Abstract
We report an auditory effect of visual performance degradation in a virtual reality (VR) setting, where the viewing conditions are significantly different from previous studies. With the ...presentation of temporally congruent but spatially incongruent sound, we can degrade visual performance significantly at detection and recognition levels. We further show that this effect is robust to different types and locations of both auditory and visual stimuli. We also analyze participants behavior with an eye tracker to study the underlying cause of the degradation effect. We find that the performance degradation occurs even in the absence of saccades towards the sound source, during normal gaze behavior. This suggests that this effect is not caused by oculomotor phenomena, but rather by neural interactions or attentional shifts.
•UV-C and O3 do not exert an additional stress with respect to leaf cutting.•UV-C or O3 did not induce the activation of the antioxidant system in rocket leaves.•These treatments kept the overall ...quality without modify the bioactive compounds.
In this work, treatments with UV-C light (20 kJ m−2) and gaseous ozone (2 mg L−1 O3) were applied to minimally processed rocket (Eruca vesicaria subsp. Sativa) leaves to investigate their effects on the antioxidant capacity and antioxidant system throughout 8 ds at 5 °C. As control, water washing was used. On 8 d, the ascorbic acid content was reduced about 50% both control and treated samples. Treatments with 20 kJ UV-C m−2 or 2 mg L−1 O3, did not affect the phenolic content neither the total antioxidant capacity, remaining almost constants during storage. The phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL) activity had no significant variations during storage, in correlation with the content of phenolics. As to the enzymes involved in the antioxidant system, an increase in its superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity with respect to uncut rocket leaves was detected after the process. In turn, enzymes that remove H2O2 like ascorbate peroxidase (APX) and catalase (CAT) showed no significant changes. During storage at 5 °C, the SOD activity remained unchanged while APX and CAT showed a gradual increase in both treated and untreated samples. In conclusion, the UV-C and ozone treatments applied inhibited the growth of spoilage by bacteria as well as by yeasts, extended shelf-life, without exerting significant additional stress with respect to the cutting stage of the leaves, reason by which they did not trigger a greater activation of the antioxidant system.
Acquiring microscale reflectance and normals is useful for digital documentation and identification of real-world materials. However, its simultaneous acquisition has rarely been explored due to the ...difficulties of combining both sources of information at such small scale. In this paper, we capture both spatially-varying material appearance (diffuse, specular and roughness) and normals
simultaneously
at the
microscale
resolution. We design and build a microscopic light dome with 374 LED lights over the hemisphere, specifically tailored to the characteristics of microscopic imaging. This allows us to achieve the highest resolution for such combined information among current state-of-the-art acquisition systems. We thoroughly test and characterize our system, and provide microscopic appearance measurements of a wide range of common materials, as well as renderings of novel views to validate the applicability of our captured data. Additional applications such as bi-scale material editing from real-world samples are also demonstrated.
This article examines how Brazil was perceived internationally during the 2014 World Cup (2014WC), for which one of Brazil's perceived objectives was to enhance its international image to play a more ...significant role on the world stage. Nine media outlets' coverage of the 2014WC was analysed using the website Alexa. These outlets published 699 articles about diverse themes relating to Brazilian society. The outlets studied considered the event a success overall and emphasised Brazil's natural beauty, but raised concerns about social problems such as inequality. We conclude that the 2014WC updated but did not fundamentally alter Brazil's international image.
The revolution generated by the Internet of Things (IoT) has radically changed the world; countless objects with remote sensing, actuation, analysis and sharing capabilities are interconnected over ...heterogeneous communication networks. Consequently, all of today's devices can connect to the internet and can provide valuable information for decision making. However, the data collected by different devices are in different formats, which makes it necessary to develop a solution that integrates comprehensive semantic tools to represent, integrate and acquire knowledge, which is a major challenge for IoT environments. The proposed solution addresses this challenge by using IoT semantic data to reason about actionable knowledge, combining next-generation semantic technologies and artificial intelligence through a set of cognitive components that enables easy interoperability and integration for both legacy systems and emerging technologies, such as IoT, to generate business value in terms of faster analytics and improved decision making. Thus, combining IoT environments with cognitive artificial intelligence services, COSIBAS builds an abstraction layer between existing platforms for IoT and AI technologies to enable cognitive solutions and increase interoperability across multiple domains. The resulting low-cost cross platform supports scalability and the evolution of large-scale heterogeneous systems and allows the modernization of legacy infrastructures with cognitive tools and communication mechanisms while reusing assets.
