Collective choreography of space: modelling digital co-Presence in a public arena

In this paper we report on recent investigations within an ongoing research project, which aims at developing a better understanding of the urban space augmented with the digital space. We are looking at developing sensing environments acting as an interface that can facilitate interactions between people and people, and people and their surrounding. Here we describe a preliminary study that aims at mapping and visualising the digital presence of people in the public arena. We outline initial observations about how people move and congregate, and illustrate the impact of the spatial and syntactical properties on the type of shared interactions. We suggest that by altering the relation between consciousness of communication and the intention of interaction, technology can be appropriated to support emergent choreography of space. This may help throw further light on the complex relationship between the digital space and urban space in general, and people’s relationship to each other and to the sensing environment. Finally, we discuss our initial results and mention briefly our ongoing work

The urban screen as a socialising platform: exploring the role of place within the urban space

In this paper we explore shared encounters mediated by technologies in the urban space. We investigate aspects that influence the interactions between people and people and people and their surroundings when technology is introduced in the urban space. We highlight the importance of space and the role of place in providing temporal and spatial mechanisms facilitating different types of social interactions and shared encounters. An emperical experiment was condeucted with a prototype that was implemented in the form of a digital screen, embeded in the physical surrounding in selected locations with low, medium and high pedestrian flows in the heritage City of Bath, UK. The aim is to create a novel urban experience that triggers shared encounters among friends, observers or strangers. Using the body as an interaface, the screen acted as a non-traditional interface and a facilitator between people and people and people and their surrounding environment. Here we outline early findings from deploying the digital screen as a socialiasing platform in a city context. We describe the user experience and demonstrate how people move, congregate and socialize around the digital surface. We illustrate the impact of the spatial and syntactical properties on the type of shared interactions in and highlight related issues. The initial findings indicated that introducing a digital platform as a public interactive installation in the urban space may provide a stage for emergent social interactions among various people and motivate users to actively and collaboratively play with the media. However, situating the digital platform in various locations, and depending on the context, might generate diverse and unpredicted social behaviours designers might be unaware of. In this respect we believe that the final experience is shaped by interconnection of structural, social, cultural, temporal and perhaps personal elements. We conclude by mentioning briefly our on going work

A socializing interactive installation for the urban environments

In this paper we present the LEDs Urban Carpet: an interactive urban installation using a body-input as a form of a non-traditional user interface. The installation was tested in various locations around the city of Bath, UK. We selected locations with low, medium and high pedestrian flows. The aim is to generate a novel urban experience, which can be introduced in different locations in the city and with different social situations. The installation represents a game with a grid of LEDs that can be embedded as an interactive carpet into the urban context. A pattern of lights is generated dynamically following the pedestrians movement over the carpet. In this case the pedestrians become active participants that influence the generative process and make the pattern of LED-s change. The paper suggests that introducing this kind of display in a social scenario can enrich the casual interaction of people nearby and this might enhance social awareness and engagement. However, we should point out that a number of factors need to be taken into consideration when designing an interactive installation, especially when situated within the urban space. The experience we present here can assist designers in understanding difficulties and issues that need to be taken into account during the design of an interactive urban project of this nature

A sense of place and pervasive computing within the urban landscape

In this paper we report on recent investigations within an ongoing research project, which aims at developing a better understanding of the urban landscape augmented with the digital landscape in the heritage City of Bath. Here we describe early findings from the deployment of a socialiasing digital installation in various locations in the city. The aim is to create a novel urban experience that triggers shared social encounters among friends, observes or strangers. The installation is implemented in the form of a digital urban ground , embeded in the physical surrounding, which acts as a non-traditional interface and a facilitator between people and people and people and their surrounding environment . In this paper we explore the relationship between the urban space and technology driven encounters. We outline initial findings about how people move, congregate and socialize around the digital ground and illustrate the impact of the spatial and syntactical properties on the type of shared interactions in a city context. Finally we discuss initial results and mention briefly our on going work

Generating Narrative Spaces from Events History

For a successful distributed teamwork it is vital to provide team-members with awareness on collaborative activities. One way of achieving this is through applying a narrative based approach to construct the events that have taken place on documents and folders in a project workspace, as various members make changes to its content. The research presented in this paper investigates the possibility of exploring the history of activities performed by team members. Past events are aggregated in the form of a three dimensional environment time tunnel, providing the team-members with a generative tool to visualize the project?s events history in various configurations, in order to reveal the usually hidden relationships between separate pieces of events. Furthermore we provide a tool for managing and inspecting the folder?s contents: the DocuDrama Timetunnel. Here we present preliminary findings showing how the visualisation of a sequence of connected actions and happenings using a temporal and spatial narrative based approach may lead to a better understanding of the project-related events history

LEDs Urban Carpet, una instalación interactiva para sociabilizar en el espacio público

