Adaptive Playback Control: A Framework for Cinematic VR Creators to Embrace Viewer Interaction

Content creators have been trying to produce engaging and enjoyable Cinematic Virtual Reality (CVR) experiences using immersive media such as 360-degree videos. However, a complete and flexible framework, like the filmmaking grammar toolbox for film directors, is missing for creators working on CVR, especially those working on CVR storytelling with viewer interactions. Researchers and creators widely acknowledge that a viewer-centered story design and a viewer’s intention to interact are two intrinsic characteristics of CVR storytelling. In this paper, we stand on that common ground and propose Adaptive Playback Control (APC) as a set of guidelines to assist content creators in making design decisions about the story structure and viewer interaction implementation during production. Instead of looking at everything CVR covers, we set constraints to focus only at cultural heritage oriented content using a guided-tour style. We further choose two vital elements for interactive CVR: the narrative progression (director vs. viewer control) and visibility of viewer interaction (implicit vs. explicit) as the main topics at this stage. We conducted a user study to evaluate four variants by combining these two elements, and measured the levels of engagement, enjoyment, usability, and memory performance. One of our findings is that there were no differences in the objective results. Combining objective data with observations of the participants’ behavior we provide guidelines as a starting point for the application of the APC framework. Creators need to choose if the viewer will have control over narrative progression and the visibility of interaction based on whether the purpose of a piece is to invoke emotional resonance or promote efficient transfer of knowledge. Also, creators need to consider the viewer’s natural tendency to explore and provide extra incentives to invoke exploratory behaviors in viewers when adding interactive elements. We recommend more viewer control for projects aiming at viewer’s participation and agency, but more director control for projects focusing on education and training. Explicit (vs. implicit) control will also yield higher levels of engagement and enjoyment if the viewer’s uncertainty of interaction consequences can be relieved.

Correlational and Experimental Effects of Online Apparel Shopping Behavior on Gaze Behavior, Appearance Attitudes, and Self-Worth in Women

Online apparel shopping is popular among women, with possible negative body image consequences, particularly when the website imagery is body-focused. We investigated both correlational and experimental effects of online apparel shopping on women’s (N = 113) explicitly and implicitly measured self-worth, appearance attitudes, and body gaze behavior. Correlational results showed that online apparel shopping correlates negatively with self-esteem, and positively with appearance attitudes and self-objectification. During a simulated online shopping activity, women who were exposed to a body-focused activewear website felt worse than usual about their looks, when compared to women who were exposed to a non-body focused casualwear website. Unexpectedly, exposure to the activewear website primed lower body gaze towards subsequent images of partially and fully clothed women. Furthermore, gaze behavior did not significantly correlate with any of the other measures. Given that women have a natural tendency to gaze at faces, the deprivation of facial stimuli in the activewear condition presumably led to a compensatory gaze effect, whereby subsequent attention toward bodies was comparably low, possibly as a protective mechanism. These results suggest potential implications of short- and long-term exposure to online apparel imagery, as well as highlighting the complexity of interpreting female gaze behavior.

Black Square. On the extent of Gorky’s avant-gardism

The article examines Gorky’s avant-garde legacy. The author compares thewriter’s metaphors with the imagery of futurists and discovers aSuprematist flavour of descriptions in Gorky’s works. Examined in detail is the use of defamiliarisation ( ostranenie). In Gorky’s earlier works, its effect is diminished by the author’s comments on the technique. In the novel The Life of Klim Samgin [ Zhizn Klima Samgina], defamiliarisation features at its most accomplished level and becomes the organising principle of the narration. Theparticular relevance of defamiliarisation follows from Gorky’s natural tendency towards allegory. Defamiliarisation is analysed as a special case ofallegory (termed ‘a negative allegory’ by D. Chizhevsky). Gorky’s differences with the avant-garde movement were spiritual as much as artistic: a negative meaning of the ‘black square’ in his works proves it. The article shows how the image, unrelated to the famous painting but representing the philosophy favoured by Malevich, can be found in the collections Through Russia [Po Rusi] and Tales of Italy [ Skazki ob Italii], the autobiographic installment In the World [V lyudyakh], and in The Life of Klim Samgin.

