Since emotions are expressed through a combination of verbal and non-verbal channels, a joint analysis of speech and gestures is required to understand expressive human communication. To facilitate such investigations, this paper describes a new corpus named the “interactive emotional dyadic motion capture database” (IEMOCAP), collected by the Speech Analysis and Interpretation Laboratory (SAIL) at the University of Southern California (USC). This database was recorded from ten actors in dyadic sessions with markers on the face, head, and hands, which provide detailed information about their facial expressions and hand movements during scripted and spontaneous spoken communication scenarios. The actors performed selected emotional scripts and also improvised hypothetical scenarios designed to elicit specific types of emotions (happiness, anger, sadness, frustration and neutral state). The corpus contains approximately 12 h of data. The detailed motion capture information, the interactive setting to elicit authentic emotions, and the size of the database make this corpus a valuable addition to the existing databases in the community for the study and modeling of multimodal and expressive human communication.

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IEMOCAP: interactive emotional dyadic motion capture database

A morphable model for the synthesis of 3D faces

Humans detect and interpret faces and facial expressions in a scene with little or no effort. Still, development of an automated system that accomplishes this task is rather difficult. There are several related problems: detection of an image segment as a face, extraction of the facial expression information, and classification of the expression (e.g., in emotion categories). A system that performs these operations accurately and in real time would form a big step in achieving a human-like interaction between man and machine. The paper surveys the past work in solving these problems. The capability of the human visual system with respect to these problems is discussed, too. It is meant to serve as an ultimate goal and a guide for determining recommendations for development of an automatic facial expression analyzer.

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Automatic analysis of facial expressions: the state of the art

Digital processing of speech signals

Authoritative and accessible, this book introduces the theory and practice of teaching writing to students of EFL/ESL learners While assuming no specialist knowledge, Ken Hyland systematically sets out the key issues of course design, lesson planning, texts and materials, tasks, feedback and assessment and how current research can inform classroom practice This second edition is completely revised to include up-to-date work on automated feedback, plagiarism, social media, Virtual Learning Environments and teacher workload issues It takes the clear stance that student writers not only need realistic strategies for drafting and revising, but also a clear understanding of genre to structure their writing experiences according to the expectations of particular communities of readers and the constraints of particular contexts Review exercises, reflection questions, plentiful examples and a new extensive glossary make the book invaluable to both prospective and practicing teachers alike

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Second Language Writing

From the Publisher:
This book concentrates on the animation of faces. The Editors put the MPEG-4 FA standard against the historical background of research on facial animation and model-based coding, and provide a brief history of the development of the standard itself. In part 2 there is a comprehensive overview of the FA specification with the goal of helping the reader understand how the standard really works. Part 3, forms the bulk of the book and covers the implementations of the standard on both encoding and decoding side. Several face animation techniques for MPEG-4 FA decoders are presented. While the standard itself actually specifies only the decoder, for applications it is interesting to look at the wide range of technologies for producing and encoding the FA contents. These include video analysis, speech analysis and synthesis, as well as keyframe animation. The last part of the book provides several examples of applications using the MPEG-4 FA standard. 
It will be useful for companies implementing products and services related to the new standard, researchers in several domains related to facial animation, as well as wider technical audience interested in new technologies and applications.· 
The main people involved in the standardization process are contributors to the book Provides several examples of applications using the MPEG-4 Facial Animation standard, including video and speech analysis This will become THE reference for the MPEG-4 Facial Animation Aids the understanding of the reasoning behind the standard specification, how it works and what the potential applications are Gives an overview of the technologies directly related to the standard and its implementation 
Essential reading for the Industry and research community especially engineers, researchers and developers.

MPEG-4 Facial Animation: The Standard,Implementation and Applications

MPEG-4 Facial Animation

Nonverbal communication is an important aspect of real-life face-to-face interaction and one of the most efficient ways to convey emotions, therefore users should be provided the means to replicate it in the virtual world. Because articulated embodiments are well suited to provide body communication in virtual environments, this paper first reviews some of the advantages and disadvantages of complex embodiments. After a brief introduction to nonverbal communication theories, we present our solution, taking into account the practical limitations of input devices and social science aspects. We introduce our sample of actions and implementation using our VLNET (Virtual Life Network) networked virtual environment and discuss the results of an informal evaluation experiment.

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Nonverbal communication interface for collaborative virtual environments

MPEG-4 addresses coding of digital hybrids of natural and synthetic, aural and visual (A/V) information. The objective of this synthetic/natural hybrid coding (SNHC) is to facilitate content-based manipulation, interoperability, and wider user access in the delivery of animated mixed media. SNHC will support non-real-time and passive media delivery, as well as more interactive, real-time applications. Integrated spatial-temporal coding is sought for audio, video, and 2D/3D computer graphics as standardized A/V objects. Targets of standardization include mesh-segmented video coding, compression of geometry, synchronization between A/V objects, multiplexing of streamed A/V objects, and spatial-temporal integration of mixed media types. Composition, interactivity, and scripting of A/V objects can thus be supported in client terminals, as well as in content production for servers, also more effectively enabling terminals as servers. Such A/V objects can exhibit high efficiency in transmission and storage, plus content-based interactivity, spatial-temporal scalability, and combinations of transient dynamic data and persistent downloaded data. This approach can lower bandwidth of mixed media, offer tradeoffs in quality versus update for specific terminals, and foster varied distribution methods for content that exploit spatial and temporal coherence over buses and networks. MPEG-4 responds to trends at home and work to move beyond the paradigm of audio/video as a passive experience to more flexible A/V objects which combine audio/video with synthetic 2D/3D graphics and audio.

MPEG-4: Audio/video and synthetic graphics/audio for mixed media

In this paper we present a virtual tennis game. We describe the creation and modeling of the virtual humans and body deformations, also showing the real-time animation and rendering aspects of the avatars. We focus on the animation of the virtual tennis ball and the behavior of a synthetic, autonomous referee who judges the tennis games. The networked, collaborative, virtual environment system is described with special reference to its interfaces to driver programs. We also mention the virtual reality (VR) devices that are used to merge the interactive players into the virtual tennis environment, together with the equipment and technologies employed for this exciting experience. We conclude with remarks on personal experiences during the game and on future research topics to improve parts of the presented system.

Igor S. Pandzic

Papers

MPEG-4 Facial Animation: The Standard,Implementation and Applications

MPEG-4 Facial Animation

Nonverbal communication interface for collaborative virtual environments

MPEG-4: Audio/video and synthetic graphics/audio for mixed media

Anyone for Tennis