugar Maples and Red Tree are located in the hallway access to the Generose Building of Mayo Clinic Hospital, Saint Marys Campus, Rochester, Minnesota.

Real-time data-driven interactive rough sketch inking

We present an interactive approach for inking , which is the process of turning a pencil rough sketch into a clean line drawing. The approach, which we call the Smart Inker , consists of several "smart" tools that intuitively react to user input, while guided by the input rough sketch, to efficiently and naturally connect lines, erase shading, and fine-tune the line drawing output. Our approach is data-driven: the tools are based on fully convolutional networks, which we train to exploit both the user edits and inaccurate rough sketch to produce accurate line drawings, allowing high-performance interactive editing in real-time on a variety of challenging rough sketch images. For the training of the tools, we developed two key techniques: one is the creation of training data by simulation of vague and quick user edits; the other is a line normalization based on learning from vector data. These techniques, in combination with our sketch-specific data augmentation, allow us to train the tools on heterogeneous data without actual user interaction. We validate our approach with an in-depth user study, comparing it with professional illustration software, and show that our approach is able to reduce inking time by a factor of 1.8X, while improving the results of amateur users.

Learning to restore deteriorated line drawing

We propose a fully automatic approach to restore aged old line drawings. We decompose the task into two subtasks: the line extraction subtask, which aims to extract line fragments and remove the paper texture background, and the restoration subtask, which fills in possible gaps and deterioration of the lines to produce a clean line drawing. Our approach is based on a convolutional neural network that consists of two sub-networks corresponding to the two subtasks. They are trained as part of a single framework in an end-to-end fashion. We also introduce a new dataset consisting of manually annotated sketches by Leonardo da Vinci which, in combination with a synthetic data generation approach, allows training the network to restore deteriorated line drawings. We evaluate our method on challenging 500-year-old sketches and compare with existing approaches with a user study, in which it is found that our approach is preferred 72.7% of the time.

ICEBREAKER SYSTEM RESTART: A NEW GENERATION OF WOMEN COMPOSERS Hall 2, King's Place

King's Place is a singular venue. A relative newcomer to London's range of concert halls, comprising multiple spaces that are of a matching bright and clear acoustic – very well-researched when designed, no doubt. Clean lines and wood panels abound: there are loads of loos and plenty of places to put your coat or pick up a drink. On paper it is the perfect venue for a contemporary classical concert.

On the feasibility of studying the exospheres of Earth-like exoplanets by Lyman-α monitoring

Observations of the Earth's exosphere have unveiled an extended envelope of hydrogen reaching further than 10 Earth radii composed of atoms orbiting around the Earth. This large envelope increases significantly the opacity of the Earth to Lyman-alpha (Lya) photons coming from the Sun, to the point of making feasible the detection of the Earth's transit signature from 1.35 pc if pointing with an 8~meter primary mirror space telescope through a clean line of sight (NH < 1e17 cm-2), as we show. In this work, we evaluate the potential detectability of Earth analogues orbiting around nearby M-type stars by monitoring the variability of the Lya flux. We show that, in spite of the interstellar, heliospheric and astrospheric absorption, the transit signature in M5 V type stars would be detectable with a dedicated Lya flux monitor implemented in a 4-8 m class space telescope. Such monitoring programs would enable measuring the robustness of planetary atmospheres under heavy space weather conditions like those produced by M-type stars. A 2-m class telescope, such as the World Space Observatory, would suffice to detect an Earth-like planet orbiting around Proxima Centauri, if there was such a planet or nearby M5 type stars.

Mastering Sketching

We present an integral framework for training sketch simplification networks that convert challenging rough sketches into clean line drawings. Our approach augments a simplification network with a discriminator network, training both networks jointly so that the discriminator network discerns whether a line drawing is real training data or the output of the simplification network, which, in turn, tries to fool it. This approach has two major advantages: first, because the discriminator network learns the structure in line drawings, it encourages the output sketches of the simplification network to be more similar in appearance to the training sketches. Second, we can also train the networks with additional unsupervised data: by adding rough sketches and line drawings that are not corresponding to each other, we can improve the quality of the sketch simplification. Thanks to a difference in the architecture, our approach has advantages over similar adversarial training approaches in stability of training and the aforementioned ability to utilize unsupervised training data. We show how our framework can be used to train models that significantly outperform the state of the art in the sketch simplification task, despite using the same architecture for inference. We also present an approach to optimize for a single image, which improves accuracy at the cost of additional computation time. Finally, we show that, using the same framework, it is possible to train the network to perform the inverse problem, i.e., convert simple line sketches into pencil drawings, which is not possible using the standard mean squared error loss. We validate our framework with two user tests, in which our approach is preferred to the state of the art in sketch simplification 88.9% of the time.