THE IMAGE OF THE “DREAMED” GIRL IN M.Yu. LERMONTOV’s PROSE: BIOGRAPHICAL AND ARTISTIC ASPECT

The article examines the conceptually significant image of the ideal «dreamed» girl in M.Yu. Lermontov's works. This image is understood as an artistic personification of the ideal of love. The image of the ideal girl is inextricably linked with the central themes of Lermontov's entire work and has a biographical conditionality. At the same time, autobiographism is understood as an author's natural tendency to consider the event of his life within the category of universally significant. The article traces the special artistic features of the image of the dreamed girl in Lermontov's entire work. Based on the component of “dreaminess”, there were analyzed female images in prose: the novel “Vadim”, “Princess Ligovskaya”, “Hero of our time”, and the tale “Ashik-Kerib”. The result of such an analysis is the selection of a special discourse of the Lermontov's “dreamed girl”, which has its own specifics and means of artistic embodiment.

Apparatus design and behavioural testing protocol for the evaluation of spatial working memory in mice through the spontaneous alternation T-maze

Spatial working memory can be assessed in mice through the spontaneous alternation T-maze test. The T-maze is a T-shaped apparatus featuring a stem (start arm) and two lateral goal arms (left and right arms). The procedure is based on the natural tendency of rodents to prefer exploring a novel arm over a familiar one, which induces them to alternate the choice of the goal arm across repeated trials. During the task, in order to successfully alternate choices across trials, an animal has to remember which arm had been visited in the previous trial, which makes spontaneous alternation T-maze an optimal test for spatial working memory. As this test relies on a spontaneous behaviour and does not require rewards, punishments or pre-training, it represents a particularly useful tool for cognitive evaluation, both time-saving and animal-friendly. We describe here in detail the apparatus and the protocol, providing representative results on wild-type healthy mice.

KOMBAT: Knowledgebase of Microbes’ Battling Agents for Therapeutics

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the top 10 threats affecting global health. AMR defeats the effective prevention and treatment of infections caused by microbial pathogens including bacteria, parasites, viruses and fungi (WHO). Microbial pathogens have natural tendency to evolve and mutate over time resulting in AMR strains. The set of genes involved in antibiotic resistance also termed as “antibiotic resistance genes” (ARGs) spread through species by lateral gene transfer thereby causing global dissemination. While this biological mechanism is prevalent in the spread of AMR, human methods also augment through various mechanisms such as over prescription, incomplete treatment, environmental waste etc. A considerable portion of scientific community is engrossed in AMR related work trying to discover novel therapeutic solutions for tackling resistant pathogens. Comprehensive inspection of the literature shows that diverse therapeutic strategies have evolved over recent years. Collectively, these therapeutic strategies include novel small molecules, newly identified antimicrobial peptides, bacteriophages, phytochemicals, nanocomposites, novel phototherapy against bacteria, fungi and virus. In this work we have developed a comprehensive knowledgebase by collecting alternative antimicrobial therapeutic strategies from literature data. We have used subjective approach for datamining new strategies resulting in broad coverage of entities and subsequently add objective data like entity name, potency, safety information etc. The extracted data was organized KOMBAT (Knowledgebase Of Microbes’ Battling Agents for Therapeutics). A lot of these data are tested against AMR pathogens. We envision that this database will be noteworthy for developing future therapeutics against resistant pathogens. The database can be accessed through http://kombat.igib.res.in/.

