Development of an Immersive Cultural Game using Mixed Reality

This game aims to preserve and spread cultural practices. It introduces new gaming mechanics, which allows user interaction with virtual game objects using hand gestures. The user’s objective is to hunt prey in their natural habitat, which means that the player will physically change his location to hunt a specific prey using his falcon to mimic how the falcon hunts for its prey in the real world. This interaction with the real world, along with incorporation of realistic graphics and mixed reality features, enhances the user’s experience and helps in preserving cultural practices. Previous work tried to achieve the same goal by different approaches that led to different user segments and different usability cases. One major limitation in that work was the accessibility due to the use of specialized hardware. The hardware is accessible to a small segment of users; however, given the new limitations forced by the COVID-19 situation reusing the hardware is prohibited ; and as a result, not many will have access to the developed solution. The current implementation was designed to work on both Android and IOS to have a social interaction between the largest possible numbers of players. Other features that could also contribute to the goal of the project include building a virtual museum and displaying real falcons using the capabilities mixed reality has to offer.

A. Kochetkov. Two cases of uterine rupture. (Weekly, 1894, No. 12)

In November 1892, a woman in labor was admitted to the Kazan Obstetric Clinic, V-para, with t 39.1 . The abdomen is swollen, very sensitive when touched, in the lower parts of the abdomen crepitus; the fundus of the uterus of the finger 2 from the xiphoid process; contracting ring on the finger below the navel, above the entrance to the pelvis head; huge swelling of the external genital organs; from the sleeve, a sanguine liquid is released, with a putrid smell; the heartbeat of the fetus is not audible. Sizes of the pelvis: dist. spin. 24, dist. crist. 26.5, dist. troch. 29, conjug. ext. 18, conjug. diagon. 9.5. Complete opening of the os, presenting the head, descending only in a small segment beyond the entrance of the pelvis. Strong caput succedaneum. The intervals between attempts are 5-10 minutes.

Amphicheirality of ribbon 2-knots

For any classical knot [Formula: see text], we can construct a ribbon [Formula: see text]-knot [Formula: see text] by spinning an arc removed a small segment from [Formula: see text] about [Formula: see text] in [Formula: see text]. A ribbon [Formula: see text]-knot is an embedded [Formula: see text]-sphere in [Formula: see text]. If [Formula: see text] has an [Formula: see text]-crossing presentation, by spinning this, we can naturally construct a ribbon presentation with [Formula: see text] ribbon crossings for [Formula: see text]. Thus, we can define naturally a notion on ribbon [Formula: see text]-knots corresponding to the crossing number on classical knots. It is called the ribbon crossing number. On classical knots, it was a long-standing conjecture that any odd crossing classical knot is not amphicheiral. In this paper, we show that for any odd integer [Formula: see text] there exists an amphicheiral ribbon [Formula: see text]-knot with the ribbon crossing number [Formula: see text].

An Overview on Glyco-Macrocycles: Potential New Lead and their Future in Medicinal Chemistry

Macrocycles cover a small segment of molecules with a vast range of biological activity in the chemotherapeutic world. Primarily, the natural sources derived from macrocyclic drug candidates with a wide range of biological activities are known. Further evolutions of the medicinal chemistry towards macrocycle-based chemotherapeutics involve the functionalization of the natural product by hemisynthesis. More recently, macrocycles based on carbohydrates have evolved a considerable interest among the medicinal chemists worldwide. Carbohydrates provide an ideal scaffold to generate chiral macrocycles with well-defined pharmacophores in a decorated fashion to achieve the desired biological activity. We have given an overview on carbohydrate-derived macrocycle involving their synthesis in drug design and discovery and potential role in medicinal chemistry.

#BBQBecky & #PermitPatty: African-American Humor & Resistive Discourse on Twitter

Humor has always been a social tool by which to navigate the slings and arrows of human existence. This has been exceptionally true for historically marginalized groups, such as African-Americans. Throughout U.S. history, “Black humor” has served to challenge authority, resist domination, lampoon the powerful and assuage injustices. It has served and both balm and weapon for a cultural group that has often found itself on the outside looking in, while being punished for being in that position. However, even within marginalized groups, canonical examples of cultural humor have been largely produced by a small segment of the population (i.e.,comedians, writers, poets, musicians). Social media, Twitter especially, has removed the barriers of production and gatekeeping of humor. Therefore, by examining responses to a cultural moment by “non-elite” African-Americans on Twitter, as the this paper does, helps to elucidate some evident trends, narratives, rhetorical strategies and tropes that may possibly be considered universal hallmarks of “Black Humor” as resistive discourse. Furthermore, these hallmarks can perhaps be understood to be the preeminent forms by which African-Americans create community, resist oppression and challenge hegemonic norms.

A mobile app to make biometrics usage more secure

With high paced growth in biometrics, its easy availability to capture various biometric features, it is <a>emerging as one of the most valuable technologies for multifactor authentication to verify a user’s identity, for data security. </a>Organizations encourage their members to use biometrics, but <a>they are hesitant to use due to perceived security risks. Because of its low usage rate, many medium and small segment organizations find it unfeasible to deploy robust biometric systems. </a>We propose a solution of an extra layer of security, via a low-cost mobile app framework, “Bio-Guard,” to use biometrics, more securely. We tested the app for its design, functions, usability, and it got a score of more than 71% on the usability scale and a reasonably low equal error rate (EER) of 6%. The survey to evaluate the usefulness of the app showed a favorable response of 80%. The results show a good potential of the app to make access to biometric data more secure. The app may enhance users’ confidence-level in encouraging higher participation of users in the usage of biometrics. Higher usage rates may make deployment of biometrics more cost-effective for many medium and small segment organizations to decrease their information security risk.

Babylonian Priesthood during the Third Millennium BCE: Between Sacred and Profane

This article offers an overview of the early Babylonian priesthood, as it was organized and operated during the third millennium BCE. It is emphasized that the priests and priestesses proper, i.e., individuals who were specifically concerned with cultic matters, represented a relatively small segment of the employees of temple households. Much more numerous within these institutions (which might more appropriately be termed “temple communities”) were the individuals whose roles were of either administrative or economic character. Focusing on the administrators of temple households, and identifying them as “Managerial Class,” the article argues that, during Pre-Sargonic times, this social group wielded great economic and political power, which at times even exceeded that of the emerging secular leaders (such as ensiks and lugals). To demonstrate this point, an interaction between these two competing centers of powers (particularly in the city-state of Lagaš) is studied in detail. In memory of Itamar Singer

"My Heart's Anna"

In Europe, youth volunteers are a small segment of a growing and increasingly diverse Chinese presence. Currently limited to Eastern Europe, including a handful in European Union member states such as Hungary and Poland, Chinese volunteers may later participate in domestic volunteering projects in Western Europe as well. As elsewhere, volunteering is linked to other ways of mobility. Studying abroad can be a stimulus to volunteering and vice versa; volunteering is typically accompanied by experiences of sightseeing and nature tourism that are shared with other young Chinese (tourists, students and expatriates). Yet it also represents a potentially new, more compassionate modality of engaging with the unfamiliar. This is significant against the background of the rapidly changing power relations between Europe and China, analyses of which often portray Europe as a hapless target of Chinese greed or manipulation.