Empowering cultural heritage professionals with tools for authoring and deploying personalised visitor experiences

User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction - This paper presents an authoring environment, which supports cultural heritage professionals in the process of creating and deploying a wide range of...     

When agility meets open innovation: two approaches to manage inbound projects

Open Innovation is a leading paradigm in the current landscape, and scholars have been highly focused on defining the characteristics and capabilities that firms need to implement it successfully. This research aims to understand how organizations may implement inbound OI projects. Relying on a multiple case study approach and based on primary and secondary sources, this research highlights two main approaches: team‐centred and individual‐centred. The two approaches are discussed according to previous studies, highlighting how the first one is particularly coherent with previous research on Open Innovation, while the second one offers great insights from an Agile Project Management perspective. In particular, this research suggests how the Open Innovation literature can be enriched by considering the recent advancements in the Agile literature, valuing the individual and its autonomy to embrace external ideas from an OI perspective.     

GidaBot: a system of heterogeneous robots collaborating as guides in multi-floor environments

Intelligent Service Robotics - GidaBot is an application designed to set up and run a heterogeneous team of robots to act as tour guides in multi-floor buildings. Although the tours can go through...     

Safety-enhanced Collaborative Framework for Tele-operated Minimally Invasive Surgery Using a 7-DoF Torque-controlled Robot

International Journal of Control, Automation and Systems - In this paper, a safety-enhanced collaborative control framework is proposed for tele-operated minimally invasive surgery (MIS) using a...     

Plutonium measurements on the 1 MV AMS system at the Centro Nacional de Aceleradores (CNA)

Plutonium isotopes have been recently added to the list of radionuclides that can be measured with the new generation of compact AMS facilities. In this paper we present first experimental results concerning the development of the plutonium AMS technique at 680 kV on the 1 MV AMS system at the Centro Nacional de Aceleradores (CNA) in Sevilla, Spain. This is the first compact AMS machine designed and manufactured by High Voltage Engineering Europa. As we demonstrate, the obtained backgrounds for ^239,240Pu, of about 10⁶ atoms, and the ²³⁹Pu/²³⁸U mass suppression factor, in the range of 10⁻⁹, compare to the ones achieved on other AMS facilities. With the measurement of reference materials provided by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA-375, IAEA-Soil-6, IAEA-381) and samples already studied on the 600 kV compact ETH/PSI AMS system at Zürich, we show that the CNA system can be perfectly used for the routine measurement of plutonium isotopes at environmental levels.     

Small-Molecule Inhibition of Glucose Transporters GLUT-1–4

Glucose addiction is observed in cancer and other diseases that are associated with hyperproliferation. The development of compounds that restrict glucose supply and decrease glycolysis has great potential for the development of new therapeutic approaches. Addressing facilitative glucose transporters (GLUTs), which are often upregulated in glucose-dependent cells, is therefore of particular interest. This article reviews a selection of potent, isoform-selective GLUT inhibitors and their biological characterization. Potential therapeutic applications of GLUT inhibitors in oncology and other diseases that are linked to glucose addiction are discussed.     

As you like it: Understanding the relationship between packing design and accessibility

Accessible packaging is continually receiving greater attention as an ageing population becomes a primary driver behind inclusive design. As we age, our strength dexterity and some cognitive functions decline. For this reason, the ease of interaction with simple tasks in daily living becomes an ever increasing concern. ISO 17480 “Packaging Guidelines” consider capability issues relating to packaging and ageing to broadly come under three areas, namely, strength, dexterity, and cognition. Significant previous work has been undertaken looking at the issue of strength on packaging accessibility, with fewer studies looking at the relationship between the physical demands of dexterity and the understanding of how to open the pack. In this previous work, there has been little attempt to quantify the effect of the affordances, perceptual information and symbology, and the physical demands of the pack and how this relates to accessibility. Hence, this exploratory study seeks to use motion capture and a dexterity test, along with a cognitive demand test to study this relationship and any changes with age. This research indicates that the dexterous demands of a task are linked to the cognitive demands; and thus in reaching a level of comprehension of the pack and how to access the product a subject may interact with a pack effectively.     

Distribution of isoflavones and coumestrol in neglected tropical and subtropical legumes

BACKGROUND: Isoflavones and coumestrol from dietary legumes are plant constituents showing multiple beneficial effects on humans. Owing to their ability to bind with mammalian estrogenic receptors and thereby intervention in several kinds of hormone‐related cancers, they have received much attention. Soybean (Glycine max) is currently the major source of isoflavonoids in human diet. However, dozens of tropical and subtropical leguminous species remain unexplored for their isoflavonoids content. RESULTS: We have analyzed 55 extracts from 41 tropical and subtropical legume species used either in human or animal diet by high‐performance liquid chromatography for the content of soy isoflavones, biochanin A, daidzein, daidzin, formononetin, genistein, genistin, sissotrin, ononin and the coumestan coumestrol. Genistein and biochanin A were the most abundant compounds. The highest content of genistein was found in aerial parts of Andira macrothyrsa, seeds of Pachyrhizus tuberosus and aerial parts of Calopogonium mucunoides (598, 250 and 184 µg g^?1, respectively) and biochanin A in aerial parts of Cratylia argentea, C. mucunoides and flowers of A. macrothyrsa (76, 53 and 40 µg g^?1, respectively). CONCLUSION: None of the samples tested was richer overall source of soy isoflavones and coumestrol than soybean; nevertheless several species (C. mucunoides or A. macrothyrsa) may serve as a promising source of individual compounds. © 2012 Society of Chemical Industry