The living space: Psychological well-being and mental health in response to interiors presented in virtual reality

There has been a recent interest in how architecture affects mental health and psychological well-being, motivated by the fact that we spend the majority of our waking time inside and interacting with built environments. Some studies have investigated the psychological responses to indoor design parameters; for instance, contours, and proposed that curved interiors, when compared to angular ones, were aesthetically preferred and induced higher positive emotions. The present study aimed to systematically examine this hypothesis and further explore the impact of contrasting contours on affect, behavior, and cognition. We exposed 42 participants to four well-matched indoor living rooms under a free-exploration photorealistic virtual reality paradigm. We included style as an explorative second-level variable. Out of the 33 outcome variables measured, and after correcting for false discoveries, only two eventually confirmed differences in the contours analysis, in favor of angular rooms. Analysis of style primarily validated the contrast of our stimulus set, and showed significance in one other dependent variable. Results of additional analysis using the Bayesian framework were in line with those of the frequentist approach. The present results provide evidence against the hypothesis that curvature is preferred, suggesting that the psychological response to contours in a close-to-reality architectural setting could be more complex. This study, therefore, helps to communicate a more complete scientific view on the experience of interior spaces and proposes directions for necessary future research

Industrial building system : does it good for sustainable building? / S. Roshanfekr, N. M Tawil and N. A. Goh

Housing and building construction is an important principle in sustainable development. The industrialization of building systems has been found to be necessary due to several factors: the fast and continuing progress of today’s world, the industrialization of many aspects of modern living, significant population growth, and the inadequacy and incompetence of conventional construction methods particularly in dense housing situations. This paper investigates the relevance of these factors as the drivers for changing people’s habits and perspectives toward building construction and to justify the introduction of industrialized construction approaches to replace the outdated conventional methods as well as the necessity to provide training in order to achieve product quality

Evidence-based health policymaking in Iraqi Kurdistan: Facilitators and barriers from the perspectives of policymakers and advisors

Background and objective: Evidence from research is underutilized in policy and practice in the majority of developing countries including Iraq. This aim of this study was to assess the role of research in health policy making in Iraqi Kurdistan context and identify the main barriers and facilitators for enhancing such role. Methods: This cross-sectional survey was carried out between November 2013 and March 2014 in the three governorates of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, Erbil, Duhok and Sulaimaniyah. The study participants included 10 key health informants and three health advisors. Two types of combined questionnaires for health policy makers and health advisors were used for data collection. Results: Conferences and seminars were the main sources of scientific evidences identified by health policymakers (80%), followed by consultants (70%). Different jargons/discourse was the main obstacle in consulting researchers (90%), followed by lack of tradition in collaborating (70%). Collection of specialists/advisors, followed by professional associations, scientific committees and international organizations/UN agencies were the main groups identified by health advisors to build bridges between the scientific community and policymakers. Conclusion: Policymakers very rarely consult researchers directly in their decision making. There is poor networking among researchers, policy-makers, practitioners and representatives from civil society which has its negative impact on evidence-based policymaking. There is obviously a lack of any sort of program of funded research that can inform policymaking

A hybrid approach to recognising activities of daily living from object use in the home environment

Accurate recognition of Activities of Daily Living (ADL) plays an important role in providing assistance and support to the elderly and cognitively impaired. Current knowledge-driven and ontology-based techniques model object concepts from assumptions and everyday common knowledge of object use for routine activities. Modelling activities from such information can lead to incorrect recognition of particular routine activities resulting in possible failure to detect abnormal activity trends. In cases where such prior knowledge are not available, such techniques become virtually unemployable. A significant step in the recognition of activities is the accurate discovery of the object usage for specific routine activities. This paper presents a hybrid framework for automatic consumption of sensor data and associating object usage to routine activities using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modelling. This process enables the recognition of simple activities of daily living from object usage and interactions in the home environment. The evaluation of the proposed framework on the Kasteren and Ordonez datasets show that it yields better results compared to existing techniques

Penerapan Metode Resitasi Untuk Meningkatkan Hasil Belajar Fisika Perserta Didik Kelas XI IPA SMA Negeri 1 Bangkala Barat Kabupaten Jeneponto

