Thinking on Your Feet: Enhancing Foveated Rendering in Virtual Reality During User Activity

As prices fall, VR technology is experiencing renewed levels of consumer interest. Despite wider access, VR still requires levels of computational ability and bandwidth that often cannot be achieved with consumer-grade equipment. Foveated rendering represents one of the most promising methods for the optimization of VR content while keeping the quality of the user’s experience intact. The user’s ability to explore and move through the environment with 6DOF separates VR from traditional display technologies. In this work, we explore if the type of movement (Active versus Implied) and attentional task type (Simple Fixations versus Fixation, Discrimination, and Counting) affect the extent to which a dynamic foveated rendering method using Variable Rate Shading (VRS) optimizes a VR scene. Using psychophysics methods we conduct user studies and recover the Maximum Tolerated Diameter (MTD) at which users fail to notice drops in quality. We find that during self-movement, performing a task that requires more attention masks severe shading reductions and that only 31.7% of the headset’s FOV is required to be rendered at the native pixel sampling rate

STUDY ON THE MANIFESTATION OF EQUILIBRIUM CAPACITY IN SYNDROM DOWN ATHLETES PRACTINCING JUDO

Equilibrium capacity is an important component of motor guidance. An objective balance assessment for judo-practicing lower-grade athletes was achieved through the Y-Balance (Functional Movement, 2016) platform, a dynamic test executed on a foot or a hand requiring strength, flexibility, central control and proprioception. Six athletes, Judoka Bears team members, with a 3-year competitive experience participated in this study. They practice judo as a therapy in recovery activities for people with this syndrome starting with the end of 2014. The aim of the research is to assess the ability to manifest the dynamic balance for Down syndrome judo practicing athletes, knowing that they are characterized by poor coordination of body segment movements and poorly developed motor skills. The objective is to establish the level of balance-of-mind capacity for mentally deficient people, and the influence of judo on them. Depending on upper limbs and lower limbs, the study revealed, according to the correlation matrix, that the strongest variables of the total number of variables are for the upper right limb with antero-medial displacement (0.882429 factorial saturation), followed by the upper right limb with lateral displacement, whose factorial saturation is 0,868248, and the lower right leg with postero-medial displacement with a saturation level of 0,825715

STUDY ON THE USE OF PLIOMETRIC EXERCISES IN THE SPECIFIC

The concept of the method used for this application and carried out on a sample of Taekwondo athletes is trying to identify the adequate solution by simultaneously considering two criteria: the attribute of significance of the motricity investigation and the feature of practicality – in the sense of achieving an acceptable level of reliability and adequacy of the data while using a noninvasive device, which is also as less obtrusive as possible to the subjects. The study was conducted on 8 students, members of the taekwondo (TKD) team, of the Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy, with a competitive experience of 10 to 12 years. The Jump Pliometry assessment in anaerobic effort was performed using the Myotest PRO device. Two tests were performed, an initial one to determine the stadium level for jump pliometry, and a final test to determine the level of progress. The main objectives pursued by this test are: to measure the contractile and inter-muscular muscle coordination in the lower limbs and the values provided information on the quality of the jump that influences the sport performance. As a conclusion, by applying a centralized training program including pliometric exercises even in the specific part, significant changes in expansion, contact time, response and distribution of the load can be generated in the lower limbs

Cyber-physical Threat Detection Platform Designed for Healthcare Systems

Hospitals are responsible for delivering healthcare services to patients in need. These services are large and complex and get affected by multiple interacting actors, such as doctors, nurses, patients, citizens, medical suppliers, health insurance providers. Lately, hospitals around the world are one of the main targets when it comes to terrorist attacks, the cyber realm being the principal source. The healthcare sector is particularly vulnerable due to heavy involvement in patient personal and health information, time constraints, and complex day-to-day operations. In addition to cyber-threats, physical threats are increasingly growing and even healthcare facilities are not immune to them. Malicious intended people created cyber threatening attacks with the purpose to systematically collect evidence against the healthcare system, to advocate for the end of such attacks, and to endanger people\u27s lives or to use the stolen personal data for bad intended actions. Henceforth it is necessary to build a platform that will get alerts and incidents at a fast pace in real-time to prevent any casualties at low cost. SAFECARE project aims to offer protection to hospitals and increase the compliance for the European regulations and security regarding ethics and privacy for health services. This paper presents a solution that will enhance security in hospitals. The primary platform will be built based on a BTMS (Building Threat Monitoring System) where events, incidents, and alerts will be transmitted by sensors from hospital rooms in real-time. Several scenarios were thought to simulate different types of attacks against hospitals and according to the scenarios, various prototypes will be built for assuring the security of the personal and patients from various hospitals.</p

