Flexible Face Research Articles

Secondary reinforcement effect on the value and location of maximum reinforcement load

This paper numerically evaluates the effect of secondary reinforcement on the value and location of the maximum reinforcement load along the primary reinforcement layers (Tmax) in geosynthetic-reinforced soil (GRS) walls under working stress conditions. Data from three instrumented sections of a well-instrumented GRS wall were used for model validation. A parametric study was carried out considering different controlling factors (i.e. the vertical reinforcement spacing, facing type and secondary reinforcement stiffness and length). The results show that for a constant relative soil-reinforcement stiffness index, the variation of the vertical reinforcement spacing and stiffness may not affect the location and normalised value of Tmax. In general, for the conventionally used type of reinforcement, the secondary reinforcement inclusion reduces Tmax to values lower than those corresponding to the active condition (Ka). For a given facing type, the combined effect of the secondary reinforcement length and stiffness is the main factor that controls the Tmax location. In general, increasing the secondary reinforcement stiffness and length moves the location of Tmax from the back of the facing to a distance corresponding to the length of the secondary reinforcement layers. In addition, for this condition, a flexible face model performs similarly to a block face model.

IA-FaceS: A bidirectional method for semantic face editing

Semantic face editing has achieved substantial progress in recent years. However, existing face editing methods, which often encode the entire image into a single code, still have difficulty in enabling flexible editing while keeping high-fidelity reconstruction. The one-code scheme also brings entangled face manipulations and limited flexibility in editing face components. In this paper, we present IA-FaceS, a bidirectional method for disentangled face attribute manipulation as well as flexible, controllable component editing. We propose to embed images onto two branches: one branch computes high-dimensional component-invariant content embedding for capturing face details, and the other provides low-dimensional component-specific embeddings for component manipulations. The two-branch scheme naturally enables high-quality facial component-level editing while keeping faithful reconstruction with details. Moreover, we devise a component adaptive modulation (CAM) module, which integrates component-specific guidance into the decoder and successfully disentangles highly-correlated face components. The single-eye editing is developed for the first time without editing face masks or sketches. According to the experimental results, IA-FaceS establishes a good balance between maintaining image details and performing flexible face manipulation. Both quantitative and qualitative results indicate that the proposed method outperforms the existing methods in reconstruction, face attribute manipulation, and component transfer. We release the code and weights at: https://github.com/CMACH508/IA-FaceS.

Manufacturing and characterisation of 3D printed thermoplastic morphing skins

Morphing aircraft are one promising solution to reducing the aviation industry’s environmental impact because they can make aircraft more aerodynamically efficient, thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The design of morphing skins is inherently challenging due to the competing design constraints of needing to be stiff out-of-plane to resist pressure loads while being compliant in-plane to minimise actuation energy. Previous work by these authors introduced the novel concept of Geometrically Anisotropic Thermoplastic Rubber (GATOR) morphing skins that take advantage of multi-material 3D printing and structural scaling laws to allow for better compromises between these competing design constraints. In this work, multi material Fused Filament Fabrication methods were used to 3D print the proposed GATOR sandwich panels from two different stiffnesses of thermoplastic polyurethane to demonstrate the manufacturing process and experimentally quantify the performance of some simple embodiments of the GATOR concept. The panels were mechanically tested to determine their flexural and extensional stiffnesses. Results show that the panels can be extended to a stretch ratio of λ = 1.6 with a linear response at low stretch ratios. The results from the flexural experiments show that the flexible face sheets are capable of withstanding some compression before buckling, which results in a linear behaviour at small forces. These results show the promise of the GATOR skin concept and motivate future development of designs that further exploit the underlying principles of the concept.

FaceShapeGene: A disentangled shape representation for flexible face image editing

How do I look if I have the same nose shape as my favorite star? Existing methods for face image manipulation generally focus on modifying predefined facial attributes, editing expressions and changing image styles, where users cannot control the shapes of specific semantic facial parts freely in the generated face image. The facial part shapes are described by their geometries and need to be controlled by continuously generating geometric parameters. Therefore, the existing methods that work with discretely labelled attributes are not applicable on this task. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to learn the disentangled shape representation for a face image, namely the FaceShapeGene, which encodes the shape information of the semantic facial parts into separate chunks in the latent space. It allows users to freely recombine the part-wise latent chunks of a face image from other individuals to transfer a specified facial part shape, just like gene editing. Experimental results on several tasks demonstrate that the proposed FaceShapeGene representation correctly disentangles the shape features of different semantic parts. Comparisons to existing methods show the superiority of the proposed method on facial parts editing tasks.

