3D Visualization of Cultural Heritage Artefacts with Virtual Reality devices

Although 3D models are useful to preserve the information about historical artefacts, the potential of these digital contents are not fully accomplished until they are not used to interactively communicate their significance to non-specialists. Starting from this consideration, a new way to provide museum visitors with more information was investigated. The research is aimed at valorising and making more accessible the Egyptian funeral objects exhibited in the Sforza Castle in Milan. The results of the research will be used for the renewal of the current exhibition, at the Archaeological Museum in Milan, by making it more attractive. A 3D virtual interactive scenario regarding the "path of the dead", an important ritual in ancient Egypt, was realized to augment the experience and the comprehension of the public through interactivity. Four important artefacts were considered for this scope: two ushabty, a wooden sarcophagus and a heart scarab. The scenario was realized by integrating low-cost Virtual Reality technologies, as the Oculus Rift DK2 and the Leap Motion controller, and implementing a specific software by using Unity. The 3D models were implemented by adding responsive points of interest in relation to important symbols or features of the artefact. This allows highlighting single parts of the artefact in order to better identify the hieroglyphs and provide their translation. The paper describes the process for optimizing the 3D models, the implementation of the interactive scenario and the results of some test that have been carried out in the lab

Sensor-Based Task Ergonomics Feedback for a Passive Low-Back Exoskeleton

Low-back exoskeletons are a wide-spreading technology tackling low-back pain, the leading work-related musculoskeletal disorder in many work sectors. Currently, spring-based (i.e., passive) exoskeletons are the mostly adopted in the industry, being cheaper and generally less complex and more intuitive to use. We introduce a system of interconnected wireless sensing units to provide online ergonomics feedback to the wearer. We integrate the system into our passive low-back exoskeleton and evaluate its usability with healthy volunteers and potential end users. In this way, we provide the exoskeleton with a tool aimed both at monitoring the interaction of the system with the user, providing them with an ergonomics feedback during task execution. The sensor system can also be integrated with a custom-developed Unity3D application which can be used to interface with Augmented- or Virtual-Reality applications with higher potential for improved user feedback, ergonomics training, and offline ergonomics evaluation of the workplace. We believe that providing ergonomics feedback to exoskeleton users in the industrial sector could help further reduce the drastic impact of low-back pain and prevent its onset

Implementation of AMI Systems in CFE-Distribution, Mexico

The Smart Grid concept has been conceived as the integration of the electrical grid (generation, transmission and distribution) and the communications network of an electric utility. Although, traditional communications interfaces, protocols and standards has been used in the electrical grid in an isolated manner, modern communications networks are considered as the fundamental enabling technologies within a Smart Grid environment. Emerging communications technologies, protocol architectures and standards can help to build a common communications network infrastructure for data transport between customer premises, power substations, power distribution systems, utility control centers and utility data centers. The Smart Grid will support traditional applications such as supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), distribution automation (DA), energy management systems (EMS), demand site management (DSM) and automated meter reading (AMR), etc., as well as new applications like advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), substation automation (SA), microgrids, distributed generation (DG), grid monitoring and control, data storage and analysis, among others. To make this possible, the Smart Grid requires a two-way wide area communications network between different dispersed areas, from generation to consumer premises. An AMI system uses communication technologies for smart meter reading several times a day to get data consumption of electricity, as well as sending outage alarm information and meter tampering almost in real time, from the meter to the control center. Currently, there are various communication technologies to implement AMI systems. This paper presents an overview of the most relevant communications technologies that can be used to implement AMI communications infrastructure such as neighborhood area networks (NAN), field area networks (FAN) and wide area networks (WAN) using different transmission media such as fiber optics, spread spectrum radio frequency, microwave, WiMax, Wi-Fi, ZigBee, cellular, and power line carrier. In addition, a review of the current state of various AMI projects around the world, including the progress in the implementation of AMI systems in Mexico, besides the evaluation performance of CFE´s AMI networks

Global environmental sustainability: the role of Geography and its recent hybridations

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Documenting Nursing and Medical Students’ Stereotypes about Hispanic and American Indian Patients

Objective: Hispanic Americans and American Indians face significant health disparities compared with White Americans. Research suggests that stereotyping of minority patients by members of the medical community is an important antecedent of race and ethnicity-based health disparities. This work has primarily focused on physicians’ perceptions, however, and little research has examined the stereotypes healthcare personnel associate with Hispanic and American Indian patients. The present study assesses: 1) the health-related stereotypes both nursing and medical students hold about Hispanic and American Indian patients, and 2) nursing and medical students’ motivation to treat Hispanic and American Indian patients in an unbiased manner. Design: Participants completed a questionnaire assessing their awareness of stereotypes that healthcare professionals associate with Hispanic and American Indian patients then completed measures of their motivation to treat Hispanics and American Indians in an unbiased manner. Results: Despite being highly motivated to treat Hispanic and American Indian individuals fairly, the majority of participants reported awareness of stereotypes associating these patient groups with noncompliance, risky health behavior, and difficulty understanding and/or communicating health-related information. Conclusion: This research provides direct evidence for negative health-related stereotypes associated with two understudied minority patient groups—Hispanics and American Indians—among both nursing and medical personnel

Positive Allosteric Modulation of Kv Channels by Sevoflurane: Insights into the Structural Basis of Inhaled Anesthetic Action.

Inhalational general anesthesia results from the poorly understood interactions of haloethers with multiple protein targets, which prominently includes ion channels in the nervous system. Previously, we reported that the commonly used inhaled anesthetic sevoflurane potentiates the activity of voltage-gated K+ (Kv) channels, specifically, several mammalian Kv1 channels and the Drosophila K-Shaw2 channel. Also, previous work suggested that the S4-S5 linker of K-Shaw2 plays a role in the inhibition of this Kv channel by n-alcohols and inhaled anesthetics. Here, we hypothesized that the S4-S5 linker is also a determinant of the potentiation of Kv1.2 and K-Shaw2 by sevoflurane. Following functional expression of these Kv channels in Xenopus oocytes, we found that converse mutations in Kv1.2 (G329T) and K-Shaw2 (T330G) dramatically enhance and inhibit the potentiation of the corresponding conductances by sevoflurane, respectively. Additionally, Kv1.2-G329T impairs voltage-dependent gating, which suggests that Kv1.2 modulation by sevoflurane is tied to gating in a state-dependent manner. Toward creating a minimal Kv1.2 structural model displaying the putative sevoflurane binding sites, we also found that the positive modulations of Kv1.2 and Kv1.2-G329T by sevoflurane and other general anesthetics are T1-independent. In contrast, the positive sevoflurane modulation of K-Shaw2 is T1-dependent. In silico docking and molecular dynamics-based free-energy calculations suggest that sevoflurane occupies distinct sites near the S4-S5 linker, the pore domain and around the external selectivity filter. We conclude that the positive allosteric modulation of the Kv channels by sevoflurane involves separable processes and multiple sites within regions intimately involved in channel gating