The enactive approach to architectural experience: A neurophysiological perspective on embodiment, motivation, and affordances

From the enactivist perspective, the way people perceptually experience the world, including architectural spaces, is governed by the dynamic sensorimotor activity of the human organism as a whole and is thereby influenced by the particular conditions of man’s embodiment

Line-shape analysis and simulation of Er3+ photoluminescence spectra in erbium-stabilized nanocrystalline zirconia structures

Peculiarities of the near-infrared and visible up-conversion spectra of nanocrystalline (Er2O3)x (ZrO2)1-x have been studied. It is shown that for the samples with 0.026 < x < 0.143 the photoluminescence spectra of Er3+ are defined a by similar erbium environment in spite of the different symmetry of the host ZrO2 matrix. The low temperature and room temperature emission bands in the spectral range of the 4I13/2 → 4I15/2 transition are measured and interpreted in terms of the multi-electron molecular orbitals cluster model developed for the case of nanocrystal structures. The role of the intra-manifold 4I13/2 relaxatio

Electroencephalographic correlates of sensorimotor integration and embodiment during the appreciation of virtual architectural environments

Nowadays there is the hope that neuroscientific findings will contribute to the improvement of building design in order to create environments which satisfy man's demands. This can be achieved through the understanding of neurophysiological correlates of architectural perception. To this aim, the electroencephalographic (EEG) signals of 12 healthy subjects were recorded during the perception of three immersive virtual reality environments (VEs). Afterwards, participants were asked to describe their experience in terms of Familiarity, Novelty, Comfort, Pleasantness, Arousal, and Presence using a rating scale from 1 to 9. These perceptual dimensions are hypothesized to influence the pattern of cerebral spectral activity, while Presence is used to assess the realism of the virtual stimulation. Hence, the collected scores were used to analyze the Power Spectral Density (PSD) of the EEG for each behavioral dimension in the theta, alpha and mu bands by means of time-frequency analysis and topographic statistical maps. Analysis of Presence resulted in the activation of the frontal-midline theta, indicating the involvement of sensorimotor integration mechanisms when subjects expressed to feel more present in the VEs. Similar patterns also characterized the experience of familiar and comfortable VEs. In addition, pleasant VEs increased the theta power across visuomotor circuits and activated the alpha band in areas devoted to visuospatial exploration and processing of categorical spatial relations. Finally, the de-synchronization of the mu rhythm described the perception of pleasant and comfortable VEs, showing the involvement of left motor areas and embodied mechanisms for environment appreciation. Overall, these results show the possibility to measure EEG correlates of architectural perception involving the cerebral circuits of sensorimotor integration, spatial navigation, and embodiment. These observations can help testing architectural hypotheses in order to design environments matching the changing needs of humans

Staged Contact-Aware Global Human Motion Forecasting

Scene-aware global human motion forecasting is critical for manifold applications, including virtual reality, robotics, and sports. The task combines human trajectory and pose forecasting within the provided scene context, which represents a significant challenge. So far, only Mao et al. NeurIPS'22 have addressed scene-aware global motion, cascading the prediction of future scene contact points and the global motion estimation. They perform the latter as the end-to-end forecasting of future trajectories and poses. However, end-to-end contrasts with the coarse-to-fine nature of the task and it results in lower performance, as we demonstrate here empirically. We propose a STAGed contact-aware global human motion forecasting STAG, a novel three-stage pipeline for predicting global human motion in a 3D environment. We first consider the scene and the respective human interaction as contact points. Secondly, we model the human trajectory forecasting within the scene, predicting the coarse motion of the human body as a whole. The third and last stage matches a plausible fine human joint motion to complement the trajectory considering the estimated contacts. Compared to the state-of-the-art (SoA), STAG achieves a 1.8% and 16.2% overall improvement in pose and trajectory prediction, respectively, on the scene-aware GTA-IM dataset. A comprehensive ablation study confirms the advantages of staged modeling over end-to-end approaches. Furthermore, we establish the significance of a newly proposed temporal counter called the "time-to-go", which tells how long it is before reaching scene contact and endpoints. Notably, STAG showcases its ability to generalize to datasets lacking a scene and achieves a new state-of-the-art performance on CMU-Mocap, without leveraging any social cues. Our code is released at: https://github.com/L-Scofano/STAGComment: 15 pages, 7 figures, BMVC23 ora

Società in-house per la gestione dei rifiuti solidi urbani: alcune evidenze empiriche sui fattori che influenzano la performance economico-finanziaria

