Instant Basketball Defensive Trajectory Generation

Tactic learning in virtual reality (VR) has been proven to be effective for basketball training. Endowed with the ability of generating virtual defenders in real time according to the movement of virtual offenders controlled by the user, a VR basketball training system can bring more immersive and realistic experiences for the trainee. In this article, an autoregressive generative model for instantly producing basketball defensive trajectory is introduced. We further focus on the issue of preserving the diversity of the generated trajectories. A differentiable sampling mechanism is adopted to learn the continuous Gaussian distribution of player position. Moreover, several heuristic loss functions based on the domain knowledge of basketball are designed to make the generated trajectories assemble real situations in basketball games. We compare the proposed method with the state-of-the-art works in terms of both objective and subjective manners. The objective manner compares the average position, velocity, and acceleration of the generated defensive trajectories with the real ones to evaluate the fidelity of the results. In addition, more high-level aspects such as the empty space for offender and the defensive pressure of the generated trajectory are also considered in the objective evaluation. As for the subjective manner, visual comparison questionnaires on the proposed and other methods are thoroughly conducted. The experimental results show that the proposed method can achieve better performance than previous basketball defensive trajectory generation works in terms of different evaluation metrics.

Recruitment of crustose coralline algae on tiles material for monitoring coral larvae settlement’s consolidators at Nature Reserve Pulau Sempu, East Java, Indonesia

Crustose coralline algae (Corallinophycideae) are red algae that produced calcium carbonate and are well recognized as foundation species in the epipelagic zone of the marine ecosystem. These algae induced settlement juvenile of coral by released chemical cues from bacterial communities on the surface of their colonies. Their extracellular calcium carbonate also can stabilize reef structure that influencing many invertebrate attaches and growth in the seabed. Crustose coralline algae (CCA) have obtained attention because of their distribution and health compromise to increasing seawater temperature, ocean acidification, and pollutant. As a cryptic species in the ecosystem, the presence of CCA recruit sometimes doesn’t have attention, especially on their capability to occupy the empty space. This study aimed to document coverage and number of CCA recruit in two different recruitment tile’s material. The highest CCA percentage of the cover was showed inside surface than others surface in all stations. Light intensity and low sedimentation were suggested as a key factor of success of high coverage. Overall, station higher CCA recruits have shown from Tiga Warna. Low sedimentation and protection from aerial exposure became the main reason for it. No significant difference number of CCA recruits between marble and sandstone in this study. Successful CCA recruitment in this study can give a wide picture that natural recruitment of coral and other reef biodiversity in Southern Malang might be will succeed because of the abundance of coralline algae that support their life history stage.

Bringing Life to Online Meetings

The future of work and learning will take place in two-dimensional, online settings, even if these virtual formats are used to augment in-person experiences. In this chapter, the author reflects on his improv theater and teaching experiences to offer practical advice on enhancing collaboration in small, synchronous online meetings, both in the classroom and workplace. Core principles include engaging selflessly, honoring the power of empty space, and bringing emotional and physical energy to each online session. The author shares lively examples from his own theatrical experience and supports the use of basic improv principles through social science, neuroscience, and workplace engagement research.

Optimization of Low Site Density Area for 4G Network in Urban City

The development of telecommunications is currently growing rapidly, especially in urban areas. To obtain optimal data services for users, the performances of 4G network services must continue to be optimized. It is known that many users are scattered in urban areas, but sometimes it is not balanced with an even distribution of the site in this area. This condition occurs because the distribution of the site is not evenly optimal distributed, either due to licensing constraints, limited land access for site development, or in terms of plans that have not been made. Balanced with the requirement of a 4G network, which is required, this "empty space" condition or low site density condition must find a solution or optimize it. Many optimization methods can optimize the area with low site density possibility. This study will optimize the area by adding a new site proposal based on coverage planning. We need to analyze Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP) coverage signal distribution using Atoll Planning Software. After optimization, the RSRP level below or equal -80 dBm increased from 75.195% to 94.08%. Furthermore, the percentage calculation for inadequate coverage (below -80 dBm) decreased from 24.816% to 5.931%. This RSRP signal level also shows that the condition after optimization with a new site can improve the signal level condition from areas with low site density possibility.

A New Relativistic Model for Polyatomic Gases Interacting with an Electromagnetic Field

Maxwell’s equations in materials are studied jointly with Euler equations using new knowledge recently appeared in the literature for polyatomic gases. For this purpose, a supplementary conservation law is imposed; one of the results is a restriction on the law linking the magnetic field in empty space and the electric field in materials to the densities of the 4-Lorentz force να and its dual μα: These are the derivatives of a scalar function with respect to να and μα, respectively. Obviously, two of Maxwell’s equations are not evolutive (Gauss’s magnetic and electric laws); to simplify this mathematical problem, a new symmetric hyperbolic set of equations is here presented which uses unconstrained variables and the solutions of the new set of equations, with initial conditions satisfying the constraints, restore the previous constrained set. This is also useful because it allows to maintain an overt covariance that would be lost if the constraints were considered from the beginning. This is also useful because in this way the whole set of equations becomes a symmetric hyperbolic system as usually in Extended Thermodynamics.

