An XRI Mixed-Reality Internet-of-Things Architectural Framework Toward Immersive and Adaptive Smart Environments

The internet-of-things (IoT) refers to the growing number of embedded interconnected devices within everyday ubiquitous objects and environments, especially their networks, edge controllers, data gathering and management, sharing, and contextual analysis capabilities. However, the IoT suffers from inherent limitations in terms of human-computer interaction. In this landscape, there is a need for interfaces that have the potential to translate the IoT more solidly into the foreground of everyday smart environments, where its users are multimodal, multifaceted, and where new forms of presentation, adaptation, and immersion are essential. This work highlights the synergetic opportunities for both IoT and XR to converge toward hybrid XR objects with strong real-world connectivity, and IoT objects with rich XR interfaces. The paper contributes i) an understanding of this multi-disciplinary domain XR-IoT (XRI); ii) a theoretical perspective on how to design XRI agents based on the literature; iii) a system design architectural framework for XRI smart environment development; and iv) an early discussion of this process. It is hoped that this research enables future researchers in both communities to better understand and deploy hybrid smart XRI environments

Aqua Granda Una memoria collettiva digitale / Aqua Granda A digital community memory

This book documents the project Aqua Granda, a digital community memory launched on 12 Novem- ber 2020 by the EU H2020 ODYCCEUS project and Science Gallery Venice. It contains background on the historical roots of digital community memories and on today’s role of social media and describes the meteorological phenomena that give rise to big floods in Venice and their impact on the architecture of the city. It details how a digital community memory has been set up about the Aqua Granda floods in Venice and documents the exhibition Navigating Aqua Granda, a digital community memory in which a number of ODYCCEUS scientists and artists show how they have explored this digital community memory to help create memorials for these devastating events

Ubiquitous Computing

The aim of this book is to give a treatment of the actively developed domain of Ubiquitous computing. Originally proposed by Mark D. Weiser, the concept of Ubiquitous computing enables a real-time global sensing, context-aware informational retrieval, multi-modal interaction with the user and enhanced visualization capabilities. In effect, Ubiquitous computing environments give extremely new and futuristic abilities to look at and interact with our habitat at any time and from anywhere. In that domain, researchers are confronted with many foundational, technological and engineering issues which were not known before. Detailed cross-disciplinary coverage of these issues is really needed today for further progress and widening of application range. This book collects twelve original works of researchers from eleven countries, which are clustered into four sections: Foundations, Security and Privacy, Integration and Middleware, Practical Applications

With All Due Modesty: The Selected Letters of Fanny Goldstein

With All Due Modesty: The Selected Letters of Fanny Goldstein is an annotated edition of the correspondence of Fanny Goldstein (1895–1961), librarian, social activist, and founder of Jewish Book Week. Goldstein’s accomplishments include building a significant collection of Judaica for the Boston Public Library; compiling some of the earliest bibliographies of Jewish literature in English; evaluating manuscripts for publishers; writing book reviews; and lecturing and writing on a wide range of subjects related to Jews and Judaism. The purpose of the edition is to provide a picture of Goldstein’s life as a Jew, a woman, a librarian, and a social activist and in so doing, to contribute to a more complete understanding of Boston’s Jewish community in the first half of the twentieth century. I have included in the edition both incoming and outgoing letters with a wide range of correspondents, including Charles Angoff, Mary Antin, Isaac Asimov, Alice Stone Blackwell, Felix Frankfurter, Molly Picon, Ellery Sedgwick, and Friderike Zweig. The letters span the years from 1930 to 1960. The edition includes extensive annotation based on Goldstein’s newspaper and magazine articles, pamphlets, book reviews, and other writings; hundreds of Goldstein’s letters not published here; accounts published in the Jewish press and the mainstream press; and correspondence neither written nor received by Goldstein but bearing on her life and work

Sonic interactions in virtual environments

This book tackles the design of 3D spatial interactions in an audio-centered and audio-first perspective, providing the fundamental notions related to the creation and evaluation of immersive sonic experiences. The key elements that enhance the sensation of place in a virtual environment (VE) are: Immersive audio: the computational aspects of the acoustical-space properties of Virutal Reality (VR) technologies Sonic interaction: the human-computer interplay through auditory feedback in VE VR systems: naturally support multimodal integration, impacting different application domains Sonic Interactions in Virtual Environments will feature state-of-the-art research on real-time auralization, sonic interaction design in VR, quality of the experience in multimodal scenarios, and applications. Contributors and editors include interdisciplinary experts from the fields of computer science, engineering, acoustics, psychology, design, humanities, and beyond. Their mission is to shape an emerging new field of study at the intersection of sonic interaction design and immersive media, embracing an archipelago of existing research spread in different audio communities and to increase among the VR communities, researchers, and practitioners, the awareness of the importance of sonic elements when designing immersive environments

The Winter of Russia’s Discontent

This book aims to trace the different directions that Russia has taken after initiating its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. The authors, coming from positions of policy, academia, and practice, employ a transdisciplinary approach to critically engage the question of how Russia as an actor will develop in such an altered paradigm through three lines of argumentation. The first of these themes is centred on Russia’s relations with other major powers and how these ligatures might condition future developments in a global perspective. The second topic relates the effect of the ‘Russian idea’ on domestic dynamics within Russia, as well as with how it has coloured understandings of Russia in the West. Finally, the authors discuss possible future weaknesses for Russia and question whether they will actually be as serious as previously thought. While no singular to the guiding answer can be posited, these dialogues nonetheless contribute to building a solid foundation for discussions within and between transatlantic capitals as well as globally