How do atria affect navigation in multi-level museum environments?

How do people explore multiplex environments? What role do atria play in spatial navigation? These are critical questions for architectural design. However, few studies have examined the role atria play in visitors’ exploration of museums. Consequently, the relationship between free exploration and the design of atria in museums is not well understood. A pilot study in the Ashmolean Museum indicated that atria influence navigation. The Museum, therefore, lends itself as a case study to assess the impact of visual connections upon exploration and orientation. We present an experimental study with two conditions: a highly-detailed realistic virtual model of the building and a modified virtual model of the same building, eliminating the views crossing through the atria. Two hypotheses are tested: first, that visitors’ paths will be different depending on the amount of visual information they receive inside each experimental condition; second, that visitors’ ease of exploring and viewing the environment will also differ. Analysis confirmed that participants followed different paths in the two experimental conditions. Users visiting the exact model turned their heads around fewer times than users visiting the modified model. These findings suggest that atria play a significant role in nudging movement and affect the ease of navigation

Experiencing three-dimensional museum environments: An investigation of the Ashmolean Museum and the Museum of Scotland

The relationship between the spatial organisation of museums and visitors' experience has been widely explored. However, previous studies rarely focused upon the actual use and effect of the atria on how people navigate. To understand this interaction entails answering the following research question: How exploration and movement in museums are affected by two and three-dimensional properties? This question is investigated by the comparative study of the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology in Oxford, renovated by Rick Mather Architects (2009), and the Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, designed by Benson and Forsyth (1998). The two museums are selected as relevant cases for their spatial similarities and significant differences closely connected to the organisation of their atria. The intention is to understand whether atria account for similar or different exploration patterns in the ways users navigate in three dimensions. The comparative analysis, stemming from space use observations, space syntax methods and agent simulations, shows that significant differences in real and simulated movement result from the varying spatial positioning and character of the voids. Variability in spatial behaviour derives from the impact of the third dimension, assigning different identities and orientating capacities to the atria and the museums

The fluctuations, under time reversal, of the natural time and the entropy distinguish similar looking electric signals of different dynamics

We show that the scale dependence of the fluctuations of the natural time itself under time reversal provides a useful tool for the discrimination of seismic electric signals (critical dynamics) from noises emitted from man made sources as well as for the determination of the scaling exponent. We present recent data of electric signals detected at the Earth's surface, which confirm that the value of the entropy in natural time as well as its value under time reversal are smaller than that of the entropy of a "uniform" distribution.Comment: 29 pages including 24 figure and 1 Tabl

Farmers’ Attitudes Toward Recycled Water Use in Irrigated Agriculture

This study aims to investigate whether farmers are willing to use recycled water for irrigation purposes. It attempts to analyze the attitudinal, socio-demographics and environmental factors that affect a potential user’s acceptance for wastewater reuse. A primary research designed in order to elicit farmers’ preferences and a statistical analysis applied to analyze the relationships among the variables influence their attitudes. The results were obtained from data collected through 302 questionnaires that were answered by the farmers in Nestos catchment, Greece. The research findings might usefully assist policy-makers and planners in the implementation of strategy in water management sector. Farmers’ awareness about the recycling water and their level of acceptance to use it might constitute incoming parameters, on which the decisions in agriculture water planning could be based. Moreover, the identification of factors influencing stakeholders’ acceptance provide the underpinnings for success in any recycling project.     Keywords: public perceptions, behavior analysis, water recycling, integrated water resources management, agriculture water managemen

Comment on "Effects of Thickness on the Spin Susceptibility of the Two Dimensional Electron Gas"

A comment on a recent paper (PRL {\bf 94}, 226405 (2005)) by S. De Palo, M. Botti, S. Moroni, and Gaetano Senatore

Spatial Navigation in Real and Virtual Multi-Level Museums

Atria in public buildings, such as museums and cultural environments, serve the purposes of architectural expression as well as spatial navigation. This is clearly seen in numerous existing buildings and modern extensions, such as in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the most recent masterplan of which uses atria to link the old with the new sectors of the building, attract human activity and facilitate three-dimensional exploration. Until recently, most space syntax studies on navigation focused on route choices and spatial characteristics in two dimensions, consequently by-passing the effect of the third dimension on spatial exploration. Although common sense acknowledges a link between three-dimensional design and human movement, there is no substantial research on how the third dimension relates to patterns of exploration. Using the Ashmolean Museum as the main focus study, this paper explores the relationship of actual human movement (visitors’ paths), virtual movement (VR) and spatial structure (space syntax), in order to understand how the multi-storey complex environment impacts on users’ free exploration. The findings suggest that verticality three-dimensional visibility, have a significant effect on how people move in a museum setting. Virtual experiments including spatial alterations of the volumetric structure of the Ashmolean clearly show the impact of the third dimension on path selection and configuration as well as gaze direction. This paper can inform three-dimensional architectural design with the goal of creating user-friendly buildings. The ultimate aim is to provide principled understanding of the variability of three dimensional design and cognitive dimensions in museum buildings for the public