MUSICAL EXERCISE FOR PEOPLE WITH VISUAL IMPAIRMENTS

However, it is hard specifically for people with visual impairments to do exercise without proper guidance. They have accessibility issues and thus, without others ’ help, they cannot be sure if they are doing exercise in a consistent form. To address this problem, I have developed a Musical Exercise platform for people with visual impairments . With the help of audio feedback of Musical Exercise, people with visual impairments can perform exercises in a good form consistently. To assess usability of the system and compare different audio profiles of the system, I designed six different con ditions, including blindfolded or visual without audio conditions, and blindfolded or visual with two different types of audio feedback (discrete vs. continuous) conditions. Eighteen sighted participants participated in the experiment, by doing two exercises - wall sit and squat with all six conditions. The System Usability Scale results show that Musical Exercise is a usable exercise assistance system without any adverse effect on exercise completion time or perceived workload (NASA - TLX). Also, the results confirm that with a specific sound design (i.e., discrete), blindfolded sighted people can do exercise as consistently as sighted people. This implies that not all sounds equally work and thus, care is required to refine auditory displays considering user s, tasks, and environments. Potentials and limitations of Musical Exercise and future works are discussed with the results

“Musical Exercise” for people with visual impairments: A preliminary study with the blindfolded

Performing independent physical exercise is critical to maintain one\u27s good health, but it is specifically hard for people with visual impairments. To address this problem, we have developed a Musical Exercise platform for people with visual impairments so that they can perform exercise in a good form consistently. We designed six different conditions, including blindfolded or visual without audio conditions, and blindfolded or visual with two different types of audio feedback (continuous vs. discrete) conditions. Eighteen sighted participants participated in the experiment, by doing two exercises - squat and wall sit with all six conditions. The results show that Musical Exercise is a usable exercise assistance system without any adverse effect on exercise completion time or perceived workload. Also, the results show that with a specific sound design (i.e., discrete), participants in the blindfolded condition can do exercise as consistently as participants in the non-blindfolded condition. This implies that not all sounds equally work and thus, care is required to refine auditory displays. Potentials and limitations of Musical Exercise and future works are discussed with the results

A Visual Identity-Based Approach of Southeast Asian City Branding: A Netnography Analysis

Cities and places had been progressively being marketed as brands by using the concept of ‘City Branding\u27, which is a unique idea. The scholars of ‘City Branding’ believed that the concept of branding helps the city in marketing activities. A city metaphorically could be seen as an entity given the advantage to display its visual characteristics to tourists, visitors, and residents. Unique visual identity such as iconic architecture and graphic design could make a city stands out from the others. Thus, the research examined the role of visual identity in city branding. Specifically, the aim was to contribute to better understanding of the concept of ‘visual identity’ in Southeast Asian cities. Netnography approach was employed to gain better understanding of the notion of visual identity of city branding and refine a conceptual framework that has been developed based on the existing literature. Elements such as iconic structure and graphic design (logo and slogan) of four cities in Southeastern Asia were emphasized. The research concludes that the components of the visual identity of the cities need to be reshaped to be aligned with their visual characteristics in order to boost their competitiveness among the global city brands

Auxilio: A Sensor-Based Wireless Head-Mounted Mouse for People with Upper Limb Disability

Upper limb disability may be caused either due to accidents, neurological disorders, or even birth defects, imposing limitations and restrictions on the interaction with a computer for the concerned individuals using a generic optical mouse. Our work proposes the design and development of a working prototype of a sensor-based wireless head-mounted Assistive Mouse Controller (AMC), Auxilio, facilitating interaction with a computer for people with upper limb disability. Combining commercially available, low-cost motion and infrared sensors, Auxilio solely utilizes head and cheek movements for mouse control. Its performance has been juxtaposed with that of a generic optical mouse in different pointing tasks as well as in typing tasks, using a virtual keyboard. Furthermore, our work also analyzes the usability of Auxilio, featuring the System Usability Scale. The results of different experiments reveal the practicality and effectiveness of Auxilio as a head-mounted AMC for empowering the upper limb disabled community.Comment: 28 pages, 9 figures, 5 table

Response of active control on the flow field of the duct pressure at supersonic Mach numbers

