Facial Organs Research Articles

Treatment for benign skin lesion in zygomatic-infraorbital region by the expanded multi-lobe cervicofacial advancement rotation flap in pediatric patients

PurposeBenign skin lesions in zygomatic-infraorbital regions severely influence pediatric patients’ appearance as well as mental health. Treatments are difficult for the high requirements of patients’ guardians in both function and aesthetics. The present study aims to introduce a surgical method, Expanded Multi-Lobe Cervicofacial Flap, which combines the advantages of the classical cervicofacial advancement rotation flap and the tissue expansion technique.MethodsA total of 21 pediatric patients were enrolled. The treatment process included 2 stages: implantation of the skin tissue expander and flap transfer. The excessive skin created by tissue expansion extended the coverage area of the multi-lobe flap.ResultsIn this retrospective study, follow-up periods were all more than 12 months (20.8 ± 6.7). In the last follow-ups, the flaps were all in good condition, and No facial organ displacement was observed. The patients’ guardians were satisfied with the outcomes.ConclusionsUsing the expanded multi-lobe cervicofacial flap for the zygomatic-infraorbital benign skin lesion repair is effective, and this method is especially applicable to the pediatric population.

Generation of tamoxifen-inducible Tfap2b-CreERT2 mice using CRISPR-Cas9.

Tfap2b, a pivotal transcription factor, plays critical roles within neural crest cells and their derived lineage. To unravel the intricate lineage dynamics and contribution of these Tfap2b+ cells during craniofacial development, we established a Tfap2b-CreERT2 knock-in transgenic mouse line using the CRISPR-Cas9-mediated homologous direct repair. By breeding with tdTomato reporter mice and initiating Cre activity through tamoxifen induction at distinct developmental time points, we show the Tfap2b lineage within the key neural crest-derived domains, such as the facial mesenchyme, midbrain, cerebellum, spinal cord, and limbs. Notably, the migratory neurons stemming from the dorsal root ganglia are visible subsequent to Cre activity initiated at E8.5. Intriguingly, Tfap2b+ cells, serving as the progenitors for limb development, show activity predominantly commencing at E10.5. Across the mouse craniofacial landscape, Tfap2b exhibits a widespread presence throughout the facial organs. Here we validate its role as a marker of progenitors in tooth development and have confirmed that this process initiates from E12.5. Our study not only validates the Tfap2b-CreERT2 transgenic line, but also provides a powerful tool for lineage tracing and genetic targeting of Tfap2b-expressing cells and their progenitor in a temporally and spatially regulated manner during the intricate process of development and organogenesis.

Hair follicle extraction combined with an expanded scalp flap for facial organ reconstruction

Use of scalp skin for facial organ reconstruction represents a mainstream procedure for organ reconstruction. In most cases, adequate amounts of skin can be obtained by using tissue expanders, but harvesting sufficient scalp tissue in patients with low hairlines is challenging. Hair follicular unit extraction (FUE) is one approach to resolve this problem. With FUE, hair follicles are removed from the scalp skin, which can then be prepared as a donor site to obtain sufficient amounts of hairless skin. To evaluate the safety and efficacy of FUE when combined with an expanded scalp flap for facial organ reconstruction. Patients with low hairlines requiring facial organ reconstruction were selected for this study. The area of skin extension and hair removal were determined prior to surgery, a process which was performed in three stages. Stage I consisted of hair follicle removal using the FUE technique at the donor site. Stage II involved expander implantation using water injections. In Stage III facial organ reconstruction was completed. With the use of the FUE technique, hair follicles from the donor scalp were thoroughly removed and the donor scalp tissue was successfully expanded. Postoperatively, no evident scar formation at the reconstruction site or contracture of the expanded flap was observed. All patients were satisfied with the outcome of their reconstruction procedure. FUE provides a means for hair follicle removal from the donor site and can be employed to achieve a safe and effective procedure for facial reconstruction in patients with low hairlines.

