Multimodal Affect Models: An Investigation of Relative Salience of Audio and Visual Cues for Emotion Prediction

People perceive emotions via multiple cues, predominantly speech and visual cues, and a number of emotion recognition systems utilize both audio and visual cues. Moreover, the perception of static aspects of emotion (speaker's arousal level is high/low) and the dynamic aspects of emotion (speaker is becoming more aroused) might be perceived via different expressive cues and these two aspects are integrated to provide a unified sense of emotion state. However, existing multimodal systems only focus on single aspect of emotion perception and the contributions of different modalities toward modeling static and dynamic emotion aspects are not well explored. In this paper, we investigate the relative salience of audio and video modalities to emotion state prediction and emotion change prediction using a Multimodal Markovian affect model. Experiments conducted in the RECOLA database showed that audio modality is better at modeling the emotion state of arousal and video for emotion state of valence, whereas audio shows superior advantages over video in modeling emotion changes for both arousal and valence.

THE INFLUENCE OF CENTRE BOW LENGTH ON SLAMMING LOADS AND MOTIONS OF LARGE WAVE-PIERCING CATAMARANS

The effect of various centre bow lengths on the motions and wave-induced slamming loads on wave-piercing catamarans is investigated. A 2.5 m hydroelastic segmented model was tested with three different centre bow lengths and towed in regular waves in a towing tank. Measurements were made of the model motions, slam loads and vertical bending moments in the model demi-hulls. The model experiments were carried out for a test condition equivalent to a wave height of 2.68 m and a speed of 20 knots at full scale. Bow accelerations and vertical bending moments due to slamming showed significant changes with the change in centre bow, the longest centre bow having the highest wave-induced loads and accelerations. The increased volume of displaced water which is constrained beneath the bow archways is identified as the reason for this increase in the slamming load. In contrast it was found that the length of centre bow has a relatively small effect on the heave and pitch motions in slamming conditions.

A CASE STUDY ON STABILISER FIN-HULL INTERACTION USING CFD AND MODEL EXPERIMENTS

A case study was conducted to investigate and quantify stabiliser fin-hull interaction using a combination of Computational Fluid Dynamics and physical model experiments. The fin-hull interaction was studied by comparing the lift and drag of a stabiliser fin in a free stream condition and when attached to a hull. The findings of this case study showed that using free stream fin characteristics to predict performance of a stabiliser fin fitted to the hull resulted in an over-prediction of drag by up to 46% and under-prediction of lift by up to 75% for the speeds and angle of attack analysed. These discrepancies are for this case study only and in practice will vary for different hull forms, fin types, fin location and angles of attack. However, the research highlights the limitations of using free stream fin characteristics to predict the performance of a fin fitted to a hull.

Determining the width of the ship’s course using a mathematical model to ensure the safety of the ship’s navigation

Determination of the ship’s course width necessary for the ships safe operation is an urgent task due to the increase in the modern ships’ dimensions. The existing methods for assessing the fairway are calculated with a full re-positioning of the propulsion-rudder complex, according to the maximum drift angle. The vessel movement is considered to be steady, that is, the speed, the drift angles do not depend on time. The relevance of this study is associated with the assessment of determining the width of the fairway at any time interval. This is due to the fact that when passing the river sections, the vessels perform maneuvering with the rudder gear shifted for short periods of time and not at the maximum shift angle. Determination of the parameters of the ship’s movement over time when the navigator manipulates the ship’s controls (control of the rudder device, changing the parameters of the main engines) can be determined by the mathematical model of the ship’s movement. This article discusses the issues of creating a model that adequately describe the processes of vessel movement, including in the conditions of vessel movement along a limited ship’s course. The adequacy of the model was verified using the data of field and model experiments. According to the compiled mathematical model, the calculations were made for various projects of dry cargo ships.

Comparison of Experimental Towing Test and CFD Analysis of a Bare Hull Model on the Surface

In designing submarines, hull form selection, resistance, and powering are key aspects. The bare hull form of a submarine can be considered according to five parameters. Surface resistance is important should it be necessary to operate at relatively high Froude Numbers. Due to the complex nature of the flow around the hull, model experiments are still the most reliable approach to determining surface resistance. CFD simulations enable surface condition analysis using FINEMarine. The towing mechanism must be taken into account and so this was designed to fix the pitch motion and measure the hydrodynamic forces. This paper outlines the towing method, comparing the model test and the CFD results, as well as providing a comparison of wave formation from the towing test and the CFD results. The results show that resistance increased significantly above a model speed of 1.4 m/s. Furthermore, above this speed, as the resistance of the model rose, the downforce gradually decreased.

Reconstructing Arctic Sea Ice Over the Common Era Using Data Assimilation

Arctic sea-ice decline in recent decades has been dramatic, however few long-term records of Arctic sea ice exist to put such a decline in context. Here we employ an ensemble Kalman filter data assimilation approach to reconstruct Arctic sea-ice concentration over the last two millennia by assimilating temperature-sensitive proxy records with ensembles drawn from last millennium climate model simulations. We first test the efficacy of this method using pseudo-proxy experiments. Results showgood agreement between the target and reconstructed total Arctic sea-ice extent (R2 value and coefficient of efficiency values of 0.51 and 0.47 for perfect model experiments, and 0.43 and 0.43 for imperfect-model experiments). Imperfect-model experiments indicate that the reconstructions inherit some bias from the model prior. We assimilate 487 temperature-sensitive proxy records with two climate model simulations to produce two gridded reconstructions of Arctic sea ice over the last two millennia. These reconstructions show good agreement with satellite observations between 1979–1999 CE for total Arctic sea-ice extent with an R2 and coefficient of efficiency of about 0.60 and 0.50, respectively, for both models. Regional quantities derived from these reconstructions show encouraging similarities with independent reconstructions and sea-ice sensitive proxy records from the Barents, Baffin Bay and East Greenland seas. The reconstructions show a positive trend in Arctic sea-ice extent between around 750–1820 CE, and increases during years with large volcanic eruptions that persist about 5 years. Trend analysis of total Arctic sea-ice extent reveals that for time periods longer than 30 years, the satellite era decline in total Arctic sea-ice extent is unprecedented over the last millennium.