162,315 research outputs found
[Report to Chief J. E. Curry, by an unknown author #1]
No full textReport to Chief J. E. Curry, by an unknown author. The report contains a list of officers who gave depositions to the United States Attorney
[Report to Chief J. E. Curry, by an unknown author #2]
No full textReport to Chief J. E. Curry, by an unknown author. The report contains a list of officers who gave depositions to the United States Attorney
3D for Cultural Heritage and Education: Evaluating the Impact
No full textSince the year 2002, Politecnico di Milano has been developing several educational projects aimed at schools, based on advanced technology (3D virtual worlds, shared over the Internet). The two most recent projects are about history: Learning@Europe (www.learningateurope.net) deals with the formation of European nation-states, and Stori@Lombardia (www.storialombardia.it) with medieval history in Northern Italy. Both projects underwent massive testing in spring 2005, thanks to the support of Accenture Foundation and the regional Government of Lombardy. L@E involved almost 1000 students and 60 teachers from 6 different European countries (Belgium, France, Italy, Poland, Norway, Spain); Stori@Lombardia involved 800 students and 40 teachers from Lombardy region (Italy). A huge amount of data was collected in order to verify the cultural impact of the project. The projects were very successful — beyond our expectations — both in terms of pedagogical impact and of customer satisfaction. The paper will present the most relevant data and the most salient aspects of the qualitative analysis. It will also argue a generalization of this case study, exploring how a deep impact (cultural and pedagogical) upon users can be achieved through technology, and in particular, the role of "virtual presence" in collaborative 3D virtual environment
3D worlds and Cultural Heritage: Realism vs Virtual Presence.
No full text3D graphics are evidently appealing for cultural heritage communication: the possibility of (re)creating environments, buildings, objects, etc. raised great expectations, both with professionals and end-users. Actual applications, however, have turned out not be so successful as they had promised to be. Therefore we must rethink goals (what can 3D be used for?), requirements (which features should we try to achieve?) and design (how do we do it?). This paper deals with a specific niche, i.e. shared 3D worlds accessible by several users (represented by avatars) over the Internet; some of our considerations, however, can probably be extended to other types of environment. Our main point is that shared 3D worlds are effective not just because they offer a realistic reconstruction of something, but because they have the property of creating (if well designed) virtual presence, i.e. the feeling of "being there" with someone else, engaged in some kind of activity. We argue that, if virtual presence is what we look for, the main concern should switch from the quality of the graphics to the quality of the overall design of the application. The paper discusses the above issues on the basis of the experience gained in 3D educational projects developed by the HOC laboratory of Politecnico di Milano: SEE -- Shrine Educational Experience (in cooperation with The Israel Museum, Jerusalem), Learning@Europe (in cooperation with the International Accenture Foundation) and Stori@Lombardia (in cooperation with the Regional Government of Lombardy). These projects have so far involved more than 1400 students and teachers from all over Europe. All these projects are an evolution of Virtual Leonardo, winner of the prize as "best on-line exhibition" at Museums and the Web 1999
HLA Blockers for potentially treating Rheumatoid arthritis
No full textAutoimmune diseases occurs when the immune system recognize self antigens in the body as foreign invaders leads to dysfunction of tissue. RA is an autoimmune disease, caused by improper recognition of self-peptides, particularly human cartilage glycoprotein and type II collagen, by specific human leukocyte antigen (HLA) receptors. Normally T-cell specific for these peptides are destroyed in the thymus before they are released, preventing autoimmunity. However, certain post-translational modifications, especially citrullination, can lead to “self-peptide” recognition by non-self T cells: in the case of RA, one HLA protein (DRB*0401), out of about 1700 possible ones, is responsible for 65% of RA cases. If this protein could be blocked, drugs could be developed that interrupt the disease at its root cause without affecting the rest of the immune system; this is the focus of research in the Trant Lab. This thesis will briefly overview the approach, including the drug design, and will focus on the molecular biology work accomplished to date. The main finding of our thesis are as follows. Human leukocyte antigen is a protein needed to advance the research and drug development in autoimmune diseases and cancers. In these early stages of this project, we showed that choice of HEK293 cell as a host to express HLA protein and IMAC chromatography as a purification system gives us a reasonable amount of α/β heterodimer glycosylated membrane HLA protein
Instant Multimedia: A New Challenge for Cultural Heritage
No full textCultural Heritage is traditionally associated with long-term values and stable (i.e. not rapidly changing) content; consequently, we are used to thinking that 'editorial products' associated with it have a long life and deserve a long-term, well-planned effort. Most museum catalogues, publications, Web sites and multimedia applications follow this pattern: they need sizable development time, significant effort and proportionately significant financial resources.