Flexible face processing: Holistic processing of facial identity is modulated by task-irrelevant facial expression

Holistic processing is a hallmark of face perception and has been observed separately for facial identity and expression. While the identity of a face remains constant regardless of any changes in facial expressions, to what extent is holistic processing of facial identity affected by task-irrelevant facial expressions? If holistic processing is flexible and integrates both identity and expression information, the magnitude of holistic processing of facial identity may be systematically modulated by different facial expressions, due to either visual or emotional differences among the expressions. In Experiment 1, participants matched the identities of target halves of two sequentially presented face composites, with both composites showing either positive (happy) or negative (angry) expressions. The presentation duration for the test composite was either short (200 ms) or long (until a response). With a short presentation duration, the magnitude of holistic processing of identity for happy and angry composites was comparable. In contrast, with a long presentation duration, holistic processing of identity was reduced for angry compared with happy face composites. Experiment 2 replicated the results and showed reduced holistic processing of identity for face composites with either angry or neutral expressions, compared with happy expressions, given a long presentation duration. Because the modulation of facial expressions on holistic processing of facial identity was observed with long, but not short, presentation durations, these results suggest that such influence is unlikely solely due to visual differences, but may instead arise from cognitive evaluation of the emotions conveyed by facial expressions.

Bearing capacity of a flexible plastic plate for soil nailing

A large flexible bearing face plate for soil nailing made from reclaimed plastics has recently been developed to improve the construction performance and reduce the impact on the natural environment. This study aims to clarify the influence of bending stiffness and dimensions of the bearing plate on its deformation and bearing capacity characteristics. The authors conducted a series of fundamental laboratory bearing capacity tests on rigid and flexible model footings placed on dense sand to simulate and compare the mechanical behaviour of bearing plates installed on a slope surface. The reduction in the ultimate bearing capacity caused by footing flexibility was 10–20% under experimental conditions, which is small considering the extremely large difference (i.e. three to four orders of magnitude) in rigidity between the rigid and flexible footings. For practical application, the plastic bearing plate may not mobilise the required bearing pressure due to the reduction in subgrade reaction when an extremely large or thin bearing plate is used.

A bio-OCLC structure equating to a movable unit of a lattice cellular core for hybrid in-plane morphing applications

Leaf epidermis cell clusters are similar to a lattice cellular core comprising movable units. Inspired by movability and hardness characteristics of leaf epidermis cell walls, a biomimetic Orthogonal Corrugated Lattice Cellular (bio-OCLC) structure is designed and fabricated to be equivalent to a movable unit of the lattice cellular core. When the in-plane stiffness of a flexible face sheet is decreased to increase its in-plane deformations and lower its in-plane actuation forces, its out-of-plane stiffness is also significantly weakened. However, the loss of the out-of-plane stiffness can be offset by increment in the change of support areas of the bio-OCLC structure for the flexible face sheet. Thus, under the condition that the sum of the decrement and increment of the out-of-plane stiffness is zero, the in-plane deformation of the flexible face sheet increases by 56.52%, and the increase of weight of the composite skin is nearly zero. If the movable units in a lattice cellular core possess the ability of formation changes, the support areas of the core for the flexible face sheet can also be modified by the change of the unit formations. Thus, the lattice cellular core comprising movable units is a promising support structure for a flexible face sheet with hybrid in-plane morphing applications.

Acoustic energy harvesting via magnetic shape memory alloys

This study investigates acoustic energy harvesting via magnetic shape memory alloys (MSMA). The acoustic pressure impacts the neck of a Helmholtz resonator (HR) with a flexible face made of an elastic membrane. The design of the proposed energy harvester let radial force in the membrane be tunable. An MSMA is clamped to the membrane, and a proof mass is attached to the other end. The enhanced sound pressure vibrates the membrane and, therefore, excites the base of the MSMA specimen made of Ni–Mn–Ga to apply strain to it. Inserting strain onto the MSMA leads to variant reorientation and change of magnetization vectors, resulting in a change in flux passing through the pick-up coil. Therefore, based on Faraday’s law of induction, the voltage will be generated in the coil surrounding the MSMA element. On the other hand, an electrical circuit with a resistor and a capacitor is added to the energy harvester to obtain electrical resonance. After obtaining the governing equations of motion, the modeling approach is verified based on the experimental results reported in the literature. The equations are solved numerically to study the effect of different factors on the power generated by the proposed energy harvester. According to the obtained numerical results, changing the geometric parameters and the proof mass, one can obtain power from the MSMA-based acoustic energy harvester as comparable as that from the piezoelectric one.

