Gäwula: The Invention of a Hybrid Drum in Sri Lanka

In the late 1990s, the Sri Lankan drummer Piyasara Shilpadhipathi invented a new drum that he named ‘gäwula’ The gäwula was conceived of as a hybrid between two traditional Sri Lankan drums, namely the double-conical-shaped gäṭa beraya and the barrel-shaped dawula, which are associated with two different regional ritual traditions. A double-headed drum that is tied around the drummer’s waist, the gäwula features the timbres of the gäṭa beraya on one drumhead and those of the dawula on the other drumhead. As prescribed by the drum’s inventor, the gäwula can be played either with two bare heads or with one bare hand and a stick in the other hand, similar to the dawula. Shilpadhipathi also composed a vocabulary of drum-patterns that can be played on the gäwula and created a systematic method for learning to play it. This article discusses the production of the gäwula, the ideologies behind its invention, and the contexts within which it has been practised and performed. Using the history of the gäwula as a case study, this paper explores how cultural discourses and individual agency can influence the invention of new musical instruments.

Analyzing Midair Object Pointing Mappings for Smart Display Input

One common task when controlling smart displays is the manipulation of menu items. Given current examples of smart displays that support distant bare hand control, in this paper we explore menu item selection tasks with three different mappings of barehand movement to target selection. Through a series of experiments, we demonstrate that Positional mapping is faster than other mappings when the target is visible but requires many clutches in large targeting spaces. Rate-based mapping is, in contrast, preferred by participants due to its perceived lower effort, despite being slightly harder to learn initially. Tradeoffs in the design of target selection in smart tv displays are discussed.

Assessments of Work Gloves in Terms of the Strengths of Hand Grip, One-Handed Carrying, and Leg Lifting

Gloves are used at workplaces to protect hands and fingers from potential hazards. Three types of work gloves were assessed in terms of the strength of grip, carrying, and lifting. Thirty adults (14 males and 16 females) joined as human participants. The strength data were measured under bare hand and three gloved conditions. The grip spans in the grip strength measurements included 45 mm, 55 mm, 65 mm, and 75 mm. The carrying strength was measured for both dominant and non-dominant hands under leg straight and semi-squat postural conditions. The lifting strength was measured at a semi-squat posture. The results showed that glove (p < 0.0001), grip span (p = 0.001), gender (p < 0.0001), and handedness (p < 0.0001) all affected grip strength significantly. Wearing the gloves tested in this study led to a decrease of grip strength up to 22.9%, on average, depending on gender, grip span, and hand tested. Wearing the cotton gloves led to a decrease of one-handed carrying strength ranged from 3.5% to 9.7% for female participants. All the participants took advantages in carrying strength when wearing the cut-resistant gloves. The leg lifting strength data indicated that the effects of the gloves were insignificant. The information of this study is beneficial for practitioners in the design of manual materials handling tasks concerning the use of work gloves.

Study on Hand–Eye Cordination Area with Bare-Hand Click Interaction in Virtual Reality

In virtual reality, users’ input and output interactions are carried out in a three-dimensional space, and bare-hand click interaction is one of the most common interaction methods. Apart from the limitations of the device, the movements of bare-hand click interaction in virtual reality involve head, eye, and hand movements. Consequently, clicking performance varies among locations in the binocular field of view. In this study, we explored the optimal interaction area of hand–eye coordination within the binocular field of view in a 3D virtual environment (VE), and implemented a bare-hand click experiment in a VE combining click performance data, namely, click accuracy and click duration, following a gradient descent method. The experimental results show that click performance is significantly influenced by the area where the target is located. The performance data and subjective preferences for clicks show a high degree of consistency. Combining reaction time and click accuracy, the optimal operating area for bare-hand clicking in virtual reality is from 20° to the left to 30° to the right horizontally and from 15° in the upward direction to 20° in the downward direction vertically. The results of this study have implications for guidelines and applications for bare-hand click interaction interface designs in the proximal space of virtual reality.

Demography factors influencing Indonesian general knowledge on COVID-19

Pandemic COVID-19 is a health problem that is spread all over the world including Indonesia. As 4 June 2020, Indonesia has reached 28,818 persons confirmed COVID-19, 1,721 deaths related to COVID-19 and 8.892 patients have recovered from the disease. The amount of response and attention of the public regarding the COVID-19 case in Indonesia and the circulation of information in the community became the basis of interest in identifying and analyzing demography factors with general knowledge on COVID-19. Participants were 1,254 collected through online questionnaire distributed on social media platform, from February 5, 2020 to June 6, 2020. Data analyzed used Chi square test with significant &lt;0.05. The result showed that majority of respondents have good general knowledge about COVID-19 and the personal prevention towards the disease (&gt;75%). Nonetheless, most misinformation was that COVID-19 killed everyone contracted to it, came from a biological weapon laboratory, and that covering mouth and nose with bare hand is considered as correct coughing ethic. Characteristics that showed statistical significances were education, occupation, and educational/occupational background. Although Indonesian governments already give the best effort to educate the public to stop the transmission, an extensive educational health campaign should be done to raise awareness in public about preventive knowledge and behavior of COVID-19.

About Menotoxin

In 1919, Schick, in Vienna, observed one woman? regarding which he could establish the following phenomenon: if she took flowers (apemons) with her bare hand during menstruation, then the latter quickly faded; if she took the flowers with her hands, which were wearing rubber gloves, the flowers remained fresh.

A Comparative Usability Study of Bare Hand Three-Dimensional Object Selection Techniques in Virtual Environment

Object selection is the basis of natural user–computer interaction (NUI) in a virtual environment (VE). Among the three-dimensional object selection techniques employed in virtual reality (VR), bare hand-based finger clicking interaction and ray-casting are two convenient approaches with a high level of acceptance. This study involved 14 participants, constructed a virtual laboratory environment in VR, and compared the above two finger-based interaction techniques in terms of aspects of the task performance, including the success rate, total reaction time, operational deviation, and accuracy, at different spatial positions. The results indicated that the applicable distance range of finger clicking interaction and finger ray-casting was 0.2 to 1.4 m and over 0.4 m, respectively. Within the shared applicable distance, the finger clicking interaction achieved a shorter total reaction time and higher clicking accuracy. The performance of finger clicking interaction varied remarkably at the center and edge of the horizontal field of view, while no significant difference was found among ray-casting at various horizontal azimuths. The current findings could be directly applied to the application of bare-hand interaction in VR environments.