Geometric Shapes (geometric + shape)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Obtaining smooth mesh transitions using vertex optimization,

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR NUMERICAL METHODS IN ENGINEERING, Issue 5 2008
M. Brewer
Abstract Mesh optimization has proven to be an effective way to improve mesh quality for arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) simulations. To date, however, most of the focus has been on improving the geometric shape of individual elements, and these methods often do not result in smooth transitions in element size or aspect ratio across groups of elements. We present an extension to the mean ratio optimization that addresses this problem and yields smooth transitions within regions and across regions in the ALE simulation. While this method is presented in the context of ALE simulations, it is applicable to a wider set of applications that require mesh improvement, including the mesh generation process. Published in 2007 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Comparative theoretical study of small Rhn nanoparticles (2 , n , 8) using DFT methods

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF QUANTUM CHEMISTRY, Issue 6 2010
V. Bertin
Abstract This work is aimed at identifying some key characteristics (energy, geometry, and spin) concerning Rhn particles (2 = n , 8) to perform further studies on adsorption and coadsorption sites of pollutants (CO and NO). The DFT methods of the Gaussian 03 program with the LANL2DZ basis set and the LANL2 potential are used. With the purpose to obtain a better nanoparticles definition, five different functionals were tested: B3LYP, O3LYP, BPW91, BP86, and HCTH; and the corresponding results are used to determine which of them best describes distances, spin, and gives acceptable highest vibration frequency and binding energy values, by comparing these results with values measured or calculated by many other authors. For the structure optimization process of the particles, the initial geometric shape was taken mainly from the literature, using the Rh,Rh distance: 2.67 Å, known for the bulk; and doing a complete optimization. We also considered flat nanoparticles structures, which most of them display three-dimensional structures after the optimization process. The few flat shapes are mainly higher in energy than those of three-dimensional structure. For some Rhn particles for different n values, the spin of the ground state present degeneration. In some cases, the optimization process changes the initial geometry, but in most cases, there are only minor changes in bonds and geometry. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2010 [source]


Towards automation of palynology 3: pollen pattern recognition using Gabor transforms and digital moments

JOURNAL OF QUATERNARY SCIENCE, Issue 8 2004
Y. Zhang
Abstract The classification of pollen grains using texture information in combination with shape features is presented in this paper. The surface texture of pollen is characterised by using Gabor transforms, the geometric shape is described by using moment invariants, and the pollen grains are classified by an artificial neural network. In an experiment with five types of pollen grains, more than 97% of samples are correctly classified. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


A new method for estimating age-at-death from the first rib,

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 2 2009
Elizabeth A. DiGangi
Abstract A new method for estimating adult age-at-death from the first rib was developed as a modification of the Kunos et al. (Am J Phys Anthropol 110 (1999) 303,323) method. Data were collected on three aspects of the first rib (costal face, rib head, and tubercle facet) for 470 known-age males of Balkan ancestry collected as evidence during investigations conducted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Ages-at-death range from 12 to 90 years (mean of 47.7 years). Several variables were extracted from the original study utilizing all three skeletal aspects of the first rib. This list was modified to 11 variables as preliminary tests on seriations of the samples were undertaken. A cumulative probit model with age measured on a log scale was used to calculate the mean and standard deviation of the ages-of-transition for each component. Multivariate analysis of the three components was also performed. The lowest correlation (r = 0.079, controlling for age) was between the geometric shape of the costal face and the surface texture of the tubercle facet. Assuming a correlation of zero, these two traits were used to calculate the highest posterior density regions for estimating individual ages-at-death. Age-at-death estimates generated from 50 and 95% posterior density regions indicate that this method captures age-related change reaching the ninth decade. The Bayesian statistical approach used here produced a valuable and promising new method for estimating age-at-death. Additional research is necessary to determine if these highest posterior density regions produce results highly correlated with age in other samples and its applicability to females. Am J Phys Anthropol 2009. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]