When flexible staff face inflexibility

When flexible staff face inflexibility

A Novel, Handheld, Positive Airway Pressure Device for Coughing in Severe Acquired Tracheobronchomalacia

SESSION TITLE: Lung Pathology 1 SESSION TYPE: Affiliate Case Report Poster PRESENTED ON: Tuesday, October 31, 2017 at 01:30 PM - 02:30 PM INTRODUCTION: Tracheobronchomalacia (TBM) can cause debilitating paroxysms of cough, wheezing, dyspnea, and recurrent respiratory infections. In severe cases, patients experience morbidity including limitations on public excursions, loss of ability to work, recurrent hospital and even intensive care unit admissions. We present a novel, low-cost, handheld device used to abort coughing paroxysms in a patient with severe TBM. CASE PRESENTATION: A 70-year-old man with COPD presented with chronic cough. He had been recurrently hospitalized at another institution, including an intubation for respiratory distress associated with his coughing. On exam, he had episodes of profound coughing paroxysms accompanied by respiratory distress with transient desaturation. The cough had a distinct vibratory quality. Bronchoscopy revealed 100% expiratory collapse of his trachea and mainstem bronchi. Airway diameter was too large for stent placement. Tracheobronchoplasty was discussed, but the patient wished for a trial of conservative management. His coughing paroxysms did not improve with steroids, bronchodilators, nor antitussives, including narcotics. CPAP helped but the time and coordination required to don the equipment limited its utility, given his acute distress with episodes. Furthermore, his insurance did not approve a CPAP device for this off-label indication. We fashioned a novel, low-cost, handheld device that the patient could self-apply to abort coughing paroxysms: A positive expiratory pressure (PEP) device typically for airway clearance, with mouthpiece removed, was attached to a flexible face mask (Fig. 1,2). PEP was titrated to effect; 15cm H2O aborted coughing. He improved with this device and was discharged. DISCUSSION: Conventional management of TBM includes airway stenting and tracheobronchoplasty in patients whose symptoms improve with stenting. For patients who are not candidates or fail those therapies, treatment options are limited. Use of CPAP has been reported,1 but impact on dyspnea and cough is variable and for some patients (like ours) the logistics of obtaining and donning the equipment is problematic. A handheld mask device to provide PEP with a tight facial seal can provide as-needed positive pressure. CONCLUSIONS: A novel, low-cost, handheld device to provide intermittent positive airway pressure may treat debilitating coughing paroxysms in TBM. Reference #1: Ferguson GT, Benoist J. Nasal continuous positive airway pressure in the treatment of tracheobronchomalacia. Am Rev Respir Dis. 1993;147(2)457. DISCLOSURE: The following authors have nothing to disclose: Lindsay Boole, Talal Dahhan, Edward Kessler, Kamran Mahmood, Scott Shofer, Momen Wahidi, George Cheng We are presenting an off-label use of a positive expiratory pressure device and a flexible face mask.

Plasmonic-heating-induced nanofabrication on glass substrates.

Fabricating nano-sized through-holes on a coverslip approximately 100 μm thick is challenging but rewarding when applied to ultrafine filters that separate proteins and DNA of various sizes and isolate viruses from cells. Toward this end, we developed an in situ etching-assisted laser processing technique exploiting gold nanoparticles. Plasmonic heating of a single gold nanoparticle through focused illumination of a continuous-wave laser beam enables structural modifications to be localized to the contact area on the glass surface. This results in the embedding of the particle forming nanocavities caused by chemical etching with aqueous tetrabutylammonium hydroxide. Depending on the shape of the nanoparticle, a highly flexible face geometry design such as a disk and triangle was achieved. The etching was monitored in situ through measurements of spectral red shifts in single-particle scattering, indicating an increasing medium refractive index consistent with embedding. The embedding process is unexpectedly fast, at 0.8 μm with 5 minutes of illumination. Besides nanoholes, we fabricated nanodomes around a single gold nanoparticle supported on a glass substrate through laser-heating-induced encapsulation. Overall, we were able to demonstrate true nano-laser processing free from diffraction-limited optics, with potential benefits of simple low-cost fabrication.

