DigiWall - an audio mostly game

DigiWall is a hybrid between a climbing wall and a computer game. The climbing grips are equipped with touch sensors and lights. The interface has no computer screen. Instead sound and music are principle drivers of DigiWall interaction models. The gaming experience combines sound and music with physical movement and the sparse visuals of the climbing grips. The DigiWall soundscape carries both verbal and nonverbal information. Verbal information includes instructions on how to play a game, scores, level numbers etc. Non-verbal information is about speed, position, direction, events etc. Many different types of interaction models are possible: competitions, collaboration exercises and aesthetic experiences

Testing Two Tools for Multimodal Navigation

The latest smartphones with GPS, electronic compasses, directional audio, touch screens, and so forth, hold a potential for location-based services that are easier to use and that let users focus on their activities and the environment around them. Rather than interpreting maps, users can search for information by pointing in a direction and database queries can be created from GPS location and compass data. Users can also get guidance to locations through point and sweep gestures, spatial sound, and simple graphics. This paper describes two studies testing two applications with multimodal user interfaces for navigation and information retrieval. The applications allow users to search for information and get navigation support using combinations of point and sweep gestures, nonspeech audio, graphics, and text. Tests show that users appreciated both applications for their ease of use and for allowing users to interact directly with the surrounding environment

Is Biodiversity Attractive?

Urban and near-urban green spaces tend to be the main venues for human leisure and recreational activities, given their multifunctional potential, restorative effect and proximity to large numbers of people. Urban green spaces also provide significant ecological resources, not only in contrast to the rest of the urban matrix, but also as a unique part of a greater network of ecosystems. Urban areas have been proven to harbor large numbers of plant and animal species and green spaces are their primary habitats. As global biodiversity is declining and urban populations are growing, urban green spaces play an important role in promoting both biodiversity and human recreation, thus raising the question of how to best combine these functions. It is therefore crucial to understand if and how humans perceive and appreciate biodiversity in a recreational context. Three different types of on-site studies were conducted in an urban park with a wide range of green space typologies. The first study was an inventory and assessment of biodiversity values at the study site, which resulted in a number of zones of varying habitat quality. The other two studies were perception studies, each employing one group of laypersons and one group of landscape/ecology experts. In one of these studies, the participants were asked to photograph features that they liked and disliked along a marked trail. In the other study, the participants instead photographed features of high and low perceived species richness. The photographs and accompanying written motivations were then analyzed based on their spatial distribution and on thematic categories developed from photograph content and motivations. The relationship between the three studies is the primary focus of the thesis. The results suggest a general ability among both experts and laypersons to perceive differences in habitat quality, although their preferences do not necessarily relate positively to high biodiversity values. Further is indicated a strong influence of individual green space elements and details on both species richness perception and preference. The participants appeared to find the study site especially sensitive to human-related elements, which had a significant impact on preference

Meningsfulla möten?

Integration policies have failed to make diversity into anything more than occupying the same physical space. People of different cultural background still do not share their lives to any real extent. Attempts made within planning and landscape architecture to catalyst the integration process have mainly been focused on structural measures, such as residential policies. As for outdoor environments, non-verbal casual encounters in the shape of crossing paths are assumed to lie at the heart of urban social integration. The aim of the thesis is to question this assumption and, as the thesis will show, there is literature supporting this aim. Looking at the works of Gordon Allport, Lewis Coser and some of their followers, I find intercultural contact to require more complex ways of interaction in order to reduce prejudice and to generate tolerance and understanding. Drawing on these findings, I study how the immigrant community may have a different way of using outdoor environments, based on cultural and national backgrounds and identities as members of a new society, but also based on discrimination and exclusion. These aspects of social life may in turn be helpful in the search for outdoor elements and places, which foster encounters with true potential for interaction and social integration.************* Integrationspolitiska åtgärder har inte lyckats göra mångfald till något annat än att uppta samma yta. Människor med olika kulturella bakgrund delar fortfarande inte sina liv i någon större utsträckning. Försök inom planering och landskapsarkitektur att främja integration har huvudsakligen varit inriktade på strukturella åtgärder, såsom bostadsfördelning. När det gäller utemiljön utgår man ifrån att flyktiga möten utan kommunikation, i stil med att vägar möts, är oumbärliga för social integration i staden. Huvudmålet med uppsatsen är att ifrågasätta detta antagande och det finns, som uppsatsen visar, litteratur som stödjer detta mål. Genom att titta på verk av Gordon Allport, Lewis Coser och några av deras efterföljare finner jag att kontakt mellan kulturer kräver mer komplex form av interaktion för att kunna reducera fördomar och generera tolerans och förståelse. Med detta som bakgrund tittar jag närmare på hur immigranter som grupp kan ha annorlunda sätt att ta utemiljön i anspråk, baserat på kulturella bakgrunder, nationalitet och identitet som medlemmar av ett nytt samhälle, men även baserat på diskriminering och uteslutande. Dessa aspekter av det sociala livet kan i sin tur vara användbara i sökandet efter element och platser i utemiljön som främjar möten med verklig potential för interaktion och social integration

Vad är ett djur?