Application of bilateral facial perforator artery flap in repairing large area defect in middle and lower part of nose

To investigate the feasibility and effectiveness of bilateral facial perforator artery flap in repairing large area defect in middle and lower part of nose. The clinical data of 18 patients with large area defect in middle and lower part of nose repaired by bilateral facial perforator artery flap between January 2019 and December 2022 were retrospectively analyzed. Among them, there were 13 males and 5 females, the age ranged from 43 to 81 years, with an average of 63 years. There were 3 cases of nasal trauma, 4 cases of basal cell carcinoma, 8 cases of squamous cell carcinoma, 1 case of lymphoma, and 2 cases of large area solar keratosis. The size of the defect ranged from 3.0 cm×3.0 cm to 4.5 cm×4.0 cm; the size of unilateral flap ranged from 3.0 cm×1.3 cm to 3.5 cm×2.0 cm, and the size of bilateral flaps ranged from 3.3 cm×2.6 cm to 4.5 cm×4.0 cm. One patient developed skin flap necrosis after operation, and a frontal skin flap was used to repair the wound; 1 case gradually improved after removing some sutures due to venous congestion in the skin flap, and the wound healing was delayed after dressing change; the remaining 16 cases of bilateral facial perforator artery flaps survived well and all wounds healed by first intention, without any "cat ear" malformation. All 18 patients had first intention healing in the donor area, leaving linear scars without obvious scar hyperplasia, and no facial organ displacement. All patients were followed up 3-12 months, with an average of 6 months. Due to the appropriate thickness of the flap, none of the 18 patients underwent secondary flap thinning surgery. All flaps had good blood circulation, similar texture and color to surrounding tissues, symmetrical bilateral nasolabial sulcus, and high patient satisfaction. The bilateral facial perforator artery flaps for repairing large area defect in middle and lower part of nose can achieve good appearance and function, and the operation is relatively simple, with high patient satisfaction.

Intraoperative Indocyanine Green Angiography Facilitates Flap Fenestration and Facial Organ Fabrication in Total Facial Restoration.

Because of a lack of effective measures to visualize flap vasculature and perfusion, flap fenestration and facial organ fabrication cannot be performed effectively, preventing the transition from two-dimensional coverage to restoration of the three-dimensional (3D) structure of facial organs. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of indocyanine green angiography (ICGA) in guiding flap fenestration and facial organ fabrication in total facial restoration. Ten patients with total facial scarring after burn injury were enrolled in the study. They were treated with preexpanded, prefabricated monoblock flaps for total face restoration. The openings of nostrils and oral and palpebral orifices, together with organ fabrication, were conducted under the guidance of intraoperative ICGA by hemodynamic evaluation of flap perfusion. Postoperative follow-up measures include vascular crisis, infection, flap necrosis, and aesthetic and functional recovery. The opening of facial organ orifices was performed at the stage of flap transfer in nine patients. To avoid damaging the major nourishing vessels, the left palpebral orifice was opened 8 days after the flap transfer in one patient, as observed by ICGA. Based on ICGA evaluation, the decision to perform additional vascular anastomosis before flap fenestration was made in six patients. Hemodynamic analysis of flap perfusion after fenestration revealed no significant change. Follow-up showed satisfactory aesthetic recovery and well-restored 3D structures of facial organs. This pilot study demonstrates how intraoperative ICGA can enhance the safety of flap fenestration, thereby transforming full facial restoration from the two-dimensional to the 3D realm by facilitating facial organ fabrication. Therapeutic, IV.

Geometric prior guided hybrid deep neural network for facial beauty analysis

AbstractFacial beauty analysis is an important topic in human society. It may be used as a guidance for face beautification applications such as cosmetic surgery. Deep neural networks (DNNs) have recently been adopted for facial beauty analysis and have achieved remarkable performance. However, most existing DNN‐based models regard facial beauty analysis as a normal classification task. They ignore important prior knowledge in traditional machine learning models which illustrate the significant contribution of the geometric features in facial beauty analysis. To be specific, landmarks of the whole face and facial organs are introduced to extract geometric features to make the decision. Inspired by this, we introduce a novel dual‐branch network for facial beauty analysis: one branch takes the Swin Transformer as the backbone to model the full face and global patterns, and another branch focuses on the masked facial organs with the residual network to model the local patterns of certain facial parts. Additionally, the designed multi‐scale feature fusion module can further facilitate our network to learn complementary semantic information between the two branches. In model optimisation, we propose a hybrid loss function, where especially geometric regulation is introduced by regressing the facial landmarks and it can force the extracted features to convey facial geometric features. Experiments performed on the SCUT‐FBP5500 dataset and the SCUT‐FBP dataset demonstrate that our model outperforms the state‐of‐the‐art convolutional neural networks models, which proves the effectiveness of the proposed geometric regularisation and dual‐branch structure with the hybrid network. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to introduce a Vision Transformer into the facial beauty analysis task.

