The Past Has Ears (PHE): XR Explorations of Acoustic Spaces as Cultural Heritage

Hearing is one of our most pervasive senses. There is no equivalent to closing our eyes, or averting our gaze, for the ears. When we think about great architectural achievements in European history, such as ancient amphitheatres or Gothic cathedrals, their importance is strongly tied to their acoustic environment. The acoustics of a heritage site is an intangible consequence of the space's tangible construction and furnishings. Inspired by the project's namesake (Phe, for the constellation Phoenix), and the relatively recent res at Cathedrale de Notre Dame de Paris and Teatro La Fenice opera hall, the PHE project focuses on virtual reconstruction of heritage sites, bringing them back from the ashes. In addressing the intangible acoustic heritage of architectural sites, three main objectives have been identied for this research project: Documentation, Modelling, and Presentation. In parallel, three heritage sites are participating as case studies: Tindari Theatre (IT), Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral (FR), and The Houses of Parliament (UK). The acoustics of a space is immersive, spatial, and due to the nature of auditory perception egocentric, in contrast to visual perception of an object, which can be observed from outside". Consequently, presentation methods for communicating acoustic heritage must represent the spatially immersive and listener-centric nature of acoustics. PHE will lead development of a museum grade hardware/software prototype for the presentation of immersive audio experiences adaptable to multiple platforms, from on-site immersive speaker installations, to mobile XR via smartphone applications

Structural and Electrochemical Properties of Physisorbed and Chemisorbed Water Layers on the Ceramic Oxides Y2O3, YSZ, and ZrO2

A combination of operando Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, operando electrochemical-impedance spectroscopy, and moisture-sorption measurements has been exploited to study the adsorption and conduction behavior of H2O and D2O on the technologically important ceramic oxides YSZ (8 mol % Y2O3), ZrO2, and Y2O3. Because the characterization of the chemisorbed and physisorbed water layers is imperative to a full understanding of (electro-)catalytically active doped oxide surfaces and their application in technology, the presented data provide the specific reactivity of these oxides toward water over a pressure-and-temperature parameter range extending up to, e.g., solid-oxide fuel cell (SOFC)-relevant conditions. The characteristic changes of the related infrared bands could directly be linked to the associated conductivity and moisture-sorption data. For YSZ, a sequential dissociative water (“ice-like” layer) and polymeric chained water (“liquid-like”) water-adsorption model for isothermal and isobaric conditions over a pressure range of 10-5 to 24 mbar and a temperature range from room temperature up to 1173 K could be experimentally verified. On pure monoclinic ZrO2, in contrast to highly hydroxylated YSZ and Y2O3, a high surface concentration of OH groups from water chemisorption is absent at any temperature and pressure. Thus, the ice-like and following molecular water layers exhibit no measurable protonic conduction. We show that the water layers, even under these rather extreme experimental conditions, play a key role in understanding the function of these materials. Furthermore, the reported data are supposed to provide an extended basis for the further investigation of close-to-real gas adsorption or catalyzed heterogeneous reactions.(VLID)1371561Accepted versio

Transmitter and receiver processing specification for a unified ULE security extension

The Unidirectional Lightweight Encapsulation (ULE) protocol has been defined for efficient transport of IPv4/6 and other protocols over the MPEG-2 Transport Stream (TS). The proliferation of this technology on the mass market may benefit from a security solution protecting against potential threats such as eavesdropping, as well as masquerading, modification of messages, and replay attacks, similar to 802.11 security. A unified ULE security extension header format has been proposed previously by the authors. This paper discusses in detail the processing required for transmitters and receivers supporting this security extension for ULE

Stress System Dynamics during “Life As It Is Lived”: An Integrative Single-Case Study on a Healthy Woman

Little is known about the dynamic characteristics of stress system activity during “life as it is lived”. Using as representative a study design as possible, this investigation sought to gain insights into this area. A healthy 25-year-old woman collected her entire urine over a period of 63 days in 12-h intervals (126 measurements) to determine cortisol and neopterin (immune activation marker) levels. In addition, she filled out questionnaires on emotional state and daily routine in 12-h intervals, and was interviewed weekly to identify emotionally negative and positive everyday incidents. Adjusted cross-correlational analyses revealed that stressful incidents were associated with cyclic response patterns in both urinary cortisol and urinary neopterin concentrations. Urinary cortisol levels first decreased 12–24 h after stressful incidents occurred (lag 1: −.178; p = 0.048) and then increased a total of 72–84 h later (lag 6: +.224; p = 0.013). Urinary neopterin levels first increased 0–12 h before the occurrence of stressful incidents (−lag 1: +.185; p = 0.040) and then decreased a total of 48–60 h following such stressors (lag 4: −.181; p = 0.044). Decreases in urinary neopterin levels were also found 24–36 and 48–60 h after increases in pensiveness (lag 2: −.215; p = 0.017) and depressiveness (lag 4: −.221; p = 0.014), respectively. Findings on emotionally positive incidents sharply contrasted with those dealing with negative experiences. Positive incidents were followed first by urinary cortisol concentration increases within 12 h (lag 0: +.290; p = 0.001) and then by decreases after a total of 60–72 h (lag 5: −.186; p = 0.039). Urinary neopterin levels first decreased 12–24 h before positive incidents occurred (−lag 2: −.233; p = 0.010) and then increased a total of 12–24 h following these incidents (lag 1: +.222; p = 0.014). As with previous investigations on patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), this study showed that stress system response can be considerably longer and more complex and differentiated than findings from conventional group studies have suggested. Further integrative single-case studies will need to be conducted in order to draw firm conclusions about stress system dynamics under real-life conditions

