Effectiveness of Virtual Reality Simulations for Civilian, Ab Initio Pilot Training

Aviation training in the immersive Virtual Reality (VR) world has the power to overcome physical constraints, presenting cues and stimuli that would not be available in flight, nor in a two-dimensional (2D) environment. This gives VR powerful potential as a simulation tool for learning complex skills and maneuvers in the cockpit. This study evaluated the effectiveness of VR simulations as compared to traditional 2D desktop simulations in teaching maneuvers and skills to ab initio (inexperienced) civilian pilot trainees. This quasi-experimental project involved 17 freshman pilot students in an experimental college course at a private university campus in the fall semester of 2020. The participants were split into two sections: Section 1 completed CBT activities and simulations in 2D only, while Section 2 completed CBT activities in 2D and simulations in VR. Academic performance data was collected in the Canvas Learning Management System, broken down by understanding of a maneuver learned in a given lesson module. Descriptive statistics collected included quizzes, discussion board activity, and simulation completion scores. Paired samples t-tests compared perceived benefits of using the various course materials. Researchers also administered post-semester surveys to gather both qualitative and quantitative data, in which participants shared their perceptions of the course, preference for learning material type, and general feedback. Results indicated that students in both groups found the sims/tutorials and VR to be enjoyable and gratifying; the majority of students indicated that simulations were preferred over other learning materials. Early results indicate that although the students perceived that the simulations were beneficial, there were no significant differences in the final course scores or learning rates between those who utilized 2D sims as opposed to VR sims. The most important finding is that for ab initio pilots, VR simulations do not hinder learning mastery, as compared with traditional 2D desktop simulations

O Brasil na nova cartografia global da religião

Este artigo analisa as mudanças sociais, econômicas, culturais e religiosas que fizeram do Brasil um polo importante de produção do sagrado numa emergente cartografia global. Esta cartografia é policêntrica e entrecortada por uma miríade de redes transnacionais e multi-direcionais que facilitam o rápido movimento de pessoas, ideias, imagens, capitais e mercadorias. Entre os vetores que vamos examinar estão: imigrantes brasileiros que na tentativa de dar sentido ao processo deslocamento e de manter ligações transnacionais com o Brasil levam suas crenças, práticas, identidades religiosas para o estrangeiro, missionários e outros "entrepreneurs" religiosos, o turismo espiritual de estrangeiros que vão ao Brasil em busca de cura ou desenvolvimento espiritual, e as indústrias culturais, a mídia e a Internet que disseminam globalmente imagens do Brasil como uma terra exótica onde o sagrado faz parte intrínseca de sua cultura e natureza

The book as user interface: Lowering the entry cost to email for elders

Substantial stumbling blocks confront computer-illiterate elders. We introduce a novel user interface technology to lower these start up costs: the book as user interface, or BUI. Book pages contain both step-by-step instructions and tangible controls, turning a complex interaction into a walkup-and-use scenario. The system expands support past the technical artifact to a go-to relationship. ElderMail users designate an internet-savvy trusted friend or relative to help with complex tasks. In this paper, we conduct a preliminary evaluation of a BUI-based email system, and report our findings. While research has augmented paper artifacts to provide alternate access into the digital world, we find that elders use the BUI as a way to circumvent the digital world. Author Keywords Ubiquitous computing; tangible user interfaces; CMC; BUI; seniors; aging ACM Classification H.5.2. [Information interfaces and presentation]: User interfaces--- input devices and strategies

Dangerous Currents: Risk and regulation at the interface of medicine and the arts, Association for Medical Humanities Conference 2015