Controlled Synthesis of Water-Dispersible Faceted Crystalline Copper Nanoparticles and Their Catalytic Properties

CHEMISTRY - A EUROPEAN JOURNAL, Issue 35 2010
Dr. Yanfei Wang
Abstract We report a solution-phase synthetic route to copper nanoparticles with controllable size and shape. The synthesis of the nanoparticles is achieved by the reduction of copper(II) salt in aqueous solution with hydrazine under air atmosphere in the presence of poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) as capping agent. The results suggest that the pH plays a key role for the formation of pure copper nanoparticles, whereas the concentration of PAA is important for controlling the size and geometric shape of the nanoparticles. The average size of the copper nanoparticles can be varied from 30 to 80,nm, depending on the concentration of PAA. With a moderate amount of PAA, faceted crystalline copper nanoparticles are obtained. The as-synthesized copper nanoparticles appear red in color and are stable for weeks, as confirmed by UV/Vis and X-ray photoemission (XPS) spectroscopy. The faceted crystalline copper nanoparticles serve as an effective catalyst for N-arylation of heterocycles, such as the CN coupling reaction between p -nitrobenzyl chloride and morpholine producing 4-(4-nitrophenyl)morpholine in an excellent yield under mild reaction conditions. Furthermore, the nanoparticles are proven to be versatile as they also effectively catalyze the three-component, one-pot Mannich reaction between p -substituted benzaldehyde, aniline, and acetophenone affording a 100,% conversion of the limiting reactant (aniline). [source]


Provably Good 2D Shape Reconstruction from Unorganized Cross-Sections

COMPUTER GRAPHICS FORUM, Issue 5 2008
Pooran Memari
Abstract This paper deals with the reconstruction of 2-dimensional geometric shapes from unorganized 1-dimensional cross-sections. We study the problem in its full generality following the approach of Boissonnat and Memari [BM07] for the analogous 3D problem. We propose a new variant of this method and provide sampling conditions to guarantee that the output of the algorithm has the same topology as the original object and is close to it (for the Hausdorff distance). [source]


Progressive Simplification of Tetrahedral Meshes Preserving All Isosurface Topologies

COMPUTER GRAPHICS FORUM, Issue 3 2003
Yi-Jen Chiang
In this paper, we propose a novel technique for constructing multiple levels of a tetrahedral volume dataset whilepreserving the topologies of all isosurfaces embedded in the data. Our simplification technique has two majorphases. In the segmentation phase, we segment the volume data into topological-equivalence regions, that is, thesub-volumes within each of which all isosurfaces have the same topology. In the simplification phase, we simplifyeach topological-equivalence region independently, one by one, by collapsing edges from the smallest to the largesterrors (within the user-specified error tolerance, for a given error metrics), and ensure that we do not collapseedges that may cause an isosurface-topology change. We also avoid creating a tetrahedral cell of negative volume(i.e., avoid the fold-over problem). In this way, we guarantee to preserve all isosurface topologies in the entiresimplification process, with a controlled geometric error bound. Our method also involves several additionalnovel ideas, including using the Morse theory and the implicit fully augmented contour tree, identifying typesof edges that are not allowed to be collapsed, and developing efficient techniques to avoid many unnecessary orexpensive checkings, all in an integrated manner. The experiments show that all the resulting isosurfaces preservethe topologies, and have good accuracies in their geometric shapes. Moreover, we obtain nice data-reductionrates, with competitively fast running times. [source]


