Comparison of engagement and emotional responses of older and younger adults interacting with 3D cultural heritage artefacts on personal devices

The availability of advanced software and less expensive hardware allows museums to preserve and share artefacts digitally. As a result, museums are frequently making their collections accessible online as interactive, 3D models. This could lead to the unique situation of viewing the digital artefact before the physical artefact. Experiencing artefacts digitally outside of the museum on personal devices may affect the user's ability to emotionally connect to the artefacts. This study examines how two target populations of young adults (18–21 years) and the elderly (65 years and older) responded to seeing cultural heritage artefacts in three different modalities: augmented reality on a tablet, 3D models on a laptop, and then physical artefacts. Specifically, the time spent, enjoyment, and emotional responses were analysed. Results revealed that regardless of age, the digital modalities were enjoyable and encouraged emotional responses. Seeing the physical artefacts after the digital ones did not lessen their enjoyment or emotions felt. These findings aim to provide an insight into the effectiveness of 3D artefacts viewed on personal devices and artefacts shown outside of the museum for encouraging emotional responses from older and younger people

Keep the VRhythm going: A musician-centred study investigating how Virtual Reality can support creative musical practice

The acoustic and visual experiences of musicians in the spaces they perform in are complex and organic in nature, entailing a continuous interaction with the environment. With this project, we leverage the power of Virtual Reality (VR) to support musicians in their creative practice by transporting them to novel sonic and visual worlds. For this, we developed a musician-centred VR system, featuring various acoustic and visual virtual environments, VR Rehearse & Perform, based on design requirements gathered with musicians and performance experts. To investigate how VR can be designed to support music-makers in their creative musical practice, we performed iterative tests with 19 musicians followed by semi-structured interviews. Our fndings suggest that VR has the potential to support diferent aspects of the creative musical practice, such as rehearsing, performing and improvising. Our research provides insights and inspirations toward designing musician-centred VR experiences for various musical activities

Wireless Communication Networks for Gas Turbine Engine Testing

A new trend in the field of Aeronautical Engine Health Monitoring is the implementation of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) for data acquisition and condition monitoring to partially replace heavy and complex wiring harnesses, which limit the versatility of the monitoring process as well as creating practical deployment issues. Using wireless technologies instead of fixed wiring will fuel opportunities for reduced cabling, faster sensor and network deployment, increased data acquisition flexibility and reduced cable maintenance costs. However, embedding wireless technology into an aero engine (even in the ground testing application considered here) presents some very significant challenges, e.g. a harsh environment with a complex RF transmission environment, high sensor density and high data-rate. In this paper we discuss the results of the Wireless Data Acquisition in Gas Turbine Engine Testing (WIDAGATE) project, which aimed to design and simulate such a network to estimate network performance and de-risk the wireless techniques before the deployment

Deep learning system to predict the 5-year risk of high myopia using fundus imaging in children

Our study aims to identify children at risk of developing high myopia for timely assessment and intervention, preventing myopia progression and complications in adulthood through the development of a deep learning system (DLS). Using a school-based cohort in Singapore comprising 998 children (aged 6-12 years old), we train and perform primary validation of the DLS using 7456 baseline fundus images of 1878 eyes; with external validation using an independent test dataset of 821 baseline fundus images of 189 eyes together with clinical data (age, gender, race, parental myopia, and baseline spherical equivalent (SE)). We derive three distinct algorithms - image, clinical, and mix (image + clinical) models to predict high myopia development (SE ≤ -6.00 diopter) during teenage years (5 years later, age 11-17). Model performance is evaluated using the area under the receiver operating curve (AUC). Our image models (Primary dataset AUC 0.93-0.95; Test dataset 0.91-0.93), clinical models (Primary dataset AUC 0.90-0.97; Test dataset 0.93-0.94) and mixed (image + clinical) models (Primary dataset AUC 0.97; Test dataset 0.97-0.98) achieve clinically acceptable performance. The addition of 1 year SE progression variable has minimal impact on the DLS performance (clinical model AUC 0.98 versus 0.97 in the primary dataset, 0.97 versus 0.94 in the test dataset; mixed model AUC 0.99 versus 0.97 in the primary dataset, 0.95 versus 0.98 in test dataset). Thus, our DLS allows prediction of the development of high myopia by teenage years amongst school-going children. This has potential utility as a clinical decision support tool to identify "at-risk" children for early intervention.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A case study analysis of a constructionist knowledge building community with activity theory