Menu Costs and the Bullwhip Effect: Supply Chain Implications of Dynamic Pricing

Suppose that technology reduces price-adjustment costs (e.g., the costs of printing and changing price tags), and as a result prices at grocery stores change more dynamically. Will this change mean less stability or more stability for grocery supply chains? In other words, will more dynamic pricing downstream mean more last-minute purchases, more overtime work, and more empty space in trucks and warehouses? Or will it mean more regular and more standardized orders, smoother schedules, and less waste? To answer this question, we fit a pricing and ordering model to data from a large Chinese supermarket chain (daily prices, sales, inventories, and shipments from products from seven categories at 78 stores for 3.5 years) and then simulate a counterfactual grocery chain in which the estimated price-adjustment costs are set to zero. We find that the removal of price-adjustment costs stabilizes the supply chain, reducing both its shipment volatility, its sales volatility, and its bullwhip (the difference between the shipment and sales volatility).

Unveiling the Gating Mechanism of CRAC Channel: A Computational Study

CRAC channel is ubiquitous and its importance in the regulation of the immune system is testified by the severe immunodeficiencies caused by its mutations. In this work we took advantage of the availability of open and closed structures of this channel to run for the first time simulations of the whole gating process reaching the relevant time-scale with an enhanced sampling technique, Targeted Molecular Dynamics. Our simulations highlighted a complex allosteric propagation of the conformational change from peripheral helices, where the activator STIM1 binds, to the central pore helices. In agreement with mutagenesis data, our simulations revealed the key role of residue H206 whose displacement creates an empty space behind the hydrophobic region of the pore, thus releasing a steric brake and allowing the opening of the channel. Conversely, the process of pore closing culminates with the formation of a bubble that occludes the pore even in the absence of steric block. This mechanism, known as “hydrophobic gating”, has been observed in an increasing number of biological ion channels and also in artificial nanopores. Our study therefore shows promise not only to better understand the molecular origin of diseases caused by disrupted calcium signaling, but also to clarify the mode of action of hydrophobically gated ion channels, possibly even suggesting strategies for the biomimetic design of synthetic nanopores.

Per-pixel displacement mapping using cone tracing with correct silhouette

Per-pixel displacement mapping is a texture mapping technique that adds the microrelief effect to 3D surfaces without increasing the density of their corresponding meshes. This technique relies on ray tracing algorithms to find the intersection point between the viewing ray and the microrelief stored in a 2D texture called a depth map. This intersection makes it possible to deter- mine the corresponding pixel to produce an illusion of surface displacement instead of a real one. Cone tracing is one of the per-pixel displacement map- ping techniques for real-time rendering that relies on the encoding of the empty space around each pixel of the depth map. During the preprocessing stage, this space is encoded in the form of top-opened cones and then stored in a 2D texture, and during the rendering stage, it is used to converge more quickly to the intersection point. Cone tracing technique produces satisfacto- ry results in the case of flat surfaces, but when it comes to curved surfaces, it does not support the silhouette at the edges of the 3D mesh, that is to say, the relief merges with the surface of the object, and in this case, it will not be rendered correctly. To overcome this limitation, we have presented two new cone tracing algorithms that allow taking into consideration the curvature of the 3D surface to determine the fragments belonging to the silhouette. These two algorithms are based on a quadratic approximation of the object geometry at each vertex of the 3D mesh. The main objective of this paper is to achieve a texture mapping with a realistic appearance and at a low cost so that the rendered objects will have real and complex details that are vis- ible on their entire surface and without modifying their geometry. Based on the ray-tracing algorithm, our contribution can be useful for current graphics card generation, since the programmable units and the frameworks associat- ed with the new graphics cards integrate today the technology of ray tracing.

PCA-Based Analysis Applied to Germanium-On-Nothing: Revealing Buried Sub-Surface Structures and Analyzing Defects From Nanoscale Surface Topography

Empty Space in Germanium (ESG) or Germanium-on-Nothing (GON) are unique self-assembled germanium structures with multiscale cavities of various morphologies. Due to their simple fabrication process and high-quality crystallinity after self-assembly, they can be applied in various fields including micro-/nanoelectronics, optoelectronics, and precision sensors, to name a few. In contrast to their simple fabrication, inspection is intrinsically difficult due to buried structures. Today, ultrasonic atomic force microscopy and interferometry are some prevalent non-destructive 3-D imaging methods that are used to inspect the underlying ESG structures. However, these non-destructive characterization methods suffer from low throughput due to slow measurement speed and limited measurable thickness. To overcome these limitations, this work proposes a new methodology to construct a principal-component-analysis based database that correlates surface images with empirically determined sub-surface structures by interpolating the surface topography from the database and determining the buried sub-surface structure. Since the acquisition rate of a single nanoscale surface micrograph is up to a few orders faster than a thorough 3D sub-surface analysis, the proposed methodology would provide an exploitable and decisive advantage over the currently prevalent methods. Also, an empirical destructive test essentially resolves the measurable thickness limitation. We also demonstrate the practicality of the proposed methodology by applying it to GON devices to selectively detect and quantitatively analyze surface defects. Compared to state-of-the-art deep learning-based defect detection schemes, our method is much effortlessly finetunable for specific applications. In terms of sub-surface analysis, this work proposes a fast, robust, and high-resolution methodology which could potentially replace the conventional exhaustive sub-surface inspection schemes.