In addition to being at the center of attention because of its delicate economic balance, also highlighted by legislation, the in-house sector can also affect environmental aspects as in the case of in-house companies operating in the municipal solid waste sector. Hence, the choice of the investigated statistical universe, represented by all the in-house companies of the Italian provincial capitals operating in this sector, with the aim of investigating the factors influencing their economic and financial performance. Applying the GLS methodology (period 2011-2017), the analysis allows the authors to conclude that: 1) the size of the companies considered has an inversely proportional impact on performance; 2) the technical characteristics of the service provided influence the results in a non-univocal way; 3) the political orientation of the owner municipality negatively influences the economic and financial performance of the selected companies; 4) the higher the average age of the directors, the better the company’s performance.Il settore delle società in-house oltre ad essere al centro dell’attenzione per il suo delicato equilibrio economico, sottolineato anche dalla normativa, può interessare aspetti ambientali come nel caso delle in-house operanti nel settore dei rifiuti solidi urbani. Da qui la scelta di indagare l’universo statistico composto da tutte le società in-house dei comuni italiani capoluoghi di provincia operanti in tale settore, con l’obiettivo di indagarne i fattori di influenza sulla performance economico-patrimoniale. Applicando la metodologia GLS (periodo 2011-2017), l’analisi consente di concludere che: 1) la dimensione delle aziende considerate ha un impatto inversamente proporzionale sulla performance; 2) le caratteristiche tecniche del servizio erogato influenzano in maniera non univoca i risultati; 3) l’orientamento politico del comune proprietario influenza negativamente le prestazioni economico-patrimoniali delle aziende selezionate; 4) maggiore è l’età media degli amministratori e migliore è la performance aziendale.Le secteur des entreprises in-house n’est pas seulement au centre de l’attention en raison de son équilibre économique délicat, qui est également souligné par la législation, mais il peut également avoir des répercussions sur les aspects environnementaux, comme dans le cas des entreprises in-house opérant dans le secteur des déchets solides municipaux. D’où le choix de l’univers statistique étudié, représenté par toutes les entreprises in-house des capitales provinciales italiennes opérant dans ce secteur, dans le but d’étudier les facteurs influençant leurs performances économiques et financières. En appliquant la méthodologie GLS (période 2011-2017), l’analyse permet de conclure que 1) la taille des entreprises considérées a un impact inversement proportionnel sur les performances ; 2) les caractéristiques techniques du service fourni influencent les résultats de manière non univoque ; 3) l’orientation politique de la municipalité propriétaire influence négativement les performances économiques et financières des entreprises sélectionnées ; 4) plus l’âge moyen des directeurs est élevé, meilleures sont les performances de l’entreprise

The role of substrate temperature and magnetic filtering for DLC by cathodic arc evaporation

Diamond-like carbon (DLC) films were deposited using two different types of high current arc evaporation. The first process used a magnetic particle filter to remove droplets from the plasma. For the second process, the samples were put into a metallic cage which was placed directly above the plasma source. For both processes, we varied the substrate temperature from 21 to 350 °C in order to investigate the temperature effect. The samples were characterized using SEM, AFM, XPS, Raman Spectroscopy, Ellipsometry, Photometry, and Nano Indentation in order to compare both methods of deposition and provide a careful characterization of such DLC films. We found that the sp3 content and the hardness can be precisely adjusted by changing the substrate temperature. Furthermore, in the case of unfiltered deposition, the optical constants can be shifted in the direction of higher absorbance in order to produce black and hard carbon coatings. © 2019 by the authors

Poly(Ethylene glycol) diacrylate hydrogel with silver nanoclusters for water Pb(II) ions filtering

Poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEGDA) hydrogels modified with luminescent silver nanoclusters (AgNCs) are synthesized by a photo-crosslinking process. The hybrid material thus obtained is employed to filter Pb(II) polluted water. Under the best conditions, the nanocomposite is able to remove up to 80–90% of lead contaminant, depending on the filter composition. The experimental results indicate that the adsorption process of Pb(II) onto the modified filter can be well modeled using the Freundlich isotherm, thus revealing that the chemisorption is the driving process of Pb(II) adsorption. In addition, the parameter n in the Freundlich model suggests that the adsorption process of Pb(II) ions in the modified hydrogel is favored. Based on the obtained remarkable contaminant uptake capacity and the overall low cost, this hybrid system appears to be a promising sorbent material for the removal of Pb(II) ions from aqueous media