The insignificant impact of the historical Jesus

There is a natural tendency in the church to idealise the historical Jesus. This may lead to believers turning Jesus into an ideal moral or religious exemplar or lead to a prosperity gospel by predominantly focusing on the miraculous power and accomplishments of the earthly Jesus. This depiction of Jesus is in sharp contrast to the rejected and crucified Lord. This article follows a systematic theological methodology by challenging the theological framework which leads to the idealised perception of Jesus as a super-hero. The article does so, by reconsidering the interpretive framework employed to understand the inter-relationship between the person and actions of the historical Jesus, and the kingdom of God breaking through. I argue that the eschatological hermeneutical approach to salvation history best accommodate the tension between ‘consistent’ and ‘realised eschatology’, and help the church overcome the temptation to turn Jesus into a universal spiritual symbol or moral exemplar. The eschatological hermeneutical approadch to salvation history often focuses on the death and resurrection of Jesus, but I contend, should be expanded to include the life and ministry of Jesus. In this article it is argued that Jesus came to share in our human weakness and fallibility. Jesus fully experienced the ‘not yet’ of the Kingdom, by identifying and sharing in our lack of success. The unique character of Jesus as ‘God who became human’, sets him radically apart from all other humans and nullifies any attempt to idealise him. The resurrected and glorified Jesus whom the church worships, is and remains the crucified and rejected Messiah.Contribution: The implications of the research will radicalise the believers’ understanding of the significance of the incarnation. It challenges some of the assumptions regarding Jesus’ power to help believers be successful in life. The article also holds pastoral implications for all those who experience the pain of failure, rejection and insignificance.

Key-Parameters in Chemical Stabilization of Soils with Multiwall Carbon Nanotubes

Chemical stabilization is one of the most successful techniques that has been applied to improve the geomechanical behavior of soil. Several additives have been studied to be a sustainable alternative to traditional additives (Portland cement and lime) normally associated with high cost and carbon footprint. Nanomaterials are one of the most recent additives proposed. This work is focused on one type of nanomaterial, multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) with unique characteristics, applied to chemical stabilization of soils and aiming to identify the key-parameters affecting the stabilization improvement. It was found that a surfactant should be added in order to oppose the natural tendency of MWCNTs to aggregate with the consequent loss of benefits. The surfactant choice is not so dependent on the charge of the surfactant but rather on the balance between the concentration and the hydrodynamic diameter/molecular weight due to their impact on the geomechanical compression behavior. As time evolves from 7 to 28 days, there is a decrease in the geomechanical benefits associated with the presence of MWCNTs explained by the development of the cementitious matrix. MWCNTs applied in a proper concentration and enriched with a specific surfactant type may be a short-time valid alternative to the partial replacement of traditional additives.

Latching dynamics as a basis for short-term recall

We discuss simple models for the transient storage in short-term memory of cortical patterns of activity, all based on the notion that their recall exploits the natural tendency of the cortex to hop from state to state—latching dynamics. We show that in one such model, and in simple spatial memory tasks we have given to human subjects, short-term memory can be limited to similar low capacity by interference effects, in tasks terminated by errors, and can exhibit similar sublinear scaling, when errors are overlooked. The same mechanism can drive serial recall if combined with weak order-encoding plasticity. Finally, even when storing randomly correlated patterns of activity the network demonstrates correlation-driven latching waves, which are reflected at the outer extremes of pattern space.

Structure and Surface Passivation of Ultrathin Cesium Lead-Halide Nanoplatelets Revealed by Multilayer Diffraction

The research on bidimensional colloidal semiconductors has received a boost from the emergence of ultrathin lead-halide perovskite nanoplatelets. While the optical properties of these materials have been widely investigated, their accurate structural and compositional characterization is still challenging. Here, we exploited the natural tendency of the platelets to stack into highly ordered films, which can be treated as single crystals made of alternating layers of organic ligands and inorganic nanoplatelets, to investigate their structure by Multilayer Diffraction. Using X-ray diffraction alone, this method allowed to refine the structure of ∼12 Å thick Cs-Pb-Br perovskite and ∼25 Å thick Cs-Pb-Cl-I Ruddlesden-Popper nanoplatelets by precisely measuring their thickness, stoichiometry, surface passivation type and coverage, as well as deviations from the crystal structures of the corresponding bulk materials. It is noteworthy that a single, readily available experimental technique, coupled with proper modeling, provides access to such detailed structural and composition information.