Expected user experience of mobile augmented reality services: a user study in the context of shopping centres

The technical enablers for mobile augmented reality (MAR) are becoming robust enough to allow the development of MAR services that are truly valuable for consumers. Such services would provide a novel interface to the ubiquitous digital information in the physical world, hence serving in great variety of contexts and everyday human activities. To ensure the acceptance and success of future MAR services, their development should be based on knowledge about potential end users’ expectations and requirements. We conducted 16 semi-structured interview sessions with 28 participants in shopping centres, which can be considered as a fruitful context for MAR services. We aimed to elicit new knowledge about (1) the characteristics of the expected user experience and (2) central user requirements related to MAR in such a context. From a pragmatic viewpoint, the participants expected MAR services to catalyse their sense of efficiency, empower them with novel context-sensitive and proactive functionalities and raise their awareness of the information related to their surroundings with an intuitive interface. Emotionally, MAR services were expected to offer stimulating and pleasant experiences, such as playfulness, inspiration, liveliness, collectivity and surprise. The user experience categories and user requirements that were identified can serve as targets for the design of user experience of future MAR services.     

玛丽蒂姆会议酒店,柏林,德国

立面、周边环境以及对所在街区的一系列回应,是玛丽蒂姆酒店的设计要点。这个占地约1.2万m2的酒店基地紧邻文化中心（Kulturforum）和著名的文物保护建筑贝壳屋（Shellhaus,建筑师：Emil Fahrenkamp）,且距国家美术馆和波茨坦广场不远。     

Speaking rate from proximal and distal contexts is used during word segmentation.

A series of eye-tracking and categorization experiments investigated the use of speaking-rate information in the segmentation of Dutch ambiguous-word sequences. Juncture phonemes with ambiguous durations (e.g., [s] in 'eens (s)peer,' “once (s)pear,” [t] in 'nooit (t)rap,' “never staircase/quick”) were perceived as longer and hence more often as word-initial when following a fast than a slow context sentence. Listeners used speaking-rate information as soon as it became available. Rate information from a context proximal to the juncture phoneme and from a more distal context was used during on-line word recognition, as reflected in listeners' eye movements. Stronger effects of distal context, however, were observed in the categorization task, which measures the off-line results of the word-recognition process. In categorization, the amount of rate context had the greatest influence on the use of rate information, but in eye tracking, the rate information's proximal location was the most important. These findings constrain accounts of how speaking rate modulates the interpretation of durational cues during word recognition by suggesting that rate estimates are used to evaluate upcoming phonetic information continuously during prelexical speech processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Measurement of Helium Leakage Rates through Closures of Dangerous Goods Packagings for the Assessment of Potentially Explosive Mixtures in Freight Containers

The objective was to find out whether an explosive atmosphere can be created in a freight container by gaseous leakage flow of vapour‐air‐mixture through leaks in the closures of dangerous goods packagings filled with hazardous liquids. Because of high temperatures during intercontinental carriage, there is a gauge pressure in the free vapour phase inside the packagings which can cause a gaseous leakage flow. Two different methods were applied: Helium limit leakage rates for 23 quantitatively important hazardous liquids concerning their lower explosion limit (LEL) were calculated for a worst case transport scenario (Method 1). Helium leakage rates of five closure types of dangerous goods packagings with volumes of approximately 6 l were measured using the pressure technique by accumulation (Method 2). All types of closures of steel packagings were uncritical. The maximum measured leakage was 33% of the limit leakage rate. The leakage rates of screw closures of plastic jerricans can exceed the LEL if there are production‐related patterns such as non‐concentricity of the closures and flashes on the neck. Especially for plastic packagings it is important to minimize gaseous leakage flow, because an explosive atmosphere can also be reached by permeation of the individual filling substance or by a combination of both effects. For the assessment of potentially explosive mixtures in freight containers, both mass transfer mechanisms have to be taken into account. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Transformations for early reply and forward message passing mechanisms

Message passing notations (language, package, etc.) typically include some form of asynchronous or synchronous invocation. In a synchronous invocation, the invoker waits for the invocation's servicer to pass back results. Some message passing notations also include early reply or deferred reply (including forwarding), which alters how and when the servicer passes back its results; this additional flexibility is useful in realistic applications. It is well known how to transform a synchronous invocation into only asynchronous invocations. This paper extends such transformations to early reply and forward. This paper also describes the use of these transformations within the implementations of programming notations. Using the transformation simplifies the implementation without significantly affecting run‐time costs. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Feedback design in control reconfigurable systems

This paper is concerned with the design of reconfigurable control laws for fault-tolerant systems. From the control design point of view the issue of performance robustness during the system normal operation versus failure sensitivity at the time of a system component failure is addressed. To achieve a balanced design, a parametrized set of controllers satisfying a prescribed performance level is first constructed, and then the parameter is optimized under a detection criterion that sensitizes the measurements to some specific failures. An example involving aircraft surface impairment is given to explain the procedure for obtaining the optimized design.     