Recently, a new necessity is slowly emerging, for a number of reasons: budget is shrinking, new opportunities of communication are springing up, technologies and devices are rapidly changing. Therefore, a new approach can be considered: 'instant multimedia' (analogous to 'instant books') means that in a short span of time and with little budget a good quality multimedia application must be produced, possibly aiming for several technological channels (from Web, to mobile devices, to iPod, to information points, to iPhone ...).
This investigates the concept of instant multimedia and to identify its basic constituents. Furthermore the paper illustrates a specific paradigm, OneThousandandOneStory, consisting of a design pattern, a workflow, a production method and finally an engine, to generate applications. The paradigm produces high-quality applications that can be delivered as CD-Roms, Information Points, Web sites, Podcasts and, very soon, phone applications. It has been used to generate 11 instant multimedia applications for a variety of partners, including museums, ministries, research teams, and academic institutions. It has been used by College students and, from January 2007, more than three thousand high-school students in Italy will use it to generate their own multimedia narratives about culture and history in their territory
Edutainment in 3D virtual worlds. The SEE experience
No full textShared virtual worlds are innovative applications where several users, represented by Avatars, simultaneously access via Internet a 3D space. Users co-operate through interaction with the environment and with each other, manipulating objects and chatting as they go. Apart from in the well-documented online action games industry, now often played out in real-time over the Internet, the success stories of virtual worlds and shared VRML environments have been sporadic. Interest wanes from an enthusiastic beginning: the 3D world looks both enticing and promising, but the attention curve drops sharply as the users find the space either too difficult to navigate or not satisfyingly engaging. The key to the success or failure of these environments relates directly to the content offered and the ability of the environment to hold a critical mass of users in real time. This is the desperately sought after magic social glue that determines the experience to be meaningful and actively keeps the users under its virtual spell.
The paper will present an innovative project, a shared virtual world geared to schools in an educational and highly structured,environment. SEE, Shrine Educational Experience, is a co-operative project developed jointly by Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, and the Politecnico di Milano, Italy, offering a pioneering educational environment based on a shared 3D virtual world, where classes from all over the world meet in order to learn and discuss issues related to the famous Dead Sea Scrolls and the tiny community (probably of Essenes) who once lived by the Dead Sea
Murder on the mountain: author talk with Peter J. Wosh
No full textAuthor talk by Peter J. Wosh on May 5th, 2022, on his book, "Murder on the Mountain: crime, passion, and punishment in gilded age New Jersey.
Evaluating the features of Museum Websites (The Bologna Report)
No full textMiLE (Milano – Lugano Evaluation Method) is an innovative method for evaluating the quality and usability of hypermedia applications. This paper focuses upon the specific “module” of MiLE concerning cultural heritage applications, synthesizing the results of research carried on by a group of seven museum experts of Bologna (Italy), with the joint coordination of IBC (Institute for the Cultural Heritage of the Emilia Romagna Region) and Politecnico di Milano. The “Bologna group” is composed of different professional figures working in the museum domain: museum curators of artistic, archaeological and historical heritage; museum communication experts; Web sites of cultural institutions’ communication experts.
After illustrating the general features of MiLE and the specific features for Cultural Heritage, we will briefly show a few of the results which are to be published in the “Bologna Report”
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