Zero Poisson's ratio flexible skin for potential two-dimensional wing morphing

This study presents and examines the concept of flexible skins for two-dimensional morphing applications composed of a zero-Poisson cellular core and a hyperelastic face sheet. The overall properties of the flexible skins are mainly determined by the cell structure types and parameters. The in-plane mechanical properties of three different zero-Poisson cell structures were investigated with analytical, numerical and experimental methods to determine the most suitable cell structure for two-dimensional morphing. The geometric and material nonlinearity effects on the in-plane mechanical properties of the cell structures were also discussed. The material constants of a silicone rubber as flexible face sheet were then experimentally determined and its hyperelastic behaviors were simulated to find a better boundary condition in which uniform strain and larger global strain could be obtained. 98.6% global strain for span morphing and 9.2° angle change for sweep morphing were achieved in the simulation tests of integrated skin, which validates the two-dimensional morphing capacity of the passive sandwiched skin proposed in this article. For the actuation requirement of the passive skin, a shape memory alloy (SMA) based antagonistic actuator for span morphing was developed and tested. With 11.5% global strain finally achieved, the results, to certain extent, validates the feasibility of SMA actuator application to wing span morphing.

Automatic flexible face replacement with no auxiliary data

In this paper, we propose a system for flexible face replacement in photos that does not require human intervention. The proposed replacement algorithm is able to efficiently paste one person׳s face into another׳s with different head poses and/or hairstyles. This work can enhance the quality of group photos that contain human faces, as they are seldom flawless. Previous methods require complex user interaction or auxiliary data such as a 3D head model library or a photo library, while our system does not. Given a photo, the faces are automatically detected and transformed into similar poses by fitting corresponding facial features. We then construct an energy function and optimize it for a better face contour between the transformed source face and the target one, followed by applying seamless cloning. Our system removes hair before face transfer and adds it back afterwards, maintaining the same hairstyles. We demonstrate that our system produces high-quality results without manual tuning of parameters.

The neural correlates of processing newborn and adult faces in 3‐year‐old children

The current study examines the processing of upright and inverted faces in 3-year-old children (n = 35). Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during a passive looking paradigm including adult and newborn face stimuli. We observed three face-sensitive components, the P1, the N170 and the P400. Inverted faces elicited shorter P1 latency and larger P400 amplitude. P1 and N170 amplitudes were larger for adult faces. To examine the role of experience in the development of face processing, the processing of adult and newborn faces was compared for children with a younger sibling (n = 23) and children without a younger sibling (n = 12). Age of sibling at test correlated negatively with P1 amplitude for adult and newborn faces. This may indicate more efficient processing of different face ages in children with a younger sibling and potentially reflects a more flexible face representation.

Settlement Behavior of New Reinforced Earth Retaining Walls under Loading-Unloading Cycles

Three new types of reinforced earth structures were introduced including reinforced gabion retaining wall, green reinforced gabion retaining wall and flexible wall face geogrid reinforced earth retaining wall. In order to study settlement behavior of these three retaining walls, lab tests were carried out. Cyclic loading-unloading of different levels (0~50kPa, 0~100kPa, 0~150kPa, 0~200kPa, 0~250kPa, 0~300kPa, 0~350kPa) were imposed. The settlement behaviors of retaining walls were analyzed, and secant modulus when loading and unloading was obtained. Results show that retaining walls present great elastic and plastic deformation, and plastic deformation is greater than elastic deformation. Secant modulus decreases with the increase of loading-unloading cycles under the same loading level. Unloading secant modulus is bigger than loading secant modulus in the same cycle. With the increase of loading level, both elastic and plastic deformation increase, and plastic deformation increases more quickly than elastic deformation.

Measuring Internal Representations from Behavioral and Brain Data

The study of internal knowledge representations is a cornerstone of the research agenda in the interdisciplinary study of cognition. An influential proposal assumes that the brain uses its internal knowledge of the external world to constrain, in a top-down manner, high-dimensional sensory data into a lower-dimensional representation that enables perceptual decisions and other higher-level cognitive functions [1-9]. This proposal relies on a precise formulation of the observer-specific internal knowledge (i.e., the internal representations, or models) that guides reduction of the high-dimensional retinal input onto a low-dimensional code. Here, we directly revealed the content of subjective internal representations by instructing five observers to detect a face in the presence of only white noise, to force a pure top-down, knowledge-based task. We used reverse correlation methods to visualize each observer's internal representation that supports detection of an illusory face. Using reverse correlation again, this time applied to observers' electroencephalogram activity, we established where and when in the brain specific internal knowledge conceptually interprets the input white noise as a face. We show that internal representations can be reconstructed experimentally from behavioral and brain data, and that their content drives neural activity first over frontal and then over occipitotemporal cortex.

