The GIS technology implementation

GIS is a useful tool for gathering and analysing information. Cemetery is a place where a lot of information can be found but usually there is no system that could help put all the information together. Students of Agricultural University of Krakow were asked to create a database that could make the management of the Cemetery of the Parish of Good Shepherd easier. On the basis of total station and GPS measurement, the database; containing: names, dates of death, the type of grave, the size of grave etc.; was created. Geographic Information System that came into being facilitates decision making e. g. finding place for a new grave, managing burials etc

The BeatHealth Project: Considerations When Moving Technology from the Lab to the Wider World

‘Beathealth’ is an EU‐funded collaborative research project. The project consortium brings together scientific researchers from four different EU countries: Montpellier University and CHRU in France, Ghent University in Belgium, NUI Maynooth in Ireland and Technalia in Spain. The objective of the research is to harness the power of rhythm to realise new technology applications that can assist us to achieve better health. Furthermore, for those with declining physical health, such as Parkinson’s disease, it will create new tools to facilitate patients in therapeutic sessions and help stimulate an improvement in their condition. The concept is that technology will first of all monitor bodily movement using real‐time sensors. These are connected to a mobile smartphone device using the Bluetooth protocol. The signals are then analysed using algorithms to extract features that highlight the rhythm of the person’s activity. These rhythmic patterns will drive a synchronous adaptation between the beat of some music they are currently listening to, thereby reinforcing the rhythm of the activity at a neurological level. This will produce a harmony of activity between body and mind significantly boosting its beneficial impacts. Hence the name: ‘BeatHealth’. The responsibilities within the project are that the French teams will study the relationship between rhythm and physical and mental responses. The groups from Belgium and Ireland are working on the technological implementation, while the Spanish group will address the commercialisation of the outputs. The intention is that new insights discovered in the laboratory using specialist equipment will be taken by the other teams and developed into a robust mobile phone‐based system. The mobile system will have a combination of new hardware (custom‐made sensors) and software (data analysis and music alignment) technologies. This system should be ready for commercial development and exploitation. However, making that transition from the equipment of the lab to an integrated unit that can be used in an everyday setting is not straightforward. These are the technical challenges for the Irish team of ‘BeatHealth’. The problems include (1) building a complimentary set of physiological sensors that are reliable, portable, and power efficient, (2) knowing the limitations in the communication protocol used between the sensors and the mobile device, (3) finding suitable algorithms to effectively remove noise from the sensor signals and fuse these into a single representative stream, and (4) refining the music adaptation and playback algorithms to cope with latencies inherent in the mobile phone operating system. The presentation will discuss the solutions proposed by the Irish group to overcome these and other problems. It will thus demonstrate the sometime difficult pathway from the ‘ideal conditions’ of the laboratory to the more challenging environment of the wider world, and how it influences all the technical decisions

Approaches for constant audio latency on Android

This paper discusses issues related to audio latency for realtime processing Android OS applications. We first introduce the problem, determining the difference between the concepts of low latency and constant latency. It is a well-known issue that programs written for this platform cannot implement low-latency audio. However, in some cases, while low latency is desirable, it is not crucial. In some of these cases, achieving a constant delay between control events and sound output is the necessary condition. The paper briefly outlines the audio architecture in the Android platform to tease out the difficulties. Following this, we proposed some approaches to deal with two basic situations, one where the audio callback system provided by the system software is isochronous, and one where it is not

Evolution of place-based governance in the management of development dilemmas: long-term learning from Małopolska, Poland

In this paper, we reflect on the evolution of place-based governance from a long-term (15 year) study of rural development initiatives undertaken in a region of Poland as part of its accession to the European Union. We decompose the recursive process of institutional learning arising from initiatives for heritage preservation and rural economic development. In our analysis, we elaborate a typology of unavoidable development dilemmas that must be explicitly managed in order to allow place-based governance to effectively harness the cultural value, social context, and developmental needs of certain locales or landscapes. Although creating and sustaining local value remain contingent on broader realities of governance, proactive management of these dilemmas can help prevent many of the usual contestations around goals and identity from becoming intractable in later periods. Our proposed approach to enabling place-based governance emphasizes conflict recognition and engagement as important complements to more common prescriptive models of governance

Fusion of pose and head tracking data for immersive mixed-reality application development

