UR-407 Illusion of Weight: The Use of Tactile Glove for Muscle Exercise for Elders in Virtual Gym Experience

This pilot study aims to investigate the potential creation of the perception of weight through a blend of visual and tactile feedback. Utilizing a tactile glove with varying vibration intensities and virtual dumbbell sizes, the experiment explores multiple conditions. These include tactile intensity (small, medium, large), virtual dumbbell sizes (small, medium, large), and diverse visualizations—ranging from no virtual dumbbell with or without tactile feedback to scenarios including both virtual dumbbells and tactile feedback. The study evaluates the virtual reality exercise experience and real performance using EMG sensors to measure muscle response, Heart Rate (HR), Galvanic Skin Response (GSR), and hand tracking. These biometric indicators enable a comprehensive understanding of the physiological and experiential impact of different conditions. The findings will provide insights into the efficacy of combined visual and tactile feedback in simulating weight perception

UC-338 Chiba

The core mechanic present in Chiba is pushing around food items to plate tiles. Each time the player pushes a food item it incurs a cut. With enough cuts the food item will be cut into pieces, progressing to the next cut stage - with a max stage of cuts available for the different pieces of food. This is fundamentally built upon the core gameplay mechanic in Sokoban. Additionally, extending upon this further by incorporating new mechanics such as grilling food items and utilizing slick and sticky tiles. Together, these mechanics allow for a unique series of puzzles to test the players\u27 spatial reasoning. Furthermore, players are disallowed from pushing any one piece of food too many times because the food crumbles and breaks after a certain point. This causes them to be forced to restart the level. Players need to balance both navigation and finding the shortest possible paths in order to push the food to the plates to complete the level. If players complete a level in under a certain number of moves, they can earn a star for that level. Players can earn up to three stars per level if they make the minimum number of pushes possible. As the levels progress, more mechanics are added to give players more ways to solve levels. For example, meatballs were added that rolled until they hit something instead of moving a single tile. With additional mechanics like rolling, players are introduced to more complicated levels that allow them to consider more solutions, while also restricting other solutions

UC-336 Concrete formwork simulator

Concrete Formwork Simulator is a simulation game meant to help construction students practice their skills. The goal of the game is to successfully build concrete formwork with the least amount of wasted materials. Players are scored out of 400 on each of the individual stages: shop, cut, and assemble. Players choose between building a formwork for a column, a slab, and a wall. Each formwork has its own set of materials for the players to buy, cut, and assemble. The player will need to take the dimensions of the formwork into account and then calculate the minimum number of each piece of lumber they will need to buy. Then, while considering minimizing waste, they need to calculate if any pieces need to be cut, and how much to cut them. Finally, the Player moves to the assembly where they are instructed to build the formwork of their choice. They must follow the correct order of assembly and build the sections of the formwork in the correct order to receive full points for the assembly stage. If they have done everything correctly, they will receive a perfect score of 1200 for that formwork

A novel FRET-based screen in high-throughput format to identify inhibitors of malarial and human glucose transporters

The glucose transporter PfHT is essential to the survival of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum and has been shown to be a druggable target with high potential for pharmacological intervention. Identification of compounds against novel drug targets is crucial to combating resistance against current therapeutics. Here, we describe the development of a cell-based assay system readily adaptable to high-throughput screening that directly measures compound effects on PfHT-mediated glucose transport. Intracellular glucose concentrations are detected using a genetically encoded fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET)-based glucose sensor. This allows assessment of the ability of small molecules to inhibit glucose uptake with high accuracy (Z′ factor of >0.8), thereby eliminating the need for radiolabeled substrates. Furthermore, we have adapted this assay to counterscreen PfHT hits against the human orthologues GLUT1, -2, -3, and -4. We report the identification of several hits after screening the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) Malaria Box, a library of 400 compounds known to inhibit erythrocytic development of P. falciparum. Hit compounds were characterized by determining the half-maximal inhibitory concentration (IC(50)) for the uptake of radiolabeled glucose into isolated P. falciparum parasites. One of our hits, compound MMV009085, shows high potency and orthologue selectivity, thereby successfully validating our assay for antimalarial screening

Expert Panel Recommendations on Lower Urinary Tract Health of Women Across Their Life Span