Classroom Attendance using Face Detection and Facial Organs

The face is one of the easiest ways to distinguish the individual identity of each other. Face recognition is a personal identification system that uses personal characteristics of a person to identify the person's identity. Human face recognition procedure basically consists of two phases, namely face detection, where this process takes place very rapidly in humans, except under conditions where the object is located at a short distance away, the next is the introduction, which recognize a face as individuals. Stage is then replicated and developed as a model for facial image recognition (face recognition) is one of the much-studied biometrics technology and developed by experts. There are two kinds of methods that are currently popular in developed face recognition pattern namely, Eigenface method and Fisherface method. Facial image recognition Eigenface method is based on the reduction of face-dimensional space using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) for facial features. The main purpose of the use of PCA on face recognition using Eigen faces was formed (face space) by finding the eigenvector corresponding to the largest Eigenvalue of the face image. The area of this project face detection system with face recognition is Image processing. The software requirements for this project is matlab software.

The Nose as Organ of Anger in the Book of Job: A Psychoanalytic Understanding

As an external and more specifically a facial organ, the nose in the Hebrew Bible not only has various physiological functions such as smell and breathing, but also various meanings as metonym and metaphor. It is also one of the body parts attributed to God, mostly serving a metaphorical role. The nose is probably the body part which is most connected to an emotion, to such an extent that this emotion often displaces the bodily organ. This makes the nose an interesting object for psychoanalytic interpretation. The unique way the nose suggests anger in the Hebrew Bible will be explored from a psychoanalytical perspective to propose a phallic-sadistic understanding of this puzzling association with aggression.

Real-Time Robotic Mirrored Behavior of Facial Expressions and Head Motions Based on Lightweight Networks

The ability of a humanoid robot to imitate facial expressions with simultaneous head motions is crucial to natural human–robot interaction. This mirrored behavior from human beings to humanoid robots has high demands of similarity and real-time performance. To fulfill these needs, this article proposes a real-time robotic mirrored behavior of facial expressions and head motions based on lightweight networks. First, a humanoid robot that can change the state of its facial organs and neck through servo displacement is developed to achieve the mirrored behavior of facial expressions and head motions. Second, to overcome the high latency caused by deep learning models running in embedded devices, a lightweight deep learning network is constructed for detecting facial feature points, which can reduce model size and improve running speed without affecting the performance of the model. Finally, a mapping relationship of 68 facial feature points to optimal servo displacements is established to realize the mirrored behavior from human beings to humanoid robots. The experimental results show that the facial feature point recognition method based on the lightweight model performs better than other state-of-the-art methods, and our head motion tracking method can maintain high accuracy compared with the gold standard optical motion capture system NOKOV. Overall, our method ensures the accurate and real-time generation of robot mirrored behavior and has a certain reference value for the efficient and natural interaction between humans and robots.

A Transformer-Based DeepFake-Detection Method for Facial Organs

Nowadays, deepfake detection on subtle-expression manipulation, facial-detail modification, and smeared images has become a research hotspot. Existing deepfake-detection methods on the whole face are coarse-grained, where the details are missing due to the negligible manipulated size of the image. To address the problems, we propose to build a transformer model for a deepfake-detection method by organ, to obtain the deepfake features. We reduce the detection weight of defaced or unclear organs to prioritize the detection of clear and intact organs. Meanwhile, to simulate the real-world environment, we build a Facial Organ Forgery Detection Test Dataset (FOFDTD), which includes the images of mask face, sunglasses face, and undecorated face collected from the network. Experimental results on four benchmarks, i.e., FF++, DFD, DFDC-P, Celeb-DF, and for FOFDTD datasets, demonstrated the effectiveness of our proposed method.