Concurrent engineering in designing a system for sensing gas leaks in harsh space environment

Leak monitoring is an essential operation that must be taken into consideration while making the design of a spatial vehicle. In order to make these vehicles function correctly in space and to avoid disasters, one needs to integrate multiple sensors to determine the exact concentrations of fuels such as hydrogen, hydrazine, hydrocarbon or oxygen which are frequently used while launching a space vehicle. These concentrations are important, as hydrogen-oxygen mixtures can ignite with a very small amount of energy. Moreover, it is almost impossible for people to sense the presence of hydrogen, as this gas is odorless and colorless. In the propulsion industry, hydrogen leaks generated several disasters. In 1990 such an error affected the propulsion system while workers were on the launching platform. They were forced to abort all the current processes until the source of leakage could be identified. Another example is the APOLLO 13 mission that took place in 1970 when N.A.S.A aimed to land on the Moon. Two days after the launch there has been a malfunction of the electrical system which caused an explosion leading to the loss of oxygen in both tanks. The crew used a module called lifeboat on their way back to Earth where they completed the landing. The goal of this paper is the describe the concept of an intelligent system that will monitor the presence of oxygen, hydrogen gas in harsh space environments such as vacuum, temperature variations and also beta and gamma radiations. Therefore, some aspects such as the weight of the device or environmental conditions must be taken into consideration when doing concurrent engineering. Micro and nanotechnologies allow the presence of multiple sensors without increasing the size, the weight or the energy consumption. Also, they must resist harsh conditions from space

Recycling Li-ion batteries in eco-friendly environments

ÖSSZEFOGLALÁS: Jelen tanulmány egy olyan kísérlet eredményeit mutatja be, amelynek célja a színesfémek (pl. Co, Li Cu és Al) kinyerése a már elhasználódott, a mobiltelefon-iparban alkalmazott Li-ion akkumulátorokból. Egy optimális eljárás került kifejlesztésre a LiCoO2 vegyületet tartalmazó aktív paste (elektrolit) elválasztására az alumínium katódtól. Ehhez ultrahangos fürdőt használtunk, amelyben különböző savas oldatok (pl. citromsav, ecetsav, tejsav) szerepeltek oldóanyagként. Az általunk kidolgozott eljárás a következő előnyökkel rendelkezik: alacsony költségigény, nagyfokú hatékonyság (90%), környezetbarát. ABSTRACT: The paper presents the results of a research carried out with the goal of recovering the useful non-ferrous metals (i.e. Co, Li Cu and Al) from spent Li-ion batteries used in the mobile phone industry. An optimal process was developed to separate active paste (containing LiCoO2 compound) from the aluminium cathode. For this purpose, an ultrasonic bath was used, in which different acid solutions (i.e. citric acid, acetic acid, lactic acid) were introduced as a leaching agent. This recovery process presents the following advantages: it has low costs, the process has high recovery efficiency (90%), and is largely ecological

Bile Acid-Mediated Sphingosine-1-Phosphate Receptor 2 Signaling Promotes Neuroinflammation during Hepatic Encephalopathy in Mice

