Comparing Perceptions of a Dimmable LED Lighting System Between a Real Space and a Virtual Reality Display

25 pagesOver the last several decades, designers have used digital screens to view images of real and simulated spaces and make critical design decisions. Screen technology has improved during this time, as technologies like OLED have replaced legacy displays (CRT, plasma, and LCD). These new screens provide a higher pixel resolution, luminous output and contrast ratio. Immersive head-mounted displays now allow designers to view immersive images, and recent developments in real-time rendering have encouraged the uptake of virtual reality (VR) head-mounted displays in mainstream practice and design education. This paper presents an experiment on lighting perception using a series of LED lighting conditions in a real space and a virtual representation of those conditions captured using a 360° high-dynamic-range camera and presented on an HTC Vive Pro HMD. Fifty-three participants were asked to rate each lighting condition by viewing it in a real space (n = 30) or via immersive HDR photographs displayed in a VR HMD (n = 23). The results show that ratings of visual comfort, pleasantness, evenness, contrast and glare are similar between the HTC Vive Pro HMD and our real space when evaluating well-lit scenes, but significant differences emerge in dim and highly contrasted scenes for a number of rating scales

Carbohydrate-active enzymes from the zygomycete fungus Rhizopus oryzae: a highly specialized approach to carbohydrate degradation depicted at genome level

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p><it>Rhizopus oryzae </it>is a zygomycete filamentous fungus, well-known as a saprobe ubiquitous in soil and as a pathogenic/spoilage fungus, causing Rhizopus rot and mucomycoses.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Carbohydrate Active enzyme (CAZy) annotation of the <it>R. oryzae </it>identified, in contrast to other filamentous fungi, a low number of glycoside hydrolases (GHs) and a high number of glycosyl transferases (GTs) and carbohydrate esterases (CEs). A detailed analysis of CAZy families, supported by growth data, demonstrates highly specialized plant and fungal cell wall degrading abilities distinct from ascomycetes and basidiomycetes. The specific genomic and growth features for degradation of easily digestible plant cell wall mono- and polysaccharides (starch, galactomannan, unbranched pectin, hexose sugars), chitin, chitosan, β-1,3-glucan and fungal cell wall fractions suggest specific adaptations of <it>R. oryzae </it>to its environment.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>CAZy analyses of the genome of the zygomycete fungus <it>R. oryzae </it>and comparison to ascomycetes and basidiomycete species revealed how evolution has shaped its genetic content with respect to carbohydrate degradation, after divergence from the Ascomycota and Basidiomycota.</p

Comparative Genome Analysis of Filamentous Fungi Reveals Gene Family Expansions Associated with Fungal Pathogenesis

Fungi and oomycetes are the causal agents of many of the most serious diseases of plants. Here we report a detailed comparative analysis of the genome sequences of thirty-six species of fungi and oomycetes, including seven plant pathogenic species, that aims to explore the common genetic features associated with plant disease-causing species. The predicted translational products of each genome have been clustered into groups of potential orthologues using Markov Chain Clustering and the data integrated into the e-Fungi object-oriented data warehouse (http://www.e-fungi.org.uk/). Analysis of the species distribution of members of these clusters has identified proteins that are specific to filamentous fungal species and a group of proteins found only in plant pathogens. By comparing the gene inventories of filamentous, ascomycetous phytopathogenic and free-living species of fungi, we have identified a set of gene families that appear to have expanded during the evolution of phytopathogens and may therefore serve important roles in plant disease. We have also characterised the predicted set of secreted proteins encoded by each genome and identified a set of protein families which are significantly over-represented in the secretomes of plant pathogenic fungi, including putative effector proteins that might perturb host cell biology during plant infection. The results demonstrate the potential of comparative genome analysis for exploring the evolution of eukaryotic microbial pathogenesis

Impact of blinds usage on energy consumption : automatic versus manual control

This paper reports a study on the impact of different usage patterns of an automated blinds system on the energy consumption for heating and cooling in a Dutch office building. A five-month observational field study in 40 offices resulted into a dataset on the blinds usage of four types of blind users. This data was used to simulate the effect of the blinds usage on the energy consumption for heating and cooling. The results of the field study show that a majority of the building occupants switched off the automatic mode of the blinds system permanently. The simulation results indicate that this significantly impacts the energy consumption in the building. The total daily average energy consumption for heating and cooling was significantly lower for occupants using the automatic mode than for the three groups of manual users (871W/day versus 2573W/day; T=-5.98, p=0.000)