Measuring and understanding photo sharing experiences in social virtual reality

Millions of photos are shared online daily, but the richness of interaction compared with face-to-face (F2F) sharing is still missing. While this may change with social Virtual Reality (socialVR), we still lack tools to measure such immersive and interactive experiences. In this paper, we investigate photo sharing experiences in immersive environments, focusing on socialVR. Running context mapping (N=10), an expert creative session (N=6), and an online experience clustering questionnaire (N=20), we develop and statistically evaluate a questionnaire to measure photo sharing experiences. We then ran a controlled, within-subject study (N=26 pairs) to compare photo sharing under F2F, Skype, and Facebook Spaces. Using interviews, audio analysis, and our questionnaire, we found that socialVR can closely approximate F2F sharing. We contribute empirical findings on the immersiveness differences between digital communication media, and propose a socialVR questionnaire that can in the future generalize beyond photo sharing

The Seventeenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Surveys: Complete Release of MaNGA, MaStar and APOGEE-2 Data

This paper documents the seventeenth data release (DR17) from the Sloan Digital Sky Surveys; the fifth and final release from the fourth phase (SDSS-IV). DR17 contains the complete release of the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey, which reached its goal of surveying over 10,000 nearby galaxies. The complete release of the MaNGA Stellar Library (MaStar) accompanies this data, providing observations of almost 30,000 stars through the MaNGA instrument during bright time. DR17 also contains the complete release of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment 2 (APOGEE-2) survey which publicly releases infra-red spectra of over 650,000 stars. The main sample from the Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS), as well as the sub-survey Time Domain Spectroscopic Survey (TDSS) data were fully released in DR16. New single-fiber optical spectroscopy released in DR17 is from the SPectroscipic IDentification of ERosita Survey (SPIDERS) sub-survey and the eBOSS-RM program. Along with the primary data sets, DR17 includes 25 new or updated Value Added Catalogs (VACs). This paper concludes the release of SDSS-IV survey data. SDSS continues into its fifth phase with observations already underway for the Milky Way Mapper (MWM), Local Volume Mapper (LVM) and Black Hole Mapper (BHM) surveys

SCUBA-2 Ultra Deep Imaging EAO Survey (STUDIES): faint-end counts at 450 μm

The SCUBA-2 Ultra Deep Imaging EAO Survey (STUDIES) is a three-year JCMT Large Program aiming to reach the 450 μm confusion limit in the COSMOS-CANDELS region to study a representative sample of the high-redshift far-infrared galaxy population that gives rise to the bulk of the far-infrared background. We present the first-year data from STUDIES. We reached a 450 μm noise level of 0.91 mJy for point sources at the map center, covered an area of 151 arcmin2, and detected 98 and 141 sources at 4.0σ and 3.5σ, respectively. Our derived counts are best constrained in the 3.5–25 mJy regime using directly detected sources. Below the detection limits, our fluctuation analysis further constrains the slope of the counts down to 1 mJy. The resulting counts at 1–25 mJy are consistent with a power law having a slope of −2.59 (±0.10 for 3.5–25 mJy, and ${}_{-0.7}^{+0.4}$ for 1–3.5 mJy). There is no evidence of a faint-end termination or turnover of the counts in this flux density range. Our counts are also consistent with previous SCUBA-2 blank-field and lensing-cluster surveys. The integrated surface brightness from our counts down to 1 mJy is 90.0 ± 17.2 Jy deg−2, which can account for up to ${83}_{-16}^{+15} \%$ of the COBE 450 μm background. We show that Herschel counts at 350 and 500 μm are significantly higher than our 450 μm counts, likely caused by its large beam and source clustering. High angular resolution instruments like SCUBA-2 at 450 μm are therefore highly beneficial for measuring the luminosity and spatial density of high-redshift dusty galaxies

SCUBA-2 Ultra Deep Imaging EAO Survey (STUDIES): Faint-end Counts at 450 μm

The SCUBA-2 Ultra Deep Imaging EAO Survey (STUDIES) is a three-year JCMT Large Program aiming to reach the 450 μm confusion limit in the COSMOS-CANDELS region to study a representative sample of the high-redshift far-infrared galaxy population that gives rise to the bulk of the far-infrared background. We present the first-year data from STUDIES. We reached a 450 μm noise level of 0.91 mJy for point sources at the map center, covered an area of 151 arcmin2, and detected 98 and 141 sources at 4.0σ and 3.5σ, respectively. Our derived counts are best constrained in the 3.5–25 mJy regime using directly detected sources. Below the detection limits, our fluctuation analysis further constrains the slope of the counts down to 1 mJy. The resulting counts at 1–25 mJy are consistent with a power law having a slope of −2.59 (±0.10 for 3.5–25 mJy, and ${}_{-0.7}^{+0.4}$ for 1–3.5 mJy). There is no evidence of a faint-end termination or turnover of the counts in this flux density range. Our counts are also consistent with previous SCUBA-2 blank-field and lensing-cluster surveys. The integrated surface brightness from our counts down to 1 mJy is 90.0 ± 17.2 Jy deg−2, which can account for up to ${83}_{-16}^{+15} \%$ of the COBE 450 μm background. We show that Herschel counts at 350 and 500 μm are significantly higher than our 450 μm counts, likely caused by its large beam and source clustering. High angular resolution instruments like SCUBA-2 at 450 μm are therefore highly beneficial for measuring the luminosity and spatial density of high-redshift dusty galaxies