Virtual Environments for Training: From Individual Learning to Collaboration with Humanoids

The next generation of virtual environments for training is oriented towards collaborative aspects. Therefore, we have decided to enhance our platform for virtual training environments, adding collaboration opportunities and integrating humanoids. In this paper we put forward a model of humanoid that suits both virtual humans and representations of real users, according to collaborative training activities. We suggest adaptations to the scenario model of our platform making it possible to write collaborative procedures. We introduce a mechanism of action selection made up of a global repartition and an individual choice. These models are currently being integrated and validated in GVT, a virtual training tool for maintenance of military equipments, developed in collaboration with the French company NEXTER-Group

CP violation from pure gauge in extra dimensions

One of the Sakharov's condition for baryogenesis is the violation of both C and CP. In the Standard Model, gauge interactions break maximally C, but CP is only broken through the Yukawa couplings in the poorly understood scalar sector. In extra-dimensional models, extra components of gauge fields behave as scalars in 4D and can acquire effective vev's through (finite) quantum effects (Hosotani mechanism). This mechanism is used to build a toy model with 2 extra-dimensions compactified on a flat torus $T^2$, where a SU(2) gauge symmetry is broken to U(1) and CP violation (in 4D) is expected. This is verified by computing a non-vanishing electric dipole moment.Comment: 16 pages, 24 figures, final version accepted for publication in JHE

Triangle Inequalities for Majorana-Neutrino Magnetic Moments

Electromagnetic properties of neutrinos, if ever observed, could help to decide the Dirac versus Majorana nature of neutrinos. We show that the magnetic moments of Majorana neutrinos have to fulfill triangle inequalities, $|\mu_{\nu_\tau}|^2 \leq |\mu_{\nu_\mu}|^2 +|\mu_{\nu_e}|^2$ and cyclic permutations, which do not hold for Dirac neutrinos. Observing a violation of these inequalities, e.g. by measuring the magnetic moment of $\nu_\tau$ at SHiP, would thus strongly hint either at the Dirac nature of neutrinos or at the presence of at least one extra light sterile mode.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure. Extended discussion of sterile neutrinos; accepted by PR

“With a smile and a song . . .”: Walt Disney and the Birth of the American Fairy Tale

Using the new frameworks for analysis of Disney animation laid out by scholars such as Douglas Brode and Nicholas Sammond, I apply a sociohistorical treatment to Disney’s version of \u27Snow White.\u27 My central thesis is that Disney changed the story of Snow White in order to incorporate the new ideology of the 1930s, including the transformation of the American Dream of success. This work preempted the studio’s involvement in shaping national myths for propagandistic purposes during World War II in America

Exploring variations in the gauge sector of a six-dimensional flavour model

We address the question, how general is the gauge sector in extra-dimensional models which explain hierarchies of masses and mixings of quarks, charged leptons and neutrinos in terms of a single family of multidimensional fermions. We give qualitative arguments that though there are a plethora of possible variations, they do not result in drastical changes of phenomenology.Comment: 13 pages. To be published in a special issue of JETP dedicated to the 60th birthday of Valery Rubako