This work addresses the creation of a development framework where application developers can create, in a natural way, immersive physical activities where users experience a 3D first-person perception of full body control. The proposed frame-work is based on commercial motion sensors and a Head-Mounted Display (HMD), and a uses Unity 3D as a unifying environment where user pose, virtual scene and immersive visualization functions are coordinated. Our proposal is exemplified by the development of a toy application showing its practical us

The Beathealth Project: Synchronising Movement and Music

This paper will describe the new EU Beathealth project1: an initiative to create an intelligent technical architecture capable of delivering embodied, flexible, and efficient rhythmical stimulation adapted to individuals’ motor performance and skills for the purpose of enhancing/recovering movement activity. Additionally, it will explain how it can exemplify the principles of Ubiquitious Music and how knowledge from this field can suggest creativity-driven social enhancements

Methods of surgical treatment of bilateral vocal fold paralysis.

Bilateral vocal fold paralysis presents as their complete or partial immobilisation. The median or paramedian position of vocal folds contributes to the narrowing of the airway at the level of the glottis and manifests as inspiratory dyspnoea. For many years iatrogenic injury of recurrent laryngeal nerves during thyroidectomy has been viewed as the most common underlying reason. It is very often a lifethreatening condition requiring not only corticosteroid administration and intubation, which only constitute a short-term symptomatic therapy, but also surgical intervention, including tracheostomy. The most common surgical methods implemented in bilateral vocal fold paralysis include posterior cordectomy, arytenoidectomy, and, more and more commonly, re-innervation. Other techniques used in restoring airway patency include laterofixation, botulinum toxin injection, and laryngeal stimulation, which is still under research. Stem cell and gene therapy are also being researched. Notably, the main purpose of surgical treatment is the provision of airway patency withthe preservation of the phonatory and protective functions of the larynx.Bilateral vocal fold paralysis presents as their complete or partial immobilization. The median or paramedian position of vocal folds contributes to the narrowing of the airway at the level of the glottis and manifests as inspiratory dyspnea. For many years the iatrogenic injury of recurrent laryngeal nerves during thyroidectomy has been viewed as the most common underlying reason. It is very often a life-threatening condition requiring not only corticosteroid administration and intubation which only constitute a short-term symptomatic therapy, but also a surgical intervention, including tracheostomy. The most common surgical methods implemented in bilateral vocal fold paralysis include posterior cordectomy, arytenoidectomy and, more and more commonly, re-innervation. Other techniques used in restoring airway patency include laterofixation, botulinum toxin injection, and laryngeal stimulation which is still under research. Stem cell and gene therapy are also being researched. Notably, the main purpose of surgical treatment is the provision of airway patency with the preservation of the phonatory and protective functions of the larynx

DEAF1 is a Pellino1-interacting protein required for interferon production by Sendai virus and double-stranded RNA

Double-stranded (ds) RNA of viral origin, a ligand for Melanoma Differentiation-associated gene 5 (MDA5) and Toll-Like Receptor 3 (TLR3), induces the TANK-Binding Kinase 1 (TBK1)-dependent phosphorylation and activation of Interferon Regulatory Factor 3 (IRF3) and the E3 ubiquitin ligase Pellino1, which are required for interferon β (IFNβ) gene transcription. Here, we report that Pellino1 interacts with the transcription factor Deformed Epidermal Autoregulatory Factor 1 (DEAF1). The interaction is independent of the E3 ligase activity of Pellino1, but weakened by the phosphorylation of Pellino1. We show that DEAF1 binds to the IFNβ promoter and to IRF3 and IRF7, that it is required for the transcription of the IFNβ gene and IFNβ secretion in MEFs infected with Sendai virus or transfected with poly(I:C). DEAF1 is also needed for TLR3-dependent IFNβ production. Taken together, our results identify DEAF1 as a novel component of the signal transduction network by which dsRNA of viral origin stimulates IFNβ production

Negative phenotypic and genetic associations between copulation duration and longevity in male seed beetles

Reproduction can be costly and is predicted to trade-off against other characters. However, while these trade-offs are well documented for females, there has been less focus on aspects of male reproduction. Furthermore, those studies that have looked at males typically only investigate phenotypic associations, with the underlying genetics often ignored. Here, we report on phenotypic and genetic trade-offs in male reproductive effort in the seed beetle, Callosobruchus maculatus. We find that the duration of a male's first copulation is negatively associated with subsequent male survival, phenotypically and genetically. Our results are consistent with life-history theory and suggest that like females, males trade-off reproductive effort against longevity