UX Designer and Software Developer at the Mirror: Assessing Sensory Immersion and Emotional Involvement in Virtual Museums

Virtual Museums (VMs) and their audiences have always been studied as separated worlds. Recently the importance of cross-methodological studies has been accepted by the academic sector for their usefulness in the process of assessing the impact of such VMs. Hedonic aspects, such as emotions, senses, perception, and environmental atmosphere rather than technicalities, like usability and affordance, have indeed played a precise and crucial role in the meaning-making of the world around us. This contribution will highlight the need for a collaborative sharing of ideas among designers and developers, creators and technicians, in order to reach sensory immersion and emotional involvement in VMs that will translate into enhanced participation and the predisposition to assimilate and memorize cultural contents. It has been stated that “a virtual museum is a digital entity.” As such, it is inevitably based on technology, on its user interface (UI), on the visualization solutions it employs, and on its usability and ability to interact with the end user in order to transfer a certain message. VMs are designed to complement, enhance, or augment the ordinary museum experience through contextualization, narration, personalization, interactivity and richness of content. This contribution originates not only from the lessons learned in twenty years of research by CNR ITABC, but it also moves one step further in the direction of exchanged experiences and good practices between the humanistic and the technological sectors, therefore contributing to the promotion of lifelong learning in Virtual Museums

Computer simulation models of pre-diabetes populations: a systematic review protocol.

Diabetes is a major public health problem and prediabetes (intermediate hyperglycaemia) is associated with a high risk of developing diabetes. With evidence supporting the use of preventive interventions for prediabetes populations and the discovery of novel biomarkers stratifying the risk of progression, there is a need to evaluate their cost-effectiveness across jurisdictions. In diabetes and prediabetes, it is relevant to inform cost-effectiveness analysis using decision models due to their ability to forecast long-term health outcomes and costs beyond the time frame of clinical trials. To support good implementation and reimbursement decisions of interventions in these populations, models should be clinically credible, based on best available evidence, reproducible and validated against clinical data. Our aim is to identify recent studies on computer simulation models and model-based economic evaluations of populations of individuals with prediabetes, qualify them and discuss the knowledge gaps, challenges and opportunities that need to be addressed for future evaluations

Self-determination in people with intellectual disability: The mediating role of opportunities

Abstract: The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities have proclaimed the basic right of people to make one?s own choices, have an e ective participation and inclusion. Research in the field of disability have stressed self-determination as a key construct because of its impact on their quality of life and the achievement of desired educational and adulthood related outcomes. Self-determination development must be promoted through specific strategies and especially, by providing tailored opportunities to practice those skills. Providing these opportunities across environments could be especially relevant as a facilitator of self-determination development. This manuscript aims to ascertain if opportunities at home and in the community to engage in self-determined actions are mediating the relationship between people intellectual disability level and their self-determination. Results have confirmed direct e ects of intellectual disability level on self-determination scores. Indirect e ects also predicted self-determination and almost all its related components (self-initiation, self-direction, self-regulation, self-realization, and empowerment) through opportunities in the community and at home. Autonomy was predicted by the intellectual disability level through an indirect e ect of opportunities at home, but not in the community. These results highlight the need for further research to better operationalize and promote contextually rooted opportunities for people with intellectual disability to become more self-determined.This research was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, grant number PSI2016-75826-P. AEI/FEDER, UE

Dengue Reporter Virus Particles for Measuring Neutralizing Antibodies against Each of the Four Dengue Serotypes

The lack of reliable, high-throughput tools for characterizing anti-dengue virus (DENV) antibodies in large numbers of serum samples has been an obstacle in understanding the impact of neutralizing antibodies on disease progression and vaccine efficacy. A reporter system using pseudoinfectious DENV reporter virus particles (RVPs) was previously developed by others to facilitate the genetic manipulation and biological characterization of DENV virions. In the current study, we demonstrate the diagnostic utility of DENV RVPs for measuring neutralizing antibodies in human serum samples against all four DENV serotypes, with attention to the suitability of DENV RVPs for large-scale, long-term studies. DENV RVPs used against human sera yielded serotype-specific responses and reproducible neutralization titers that were in statistical agreement with Plaque Reduction Neutralization Test (PRNT) results. DENV RVPs were also used to measure neutralization titers against the four DENV serotypes in a panel of human sera from a clinical study of dengue patients. The high-throughput capability, stability, rapidity, and reproducibility of assays using DENV RVPs offer advantages for detecting immune responses that can be applied to large-scale clinical studies of DENV infection and vaccination

Androgenic activation, impairment of the monoaminergic system and altered behavior in zebra!sh larvae exposed to environmental concentrations of fenitrothion

Artículo indizadoFenitrothion is an organophosphorus insecticide usually found in aquatic ecosystems at concentrations in the range of low ng/L. In this manuscript we show that 24 h exposure to environmental concentrations of fenitro- thion, from ng/L to low !g/L, altered basal locomotor activity, visual-motor response and acoustic/vibrational es- cape response of zebra!sh larvae. Furthermore, fenitrothion and expression of gap43a, gfap, atp2b1a, and mbp exhibited a signi!cant non-monotonic concentration-response relationship. Once determined that environmen- tal concentrations of fenitrothion were neurotoxic for zebra!sh larvae, a computational analysis identi!ed poten- tial protein targets of this compound. Some of the predictions, including interactions with acetylcholinesterase, monoamine-oxidases and androgen receptor (AR), were experimentally validated. Binding to AR was the most suitable candidate for molecular initiating event, as indicated by both the up-regulation of cyp19a1b and sult2st3 and the non-monotonic relationship found between fenitrothion and the observed responses. Finally, when the integrity of the monoaminergic system was evaluated, altered levels of L-DOPA, DOPAC, HVA and 5-HIAA were found, as well as a signi!cant up-regulation of slc18a2 expression at the lowest concentrations of fenitrothion. These data strongly suggest that concentrations of fenitrothion commonly found in aquatic ecosystems present a signi!cant environmental risk for !sh communities.This work was supported by the Spanish Government with FEDER Funds (CTM2017-83242-R; D.R.) and the net- work of recognized research groups by the Catalan Government (2017 SGR_902)

CMBPol Mission Concept Study: Probing Inflation with CMB Polarization

We summarize the utility of precise cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization measurements as probes of the physics of inflation. We focus on the prospects for using CMB measurements to differentiate various inflationary mechanisms. In particular, a detection of primordial B-mode polarization would demonstrate that inflation occurred at a very high energy scale, and that the inflaton traversed a super-Planckian distance in field space. We explain how such a detection or constraint would illuminate aspects of physics at the Planck scale. Moreover, CMB measurements can constrain the scale-dependence and non-Gaussianity of the primordial fluctuations and limit the possibility of a significant isocurvature contribution. Each such limit provides crucial information on the underlying inflationary dynamics. Finally, we quantify these considerations by presenting forecasts for the sensitivities of a future satellite experiment to the inflationary parameters.Comment: 107 pages, 14 figures, 17 tables; Inflation Working Group contribution to the CMBPol Mission Concept Study; v2: typos fixed and references adde