The purpose of this paper is to explore the type of social interactions that can be generated when a technological platform is introduced in a public environment. Here we present an interactive urban installation, which use a body-input as a form of a non-traditional user interface. Its aim is to enhance novel experiences that can enrich interactions between people nearby, sharing the same space and the same playful atmosphere. The prototype incorporates a grid of lights that dynamically generates patterns according to pedestrian?s position over the carpet. The installation was tested in various locations around the city of Bath, UK

Double crystal x-ray diffraction simulations of diffusion in semiconductor microstructures

Diffusion in group IV, III-V and II-VI semiconductors is an interesting problem not only from a fundamental physics viewpoint but also in practical terms, since it could determine the useful lifetime of a device. Any attempt to control the amount of diffusion in a semiconductor device, whether it be a quantum well structure or not, requires an accurate determination of the diffusion coefficient. The present theoretical study shows that this could be achieved via x-ray diffraction studies in quantum well structures. It is demonstrated that the rocking curves of single quantum wells are not sensitive to diffusion. However the intensity of the first order satellite, which is characteristic of superlattice rocking curves, is strongly dependent upon diffusion and it is proposed that this technique could be used to measure the diffusion coefficient D. © 1998 American Institute of Physics

Single-strand selective monofunctional uracil-DNA glycosylase (SMUG1) deficiency is linked to aggressive breast cancer and predicts response to adjuvant therapy

Uracil in DNA is an important cause of mutagenesis. SMUG1 is a uracil DNA glycosylase that removes uracil through base excision repair. SMUG1 also processes radiation induced oxidative base damage as well as 5-fluorouracil incorporated into DNA during chemotherapy. We investigated SMUG1 mRNA expression in 249 primary breast cancers. SMUG1 protein expression was investigated in 1165 breast tumours randomised into two cohorts [training set (n=583) and test set (n=582)]. SMUG1 and chemotherapy response was also investigated in a series of 315 ER negative tumours (n=315). For mechanistic insights, SMUG1 was correlated to biomarkers of aggressive phenotype, DNA repair, cell cycle and apoptosis. Low SMUG1 mRNA expression was associated with adverse disease specific survival (p=0.008) and disease free survival (p=0.008). Low SMUG1 protein expression (25%) was associated with high histological grade (p<0.0001), high mitotic index (p<0.0001), pleomorphism (p<0.0001), glandular de-differentiation (p=0.0001), absence of hormonal receptors (ER-/PgR-/AR) (p<0.0001), presence of basal-like (p<0.0001) and triple negative phenotypes (p<0.0001). Low SMUG1 protein expression was associated with loss of BRCA1 (p<0.0001), ATM (p<0.0001) and XRCC1 (p<0.0001). Low p27 (p<0.0001), low p21 (p=0.023), mutant p53 (p=0.037), low MDM2 (p<0.0001), low MDM4 (p=0.004), low Bcl-2 (p=0.001), low Bax (p=0.003) and high MIB1 (p<0.0001) were likely in low SMUG1 tumours. Low SMUG1 protein expression was associated with poor prognosis in univariate (p<0.001) and multivariate analysis (p<0.01). In ER+ cohort that received adjuvant endocrine therapy, low SMUG1 protein expression remains associated with poor survival (p<0.01). In ER- cohort that received adjuvant chemotherapy, low SMUG1 protein expression is associated with improved survival (p=0.043). Our study suggests that low SMUG1 expression may correlate to adverse clinicopathological features and predict response to adjuvant therapy in breast cancer

The Arab satellite and the television news and program exchange between Arab countries

This thesis examines the role of the Arab satellite as a new means of technology, in the exchange of TV production in the Arab region. The study points out the situation of the Arab TV production and examines its problems. Arab TV production had been facing a lack of quantity and quality which led to a high average of importation in order to fulfill the needs of the national Arab TV programmings importation is based on western programs mainly American including serials, detectives, long feature films, documentaries, cartoons, etc. However, even with the importation, Arab countries face, on the international production market, many problems related to the type and the cost of the programs, imposed by the American and the big production companies. The study includes a TV survey on the Algerian TV programming taken as an example of the TV programming structure in the region, and where the high average of importation is pointed out. The study examines the TV exchange traffic in the region between the three regional areas: Maghreb, Mashrek and the Gulf, and within each one, before and after the launch of the Arab satellite. The TV exchange which had been limited for years, was expected to flourish after the launch of the satellite with its big capacities in solving some of the major communication problems in the area like the lack of TV exchange. However, political problems such as conflicts, different political view, systems etc, which are strong in the region, stand as obstacles for the satellite, preventing it from fulfilling its role properly. The life time of the Arab satellite cannot be saved and its capacities cannot be fully used unless the Arab governments become really and deeply aware of the effects of the political problems and differences on the relations between them in general and on the situation of TV exchange in the region in particular. 1