Altering User Movement Behaviour in Virtual Environments.

In immersive Virtual Reality systems, users tend to move in a Virtual Environment as they would in an analogous physical environment. In this work, we investigated how user behaviour is affected when the Virtual Environment differs from the physical space. We created two sets of four environments each, plus a virtual replica of the physical environment as a baseline. The first focused on aesthetic discrepancies, such as a water surface in place of solid ground. The second focused on mixing immaterial objects together with those paired to tangible objects. For example, barring an area with walls or obstacles. We designed a study where participants had to reach three waypoints laid out in such a way to prompt a decision on which path to follow based on the conflict between the mismatching visual stimuli and their awareness of the real layout of the room. We analysed their performances to determine whether their trajectories were altered significantly from the shortest route. Our results indicate that participants altered their trajectories in presence of surfaces representing higher walking difficulty (for example, water instead of grass). However, when the graphical appearance was found to be ambiguous, there was no significant trajectory alteration. The environments mixing immaterial with physical objects had the most impact on trajectories with a mean deviation from the shortest route of 60 cm against the 37 cm of environments with aesthetic alterations. The co-existance of paired and unpaired virtual objects was reported to support the idea that all objects participants saw were backed by physical props. From these results and our observations, we derive guidelines on how to alter user movement behaviour in Virtual Environments

A First Search for coincident Gravitational Waves and High Energy Neutrinos using LIGO, Virgo and ANTARES data from 2007

We present the results of the first search for gravitational wave bursts associated with high energy neutrinos. Together, these messengers could reveal new, hidden sources that are not observed by conventional photon astronomy, particularly at high energy. Our search uses neutrinos detected by the underwater neutrino telescope ANTARES in its 5 line configuration during the period January - September 2007, which coincided with the fifth and first science runs of LIGO and Virgo, respectively. The LIGO-Virgo data were analysed for candidate gravitational-wave signals coincident in time and direction with the neutrino events. No significant coincident events were observed. We place limits on the density of joint high energy neutrino - gravitational wave emission events in the local universe, and compare them with densities of merger and core-collapse events.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures, science summary page at http://www.ligo.org/science/Publication-S5LV_ANTARES/index.php. Public access area to figures, tables at https://dcc.ligo.org/cgi-bin/DocDB/ShowDocument?docid=p120000

Sensitivity projections for a dual-phase argon TPC optimized for light dark matter searches through the ionization channel

Dark matter lighter than 10  GeV/c2 encompasses a promising range of candidates. A conceptual design for a new detector, DarkSide-LowMass, is presented, based on the DarkSide-50 detector and progress toward DarkSide-20k, optimized for a low-threshold electron-counting measurement. Sensitivity to light dark matter is explored for various potential energy thresholds and background rates. These studies show that DarkSide-LowMass can achieve sensitivity to light dark matter down to the solar neutrino fog for GeV-scale masses and significant sensitivity down to 10  MeV/c2 considering the Migdal effect or interactions with electrons. Requirements for optimizing the detector’s sensitivity are explored, as are potential sensitivity gains from modeling and mitigating spurious electron backgrounds that may dominate the signal at the lowest energies

Sharable multitouch screens in cultural heritage and tourism applications

Cultural heritage assets keep alive the history of a territory and of its inhabitants. Several systems have been developed to support people during their visits to historical sites and museums, with the goal of improving the overall user experience. In many cases, people travelling together would appreciate the possibility of collaborating in gathering information and planning a personalized itinerary. Large sharable multitouch screens may offer this possibility. This paper is about ongoing research that is investigating possible applications of large multitouch screens in cultural heritage and tourism. In particular, an application is described, which aims at allowing tourists to get information about a territory and create itineraries for their visits by interacting together on a large scree

Analysis of the UCD process of a web-based system

This paper analyzes how User-Centred Design (UCD) has been carried out in the creation of a web-based system, whose aim is monitoring air quality for sustainable industrial development. This distributed multimedia system has been commissioned by the Puglia region and it is used primarily by industries and regional government experts. Several lessons are learned from this analysis and hints about the effective application of UCD and the fruitful involvement of users for creating usable systems are derived

DIPLOPIA DA NEUROBORRELIOSI IN ETÀ PEDIATRICA: CASO CLINICO.

La neuroborreliosi è una malattia che colpisce il 50% dei soggetti punti da zecca ed esordisce, nella maggior parte dei casi, con sintomi legati al coinvolgimento del 7°nervo cranico. Caso clinico: si descrive il caso di un bambino di 10 anni ricoverato per diplopia scrivibile a neuroborreliosi con interessamento atipico del 6° nervo cranico. Nei 10 giorni precedenti il ricovero, erano presenti dolore addominale e vomito seguiti da cefalea e diplopia. L’esame oftalmoscopico, il test di Cover e di Hess-Lancaster confermavano la diplopia ed evidenziavano neurorisentimento del 6°nervo cranico. L’esame obiettivo generale era nella norma; la visita neurologica evidenziava: diplopia nello sguardo frontale e di lateralità bilaterale con atteggiamento viziato del capo e del tronco, testa inclinata sulla spalla sinistra lievemente innalzata rispetto alla destra. Test ematici di routine, EEG, TAC cerebrale, RMN encefalo erano nella norma. La sierologia (EIA) per Borrelia documentava la presenza di IgM specifiche (confermate dal Western blot), e l’assenza di IgG. Due rachicentesi effettuate prima della terapia antibiotica evidenziavano dapprima un liquor limpido ed iperteso, (Gb 46/mm3;95% linfomonociti); successivamente normoteso (Gb 30/mm3 in prevalenza di monociti) con positività IgG (EIA test a cattura, Index positivo) ed IgM (Index negativo). Il paziente iniziava terapia con ceftriaxone 2 gr/die e.v. sospesa dopo 10 giorni per iperpiressia (39°C), esantema diffuso ed astenia. Proseguiva con doxiciclina 100mg/die per altri 10 giorni. Dopo 12 giorni di terapia la diplopia era regredita; i controlli oftalmoscopici (Test di Hess-Lancaster,Test di Maddox) e neurologici si normalizzavano dopo circa 2 mesi. Un follow-up a 10 mesi evidenziava la risoluzione completa della sintomatologia e la persistenza di IgM sieriche anti-Borrelia. Conclusioni: l’interesse di questo caso risiede non solo nell’esordio atipico della neuroborreliosi con diplopia per interessamento del 6° nervo cranico, ma anche nell’assenza di IgG specifiche sieriche anche a 10 mesi di distanza dall’esordio della malattia e per la persistenza delle IgM

Chemopreventive efficacies of rosiglitazone, fenretinide and their combination against rat mammary carcinogenesis

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPAR-gamma) and retinoic acid receptors (RAR/RXR) belong to the nuclear steroid receptor family. In vitro studies have suggested that PPAR-gamma ligands are highly effective in preventing mammary tumours and these effects are enhanced by some retinoids. However, in vivo anti-initiator and anti-promoter efficacies of this combination are not clear