Reducing Procrastination while Improving Performance: A Wiki-powered Experiment with Students

© 2019 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM.Students in higher education are traditionally requested to produce various pieces of written work during the courses they undertake. When students' work is submitted online as a whole, both the ethically questionable act of procrastinating and late submissions afect performance. The objective of this paper is to assess the performance of students from a control group, with that of students from an experimental group. The control group produced work as a unique deliverable to be submitted at the end of the course. On the other hand, the experimental group worked on each part for a week, and their work was managed by a wiki environment and monitored by a speciically developed software. Positive efects were noticed in the experimental group, as both students' time management skills and performance increased. Replications of this experiment can and should be performed, in order to compare results in coursework submission.Final Accepted Versio

Light on horizontal interactive surfaces: Input space for tabletop computing

In the last 25 years we have witnessed the rise and growth of interactive tabletop research, both in academic and in industrial settings. The rising demand for the digital support of human activities motivated the need to bring computational power to table surfaces. In this article, we review the state of the art of tabletop computing, highlighting core aspects that frame the input space of interactive tabletops: (a) developments in hardware technologies that have caused the proliferation of interactive horizontal surfaces and (b) issues related to new classes of interaction modalities (multitouch, tangible, and touchless). A classification is presented that aims to give a detailed view of the current development of this research area and define opportunities and challenges for novel touch- and gesture-based interactions between the human and the surrounding computational environment. © 2014 ACM.This work has been funded by Integra (Amper Sistemas and CDTI, Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation) and TIPEx (TIN2010-19859-C03-01) projects and Programa de Becas y Ayudas para la Realización de Estudios Oficiales de Máster y Doctorado en la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, 2010

Drones and Sensors Ecosystem to Maximise the “Storm Effects” in Case of CBRNe Dispersion in Large Geographic Areas

The advancements in the field of robotics, specifically in the aerial robotics, combined with technological improvements of the capability of drones, have increased dramatically the use of these devices as a valuable tool in a wide range of applications. From civil to commercial and military area, the requirements in the emerging application for monitoring complex scenarios that are potentially dangerous for operators give rise to the need of a more powerful and sophisticated approach. This work aims at proposing the use of swarm drones to increase plume detection, tracking and source declaration for chemical releases. The several advantages which this technology may lead to this research and application fields are investigated, as well as the research and technological activities to be performed to make swarm drones efficient, reliable, and accurate

Interactive Accessible Notifications for Emergency Notification Systems

5th International Conference, UAHCI 2009, Held as Part of HCI International 2009, San Diego, CA, USA, July 19-24, 2009Notifications are critical when an emergency scenario is going to happen (e.g. a hurricane approaching); so the ability to transmit notifications to different kind of users is a crucial feature for Emergency Management Systems. In this work an ontology was developed by investigating different sources: accessibility guidelines, emergency response systems, communication devices and technologies, taking into account the different abilities of people to react to different alarms (e.g. mobile phone vibration as an alarm for deaf blind people). The knowledge codified in the proposed ontology could be used to enhance and promote the use of non-conventional interfaces for notifying emergency messages thus providing accessibility under different conditions and for different kind of users.This work is funded by the project UIA4SIGE (TSI2007-03394) supported by the [Spanish] Ministry of Education and by an agreement with the DGPCE of the [Spanish] Ministry of Interior.Publicad

Biological risk in Italian prisons: data analysis from the second to the fourth wave of COVID-19 pandemic

BackgroundThe management of COVID-19 in Italian prisons triggered considerable concern at the beginning of the pandemic due to numerous riots which resulted in inmate deaths, damages and prison breaks. The aim of this study is to shed some light, through analysis of the infection and relevant disease parameters, on the period spanning from the second to the fourth wave of the outbreak in Italy's prisons. MethodsReproductive number (Rt) and Hospitalisation were calculated through a Eulerian approach applied to differential equations derived from compartmental models. Comparison between trends was performed through paired t-test and linear regression analyses. ResultsThe infection trends (prevalence and Rt) show a high correlation between the prison population and the external community. Both the indices appear to be lagging 1 week in prison. The prisoners' Rt values are not statistically different from those of the general population. The hospitalisation trend of inmates strongly correlates with the external population's, with a delay of 2 weeks. The magnitude of hospitalisations in prison is less than in the external community for the period analysed. ConclusionsThe comparison with the external community revealed that in prison the infection prevalence was greater, although Rt values showed no significant difference, and the hospitalisation rate was lower. These results suggest that the consistent monitoring of inmates results in a higher infection prevalence while a wide vaccination campaign leads to a lower hospitalisation rate. All three indices demonstrate a lag of 1 or 2 weeks in prison. This delay could represent a useful time-window to strengthen planned countermeasures