ABSTRACT The aim of the study was to survey attitudes towards animals among veterinary students, and to assess how the Swedish veterinary education affected students' perspectives on animals. Students in the first and second years of the study programme were asked to answer the question "What is an animal?" as they saw fit, and the answers were analysed using a qualitative-to-quantitave analysis method called the Elementary Model, which had been developed for the purpose. Results showed a significant decrease in "zoo-perspectives", i.e. views and descriptions of animals as beings with cognitive and motor functions, and a significant increase in "homo-perspectives", i.e. descriptions of animals as useful to humans or as taking part of an anthrozoological context. The prevelence of "geo-" and "bio-perspectives" (describing animals as objects, a collection of parts etc. or as living beings with metabolic and reproductive capabilities, respectively) did not change significantly during the first year of education. Results also indicated that mere research into matters of animal sentience may positively affect student awareness, thus potentially masking a negative effect from veterinary education when the same students are asked the same questions repeatedly during education. An educational supplement, "Animals - a Metaperspective", was also evaluated as part of the study.SAMMANFATTNING Syftet med studien var att kartlägga veterinärstudenters djursyn, och avgöra hur veterinärutbildningen påverkade studenternas perspektiv på djur. Studenter i årskurs 1 och två på utbildningen fick besvara frågan "Vad är ett djur?" på det sätt de fann lämpligt, och svaren analyserades genom att använda en särskilt framtagen analysmetod, kallad elementärmodellen, för att omvandla kvalitativa svar till kvantitativa data. Resultaten visade en signifikant minskning av s.k. "zooperspektiv", d.v.s. beskrivningar av djur som varelser med kognitiva och motoriska förmågor, samt en signifikant ökning av s.k. "homoperspektiv", d.v.s. beskrivningar av djurs nytta för människan eller av djur som deltagare i antrozoologiska sammanhang. Förekomsten av "geo-" och "bioperspektiv" (där djur beskrivs som objekt eller en samling delar, respektive levande organismer med reproduktion och metabolism) förändrades inte signifikant under ett år på veterinärutbildningen. Resultaten indikerade också att studenternas uppfattning av djur som medvetna varelser kan påverkas positivt av själva undersökningen, vilket potentiellt kan maskera en negativ effekt från utbildningen när samma grupp studenter frågas ut vid olika tillfällen. Ett studiekomplement, "Djur - ett metaperspektiv", utvärderades också i samband med studien

Testing Two Tools for Multimodal Navigation

The latest smartphones with GPS, electronic compasses, directional audio, touch screens, and so forth, hold a potential for location-based services that are easier to use and that let users focus on their activities and the environment around them. Rather than interpreting maps, users can search for information by pointing in a direction and database queries can be created from GPS location and compass data. Users can also get guidance to locations through point and sweep gestures, spatial sound, and simple graphics. This paper describes two studies testing two applications with multimodal user interfaces for navigation and information retrieval. The applications allow users to search for information and get navigation support using combinations of point and sweep gestures, nonspeech audio, graphics, and text. Tests show that users appreciated both applications for their ease of use and for allowing users to interact directly with the surrounding environment

The multiple strategies of an insect herbivore to overcome plant cyanogenic glucoside defence

Cyanogenic glucosides (CNglcs) are widespread plant defence compounds that release toxic hydrogen cyanide by plant β-glucosidase activity after tissue damage. Specialised insect herbivores have evolved counter strategies and some sequester CNglcs, but the underlying mechanisms to keep CNglcs intact during feeding and digestion are unknown. We show that CNglc-sequestering Zygaena filipendulae larvae combine behavioural, morphological, physiological and biochemical strategies at different time points during feeding and digestion to avoid toxic hydrolysis of the CNglcs present in their Lotus food plant, i.e. cyanogenesis. We found that a high feeding rate limits the time for plant β-glucosidases to hydrolyse CNglcs. Larvae performed leaf-snipping, a minimal disruptive feeding mode that prevents mixing of plant β-glucosidases and CNglcs. Saliva extracts did not inhibit plant cyanogenesis. However, a highly alkaline midgut lumen inhibited the activity of ingested plant β-glucosidases significantly. Moreover, insect β-glucosidases from the saliva and gut tissue did not hydrolyse the CNglcs present in Lotus. The strategies disclosed may also be used by other insect species to overcome CNglc-based plant defence and to sequester these compounds intact

Effects of Lactobacillus johnsonii and Lactobacillus reuteri on gut barrier function and heat shock proteins in intestinal porcine epithelial cells

Heat shock proteins (HSPs) are a set of highly conserved proteins that can serve as intestinal gate keepers in gut homeostasis. Here, effects of a probiotic, Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (LGG), and two novel porcine isolates, Lactobacillus johnsonii strain P47-HY and Lactobacillus reuteri strain P43-HUV, on cytoprotective HSP expression and gut barrier function, were investigated in a porcine IPEC-J2 intestinal epithelial cell line model. The IPEC-J2 cells polarized on a permeable filter exhibited villus-like cell phenotype with development of apical microvilli. Western blot analysis detected HSP expression in IPEC-J2 and revealed that L. johnsonii and L. reuteri strains were able to significantly induce HSP27, despite high basal expression in IPEC-J2, whereas LGG did not. For HSP72, only the supernatant of L. reuteri induced the expression, which was comparable to the heat shock treatment, which indicated that HSP72 expression was more stimulus-specific. The protective effect of lactobacilli was further studied in IPEC-J2 under an enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) challenge. ETEC caused intestinal barrier destruction, as reflected by loss of cell-cell contact, reduced IPEC-J2 cell viability and transepithelial electrical resistance, and disruption of tight junction protein zonula occludens-1. In contrast, the L. reuteri treatment substantially counteracted these detrimental effects and preserved the barrier function. L. johnsonii and LGG also achieved barrier protection, partly by directly inhibiting ETEC attachment. Together, the results indicate that specific strains of Lactobacillus can enhance gut barrier function through cytoprotective HSP induction and fortify the cell protection against ETEC challenge through tight junction protein modulation and direct interaction with pathogens