633 research outputs found

    Keep Your Eyes above the Ball: Investigation of Virtual Reality (VR) Assistive Gaming for Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) Visual Training

    Get PDF
    Humans are beyond all visual beings since most of the outside information is gathered through the visual system. When the aging process starts, visual functional damages become more and more common and the risk of developing visual impairment is higher. Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is one of the main afflictions that leads to severe damage to the optical system due to the aging process. The ones affected lose the ability to use the central part of vision, essential for accurate visual information processing. Even if less accurate, peripheral vision remains unaffected, hence medical experts have developed training procedures to train patients to use peripheral vision instead to navigate their environment and continue their daily lives. This type of training is called eccentric viewing. However, there are several shortcomings in current approaches, such as not being engaging or individualizable enough nor cost and time-effective. The main scope of this dissertation was to find out if more engaging and individualizable methods can be used for peripheral training of AMD patients. The current work used virtual reality (VR) gaming to deliver AMD training; the first time such an approach was used for eccentric viewing training. In combination with eye-tracking, real-time individualized assistance was also achieved. Thanks to an integrated eye-tracker in the headset, concentric gaze-contingent stimuli were used to redirect the eyes toward an eccentric location. The concentric feature allowed participants to choose freely and individually their peripheral focus point. One study investigated the feasibility a VR system for individualized visual training of ophthalmic patients, two studies investigated two types of peripheral stimuli (three spatial cues and two optical distortions) and the last study was a case study looking into the feasibility of such an approach for a patient with late AMD. Changes in gaze directionality were observed in all the last three studies for one specific spatial cue, a concentric ring. In accordance with the literature, the gaze was directed spontaneously toward the most effective peripheral position. The last study additionally proved gaming feasible for future testing of the elderly AMD population. The current work opened the road to more individualized and engaging interventions for eccentric viewing training for late AMD

    Data ethics : building trust : how digital technologies can serve humanity

    Get PDF
    Data is the magic word of the 21st century. As oil in the 20th century and electricity in the 19th century: For citizens, data means support in daily life in almost all activities, from watch to laptop, from kitchen to car, from mobile phone to politics. For business and politics, data means power, dominance, winning the race. Data can be used for good and bad, for services and hacking, for medicine and arms race. How can we build trust in this complex and ambiguous data world? How can digital technologies serve humanity? The 45 articles in this book represent a broad range of ethical reflections and recommendations in eight sections: a) Values, Trust and Law, b) AI, Robots and Humans, c) Health and Neuroscience, d) Religions for Digital Justice, e) Farming, Business, Finance, f) Security, War, Peace, g) Data Governance, Geopolitics, h) Media, Education, Communication. The authors and institutions come from all continents. The book serves as reading material for teachers, students, policy makers, politicians, business, hospitals, NGOs and religious organisations alike. It is an invitation for dialogue, debate and building trust! The book is a continuation of the volume “Cyber Ethics 4.0” published in 2018 by the same editors

    LIPIcs, Volume 261, ICALP 2023, Complete Volume

    Get PDF
    LIPIcs, Volume 261, ICALP 2023, Complete Volum

    Caractérisation mécanique in vivo des tissus mous : application à la peau humaine et la chéloïde

    Get PDF
    The development of keloids, benign tumors on human skin, is not exclusively due to biological or genetic factors. The presence of anatomical sites favorable to the appearance of these tumors, while others are lacking them, attests to the importance of the mechanical environment of the tissue. The thesis aims to address the problem of keloid growth by developing a patient-specific pipeline, SofTI, based on in vivo experimental measurements and numerical modeling. The objective is to prevent further propagation of keloidic scars via a medical containment solution by identifying optimal material parameters to quantify mechanical stress and map its privileged direction locally. Additionally, the research work introduces MARSAC methodology to characterize the anisotropy in an undamaged skin by estimating Langer's line and stiffness along and across it with an in vivo multi-axial annular suction experiment. The method was used to analyze intra-subject and subject-to-subject variability over a clinical trial.Le développement des chéloïdes, tumeurs bénignes sur la peau humaine, n'est pas exclusivement dû à des facteurs biologiques ou génétiques. La présence de sites anatomiques favorables à l'apparition de ces tumeurs, tandis que d'autres en manquent, atteste de l'importance de l'environnement mécanique du tissu. La thèse vise à résoudre le problème de la croissance des chéloïdes en développant une méthode patient-spécifique, SofTI, basée sur des mesures expérimentales in vivo et une modélisation numérique. L'objectif est de prévenir la propagation des cicatrices chéloïdiennes à l'aide d'une solution médicale de contention en identifiant les paramètres matériau optimaux pour quantifier les contraintes mécaniques et cartographier ses directions privilégiées localement. De plus, le travail de recherche présente la méthodologie MARSAC pour charactériser l'anisotropie dans la peau saine en identifiant la ligne de Langer et la raideur le long et à travers celle-ci partant d'une expérience d'aspiration annulaire multi-axiale in vivo. La méthode a été employée pour analyser la variabilité intra- et inter-sujets sur un essai clinique