Hepatic encephalopathy (HE) is a neuropsychiatric complication that occurs due to deteriorating hepatic function and this syndrome influences patient quality of life, clinical management strategies and survival. During acute liver failure, circulating bile acids increase due to a disruption of the enterohepatic circulation. We previously identified that bile acid-mediated signaling occurs in the brain during HE and contributes to cognitive impairment. However, the influences of bile acids and their downstream signaling pathways on HE-induced neuroinflammation have not been assessed. Conjugated bile acids, such as taurocholic acid (TCA), can activate sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor 2 (S1PR2), which has been shown to promote immune cell infiltration and inflammation in other models. The current study aimed to assess the role of bile-acid mediated S1PR2 signaling in neuroinflammation and disease progression during azoxymethane (AOM)-induced HE in mice. Our findings demonstrate a temporal increase of bile acids in the cortex during AOM-induced HE and identified that cortical bile acids were elevated as an early event in this model. In order to classify the specific bile acids that were elevated during HE, a metabolic screen was performed and this assay identified that TCA was increased in the serum and cortex during AOM-induced HE. To reduce bile acid concentrations in the brain, mice were fed a diet supplemented with cholestyramine, which alleviated neuroinflammation by reducing proinflammatory cytokine expression in the cortex compared to the control diet-fed AOM-treated mice. S1PR2 was expressed primarily in neurons and TCA treatment increased chemokine ligand 2 mRNA expression in these cells. The infusion of JTE-013, a S1PR2 antagonist, into the lateral ventricle prior to AOM injection protected against neurological decline and reduced neuroinflammation compared to DMSO-infused AOM-treated mice. Together, this identifies that reducing bile acid levels or S1PR2 signaling are potential therapeutic strategies for the management of HE

The consolidated European synthesis of CH4 and N2O emissions for the European Union and United Kingdom : 1990-2017

Reliable quantification of the sources and sinks of greenhouse gases, together with trends and uncertainties, is essential to monitoring the progress in mitigating anthropogenic emissions under the Paris Agreement. This study provides a consolidated synthesis of CH4 and N2O emissions with consistently derived state-of-the-art bottom-up (BU) and top-down (TD) data sources for the European Union and UK (EU27 C UK). We integrate recent emission inventory data, ecosystem process-based model results and inverse modeling estimates over the period 1990-2017. BU and TD products are compared with European national greenhouse gas inventories (NGHGIs) reported to the UN climate convention UNFCCC secretariat in 2019. For uncertainties, we used for NGHGIs the standard deviation obtained by varying parameters of inventory calculations, reported by the member states (MSs) following the recommendations of the IPCC Guidelines. For atmospheric inversion models (TD) or other inventory datasets (BU), we defined uncertainties from the spread between different model estimates or model-specific uncertainties when reported. In comparing NGHGIs with other approaches, a key source of bias is the activities included, e.g., anthropogenic versus anthropogenic plus natural fluxes. In inversions, the separation between anthropogenic and natural emissions is sensitive to the geospatial prior distribution of emissions. Over the 2011-2015 period, which is the common denominator of data availability between all sources, the anthropogenic BU approaches are directly comparable, reporting mean emissions of 20.8 TgCH(4) yr (-1) (EDGAR v5.0) and 19.0 TgCH(4) yr(-1) (GAINS), consistent with the NGHGI estimates of 18.9 +/- 1.7 TgCH(4) yr(-1). The estimates of TD total inversions give higher emission estimates, as they also include natural emissions. Over the same period regional TD inversions with higher-resolution atmospheric transport models give a mean emission of 28.8 TgCH(4) yr(-1). Coarser-resolution global TD inversions are consistent with regional TD inversions, for global inversions with GOSAT satellite data (23.3 TgCH(4) yr(-1)) and surface network (24.4 TgCH(4) yr (-1)). The magnitude of natural peatland emissions from the JSBACH-HIMMELI model, natural rivers and lakes emissions, and geological sources together account for the gap between NGHGIs and inversions and account for 5.2 TgCH(4) yr(-1). For N2O emissions, over the 2011-2015 period, both BU approaches (EDGAR v5.0 and GAINS) give a mean value of anthropogenic emissions of 0.8 and 0.9 TgN(2)Oyr(-1), respectively, agreeing with the NGHGI data (0.9 0.6 TgN(2)Oyr(-1)). Over the same period, the average of the three total TD global and regional inversions was 1.3 +/- 0.4 and 1.3 +/- 0.1 TgN(2)Oyr(-1), respectively. The TD and BU comparison method defined in this study can be operationalized for future yearly updates for the calculation of CH4 and N2O budgets both at the EU CUK scale and at the national scale.Peer reviewe