Der einfluß von faseroberflächen auf die matrixhärtung bei faserverbundwerkstoffen

The influence of extraction of reinforced fibres on surface properties and the curing reaction of epoxy resin matrix in composites were investigated. With increasing fibre surface polarity, as the result of the extraction, the resin wettability was improved and the reaction rate of curing of the epoxy resin matrix increased. The wettability and the reaction rate oppositely decreased with decreasing fibre surface polarity.     

Biological Implications of a Stroke Therapy Based in Neuroglobin Hyaluronate Nanoparticles. Neuroprotective Role and Molecular Bases

Exogenous neuroprotective protein neuroglobin (Ngb) cannot cross the blood–brain barrier. To overcome this difficulty, we synthesized hyaluronate nanoparticles (NPs), able to deliver Ngb into the brain in an animal model of stroke (MCAO). These NPs effectively reached neurons, and were microscopically identified after 24 h of reperfusion. Compared to MCAO non-treated animals, those treated with Ngb-NPs showed survival rates up to 50% higher, and better neurological scores. Tissue damage improved with the treatment, but no changes in the infarct volume or in the oxidative/nitrosative values were detected. A proteomics approach (p-value < 0.02; fold change = 0.05) in the infarcted areas showed a total of 219 proteins that significantly changed their expression after stroke and treatment with Ngb-NPs. Of special interest, are proteins such as FBXO7 and NTRK2, which were downexpressed in stroke, but overexpressed after treatment with Ngb-NPs; and ATX2L, which was overexpressed only under the effect of Ngb. Interestingly, the proteins affected by the treatment with Ngb were involved in mitochondrial function and cell death, endocytosis, protein metabolism, cytoskeletal remodeling, or synaptic function, and in regenerative processes, such as dendritogenesis, neuritogenesis, or sinaptogenesis. Consequently, our pharmaceutical preparation may open new therapeutic scopes for stroke and possibly for other neurodegenerative pathologies.     

Novel 1,3,5-Triazinyl Aminobenzenesulfonamides Incorporating Aminoalcohol,Aminochalcone and Aminostilbene Structural Motifs as Potent Anti-VRE Agents,and Carbonic Anhydrases I,II, VII,IX, and XII Inhibitors

A series of 1,3,5-triazinyl aminobenzenesulfonamides substituted by aminoalcohol, aminostilbene, and aminochalcone structural motifs was synthesized as potential human carbonic anhydrase (hCA) inhibitors. The compounds were evaluated on their inhibition of tumor-associated hCA IX and hCA XII, hCA VII isoenzyme present in the brain, and physiologically important hCA I and hCA II. While the test compounds had only a negligible effect on physiologically important isoenzymes, many of the studied compounds significantly affected the hCA IX isoenzyme. Several compounds showed activity against hCA XII; (E)-4-{2-[(4-[(2,3-dihydroxypropyl)amino]-6-[(4-styrylphenyl)amino]-1,3,5-triazin-2-yl)amino]ethyl}benzenesulfonamide (31) and (E)-4-{2-[(4-[(4-hydroxyphenyl)amino]-6-[(4-styrylphenyl)amino]-1,3,5-triazin-2-yl)amino]ethyl}benzenesulfonamide (32) were the most effective inhibitors with K_Is = 4.4 and 5.9 nM, respectively. In addition, the compounds were tested against vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecalis (VRE) isolates. (E)-4-[2-({4-[(4-cinnamoylphenyl)amino]-6-[(4-hydroxyphenyl)amino]-1,3,5-triazin-2-yl}amino)ethyl]benzenesulfonamide (21) (MIC = 26.33 µM) and derivative 32 (MIC range 13.80–55.20 µM) demonstrated the highest activity against all tested strains. The most active compounds were evaluated for their cytotoxicity against the Human Colorectal Tumor Cell Line (HCT116 p53 +/+). Only 4,4’-[(6-chloro-1,3,5-triazin-2,4-diyl)bis(iminomethylene)]dibenzenesulfonamide (7) and compound 32 demonstrated an IC₅₀ of ca. 6.5 μM; otherwise, the other selected derivatives did not show toxicity at concentrations up to 50 µM. The molecular modeling and docking of active compounds into various hCA isoenzymes, including bacterial carbonic anhydrase, specifically α-CA present in VRE, was performed to try to outline a possible mechanism of selective anti-VRE activity.