Micro-expression spotting based on optical flow features

• The nose tip location-based image alignment method improves the performance of Micro-expression spotting. • The optical flow method can accurately capture micro-expression movements. • When a micro-expression occurs, a peak appears on the time-domain change curve. • Get complete micro-expression intervals after fusing local movements. Expression is the changes of facial organs due to facial muscle movement and an important way of human emotional interaction. Neurophysiological studies show that micro-expressions (MEs) are not controlled by subjective consciousness and reflect people's real emotions. That is why MEs have significant value in public security applications. This paper proposes an automatic ME spotting method of high accuracy and interpretability. Firstly, we design the nose tip location-based image alignment method to remove global displacement caused by head shaking. Secondly, according to the action unit definition in the face coding system (FACS), we select fourteen regions of interest (ROI) to capture subtle facial movements. The dense optical flow is introduced to estimate local movements and time-domain variations of the ROIs. Thirdly, we design a peak detection method on the time-domain variation curves to locate the movement intervals precisely. Lastly, we propose an overlapping index to measure the consistency of changes in different organs. Evaluation on the CAS(ME) 2 and SAMM Long Video database shows that our ME spotting method may achieve better accuracy with a relatively lower computation cost and can be applied to similar facial image processing applications.

Artifacting Identity. How Grillz, Ball Gags and Gas Masks Expand the Face

By questioning the attribution of a primary role to the eyes as bearers of identity within traditional Western culture, this paper will problematize the agentivity performed by the lower mereology of the face, identified with the mouth-nose assemblage. In particular, the study will focus on the manipulation of such facial spatiality through the intervention of three “lower face” artifacts: the grill, the ball gag and the gas mask. This piece of work will examine their plastic and figurative dimensions in the technological interaction with the facial organs. Furthermore, we will take into consideration the sociocultural context of wearability performed by the different bearers with the aim of grasping the identity shift that the artifacts trigger. The study, therefore, will organize the corpus as a sequence that starts inside the oral cavity where the grill is worn; then moves to a progressive exteriority with the ball gag that emerges from the mouth through the straps fastened around the head; eventually dealing with the exterior projection operated by the gas mask which by means of its filters portends beyond the anatomical face. Ultimately the three artifacts are presented as a threefold articulation of a liminal agency towards an expanded form of humanity including animality embedded within and without the space of meaning represented by the face.

A Novel Multi-Task Face Super-Resolution Framework Embedding Degraded Augmented GAN Networks

The training method that uses predefined degradation methods to provide training data for deep convolutional neural networks suffers from overfitting and image distortion when performing face super-resolution reconstruction. In this paper, we propose a multi-task facial super-resolution reconstruction framework embedded in a degraded augmented GAN network. Compared with the commonly used method of generating low-quality face images through pixel interpolation, this paper inversely embeds a generative adversarial network composed of residual coding blocks in the network. Through the feature learning ability of the network, the feature fitting of the face images collected in the natural scene is performed to generate training data that can more fully represent the real noise in the natural scene, thereby improving the noise reduction and image reconstruction capabilities of the network. In order to take full advantage of the task-specific features, the semantic features of the dataset are extracted through a pre-trained facial organ semantic detection framework and the data is used to add face semantic information in the super-resolution reconstruction network. The experimental results show that the model proposed in this study can achieve super-resolution reconstruction of ultra-low-resolution face images simply and efficiently, and achieve super-resolution face images with lower visual quality than other advanced methods with lower model complexity. It solves the problem of single style and distortion of face reconstruction images caused by the training method of the data set obtained by the usual predefined degradation.

Animation Expression Control Based on Facial Region Division

Science and technology are developing rapidly in the twenty-first century. With the development of information technology, computers play a great role in people’s life. At present, with people’s increasing love for animation, exquisite and realistic animation has become people’s pursuit goal. Generally speaking, the most impressive thing in animation is the animation character expression. Nowadays, with the rapid development of science, it is necessary to develop a computer technology that can be used in animation expression control technology. The facial division is just met by computer technology. It is very important for the animation to create an animation expression consistent with the character’s face. The character face has diversity and uniqueness, which plays an important role in animation expression control. There are many factors in the character’s face area that affect animation expression control. The coordinated movement of multiple facial organs shows various emotional states through the changes in muscle movements in various areas of the face, such as eye muscles, facial muscles, and oral muscles. It has strong integrity and particularity and has relatively high technical requirements. Generally, the expression control technology can transform and deform a specific area of the face. Based on the division of the face area, the computer technology is used to calculate the different expression features of the face for recognition, showing a more exquisite and realistic animation expression. Under this background, this paper divides the facial region and introduces the physiological structure of the face and the relationship and influence between facial expression and animation expression control. Several algorithms used in facial structure feature point extraction are compared experimentally. After experimental comparison, it is found that the improved algorithm is much more efficient than the original algorithm in the process of extracting facial feature points, can remove redundancy, greatly reduce the amount of operation data, and lay a good foundation for the follow-up animation expression control technology.