Efficient Solutions for the Authenticated Fragmentation Problem in Delay- and Disruption-Tolerant Networks

Transmission opportunities in delay- and disruption-tolerant networks (DTNs) may be scarce and short-lived. In consequence, the fragmentation of larger messages at intermediate nodes is an important requirement to efficiently utilize any available connectivity. At the same time, bandwidth must be protected against any unauthorized transmission attempt, which implies that source authentication mechanisms are needed. However, naive solutions for supporting both message fragmentation and authentication are inefficient in terms of bandwidth or computational requirements. The problem has been clearly identified in the literature and various solutions have been suggested, but a systematic treatment of the problem has not been carried out so far. In this work, we approach the problem of authenticated fragmentation by rephrasing it as a multicast authentication problem. We identify a number of computationally efficient multicast authentication protocols that are suitable for DTN scenarios and highlight known computational or bandwidth optimality results for two classes of solutions. We generalize the remaining protocols into a single third class and provide a theoretical analysis, which proves the bandwidth optimality of a protocol that has been independently suggested for the authenticated fragmentation problem. We extend the setting of the protocol by considering a network scenario where neighboring nodes can communicate reliably and show theoretically that in this scenario the amortized bandwidth overhead converges to the minimum possible. Finally, we review a number of approaches presented in the literature on the authenticated fragmentation problem and outline their inadequacies

Representation of the spatial impulse response of a room

Microphone arrays allow for the measurement of the so-called spatial impulse response (SIR) of a room or of a concert hall. The SIR provides a local description of the reverberant field of that environment as a function of both time and space. It is shown that, under given assumptions, the SIR can be described by means of an integral operator, the so-called Herglotz wave function, which represents an infinite superposition of plane waves arriving, in general, from all possible directions. The kernel of this operator (the Herglotz kernel) contains all the information on the SIR. In practical cases only a limited amount of information is available to compute the Herglotz kernel, typically because a finite number of sensors is used for the measurement. In that respect, several alternatives are discussed to represent the Herglotz density as a sum of a finite number of basis functions. Some results for numerical simulations are then presented, which show the Herglotz kernel for simple examples. Finally, some limitations of this representation are discussed, especially those imposed by the use of real microphone arrays

Unified link layer security design for IP encapsulation using unidirectional lightweight encapsulation over satellites

There is growing interest in providing multimedia and broadband access over satellites. However there are several technical challenges need to be addressed. One challenge is security in terms of understanding threats and providing an effective security system. Also this paper presents a ULE security solution using ULE mandatory extension headers. The design issues and choices are discussed. The detailed security header format is described together with processing sequence in both transmitter and receiver sides

Phase-out-compliant fluorosurfactants

Expedient alkylations of 1-methyl-3H-imidazole-2-thione, a pharmaceutical active ingredient available in bulk quantities, provide high yield access to numerous protonated, or quaternized imidazoliums with chemospecific attachment of the fluoroponytail at the 2-mercapto functionality. The deprotonated primary target products represent valuable nitrogen heterocyclic bases, capable of further substitution, and salt or complex formation. Specific physicochemical characteristics that are relevant for phase and surface responsive behavior, e.g. critical micelle concentration, oleophobicity, depression of the aqueous surface tension, foam formation, emulsification of microgranular PTFE, are investigated for selected representatives and compared to the properties of common fluorosurfactants and ionic liquids. Remarkably, it is found that halogen bonding between iodide counterions of respective polyfluoroalkylmethimazolium systems and 1-iodoperfluoroalkanes, serving as the σ-hole partner of the halides, greatly affectthe solubility profile of the resulting molecular adducts. Single-crystal X-ray structure determinations are carried out across the new fluorous substance classes. Strikingly, the helical arrangement of fluorine atoms along the chains typically encountered in polyfluorinated compounds is not found as the prevailing conformation. Rather, they are outnumbered by structural motifs exhibiting the rare zig-zag (linear alkane-like) chain conformation. Key derivatives are also subjected to preliminary ecotoxicological testing.Peer reviewe

Adjusted cross-correlation functions indicating that positive incidents related to “educational and/or social accomplishment” are associated with cyclic responses in urinary cortisol and urinary neopterin levels.

<p>Each lag represents a time interval of 12 h. Coefficients (bars) reaching the upper or lower confidence limits (lines) are significant at <i>p</i><.05. In <b>A</b>) positive incidents are followed by urinary cortisol concentration increases at ±lag 0 (0–12 h) and decreases at +lag 5 (60–72 h). In <b>B</b>) positive incidents are precipitated by urinary neopterin level decreases at −lag 2 (12–24 h) and followed by urinary neopterin level increases at +lag 1 (12–24 h).</p