Feeling the Temperature of the Room: Unobtrusive Thermal Display of Engagement during Group Communication

Thermal signals have been explored in HCI for emotion-elicitation and enhancing two-person communication, showing that temperature invokes social and emotional signals in individuals. Yet, extending these findings to group communication is missing. We investigated how thermal signals can be used to communicate group affective states in a hybrid meeting scenario to help people feel connected over a distance. We conducted a lab study (N=20 participants) and explored wrist-worn thermal feedback to communicate audience emotions. Our results show that thermal feedback is an effective method of conveying audience engagement without increasing workload and can help a presenter feel more in tune with the audience. We outline design implications for real-world wearable social thermal feedback systems for both virtual and in-person communication that support group affect communication and social connectedness. Thermal feedback has the potential to connect people across distances and facilitate more effective and dynamic communication in multiple contexts.Comment: In IMWUT 202

Low‐dimensional embeddings for interaction design

Physical interactions with the real world have many degrees of freedom, which has led to the development of novel input devices with a multitude of sensors to capture increasingly high‐dimensional data. This high dimensionality makes the design of interactive systems more complex. Herein, the use of autoencoder‐based dimensionality reduction is explored to simplify the design process. For this purpose, a data glove equipped with accelerometers is used to record high‐dimensional hand movement data that are thereafter reduced to 2D embeddings using autoencoders. The exploration and evaluation of the resulting embeddings suggest that autoencoders can be used to create meaningful low‐dimensional representations of complex human movement. The characteristics generality, variability, connectivity, and distinguishability are established and a guideline is provided for assessing low‐dimensional embeddings. Referring to these characteristics, system engineers can evaluate different input modalities and gestures for their specific interaction task. Further, a framework is outlined for designing and evaluating gesture interaction in the low‐dimensional space. By demonstrating the exemplary design of the interaction with a virtual lever, this research gives system engineers a template for interaction design in the low‐dimensional space

3D-визуализация в ультразвуковой дефектоскопии

На сегодняшний день существует множество средств визуализации ультразвуковых данных, но все они, как правило, интегрированы в дефектоскопы. Когда у нас возникает потребность извлечь данные сканирования, произвести собственную обработку, и представить в трехмерном изображении, то мы оказываемся лишенными возможности визуализации. Предложенное программное обеспечение на основе алгоритма SAFT позволяет произвести постобработку данных сканирования (А-сканов) и двумерную и трехмерную визуализацию

Distinct Mutational Profile of Lynch Syndrome Colorectal Cancers Diagnosed under Regular Colonoscopy Surveillance

Regular colonoscopy even with short intervals does not prevent all colorectal cancers (CRC) in Lynch syndrome (LS). In the present study, we asked whether cancers detected under regular colonoscopy surveillance (incident cancers) are phenotypically different from cancers detected at first colonoscopy (prevalent cancers). We analyzed clinical, histological, immunological and mutational characteristics, including panel sequencing and high-throughput coding microsatellite (cMS) analysis, in 28 incident and 67 prevalent LS CRCs (n total = 95). Incident cancers presented with lower UICC and T stage compared to prevalent cancers (p < 0.0005). The majority of incident cancers (21/28) were detected after previous colonoscopy without any pathological findings. On the molecular level, incident cancers presented with a significantly lower KRAS codon 12/13 (1/23, 4.3% vs. 11/21, 52%; p = 0.0005) and pathogenic TP53 mutation frequency (0/17, 0% vs. 7/21, 33.3%; p = 0.0108,) compared to prevalent cancers; 10/17 (58.8%) incident cancers harbored one or more truncating APC mutations, all showing mutational signatures of mismatch repair (MMR) deficiency. The proportion of MMR deficiency-related mutational events was significantly higher in incident compared to prevalent CRC (p = 0.018). In conclusion, our study identifies a set of features indicative of biological differences between incident and prevalent cancers in LS, which should further be monitored in prospective LS screening studies to guide towards optimized prevention protocols.Peer reviewe

The genetic architecture of the human cerebral cortex

The cerebral cortex underlies our complex cognitive capabilities, yet little is known about the specific genetic loci that influence human cortical structure. To identify genetic variants that affect cortical structure, we conducted a genome-wide association meta-analysis of brain magnetic resonance imaging data from 51,665 individuals. We analyzed the surface area and average thickness of the whole cortex and 34 regions with known functional specializations. We identified 199 significant loci and found significant enrichment for loci influencing total surface area within regulatory elements that are active during prenatal cortical development, supporting the radial unit hypothesis. Loci that affect regional surface area cluster near genes in Wnt signaling pathways, which influence progenitor expansion and areal identity. Variation in cortical structure is genetically correlated with cognitive function, Parkinson's disease, insomnia, depression, neuroticism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Wild insect diversity increases inter-annual stability in global crop pollinator communities.