    Beyond Quantity: Research with Subsymbolic AI

    Get PDF
    How do artificial neural networks and other forms of artificial intelligence interfere with methods and practices in the sciences? Which interdisciplinary epistemological challenges arise when we think about the use of AI beyond its dependency on big data? Not only the natural sciences, but also the social sciences and the humanities seem to be increasingly affected by current approaches of subsymbolic AI, which master problems of quality (fuzziness, uncertainty) in a hitherto unknown way. But what are the conditions, implications, and effects of these (potential) epistemic transformations and how must research on AI be configured to address them adequately

    Operational Technology Preparedness:A Risk-Based Safety Approach to Scoping Security Tests for Cyber Incident Response and Recovery

    Get PDF
    Following the advent of Industry 4.0, there have been significant benefits to industrial process optimisation through increased interconnectivity and the integration of Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT). However, this has also led to an increased attack surface for cyber threat actors to target. A growing number of cyber attacks on industrial environments, including Critical National Infrastructure, has, subsequently, been observed. In response, government and standardisation organisations alike have invested considerable resources in improving the cyber security of these environments. This includes response and recovery, often used as a last line of defence against cyber attacks. However, due to the unique design philosophies of Industrial Control Systems (ICS), several challenges exist for effectively securing these systems against digital threats. Through an analysis of standards and guidelines, used for assessing and improving cyber incident response and recovery capabilities, and stakeholder engagement on the implementation of these in practice, this thesis first identifies the challenges that exist when it comes to preparing for cyber incidents targeting ICS/OT environments. In particular, risk management, which involves identifying, evaluating, and prioritising risks and finding solutions to minimise, monitor, and control these, was found to be essential for improving preparation for cyber incidents. Assurance techniques are used as part of risk management to generate evidence for making claims of assurances about security. Alongside this, adversary-centric security tests such as penetration tests are used to evaluate and improve cyber resilience and incident response capabilities by emulating the actions of malicious actors. However, despite the benefits that these provide, they are currently not implemented to their full potential due to the safety and operational risks that exist in ICS/OT environments. This thesis contributes to academic and industry knowledge by proposing a framework that incorporates methods for identifying and quantifying the safety and operational risks of conducting adversary-centric security tests within ICS/OT environments. In understanding the risks, these engagements can be scoped using precise constraints so as to maximise the depth of testing while minimising risk to safety and the operational process. The framework is then evaluated through a qualitative study involving industry experts, confirming the framework's validity for implementation in practice

    Making Presentation Math Computable

    Get PDF
    This Open-Access-book addresses the issue of translating mathematical expressions from LaTeX to the syntax of Computer Algebra Systems (CAS). Over the past decades, especially in the domain of Sciences, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), LaTeX has become the de-facto standard to typeset mathematical formulae in publications. Since scientists are generally required to publish their work, LaTeX has become an integral part of today's publishing workflow. On the other hand, modern research increasingly relies on CAS to simplify, manipulate, compute, and visualize mathematics. However, existing LaTeX import functions in CAS are limited to simple arithmetic expressions and are, therefore, insufficient for most use cases. Consequently, the workflow of experimenting and publishing in the Sciences often includes time-consuming and error-prone manual conversions between presentational LaTeX and computational CAS formats. To address the lack of a reliable and comprehensive translation tool between LaTeX and CAS, this thesis makes the following three contributions. First, it provides an approach to semantically enhance LaTeX expressions with sufficient semantic information for translations into CAS syntaxes. Second, it demonstrates the first context-aware LaTeX to CAS translation framework LaCASt. Third, the thesis provides a novel approach to evaluate the performance for LaTeX to CAS translations on large-scaled datasets with an automatic verification of equations in digital mathematical libraries. This is an open access book

    Parliament Buildings: The architecture of politics in Europe

    Get PDF
    As political polarisation undermines confidence in the shared values and established constitutional orders of many nations, it is imperative that we explore how parliaments are to stay relevant and accessible to the citizens whom they serve. The rise of modern democracies is thought to have found physical expression in the staged unity of the parliamentary seating plan. However, the built forms alone cannot give sufficient testimony to the exercise of power in political life. Parliament Buildings brings together architecture, history, art history, history of political thought, sociology, behavioural psychology, anthropology and political science to raise a host of challenging questions. How do parliament buildings give physical form to norms and practices, to behaviours, rituals, identities and imaginaries? How are their spatial forms influenced by the political cultures they accommodate? What kinds of histories, politics and morphologies do the diverse European parliaments share, and how do their political trajectories intersect? This volume offers an eclectic exploration of the complex nexus between architecture and politics in Europe. Including contributions from architects who have designed or remodelled four parliament buildings in Europe, it provides the first comparative, multi-disciplinary study of parliament buildings across Europe and across history
    corecore