Remote and Deviceless Manipulation of Virtual Objects in Mixed Reality

Deviceless manipulation of virtual objects in mixed reality (MR) environments is technically achievable with the current generation of Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs), as they track finger movements and allow you to use gestures to control the transformation. However, when the object manipulation is performed at some distance, and when the transform includes scaling, it is not obvious how to remap the hand motions over the degrees of freedom of the object. Different solutions have been implemented in software toolkits, but there are still usability issues and a lack of clear guidelines for the interaction design. We present a user study evaluating three solutions for the remote translation, rotation, and scaling of virtual objects in the real environment without using handheld devices. We analyze their usability on the practical task of docking virtual cubes on a tangible shelf from varying distances. The outcomes of our study show that the usability of the methods is strongly affected by the use of separate or integrated control of the degrees of freedom, by the use of the hands in a symmetric or specialized way, by the visual feedback, and by the previous experience of the users

The Pliocene-Quaternary tecto-sedimentary evolution of the Larissa Plain (Eastern Thessaly, Greece)

In order to understand the present-day morphological, geographical and environmental patterns of the Larissa Plain, a large amount of historical, archaeological, sedimentologi-cal, stratigraphic, t..

Reframing agile organization: do big data analytics capabilities matter?

The Agile Manifesto has become the mantra for software developers seeking to create innovative software. However, recently, the principles of Agile Manifesto have also emerged as guidelines for organizations continuously seeking to develop and adopt innovations. Hence, the expression Agile Organization arose. Notwithstanding this interest, Agile Organizations' traits still have to be conceptualized. Yet, the role of Big Data Analytics capable information systems has been neglected. In this perspective, the research aims to develop a framework assessing why Big Data analytics capabilities are fundamental for organizations aiming to follow Agile Organization's principles. Implications of the potential role of such information systems on innovation development and adoption, performance and organizational flexibility are also presented

Entrepreneurial education and internationalisation of firms in transition economies: a conceptual framework from the case of Croatia

The aim of this paper is to offer an integrated perspective on internationalisation process in transition economies and the role that an entrepreneurial education can play in it. The context of a transition economy, such those countries belonging to the former Yugoslavian republic, deeply affect the entrepreneurial activities established. Internationalisation offers a viable advantage to entrepreneurs and their firms to overcome a limited internal market and hostile conditions faced in the local environment. Thanks to the results obtained by a stream of studies focused on the entrepreneurial context in Croatia, we build a framework to explore the problems faced by entrepreneurs when internationalisation is considered and possible solutions. Our main contribution is the proposition of an entrepreneurial education as facilitator of the process. Indeed, entrepreneurial education, considered as formal education and an entrepreneurial university context, can directly ameliorate the process of internationalisation. Simultaneously it can also affect the networking strategy that in literature is another prominent element tackled regarding the problem of internationalisation in transition economies. Thus, entrepreneurial education may represent a strong boost in which to invest with public policies and targeted interventions

Achieving Strategic Flexibility in the Era of Big Data: The Importance of Knowledge Management and Ambidexterity

Purpose – This research unpacks the micro-mechanisms that exist between an organisation’s ability to conduct Big Data Analytics (BDA) and its achievement of strategic flexibility. Knowledge management capabilities and organisational ambidexterity have long been considered factors influencing the aforementioned relationship. In order to assess this, the authors build on dynamic capabilities as the main theoretical lens through which to examine. Design/methodology/approach – Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) is the main methodological approach used in this research. A structural model was developed and tested based on 215 survey responses collected from managers of organisations in continental Europe. Findings – The results indicate that BDA capabilities are a significant antecedent of an organisation’s strategic flexibility. This relationship, however, is influenced by knowledge management capabilities and ambidexterity. Practical implications – Managers wishing to properly exploit the potential of big data should invest in the elaboration of knowledge management processes across their organisation. This strategy can foster strategic flexibility. Originality/value – Previous research has explored the theoretical links between big data, knowledge management, and strategic flexibility. However, little attention has been paid to the quantitative investigation of the phenomenon

Sport Entrepreneurship: A Synthesis of Existing Literature and Future Perspectives