Matched interface and boundary (MIB) method for the vibration analysis of plates

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR NUMERICAL METHODS IN BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING, Issue 9 2009
S. N. Yu
Abstract This paper proposes a novel approach, the matched interface and boundary (MIB) method, for the vibration analysis of rectangular plates with simply supported, clamped and free edges, and their arbitrary combinations. In previous work, the MIB method was developed for three-dimensional elliptic equations with arbitrarily complex material interfaces and geometric shapes. The present work generalizes the MIB method for eigenvalue problems in structural analysis with complex boundary conditions. The MIB method utilizes both uniform and non-uniform Cartesian grids. Fictitious values are utilized to facilitate the central finite difference schemes throughout the entire computational domain. Boundary conditions are enforced with fictitious values,a common practice used in the previous discrete singular convolution algorithm. An essential idea of the MIB method is to repeatedly use the boundary conditions to achieve arbitrarily high-order accuracy. A new feature in the proposed approach is the implementation of the cross derivatives in the free boundary conditions. The proposed method has a banded matrix. Nine different plates, particularly those with free edges and free corners, are employed to validate the proposed method. The performance of the proposed method is compared with that of other established methods. Convergence and comparison studies indicate that the proposed MIB method works very well for the vibration analysis of plates. In particular, modal bending moments and shear forces predicted by the proposed method vanish at boundaries for free edges. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Information processing bias against emotional facial expressions in social anxiety

JAPANESE PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH, Issue 1 2010
SO-YEON KIM
Abstract The present study examined whether information processing bias against emotional facial expressions is present among individuals with social anxiety. College students with high (high social anxiety group; n = 26) and low social anxiety (low social anxiety group; n = 26) performed three different types of working memory tasks: (a) ordering positive and negative facial expressions according to the intensity of emotion; (b) ordering pictures of faces according to age; and (c) ordering geometric shapes according to size. The high social anxiety group performed significantly more poorly than the low social anxiety group on the facial expression task, but not on the other two tasks with the nonemotional stimuli. These results suggest that high social anxiety interferes with processing of emotionally charged facial expressions. [source]


Measuring egg size using digital photography: testing Hoyt's method using Florida Scrub-Jay eggs

JOURNAL OF FIELD ORNITHOLOGY, Issue 1 2007
Eli S. Bridge
ABSTRACT Egg volumes are most often estimated using a mathematical model that incorporates length and width measurements and a species-specific shape variable. Although adequate in many respects, this technique does not account for intraspecific variation in egg shape. We developed a computer-automated technique that uses calibrated digital photographs to render precise measurements of several egg-size parameters including length, width, volume, and surface area. The system extracts egg outlines from photographs, and divides each egg into latitudinal slices that are subsequently regarded as simple geometric shapes (cylinders or cone frustra) with volumes and surface areas that can be summed to generate size parameters for the entire egg. We tested this technique using 491 eggs from Florida Scrub-Jay (Aphelocoma coerulescens) nests and compared the resulting egg volumes with volumes calculated using the preeminent method of estimating volume from linear measurements. Our method was highly accurate, and differences between the volumes from our method and the alternative method were strongly associated with variation in egg shape. Advantages of our technique include decreased handling of eggs and increased accuracy. Software resources and additional information regarding the technique are available at http://www.archbold-station.org/abs/data/birddata/Bridge-JFO-eggsize.htm. SINOPSIS El volumen de los huevos comunmente es estimado utilizando un modelo matemático en donde se incorpora el ancho y el largo del huevo y la variable de la forma de este. Aunque es un método adecuado en muchos aspectos, esta técnica no toma enconsideracion las variaciones intraespecificas de la forma de los huevos. Desarrollamos una técnica automática con computadora, que usa fotografia digital calibrada para ofrecer medidas de los huevos incluyendo largo, ancho, volumen y área superficial. El sistema extrae parámetros de los huevos de fotografías y divide cada huevo en rebanadas latitudinales, que subsecuentemente son tomadas como formas geométricas (e.g., cilindros o conos) con volumenes y áreas superficiales, que a su vez pueden ser utilizadas para obtener el largo y el ancho. Pusimos a prueba esta técnica con 491 huevos del Azulejón (Aphelocoma coerulescens) y comparamos el volumen de los huevos obtenidos con el computador con volumenes calculados con el método usual de medidas lineales. Nuestro método fue preciso y las diferencias en los volumenes usando nuestro método y las del método clásico estuvieron asociadas a la variación en la forma de los huevos. Entre las ventajas de nuestra técnica encontramos una disminución en la manipulación de los huevos y un aumento en la presición de los datos tomados. Los recursos computacionales que se necesitan e información adicional sobre esta técnica se encuentra disponible en: http://www.archbold-station.org/abs/data/birddata/Bridge-JFO-eggsize.htm. [source]