A member of the Organising Committee for the 2015 AMH conference 'The 2015 Association for Medical Humanities annual conference takes as its theme critical conversations between medicine (including surgery, and encompassing healthcare) and the arts (including the humanities and the liberal social sciences) focused on issues of risk and regulation. Again, we live in a culture that, paradoxically, generates risk (especially in the economic sphere) at the same time as it generates more and more regulation. Our greatest risk is that of environmental degradation, yet we continue to make aggregate lifestyle choices that are creating irreversible environmental damage. Our lifestyle choices – junk food, lack of exercise – are so often at odds with maintaining ‘health’ and medicine’s resources are heavily biased towards curative intervention rather than prevention. Art, too, is, or should be, a risky business. I have nothing against art that pleases but surely the main role of the artist is to subvert, upset and challenge habit and convention to make us ‘think otherwise’. Art in critical conversation with medicine should make us think otherwise about descriptors such as ‘health’ and ‘wellbeing’. Nietzsche (and later Gilles Deleuze) described artists as ‘diagnosticians’ or ‘symptomatologists’ of the body of culture – setting out which symptoms emerge in a culture and how we might treat them. Our most pressing symptoms are environmental degradation, and poverty leading to health issues caused by the 1% phenomenon – that the richest 1% are making obscene amounts of money that do not help to raise quality of life for all because of lack of proper redistribution of wealth. The wide range of performances, drama, lm, conversations and discussion of ideas presented in this conference (from delegates and invited artists, doctors and surgeons) will debate Nietzsche’s notion as they address the conversation between risk and regulation across medicine and the arts' Professor Alan Bleakley President Association for Medical Humanities Emeritus Professor of Medical Education Plymouth University Peninsula School of Medicine Visiting Scholar Wilson Centre University of Toront

Figure 1. The ElderMail BUI provides tangible access to

Substantial stumbling blocks confront computer-illiterate elders. We introduce a novel user interface technology to lower these start up costs: the book as user interface, or BUI. Book pages contain both step-by-step instructions and tangible controls, turning a complex interaction into a walkup -and-use scenario. The system expands support past the technical artifact to a go-to relationship. ElderMail users designate an internet-savvy trusted friend or relative to help with complex tasks. In this paper, we conduct a preliminary evaluation of a BUI-based email system, and report our findings. While research has augmented paper artifacts to provide alternate access into the digital world, we find that elders use the BUI as a way to circumvent the digital world

A Review of Road Traffic-Derived Non-Exhaust Particles: Emissions, Physicochemical Characteristics, Health Risks, and Mitigation Measures.

Funder: National Institute for Health Research (NIHR)Funder: Health Effects InstituteFunder: TrafikverketFunder: Imperial College LondonFunder: UK Health Security AgencyFunder: NordFoUImplementation of regulatory standards has reduced exhaust emissions of particulate matter from road traffic substantially in the developed world. However, nonexhaust particle emissions arising from the wear of brakes, tires, and the road surface, together with the resuspension of road dust, are unregulated and exceed exhaust emissions in many jurisdictions. While knowledge of the sources of nonexhaust particles is fairly good, source-specific measurements of airborne concentrations are few, and studies of the toxicology and epidemiology do not give a clear picture of the health risk posed. This paper reviews the current state of knowledge, with a strong focus on health-related research, highlighting areas where further research is an essential prerequisite for developing focused policy responses to nonexhaust particles

A Review of Road Traffic-Derived Non-Exhaust Particles: Emissions, Physicochemical Characteristics, Health Risks, and Mitigation Measures.

Implementation of regulatory standards has reduced exhaust emissions of particulate matter from road traffic substantially in the developed world. However, nonexhaust particle emissions arising from the wear of brakes, tires, and the road surface, together with the resuspension of road dust, are unregulated and exceed exhaust emissions in many jurisdictions. While knowledge of the sources of nonexhaust particles is fairly good, source-specific measurements of airborne concentrations are few, and studies of the toxicology and epidemiology do not give a clear picture of the health risk posed. This paper reviews the current state of knowledge, with a strong focus on health-related research, highlighting areas where further research is an essential prerequisite for developing focused policy responses to nonexhaust particles

International Partnerships: Thematic Peer Group Report : Learning & Teaching Paper #15

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Development of New Catalytic Asymmetric Routes towards a Cost-Driving Building Block of Nirmatrelvir

Nirmatrelvir is an inhibitor of SARS-CoV-2 main protease and is the active ingredient in PaxlovidTM. Nirmatrelvir presents a significant synthetic challenge, in no small part due to a cost-driving lactam containing fragment with two stereogenic centers. Our goal was to help decrease the cost of nirmatrelvir, by developing a scalable low-cost synthesis of this fragment, avoiding use of cryogenic conditions reported in the initial route. Herein we disclose three catalytic asymmetric routes to-wards this fragment, via i) chiral Lewis acid (copper) catalysis, ii) chiral Brønsted base organocatalysis and iii) chiral bifunctional hydrogen-bond-donor organocatalysis