Sport entrepreneurship is progressively emerging as an extremely significant stream of research. Accordingly, scholars are progressively assessing how sportspeople tend to have higher entrepreneurial orientation and intentions than the average. In a similar fashion, scholars have also observed how sport-related entrepreneurial ventures can have a positive effect on community development. This notwithstanding, this literature stream is still fragmented, lacks a proper systematization, and needs an identification of its intellectual structure and research themes. Hereby, we performed a bibliometric analysis on 86 papers and a systematic literature review on the most influential papers belonging to the pertinent literature. Results show that a 4-cluster structure exists for sport entrepreneurship: its theoretical definitions and internal factors fostering it (cluster 1), environmental factors which may foster it (cluster 2), pedagogical approaches and education (cluster 3), and finally its impacts, especially in terms of community development and social benefits (cluster 4). From these findings, a framework to help both scholars and practitioners approaching the topic was developed

Genetical Swarm Optimization of Multihop Routes in Wireless Sensor Networks

In recent years, wireless sensor networks have been attracting considerable research attention for a wide range of applications, but they still present significant network communication challenges, involving essentially the use of large numbers of resource-constrained nodes operating unattended and exposed to potential local failures. In order to maximize the network lifespan, in this paper, genetical swarm optimization (GSO) is applied, a class of hybrid evolutionary techniques developed in order to exploit in the most effective way the uniqueness and peculiarities of two classical optimization approaches; particle swarm optimization (PSO) and genetic algorithms (GA). This procedure is here implemented to optimize the communication energy consumption in a wireless network by selecting the optimal multihop routing schemes, with a suitable hybridization of different routing criteria, confirming itself as a flexible and useful tool for engineering applications

Sensitivity analysis for crustal rheological profiles: examples from the Aegean Region

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Speeding up Heterogeneous Federated Learning with Sequentially Trained Superclients

Federated Learning (FL) allows training machine learning models in privacy-constrained scenarios by enabling the cooperation of edge devices without requiring local data sharing. This approach raises several challenges due to the different statistical distribution of the local datasets and the clients' computational heterogeneity. In particular, the presence of highly non-i.i.d. data severely impairs both the performance of the trained neural network and its convergence rate, increasing the number of communication rounds requested to reach a performance comparable to that of the centralized scenario. As a solution, we propose FedSeq, a novel framework leveraging the sequential training of subgroups of heterogeneous clients, i.e. superclients, to emulate the centralized paradigm in a privacy-compliant way. Given a fixed budget of communication rounds, we show that FedSeq outperforms or match several state-of-the-art federated algorithms in terms of final performance and speed of convergence. Finally, our method can be easily integrated with other approaches available in the literature. Empirical results show that combining existing algorithms with FedSeq further improves its final performance and convergence speed. We test our method on CIFAR-10 and CIFAR-100 and prove its effectiveness in both i.i.d. and non-i.i.d. scenarios.Comment: Published at the 26th International Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR), 2022, pp. 3376-338

Southern East Siberia Pliocene-Quaternary faults:Database,analysis and inference

Abstract This paper presents the first release of an Informational System (IS) devoted to the systematic collection of all available data relating to Pliocene–Quaternary faults in southern East Siberia, their critical analysis and their seismotectonic parameterization. The final goal of this project is to form a new base for improving the assessment of seismic hazard and other natural processes associated with crustal deformation. The presented IS has been exploited to create a relational database of active and conditionally active faults in southern East Siberia (between 100°–114° E and 50°–57° N) whose central sector is characterized by the highly seismic Baikal rift zone. The information within the database for each fault segment is organized as distinct but intercorrelated sections (tables, texts and pictures, etc.) and can be easily visualized as HTML pages in offline browsing. The preliminary version of the database distributed free on disk already highlights the general fault pattern showing that the Holocene and historical activity is quite uniform and dominated by NE–SW and nearly E–W trending faults; the former with a prevailing dip-slip normal kinematics, while the latter structures are left-lateral strike-slip and oblique-slip (with different proportion of left-lateral and normal fault slip components). These faults are mainly concentrated along the borders of the rift basins and are the main sources of moderate-to-strong (M ≥ 5.5) earthquakes on the southern sectors of East Siberia in recent times. As a whole, based on analyzing the diverse fault kinematics and their variable spatial distribution with respect to the overall pattern of the tectonic structures formed and/or activated during the late Pliocene–Quaternary, we conclude they were generated under a regional stress field mainly characterized by a relatively uniform NW–SE tension, but strongly influenced by the irregular hard boundary of the old Siberian craton. The obtained inferences are in an agreement with the existing models of the development of the Baikal region