Masalah utama dalam penelitian ini yaitu bagaimana menerapkan metode pembelajaran Resitasi untuk meningkatkan hasil belajar fisika peserta didik SMA Negeri 1 Bangkala Barat Kab. Jeneponto. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mendeskripsikan seberapa besar hasil belajar fisika peserta didik kelas XI. IPA1 sebelum dan setelah diterapkan metode pembelajaran Resitasi dan untuk mendeskripsikan adanya peningkatan hasil belajar fisika peserta didik kelas XI. IPA1 SMA Negeri 1 Bangkala Barat Kab. Jeneponto setelah diterapkan metode pembelajaran Resitasi. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa pada Pretest yang tuntas secara individual dari 21 orang peserta didik hanya 3 orang peserta didik atau 14,28% yang memenuhi kriteria ketuntasan minimal (KKM) atau berada pada kategori sangat rendah dan adapun skor rata-rata peserta didik diperoleh sebesar 15,58%. Sedangkan pada Posttest dari 21 orang peserta didik terdapat 15 peserta didik atau 71,42% telah memenuhi KKM atau berada pada kategori sedang dan skor rata-rata peserta didik 21,38%.Kata Kunci: Pra-Eksperimen, Resitasi, Pretest-Posttest Design, Hasil belajarThe main problem in this research is how to apply the recitation teaching methods to improve student learning outcomes physics Bangkala West Senior High School 1 District. Jeneponto. This study aims to describe how big the learning outcomes of students of class XI physics. IPA1 before and after the recitation and learning methods applied to describe an increase learning outcomes of students of class XI physics. IPA1 Bangkala West Senior High School 1 District. Jeneponto after recitation applied learning methods. The results showed that the pretest is completed individually from 21 students only 3 people, or 14.28% of learners who meet the minimum completeness criteria (KKM) or are in the category of very low and as for the average score obtained by 15 students , 58%. While on the posttest of 21 students there are 15 students or 71.42% KKM have met or are in the medium category and an average score of 21.38% learners

Towards the development of an EIT-based stretchable sensor for multi-touch industrial human-computer interaction systems

In human-computer interaction studies, an interaction is often considered as a kind of information or discrete internal states of an individual that can be transmitted in a loss-free manner from people to computing interfaces (or robotic interfaces) and vice-versa. This project aims to investigate processes capable of communicating and cooperating by adjusting their schedules to match the evolving execution circumstances, in a way that maximise the quality of their joint activities. By enabling human-computer interactions, the process will emerge as a framework based on the concept of expectancy, demand, and need of the human and computer together, for understanding the interplay between people and computers. The idea of this work is to utilise touch feedback from humans as a channel for communication thanks to an artificial sensitive skin made of a thin, flexible, and stretchable material acting as transducer. As a proof of concept, we demonstrate that the first prototype of our artificial sensitive skin can detect surface contacts and show their locations with an image reconstructing the internal electrical conductivity of the sensor

Adenocarcinoma of the appendix presenting as bilateral ureteric obstruction

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Adenocarcinoma of the vermiform appendix is a rare neoplasm of the gastrointestinal tract. Presentation mimics acute appendicitis, but right iliac fossa mass and intestinal obstruction have also been reported. These presentations reflect various stages of a locally expanding tumour causing luminal obstruction of appendix. The investigation and subsequent management with a review of the literature is presented.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>We report a case of appendicular adenocarcinoma found unexpectedly in a 43 year old male who presented with urinary symptoms. Cystoscopy and uretero-renoscopy showed normal bladder but external compression of the ureters and therefore bilateral stents were inserted. CT scan showed a caecal mass. After colonoscopy, that showed external compression, and diagnostic laparoscopy the patient underwent right hemicolectomy. Histopathology revealed well differentiated adenocarcinoma with signet ring morphology with multiple lymph node involvement. The patient was referred for chemotherapy where he received infusional 5 fluorouracil but died 7 months after surgery.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Patients with atypical manifestations related to right lower abdominal quadrant should be thoroughly investigated with an open mind. Every attempt should be made to make a precise diagnosis through all the available means to direct the treatment along correct lines.</p

What are the attributes of good pharmacy faculty (lecturers)? An international comparison of the views of pharmacy undergraduate students from universities in Australia and Wales, UK

This study aimed to investigate what La Trobe pharmacy students (Australia) considered to be the attributes of a good lecturer (faculty member) and to compare the findings to pharmacy undergraduates at Cardiff University, Wales, UK. A 22 item questionnaire, developed at Cardiff, was administered to students at La Trobe University. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, and Mann-Whitney U Test or Kruskal-Wallis Test were used to compare groups. Ethics approval was obtained. Pharmacy students believed good lecturers (faculty) provided clear instruction and assessment criteria, were enthusiastic, inspired students to do their best, motivated students to learn, were accessible for support and started the teaching sessions on time. They also provided timely feedback and illustrated the relevance of material to pharmacy. Australian and UK pharmacy undergraduates in this study shared the same opinions on most aspects of the positive attributes of faculty (lecturers)