the causal agent of bacterial leaf streak disease (BLS) in cereals, is a re-emerging pathogen that is becoming increasingly destructive across the world. While BLS has caused yield losses in the ...past, there is anecdotal evidence that newer isolates may be more virulent. We observed that two
isolates collected from two sites in Colorado, USA, are more aggressive on current wheat and barley varieties compared to older isolates, and we hypothesize that genetic changes between recent and older isolates contribute to the differences in isolate aggressiveness. To test this, we phenotyped and genetically characterized two
isolates collected from Colorado in 2018, which we designated CO236 (from barley) and CO237 (from wheat). Using pathovar-specific phenotyping and PCR primers, we determined that CO236 belongs to pathovar translucens (Xtt) and CO237 belongs to pathovar undulosa (Xtu). We sequenced the full genomes of the isolates using Oxford Nanopore long-read sequencing, and compared their whole genomes against published
genomes. This analysis confirmed our pathovar designations for Xtt CO236 and Xtu CO237, and showed that, at the whole-genome level, there were no obvious genomic structural changes between Xtt CO236 and Xtu CO237 and other respective published pathovar genomes. Focusing on pathovar undulosa (Xtu CO237), we then compared putative type III effectors among all available Xtu isolate genomes and found that they were highly conserved. However, there were striking differences in the presence and sequence of various transcription activator-like effectors between Xtu CO237 and published undulosa genomes, which correlate with isolate virulence. Here, we explore the potential implications of the differences in these virulence factors, and provide possible explanations for the increased virulence of recently emerged isolates.
Limnoperna fortunei
, a problematic freshwater invasive mussel in South America, was first detected in 1991 at Bagliardi Beach, Río de la Plata (Argentina). Since then, there has been a high increase ...in population density, reaching up to 150,000 ind. m
−2
. The distribution, density, individual sizes, and associated mollusk assemblages of
L. fortunei
were evaluated 30 years after its first detection. Seven sites along Río de la Plata River were sampled between 2018 and 2020. The highest density was recorded in the La Balandra Beach (above the stabilization value) and the lowest density in the Martín García Island (IMG—by its acronym in Spanish—, below the stabilization value). Two reproductive events were observed: late spring and late summer. Our results showed different sets of species associated with
Limnoperna fortunei
, with protected areas such as the IMG standing out, showing greater species richness, including first records, versus other coastal environments. We recommend increasing conservation efforts given the constant advance of urbanization in the coastal sites of the province of Buenos Aires, with environmental impact studies prior to coastal reforms, and implementation of density control strategies for
Limnoperna fortunei
in protected areas.
This paper presents a time‐varying, multi‐layered biophysically‐based model of the optical properties of human skin, suitable for simulating appearance changes due to aging. We have identified the ...key aspects that cause such changes, both in terms of the structure of skin and its chromophore concentrations, and rely on the extensive medical and optical tissue literature for accurate data. Our model can be expressed in terms of biophysical parameters, optical parameters commonly used in graphics and rendering (such as spectral absorption and scattering coefficients), or more intuitively with higher‐level parameters such as age, gender, skin care or skin type. It can be used with any rendering algorithm that uses diffusion profiles, and it allows to automatically simulate different types of skin at different stages of aging, avoiding the need for artistic input or costly capture processes. While the presented skin model is inspired on tissue optics studies, we also provided a simplified version valid for non‐diagnostic applications.
Time perception is fluid and affected by manipulations to visual inputs. Previous literature shows that changes to low-level visual properties alter time judgments at the millisecond-level. At longer ...intervals, in the span of seconds and minutes, high-level cognitive effects (e.g., emotions, memories) elicited by visual inputs affect time perception, but these effects are confounded with semantic information in these inputs, and are therefore challenging to measure and control. In this work, we investigate the effect of asemantic visual properties (pure visual features devoid of emotional or semantic value) on interval time perception. Our experiments were conducted with binary and production tasks in both conventional and head-mounted displays, testing the effects of four different visual features (spatial luminance contrast, temporal frequency, field of view, and visual complexity). Our results reveal a consistent pattern: larger visual changes all shorten perceived time in intervals of up to 3min, remarkably contrary to their effect on millisecond-level perception. Our findings may help alter participants' time perception, which can have broad real-world implications.
Moebius syndrome (MBS) is a congenital cranial dysinnervation disorder (CCDD) characterized by a bilateral palsy of abducens and facial cranial nerves, which may coexist with other cranial nerves ...palsies, mostly those found in the dorsal pons and medulla oblongata. MBS is considered a “rare” disease, occurring in only 1:50,000 to 1:500,000 live births, with no gender predominance. Three independent theories have been described to define its etiology: the vascular theory, which talks about a transient blood flow disruption; the genetic theory, which takes place due to mutations related to the facial motor nucleus neurodevelopment; and last, the teratogenic theory, associated with the consumption of agents such as misoprostol during the first trimester of pregnancy. Since the literature has suggested the existence of these theories independently, this review proposes establishing a theory by matching the MBS molecular bases. This review aims to associate the three etiopathogenic theories at a molecular level, thus submitting a combined postulation. MBS is most likely an underdiagnosed disease due to its low prevalence and challenging diagnosis. Researching other elements that may play a key role in the pathogenesis is essential. It is common to assume the difficulty that patients with MBS have in leading an everyday social life. Research by means of PubMed and Google Scholar databases was carried out, same in which 94 articles were collected by using keywords with the likes of “Moebius syndrome,” “PLXND1 mutations,” “REV3L mutations,” “vascular disruption AND teratogens,” and “congenital facial nerve palsy.” No exclusion criteria were applied.
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