First Responder Safety in the Event of a Dirty Bomb Detonation in Urban Environment

The malevolent dispersion of radioactive material, with the aim of contaminating people and the environment, is considered a credible terroristic threat. This article analyzes a hypothetical Dirty Bomb detonation in an urban area, estimating the radiological consequences to the involved population and to first responders. The dispersion of radioactive material is simulated using the HOTSPOT code, considering the explosion of devices containing (alternatively) 60Co, 137Cs, 192Ir, 238Pu or 241Am sources, frequently used in medical or industrial settings. Each source is evaluated separately. The resulting ground deposition is used to calculate the effective dose received by first responders in two different scenarios. Based on the dispersed radionuclide, the influence of the use of personal protective respirators is analyzed. Confirming previous published results, this article illustrates that the radioactive material is diluted by the detonation, resulting in relatively low doses to the general public. However, the emergency workers’ stay time in the most contaminated area must be carefully planned, in order to limit the received dose. Due to the general fear of radiation, extensive psychological effects are expected in the public, irrespective of the evaluated radiation dose

The HotSpot Code as a Tool to Improve Risk Analysis During Emergencies: Predicting I-131 and CS-137 Dispersion in the Fukushima Nuclear Accident

Conventional and non-conventional emergencies are among the most important safety and security concerns of the new millennium. Nuclear power and research plants, high-energy particle accelerators, radioactive substances for industrial and medical uses are all considered credible sources of threats both in warfare and in terror scenarios. Estimates of potential radiation releases of radioactive contamination related to these threats are therefore essential in order to prepare and respond to such scenarios. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate that computational modeling codes to simulate transport of radioactivity are extremely valuable to assess expected radiation levels and to improve risk analysis during emergencies helping the emergency planner and the first responders in the first hours of an occurring emergency

Enhancing Organizational Memory Through Virtual Memoryscapes: Does It Work?

Enhancing cognitive memory through virtual reality represents an issue, that has never been investigated in organizational settings. Here, we compared a virtual memoryscape (treatment) – an immersive virtual environment used by subjects as a shared memory tool based on spatial navigation – with respect to the traditional individual-specific mnemonic tool based on the “method of loci” (control). A memory task characterized by high ecological validity was administered to 82 subjects employed by large banking group. Memory recall was measured, for both groups, immediately after the task (Phase 1) and one week later (Phase 2). Results show that (i) in Phase 1, the method of loci was more efficient in terms of recalling information than the to the virtual memoryscape; (ii) in Phase 2, there was no difference. Compared to the method of loci, the virtual memoryscape presents the advantages – relevant for organizations – of being collective, controllable, dynamic, and non-manipulable

A low-cost radiation detection system to monitor radioactive environments by unmanned vehicles

AbstractUnconventional scenarios with hazardous radioactive levels are expected as consequences of accidents in the industrial sector of the nuclear energy production or following intentional releases of radioactive materials for terrorist purposes (dirty bombs, indoor contaminations, etc.). Nowadays, the need to balance the high standards of safety and security through an effective detection network is a matter of paramount importance. In this work, the authors' challenge has been to design, realize and test a low-cost gamma detection and spectroscopy system which may be used in unmanned vehicles in general and/or drones with low payload capabilities. The designed platform may be used to carry out mapping or localization operations in order to reduce the risk factor for first responders or for the population affected by radiological and nuclear events. In this paper, the design process of a gamma ray detection and spectroscopy system based on affordable and commercially available technologies is presented along with the results of our ongoing characterization of the prototype