While an increasing number of studies indicate that range, diversity and abundance of many wild pollinators has declined, the global area of pollinator-dependent crops has significantly increased over the last few decades. Crop pollination studies to date, have mainly focused on either identifying different guilds pollinating various crops, or on factors driving spatial changes and turnover observed in these communities. The mechanisms driving temporal stability for ecosystem functioning and services, however, remain poorly understood. Our study quantifies temporal variability observed in crop pollinators in 21 different crops across multiple years at a global scale. Using data from 43 studies from six continents, we show that (i) higher pollinator diversity confers greater inter-annual stability in pollinator communities, (ii) temporal variation observed in pollinator abundance is primarily driven by the three most dominant species, and (iii) crops in tropical regions demonstrate higher inter-annual variability in pollinator species richness than crops in temperate regions. We highlight the importance of recognising wild pollinator diversity in agricultural landscapes to stabilize pollinator persistence across years to protect both biodiversity and crop pollination services. Short-term agricultural management practices aimed at dominant species for stabilising pollination services need to be considered alongside longer-term conservation goals focussed on maintaining and facilitating biodiversity to confer ecological stability

Patterns, timing, and environmental drivers of secondary growth in two physiologically distinct Mediterranean alpine shrub species

Alpine plants are particularly sensitive to climate change, and in the Mediterranean, less frequent winter cold and prolonged summer drought are expected to shift the growth patterns of species, altering their range and strategies to cope with these dual climatic stressors. However, adaptive strategies for drought and frost and their impact on performance of species are poorly explored, with critical timescales relevant for growth insufficiently reflected and a focus on a limited set of environmental drivers. Here, we explored the growth processes of two physiologically distinct Mediterranean alpine shrub species: Cytisus galianoi (green-stemmed species) and Astragalus granatensis (dimorphic species). By measuring the daily stem diameter changes of 26 specimens over six consecutive years (2015–2020) using dendrometers, as well as the corresponding soil temperature and soil moisture conditions, we identified bimodal annual growth patterns (i.e. two phases of growth), water-related timing of growth, and drought- and frost-related environmental constraints. By implementing correlation analyses, linear mixed effects models, and partial least-squares regression, we found pregrowth temperature and moisture drivers to be highly relevant for growth in both species, suggesting a temporal decoupling of growth and resource acquisition. However, the underlying mechanisms were contrasting. While the spring growth of C. galianoi was promoted by pregrowth winter conditions, the autumn growth of A. granatensis was promoted by pregrowth summer conditions. Thus, resource acquisition is likely to be optimized when the traits of species allow physiological activity at high gain and low costs, i.e. when adaptive mechanisms reduce resource consumption to cope with frost and drought. This is during winter for frost-tolerant green-stemmed species and during summer for drought-avoidant dimorphic species, leading to species-specific time windows of growth. Understanding these species-specific growth mechanisms contributes to answering the overarching question of when and how woody plants grow and helps in understanding their adaptability to future climate variability, particularly in sensitive alpine environments, where plant species are evolutionally adapted to physical peculiarities and reach their low-temperature limit

Recht und Literatur: Ein interdisziplinärer Forschungsüberblick mit Werkstattbericht

Der nachfolgende Beitrag gewährt einen Überblick über das interdisziplinäre Forschungsgebiet Recht und Literatur und bietet, ausgehend von den Erfahrungen des Göttinger Arbeitskreises Recht und Literatur während des Sommersemesters 2021, zudem einen Einblick in praktische Anwendungsbeispiele

Gellan gum is a suitable biomaterial for manual and bioprinted setup of long-term stable, functional 3D-adipose tissue models

Due to its wide-ranging endocrine functions, adipose tissue influences the whole body’s metabolism. Engineering long-term stable and functional human adipose tissue is still challenging due to the limited availability of suitable biomaterials and adequate cell maturation. We used gellan gum (GG) to create manual and bioprinted adipose tissue models because of its similarities to the native extracellular matrix and its easily tunable properties. Gellan gum itself was neither toxic nor monocyte activating. The resulting hydrogels exhibited suitable viscoelastic properties for soft tissues and were stable for 98 days in vitro. Encapsulated human primary adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) were adipogenically differentiated for 14 days and matured for an additional 84 days. Live-dead staining showed that encapsulated cells stayed viable until day 98, while intracellular lipid staining showed an increase over time and a differentiation rate of 76% between days 28 and 56. After 4 weeks of culture, adipocytes had a univacuolar morphology, expressed perilipin A, and secreted up to 73% more leptin. After bioprinting establishment, we demonstrated that the cells in printed hydrogels had high cell viability and exhibited an adipogenic phenotype and function. In summary, GG-based adipose tissue models show long-term stability and allow ASCs maturation into functional, univacuolar adipocytes

Using Space : Effect of Display Size on Users' Search Performance

Due to advances in technology large displays with very high resolution started to become affordable for daily work. Today it is possible to build display walls with a pixel density that is comparable to standard office screens. Previous work indicates that physical navigation enables a deeper engagement with the data set. In particular, the visibility of detailed data subsets on large screens supports the user's work and understanding of large data. In contrast to previous work we explore how users' performance scales with an increasing amount of large display space when working with text documents. In a controlled experiment, we determine participants' performance when searching for titles and images in large text documents using one to six 50" 4K monitors. Our results show that the users' visual search performance does not linearly increase with an increasing amount of display space