Greedy face routing with face identification support in wireless networks

Geographic face routing protocols planarize the connectivity graph of a wireless network in a distributed manner and forward packets on the resulted planar topology with high reliability and low overhead. A preferable face routing protocol should provide both guaranteed packet delivery and efficient routing paths, which requires a flexible face switch algorithm adaptive to the network complexity. In this paper, we present a new face routing algorithm named GFRIS that offers both features by performing active probe to measure the face size and generate a unique face identification sequence – face ID. In GFRIS, face switch occurs only if the outgoing edge intersects the local minimum-destination line at a progressive location and the crossing edge is shared between two different faces. To avoid the severe performance penalty when an inefficient face traversal direction is selected on large faces, GFRIS uses the face size to trigger the bounded face traversal procedure as proposed earlier in GOAFR+. As multiple local minimum locations on a face will trigger bounded search repetitively, GFRIS employs a fast forward mode to bypass bidirectional search on the face, which leads to significantly improved path stretch performance. This paper provides a detailed performance comparison between GFRIS and the existing face routing algorithms including GFG, GPSR, GOAFR+ and GFG2. Simulation results show that, by using face ID to assist face switch and adaptively applying the normal and bounded face traversal rules according to the face size, GFRIS can achieve better routing efficiency with low control overhead compared to other protocols evaluated across a wide node density range.

Centrifuge modelling of tunnel face reinforcement using forepoling

This paper investigates the effect of forepoles on stability of tunnel face and unsupported length during tunnel excavation in clay beds. Forepoles were modelled using 1 mm diameter brass rods. The tests were conducted using 65 mm diameter model tunnels with a flexible face at 100 g centrifuge environment. The unsupported length of the tunnel varied between 1 and 1.5 times the tunnel diameter in different tests. The results seem to suggest that forepoles influence to reduce the length of settlement trough ahead of the tunnel face. However, width of the settlement trough remained unaffected. Excess negative pore pressures after collapse were noted to decrease with distance ahead of the tunnel face and increase with depth from the surface up to the tunnel axis. However, scatter in the measured data points suggest that the tunnel stability depends not only on the unsupported length of the tunnel but also on the length of forepoles. It is difficult to include these effects in the simple plasticity solution framework wherein the soil structure interaction is ignored.

Aftereffects for face attributes with different natural variability: Children are more adaptable than adolescents

Adults can be adapted to a particular facial distortion in which both eyes are shifted symmetrically (Robbins, R., McKone, E., & Edwards, M. (2007). Aftereffects for face attributes with different natural variability: Adapter position effects and neural models. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 33, 570–592), but they do not show as great adaptation to an asymmetrical eye distortion. We adapted children and adolescents to symmetrical and asymmetrical eye distortions and measured the aftereffects. Children (aged 6–12, mean age 9 years) showed larger aftereffects than adolescents (aged 13–18, mean age 15 years) and demonstrated aftereffects of a similar magnitude for both asymmetrical and symmetrical distortions. Adolescents only showed aftereffects for symmetrical distortions. We propose that children may have a more flexible face norm and neural responses that allow a broader range of adapted states compared to adolescents.

Zero Poisson’s Ratio Cellular Honeycombs for Flex Skins Undergoing One-Dimensional Morphing

Cellular honeycomb cores with overlying flexible face sheets have been proposed for use as flex skins for morphing aircraft. The cellular cores, which provide underlying support to the face sheets for carrying aerodynamic loads, must have low in-plane stiffness and high in-plane strain capability. For one-dimensional morphing applications such as span-, chord-, or camber-change, restraining the Poisson’s contraction (or bulging) that a conventional cellular honeycomb core would otherwise experience in the non-morphing direction results in a substantial increase in the effective modulus in the morphing direction. To overcome this problem, this article develops zero Poisson’s ratio hybrid and accordion cellular honeycombs. Cellular Material Theory is extended, and analytical solutions for the mechanical properties and global strains of the hybrid and accordion cellular honeycombs are developed. The analytical results show excellent agreement with ANSYS finite element results. Comparing the properties shows that the hybrid and accordion honeycombs proposed have generally similar in-plane axial stiffness and strain capabilities to conventional honeycombs when the latter are unrestrained in the non-morphing direction. However, with the zero Poisson’s ratio of the hybrid and accordion honeycombs, it is observed that the axial stiffness in the morphing direction will not increase when the skins are restrained in the non-morphing direction. The zero Poisson’s ratio of the accordion and hybrid cellular honeycombs is not helpful from an out-of-plane load carrying ability standpoint. However, the out-of-plane load carrying ability of the accordion honeycombs can be superior to those of conventional honeycombs if the ‘continuous fibers’ are sufficiently thick, leading to a very large modulus in the non-morphing direction. The effective out-of-plane stiffness of hybrid cellular honeycombs, on the other hand, is poorer than conventional cellular honeycombs.