In this study, experiments were conducted to control the base pressure and wall pressure in the wake at considerably high Mach numbers for a duct diameter of 25 mm. Tests were done at Mach 1.87 and 2.2. The Nozzle Pressure Ratios considered are 3 to 11 at different expansion levels. These experiments were conducted to evaluate the flow mechanism’s efficacy while the nozzle is under the impact of favorable and adverse pressure. The control mechanism was positioned at 6.5 mm from the central axis of the main jet. Results reveal that the minimum pipe length required for the flow to remain attached with the duct is L = 2D. When the duct is L = 2D or 3D, the flow pattern is erratic due to the incident’s excessive interaction of the reflected shock waves, and the impact of the ambient pressure. Because of the high duct diameter, the control is not efficient even though nozzles are under-expanded. For a larger area ratio, the reattachment length will be large, hence control becomes marginally effective. For over-expanded jets, the control results to reduce the pressure inside the duct. When nozzles encounter high-intensity adverse pressure results in high wall pressure compared to the lower nozzle pressure ratio due to the decline in the strength of the wave. When nozzles are under-expanded, the control effectiveness is optimum. The control mechanism is employed is able to suppress oscillations for large ducts compared to the short duct, where the flow is oscillatory. The control mechanism also results in the reduction of jet noise for some selected cases

Research Note: Association of single nucleotide polymorphism of AKT3 with egg production traits in White Muscovy ducks (Cairina moschata).

Prior studies on transcriptomes of hypothalamus and ovary revealed that AKT3 is one of the candidate genes that might affect egg production in White Muscovy ducks. The role of AKT3 in the uterus during reproductive processes cannot be overemphasized. However, functional role of this gene in the tissues and on egg production traits of Muscovy ducks remains unknown. To identify the relationship between AKT3 and egg production traits in ducks, relative expression profile was first examined prior to identifying the variants within AKT3 that may underscore egg production traits [age at first egg (AFE), number of eggs at 300 d (N300D), and number of eggs at 59 wk (N59W)] in 549 ducks. The mRNA expression of AKT3 gene in high producing (HP) ducks was significantly higher than low producing (LP) ducks in the ovary, oviduct, and hypothalamus (P \u3c 0.05 or 0.001). Three variants in AKT3 (C-3631A, C-3766T, and C-3953T) and high linkage block between C-3766T and C-3953T which are significantly (P \u3c 0.05) associated with N300D and N59W were discovered. This study elucidates novel knowledge on the molecular mechanism of AKT3 that might be regulating egg production traits in Muscovy ducks

Ensembl regulation resources

New experimental techniques in epigenomics allow researchers to assay a diversity of highly dynamic features such as histone marks, DNA modifications or chromatin structure. The study of their fluctuations should provide insights into gene expression regulation, cell differentiation and disease. The Ensembl project collects and maintains the Ensembl regulation data resources on epigenetic marks, transcription factor binding and DNA methylation for human and mouse, as well as microarray probe mappings and annotations for a variety of chordate genomes. From this data, we produce a functional annotation of the regulatory elements along the human and mouse genomes with plans to expand to other species as data becomes available. Starting from well-studied cell lines, we will progressively expand our library of measurements to a greater variety of samples. Ensembl's regulation resources provide a central and easy-to-query repository for reference epigenomes. As with all Ensembl data, it is freely available at http://www.ensembl.org, from the Perl and REST APIs and from the public Ensembl MySQL database server at ensembldb.ensembl.org.Database URL: http://www.ensembl.org.Wellcome Trust grant: (WT098051); National Human Genome Research Institute grants: (U41HG007234, 1U01 HG004695); Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council grant: (BB/L024225/1); European Molecular Biology Laboratory; European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme; European Research Council

Suppression of EAE and Prevention of Blood-Brain Barrier Breakdown after Vaccination with Novel Bifunctional Peptide Inhibitor

The efficacy of bifunctional peptide inhibitor (BPI) in preventing blood-brain barrier (BBB) breakdown during onset of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) and suppression of the disease was evaluated in mice. The mechanism that defines how BPI prevents the disease was investigated by measuring the in vitro cytokine production of splenocytes. Peptides were injected 5 to 11 days prior to induction of EAE, and the severity of the disease was monitored by a standard clinical scoring protocol and change in body weight. The BBB breakdown in diseased and treated mice was compared to that in normal control mice by determining deposition of gadolinium diethylenetriaminepentaacetate (Gd-DTPA) in the brain using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Mice treated with PLP-BPI showed no or low indication of EAE as well as normal increase in body weight. In contrast, mice treated with the control peptide or PBS showed a decrease in body weight and a high disease score. The diseased mice had high deposition of Gd-DTPA in the brain, indicating breakdown in the BBB. However, the deposition of Gd-DTPA in PLP-BPI-treated mice was similar to that in normal control mice. Thus, PLP-BPI can suppress EAE when administered as a peptide vaccine and maintain the integrity of the BBB