Urologic and kidney problems are common in women across their life span and affect their daily life, including physical activity, sexual relations, social life, and future health. Urological health in women is still understudied and the underlying mechanisms of female urological dysfunctions are not fully understood. The Society for Women's Health Research (SWHR?) recognized the need to have a roundtable discussion where researchers and clinicians would define the current state of knowledge, gaps, and recommendations for future research directions to transform women's urological health. This report summarizes the discussions, which focused on epidemiology, clinical presentation, basic science, prevention strategies, and efficacy of current therapies. Experts around the table agreed on a set of research, education, and policy recommendations that have the potential to dramatically increase awareness and improve women's urological health at all stages of life.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/140146/1/jwh.2016.5895.pd

The effectiveness of digital storytelling in the classrooms: a comprehensive study

In recent years the use of new technologies in educational systems has increased worldwide as digital cameras, personal computers, scanners, and easy-to-use software have become available to educators to harness the digital world. The impact of new technologies in educational contexts has been mostly positive as new technologies have given educators the opportunity to enhance their knowledge, skills, and therefore enhance the standard of education. Researchers have found that student engagement, achievement and motivation are enhanced through integration of such technologies. However, education systems still face many challenges: one of these challenges is how to enhance student engagement to provide better educational outcomes. It has become increasingly important to use innovative pedagogical models to engage learners. Digital storytelling is one of the innovative pedagogical approaches that can engage students in deep and meaningful learning. This research project aimed to create a constructivist learning environment with digital storytelling. The research investigated the pedagogical aspects of digital storytelling and the impact of digital storytelling on student learning when teachers and students use digital stories. A multi-site case study was conducted in one Australian school at primary and secondary levels. In selected classrooms, students and teachers had the opportunity to engage in innovative learning experiences based on digital storytelling. In order to enhance the reliability and validity of the research, multiple methods of data collection and analysis were used. Data was collected with qualitative and quantitative methods. An evaluation rubric was used to collect quantitative data, while interviews and observation were used to collect qualitative data. Data collection was guided by a mixed methods research design in order to evaluate if and how digital storytelling enhances teaching and learning outcomes. The findings from this study suggest that digital storytelling is a powerful tool to integrate instructional messages with learning activities to create more engaging and exciting learning environments. It is a meaningful approach for creating a constructivist learning environment based on novel principles of teaching and learning. Thus, this approach has the potential to enhance student engagement and provide better educational outcomes for learners

Surgical and medical second trimester abortion in South Africa: A cross-sectional study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>A high percentage of abortions performed in South Africa are in the second trimester. However, little research focuses on women's experiences seeking second trimester abortion or the efficacy and safety of these services.</p> <p>The objectives are to document clinical and acceptability outcomes of second trimester medical and surgical abortion as performed at public hospitals in the Western Cape Province.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We performed a cross-sectional study of women undergoing abortion at 12.1-20.9 weeks at five hospitals in Western Cape Province, South Africa in 2008. Two hundred and twenty women underwent D&E with misoprostol cervical priming, and 84 underwent induction with misoprostol alone. Information was obtained about the procedure and immediate complications, and women were interviewed after recovery.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Median gestational age at abortion was earlier for D&E clients compared to induction (16.0 weeks vs. 18.1 weeks, p < 0.001). D&E clients reported shorter intervals between first clinic visit and abortion (median 17 vs. 30 days, p < 0.001). D&E was more effective than induction (99.5% vs. 50.0% of cases completed on-site without unplanned surgical procedure, p < 0.001). Although immediate complications were similar (43.8% D&E vs. 52.4% induction), all three major complications occurred with induction. Early fetal expulsion occurred in 43.3% of D&E cases. While D&E clients reported higher pain levels and emotional discomfort, most women were satisfied with their experience.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>As currently performed in South Africa, second trimester abortions by D&E were more effective than induction procedures, required shorter hospital stay, had fewer major immediate complications and were associated with shorter delays accessing care. Both services can be improved by implementing evidence-based protocols.</p

Demonstrating sub-3 ps temporal resolution in a superconducting nanowire single-photon detector

Improving the temporal resolution of single photon detectors has an impact on many applications, such as increased data rates and transmission distances for both classical and quantum optical communication systems, higher spatial resolution in laser ranging and observation of shorter-lived fluorophores in biomedical imaging. In recent years, superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) have emerged as the highest efficiency time-resolving single-photon counting detectors available in the near infrared. As the detection mechanism in SNSPDs occurs on picosecond time scales, SNSPDs have been demonstrated with exquisite temporal resolution below 15 ps. We reduce this value to 2.7$\pm$0.2 ps at 400 nm and 4.6$\pm$0.2 ps at 1550 nm, using a specialized niobium nitride (NbN) SNSPD. The observed photon-energy dependence of the temporal resolution and detection latency suggests that intrinsic effects make a significant contribution.Comment: 25 pages, 9 figure