An AV-MV negotiation method based on synchronous prompt information on a multi-vehicle bottleneck road

Bottleneck roads with narrowed width often only allow one vehicle to pass at once. In this situation, human drivers need to negotiate their right-of-way via, e.g., hand gestures and eye contact. However, when a human-driven vehicle (MV) confronts a driver-less automated vehicle (AV), explicit communication between drivers is no longer possible. External human–machine interfaces (eHMIs) on AVs may facilitate communication in unobscured situations, but MV-drivers can fail to perceive the eHMI information on the AV with other vehicles in front of the AV, blocking the MV’s view. Even if the visibility is not impaired, AV broadcast communications do not target on specific receivers, it is not unlikely that other vehicles may wrongly perceive this information. Instead, an internal human–machine interface (iHMI) can uni-cast the AV intention to MVs since the information on iHMIs is direct to MV-drivers and visible in visibility-blocked situations. However, iHMIs require vehicle-to-vehicle communication technology, and the conveyed information might not be highly trusted as the information is transmitted to MVs rather than being seen directly from AVs. Therefore, this paper proposes a synchronous iHMI+eHMI method for a more unambiguous communication in this multi-vehicle bottleneck road situation. The designed iHMI+eHMI is compared with the baseline i. e., without HMI, iHMI, and eHMI in a video-based driving simulation by subjective evaluations from structured questionnaires. The results (N=24) indicate that HMIs (iHMI, eHMI, and iHMI+eHMI) are more helpful than vehicles without any HMI for the AV-MV communication, and iHMI+eHMI achieves the best performance when the views of MV-drivers are obscured.journal articl

GaVe: A webcam-based gaze vending interface using one-point calibration

Gaze input, i.e., information input via eye of users, represents a promising method for contact-free interaction in human-machine systems. In this paper, we present the GazeVending interface (GaVe), which lets users control actions on a display with their eyes. The interface works on a regular webcam, available on most of today's laptops, and only requires a short one-point calibration before use. GaVe is designed in a hierarchical structure, presenting broad item cluster to users first and subsequently guiding them through another selection round, which allows the presentation of a large number of items. Cluster/item selection in GaVe is based on the dwell time, i.e., the time duration that users look at a given Cluster/item. A user study (N=22) was conducted to test optimal dwell time thresholds and comfortable human-to-display distances. Users' perception of the system, as well as error rates and task completion time were registered. We found that all participants were able to quickly understand and know how to interact with the interface, and showed good performance, selecting a target item within a group of 12 items in 6.76 seconds on average. We provide design guidelines for GaVe and discuss the potentials of the system

Observation of B+ → χc0K+

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Implicit Interaction with an Autonomous Personal Mobility Vehicle: Relations of Pedestrians’ Gaze Behavior with Situation Awareness and Perceived Risks

Interactions between pedestrians and autonomous personal mobility vehicle (APMV) will increase with the popularity of autonomous driving systems. However, when the APMVs are applied in a mixed traffic environment after manual driving PMV (MPMV) have been popular, pedestrians may feel unsafe in the interactions when they are uncertain about the driving intention of the APMV. This study seeks to find a surrogate measure for pedestrians’ understanding of driving intention and perceived safety during the interaction with an APMV. We conducted an experiment to measure the gaze duration and subjective evaluations of the participants when they interacted with a PMV in manual and autonomous driving modes. Pedestrians fixed their gaze at the APMV longer when they did not accurately understand the driving intention than when they understood it. Furthermore, the pedestrians perceived danger when they did not clearly understand the driving intention of the APMV. Besides, these factors were different when pedestrians interact with an MPMV and an APMV.journal articl

How arthropod microbiota could enhance/interfere with the transmission/establishment of VBDs.

<p>In the arthropod cavity, the arthropod microbiota can alter pathogen development, resulting in decreased or increased loads in the vectors and reduced or increased transmission. However, the impact of the pathogens on the microbiota has yet to be assessed. Once transmission has occurred, the host immune system generates a response to destroy the pathogens in the skin. Components from the pathogens themselves and the arthropod saliva are known to actively inhibit this process. The role of the arthropod microbiota, likely transmitted along with the pathogens, on the host immune system is currently unknown (dotted lines).</p

Listing the world’s NTDs by WHO and PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

NTDs on the cusp refer to conditions that might be added downstream.</p

Subjective Vertical Conflict Model With Visual Vertical: Predicting Motion Sickness on Autonomous Personal Mobility Vehicles

Passengers of level 3–5 autonomous personal mobility vehicles (APMV) can perform non-driving tasks, such as reading books and smartphones, while driving. It has been pointed out that such activities may increase motion sickness, especially when frequently avoiding pedestrians or obstacles in shared spaces. Many studies have been conducted to build countermeasures, of which various computational motion sickness models have been developed. Among them, models based on subjective vertical conflict (SVC) theory, which describes vertical changes in direction sensed by human sensory organs v.s. those expected by the central nervous system, have been actively developed. To model motion sickness due to conflict between visual vertical information and vestibular sensation, we proposed a 6 DoF SVC-VV model which added a visually perceived vertical block into a conventional 6 DoF SVC model to predict visual vertical directions from image data simulating the visual input of a human. In a driving experiment, 27 participants rode on the APMV and experienced slalom driving with two visual conditions: looking ahead (LAD) and working with a tablet device (WAD). We verified that passengers got motion sickness while riding the APMV, and the symptoms were severer when especially working on it, by simulating the frequent pedestrian avoidance scenarios of the APMV in the experiment. In addition, the results of the experiment demonstrated that the proposed 6 DoF SVC-VV model could describe the increased motion sickness experienced when the visual vertical and gravitational acceleration directions were different.journal articl

Frequency of CD4⁺-T cells producing IFN-γ or IL-4 in mice immunized with PpSP15 or PpSP44.

<p>Mice immunized in the right ear with CTL DNA, PpSP44 or PpSP15 were challenged in the left ear with 500 <i>L. major</i> metacyclics and 0.5 pairs of SGH. Two weeks after challenge, the percentage of CD4⁺ T cells producing IFN-γ or IL-4 were determined in cells recovered from the ear dermis (pools of three to five ears). Twelve hours after stimulation with SLA, cells were incubated for four hours with monensin, PMA and ionomycin and stained with CD4, TCRβ, IFN-γ and IL-4. The numbers represent the percentage of positive events. Data are representative of three independent experiments.</p

Protection or exacerbation of <i>L. major</i> infection in mice immunized with PpSP15 or PpSP44.

<p>Mice immunized with PpSP15, PpSP44 or CTL DNA were challenged with 500 <i>L. major</i> metacyclics and 0.5 pairs of SGH. The graph shows the number of parasites per ear at 11 weeks post-challenge as measured by Real time PCR. This result is representative of the parasite load at six and nine weeks post-challenge. Bars represent the mean ± the SEM for ten mice per group. Panels A–C reflect the pathology of the ears 11 weeks post-challenge in mice previously immunized with PpSP44 (A), PpSP15 (B) and CTL DNA (C). Asterisks indicate significance compared to mice immunized with CTL DNA (<i>p</i><0.05). Data are representative of three independent experiments.</p

海水の作用を受けるコンクリートの凍結速度がスケーリングに及ぼす影響について

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