3D Face Geometry Optimization Using Artificial Intelligence and Computer Graphics

Human face plays an indispensable role in emotional expression and information exchange, which attracts large number of researchers to study face recognition. Nowadays, with the rapid development of computer graphics, artificial intelligence, and other technologies, the ability of the human vision system to recognize facial expressions and facial organs is enhanced. More and more experts think about how to make the computer vision system have this capability. By combining artificial intelligence and computer graphics, this paper studies how to optimize the 3D face network model and extract geometric features for 3D face recognition. We propose a 3D face network model based on Poisson equation to realize face hole recognition and boundary preprocessing. Besides, we also establish the 3D face surface equation and equal face value extraction and enhance the face feature based on facial semantic information. We study the hole repair of 3D face model based on Poisson equation integrating semantic information and achieve the purpose of optimizing the 3D face model. After the optimization, the method is compared with mesh repair and Poisson repair, which demonstrates that our Poisson-based 3D face hole repairing model obtains the best results among compared methods.

Functional differentiation of two lhx8 paralogs and possible regulatory role of lhx8a in Japanese flounder (Paralichthys olivaceus)

Lhx8, belonging to the LIM-Homebox family, is involved in the tooth, nervous system, and primordial follicles development in mammals. However, little is known about the regulatory roles of lhx8 in teleosts. In this study, two lhx8 duplicates were identified in Paralichthys olivaceus, termed Polhx8a and Polhx8b, respectively. Bioinformatic analysis showed that Polhx8a was more likely to be a teleost-specific paralog. According to expression analysis, Polhx8a transcripts were almost exclusively concentrated in the oocytes, while Polhx8b was weakly expressed in the spleen, gill, and some facial organs, indicating sub-functionalization of this gene pair during evolution. Furthermore, Polhx8a mRNA level elevated from perinucleolar oocyte (PNO) stage to vitellogenic oocyte (VO) stage transition and changed after exogenous hormone stimulation, proving that Polhx8a was involved in the oocyte development and could be regulated by sex hormones. Yeast two-hybrid, bimolecular fluorescence complementation (BiFC) and co-immunoprecipitation (co-IP) experiments captured the positive protein interactions between PoLhx8a and the other two oocyte-specific transcription factors: PoFigla and PoNobox. After knocking down lhx8a in embryos or adult ovaries in vivo, the expression of oocyte-associated genes was significantly down-regulated (P < 0.05). Our findings suggest the evolution and functional differentiation of lhx8 genes, and shed light on the potential role of lhx8a in protein interactions and gene regulation in teleosts.

Sarcasm Detection using Cognitive Features of Visual Data by Learning Model

The objective of the paper is to detect sarcasm in human communication. The methodology uses basic cognitive features of human utterances by capturing three modes of data viz., voice, text, and temporal facial features. The captured data is unstructured as it consists of parameters of feelings and emotions to generate sarcasm which affects expressions through glottal and facial organs. The data capturing method is equally challenging as compared to the method of data processing to acquire features. The significant work is aligned to make natural decisions in the prediction processes using cognitive information in the data lineage. Sarcasm detection in natural human communication is a challenging process. The Linguistic features of natural language processing (NLP) methods help identify sentiment as negative and positive sentences based on polarity using the pre-labelled samples. The multiclass neural network model is used as a soft cognition method for the detection of sarcasm under cloud resources. Identified cognitive features have information like voice cues and eye movements, they tend to influence the decision of detecting sarcasm. The visual data are found to be quite interesting and can establish a strong platform in the area of NLP for further research work.