This article investigates how activity theory can help research a constructionist community. We present a constructionist activity model called CONstructionism Through ACtivity Theory (CONTACT) model and explain how it can be used to analyse the constructionist activity in knowledge building communities. We then illustrate the model through its application to analysing the Wiki-supported community associated with a computer game. Our analysis focuses mainly on two perspectives: individual and collective actions, as well as individual and collective mediations. Experiences and challenges from the analysis are reported to demonstrate how CONTACT is helpful in analysing such communities

Seroepidemiology of coxsackievirus A6, coxsackievirus A16, and Enterovirus 71 infections among children and adolescents in Singapore, 2008-2010

10.1371/journal.pone.0127999PLoS ONE105e012799

The changing seroepidemiology of enterovirus 71 infection among children and adolescents in Singapore

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Enterovirus 71 (EV71) has caused recurrent epidemics of hand, foot and mouth disease among children in Singapore. Between August 2008 and July 2010, we conducted a survey to estimate the seroprevalence of EV71 infection among children and adolescents aged 1-17 years. We compared our EV71 seroepidemiologic findings with a previous study conducted in 1996-1997.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The survey involved the prospective collection of 1,200 residual sera from Singapore residents aged 1-17 years in two hospitals. Neutralizing antibodies to EV71 were detected by the microneutralization test. The geometric mean titer (GMT) of EV71 antibodies and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated and compared by age groups. Statistical significance was taken as <it>P </it>< 0.05.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The overall EV71 antibody prevalence was 26.9% (95% CI: 24.5-29.5%). It increased significantly from 14.3% in children aged 1-6 years to 27.8% in those aged 7-12 years, and reached 38.8% in adolescents aged 13-17 years. The seroconversion rate differed by about 12% between the consecutive age groups. The GMT of EV71 antibodies was higher among primary school children aged 7-12 years in our study than that among the 6-12 year age group in the 1996-1997 study.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Higher antibody titers were observed in children aged 1-6 years than those in the other two age groups, indicating that most of the infections had been acquired during early childhood. EV71 infection is common among children and adolescents in Singapore, with 39% infected by the time they are in secondary school (13-17 years of age).</p

Design, synthesis and biological evaluation of 2-nitroimidazopyrazin-one/-es with antitubercular and antiparasitic activity

Tuberculosis and parasitic diseases, such as giardiasis, amebiasis, leishmaniasis and trypanosomiasis, all urgently require improved treatment options. Recently, it has been shown that anti-tubercular bicyclic nitroimidazoles such as pretomanid and delamanid have potential as repurposed therapeutics for the treatment of visceral leishmaniasis. Here we show that pretomanid also possesses potent activity against Giardia lamblia and Entamoeba histolytica, thus expanding the therapeutic potential of nitroimidazo-oxazines. Synthetic analogs with the novel nitroimidazopyrazin-one/-e bicyclic nitroimidazole chemotype were designed, synthesized and structure activity relationships generated. Selected derivatives had potent antiparasitic and antitubercular activity whilst maintaining drug-like properties such as low cytotoxicity against mammalian cell lines (CC50 >100 μM), good metabolic stability in human and mouse liver microsomes and high apparent permeability in a Caco-2 model of intestinal absorption. The kinetic solubility of the new bicyclic derivatives varied, and was found to be a key parameter for future optimization. Taken together, these results suggest promising subclasses of bicyclic nitroimidazoles containing different core architectures have potential for further development