CURRENT VARIABILITY SHAPES MORPHOLOGICAL COMPLEXITY IN COLONIAL STREAM DIATOMS

JOURNAL OF PHYCOLOGY, Issue 2001
Article first published online: 24 SEP 200
Passy, S. I.1,2 & Freehafer, D.2 1Department of Biology, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12180; 2US Geological Survey, 425 Jordan Rd., Troy, NY 12180-8349 USA On August 27, 1999 diatoms were sampled, and current velocity was measured at 81 locations on a regular square sampling grid in an unshaded, cobble-bottom reach of White Creek, NY. The grid had an extent of 16 m2, interval, the distance between neighboring sampling points, of 0.5 m, and grain size, the size of the elementary sampling unit, of 0.01 m2. Six of the seven dominant benthic diatoms were colonial forms, including Diatoma vulgaris, Fragilaria capucina, F. crotonensis, Gomphoneis minuta, Melosira varians, and Synedra ulna. Their morphology and distribution were investigated from the perspective of fractal geometry and stream ecology, respectively. Fractal dimension of diatom colonies, indicative of their shape complexity, ranged from 1.06 to 1.54, demonstrating vast morphological variation from simple geometric shapes to complex outlines. The relative abundance of the six diatoms was regressed against current regime, which ranged from 0.03 to 0.66 m, s -1. All regression models were significant at P < 0.05 and explained between 55% and 94% of the variation in diatom distribution. The diatom niche breadth, i.e. the amount of environmental variability a species can tolerate, was defined from these models and showed substantial variation, from 5 to 14. The regression model of fractal dimension against niche breadth was significant and explained 76% of colonial shape variation, revealing a strong relationship between diatom colonial complexity and habitat variability. This finding suggests that environmental variability could create highly complex colonial morphologies in benthic diatoms as an evo-lutionary strategy for survival in unpredictable environments. [source]


Attributing Social Meaning to Ambiguous Visual Stimuli in Higher-functioning Autism and Asperger Syndrome: The Social Attribution Task

THE JOURNAL OF CHILD PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHIATRY AND ALLIED DISCIPLINES, Issue 7 2000
Ami Klin
More able individuals with autism and Asperger syndrome (AS) have been shown to pass relatively high level theory of mind (ToM) tasks without displaying commensurate levels of social adaptation in naturalistic settings. This paper presents a social cognitive procedure,the Social Attribution Task (SAT),that reduces factors thought to facilitate ToM task performance without facilitating real-life social functioning. Sixty participants with autism (N= 20), AS (N= 20), and normally developing adolescents and adults (N= 20) with normative IQs were asked to provide narratives describing Heider and Simmel's (1944) silent cartoon animation in which geometric shapes enact a social plot. These narratives were coded in terms of the participants' abilities to attribute social meaning to the geometric cartoon. The SAT provides reliable and quantified scores on seven indices of social cognition. Results revealed marked deficits in both clinical groups across all indices. These deficits were not related to verbal IQ or level of metalinguistic skills. Individuals with autism and AS identified about a quarter of the social elements in the story, a third of their attributions were irrelevant to the social plot, and they used pertinent ToM terms very infrequently. They were also unable to derive psychologically based personality features from the shapes' movements. When provided with more explicit verbal information on the nature of the cartoon, individuals with AS improved their performance slightly more than those with autism, but not significantly so. [source]