Development of a psychosocial perception scale and comparison of psychosocial perception of patients with extra oral defects before and after facial prosthesis

Statement of problemLoss of facial organs and subsequent rehabilitation affects a patient’s psychological status. Understanding the perceived psychosocial aspects of quality of life among patients with missing organs and after prosthetic rehabilitation is essential, but studies that quantify this aspect are lacking. PurposeThe purpose of this clinical study was to develop and validate a psychosocial perception scale and compare psychosocial perception before and after the prosthetic rehabilitation of a missing facial part. Material and methodsA psychosocial perception scale was developed to quantitatively measure the perceived psychosocial aspects of quality of life among patients with extraoral defects. The instrument was translated in the Hindi and Marathi Indian languages by using a forward and backward translation method. Depending on the responses obtained from the patients in the interview about the interpretation and ease of understanding, the questionnaire was modified and further pilot testing conducted. In the first phase, validation of the questionnaire was carried out with internal consistency, interdomain correlation, and intraclass correlation assessed by using the Cronbach α, Pearson correlation, and test retest reliability. Construct validity was established by the exploratory factor analysis. In the second phase, 32 participants were evaluated for their psychosocial response before and 3 months after prosthetic rehabilitation. Responsiveness and change in the domains scores of the psychosocial perception scale were studied by using the Wilcoxon signed-rank sum test (α=.05). ResultsThe Cronbach α for internal consistency of overall psychosocial perception was .855 and .809 in the pretreatment and post-treatment visits consecutively. Most of the domains in the psychosocial perception scale had a Pearson correlation (r)>0.40. The domain of esthetics had r=0.84(confidence interval: .43-0.95), indicating good intraclass correlation. The domains of esthetics (P<.005), function (P<.005), positive emotions (P<.005), negative emotions (P=.011), and social and personal relationship P=.003) of the psychosocial perception scale showed statistically significant improvement in the scores after prosthetic intervention and had excellent (r>0.90) intraclass correlation. ConclusionsThe psychosocial perception scale was a reliable tool to assess the patient response toward the prosthetic rehabilitation of extraoral defects. Positive improvements in the domains score (esthetics, function, positive emotions, and social and personal relationship) contributed to better perception after prosthetic rehabilitation.

Nasal compartmentalization in Kogiidae (Cetacea, Physeteroidea): insights from a new late Miocene dwarf sperm whale from the Pisco Formation

AbstractFacial compartmentalization in the skull of extant pygmy whales (Kogiidae) is a unique feature among cetaceans that allows for the housing of a wide array of organs responsible for echolocation. Recent fossil findings indicate a remarkable disparity of the facial bone organization in Miocene kogiids, but the significance of such a rearrangement for the evolution of the clade has been barely explored. Here we describe Kogia danomurai sp. nov., a late Miocene (c. 5.8 Ma) taxon from the Pisco Formation (Peru), based on a partially preserved skull with a new facial bone pattern. Phylogenetic analysis recovers K. danomurai as the most basal representative of the extant genus Kogia, displaying a combination of derived (incipiently developed and excavated sagittal facial crest) and plesiomorphic features (high position of the temporal fossa, and antorbital notch not transformed into a narrow slit). Furthermore, when compared with the extant Kogia, the facial patterning found in K. danomurai indicates differential development among the facial organs, implying different capabilities of sound production relative to extant Kogia spp. Different facial bone patterns are particularly notable within the multi‐species kogiid assemblage of the Pisco Formation, which suggests causal connections between different patterns and feeding ecologies (e.g. nekton piscivory and benthic foraging). At c. 5.8 Ma, K. danomurai was part of a cetacean community composed of clades typical of the late Miocene, and of other early representatives of extant taxa, a mixture probably representing an initial shift of the coastal faunas toward the ecosystem dynamics of the present‐day south‐eastern Pacific.

Facial Expression Recognition Method Based on Shallow Small Convolution Kernel Capsule Network

Aiming at the problem of CNNs recognition and classification ability for the facial expression cannot accurately express the relative position relationship of facial organs and the problem of network training parameters, so a shallow and small convolution kernel capsule network structure optimization is designed for facial expression recognition. In this method, the capsule network is used to establish the spatial relationship of facial expression features. On the premise of ensuring the accuracy of the network, a shallow small convolution kernel is used to reduce the network parameters of the capsule network, which optimizes the quantity and quality of capsule of the capsule network to improve the calculation efficiency. The SCapsNet proposed in this paper is compared and verified with multiple benchmark models. The research results show that the SCapsNet has a higher accuracy rate in processing facial expression classification problems on the facial expression data sets CK+ and JAFFE.