Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Substrate Type Influences the Structure of Epiphyte Communities and the Growth of Posidonia oceanica Seedlings

Epiphytes colonizing adult seagrasses highly contribute to seagrass ecosystem functioning and plant growth. Yet, little information exists on epiphytic communities developing on seagrass seedlings. Moreover, for some species our knowledge about seedling performance is limited to early establishment phases, and the role of substrate type in affecting their growth is still unclear. These are considerable knowledge gaps, as seedlings play an important role in meadow expansion and recovery from disturbance. In this study, seedlings of Posidonia oceanica, a keystone species of the Mediterranean, were grown in a shallow (1.5 m deep) coastal area along the Tuscany coast (Italy). After five years of growth (July 2009), seedlings were collected and, through multivariate analysis, we examined whether the epiphytic communities of leaves (both internal and external side) and rhizomes, as well as the growth characteristics differed between rock and sand substrate. The epiphytic communities of seedlings largely reflected those found on adult shoots. Epiphyte cover was similar between the two leaf sides, and it was higher on seedlings grown on rock than on sand, with encrusting algae dominating the community. No differences in epiphyte cover and community structure on rhizomes were found between substrates. Seedling growth characteristics did not differ between substrates, apart from the number of standing leaves being higher on rock than on sand. No correlation was found among epiphyte communities and seedling growth variables (i.e., leaf area, maximum leaf length, number of leaves, total number of leaves produced, rhizome length, total biomass, and root to shoot biomass ratio). Results indicate that epiphytes successfully colonize P. oceanica seedlings, and the surrounding micro-environment (i.e., substrate type) can influence the leaf epiphytic community. This study provides new valuable insights on the biological interactions occurring in seagrass ecosystems and highlights the need for better understanding the effects of seedling epiphytes and substrate on the formation of new meadows.
Semen testis expressed protein 101 and spermatid-specific thioredoxin reductase 3 levels may be biomarkers in infertile male

Abstract Objectives We aimed to determine the differences between normozoospermic and oligozoospermic individuals according to levels of spermatid-specific thioredoxin reductase 3 (SPTRXR3/STRX3/TXNDC8/TXNRD3) and testis expressed protein 101 (TEX-101), and to evaluate the correlations between spermiogram data and biochemical parameters. Methods The study was carried out at the Andrology Laboratory of Medicine Faculty of Selcuk University. Two groups were designed: Group 1: Normozoospermia (n=40, sperm concentration ≥ 15 million/mL), Group 2: Oligozoospermia; (n=40, sperm concentration < 15 million/mL). Seminal plasma SPTRXR3 and TEX-101 levels were analyzed with ELISA method. Spermiogram analysis was evaluated according to WHO 2010 Kruger criteria. Results TEX-101 protein levels were significantly different in normozoospermia (2.12 ± 0.08 ng/mL) compared to oligozoospermia (1.55 ± 0.04 ng/mL). SPTRXR3 levels (6.98 ± 0.46 ng/mL) were higher in oligozoospermia than normozoospermia (3.07 ± 0.35 ng/mL). Both TEX-101 and SPTRXR3 levels were correlated statistically with most of the spermiogram parameters. Conclusions High SPTRXR3 and low TEX-101 levels may be a biomarker in evaluation of male infertility. The relations between spermiogram parameters indicates that results present a new clinical approach in biology of oligozoospermic male.
Empowering Resignation: There’s an App for That

“There’s an app for that” is perhaps the definitive rhetoric of our times. To understand how users navigate the trade-offs involved in using apps that support a variety of everyday activities, we conducted scenario-based semi-structured interviews (n = 25). Despite the technical and regulatory mechanisms that are supposedly meant to empower users to manage their privacy, we found that users express an overarching feeling of resignation regarding privacy matters. Because these apps provide convenience and other benefits, as one participant put it, “there is a very fine line” that marks the divide between feeling empowered in the use of technology and coping with the discomfort and creepiness arising from invasive app behavior. Participants consistently expressed being resigned to disclose data even as they accepted personal responsibility for their own privacy. We apply the findings to discuss the limits of empowerment as a design logic for privacy-oriented solutions.
Increasing Electrical Muscle Stimulation's Dexterity by means of Back of the Hand Actuation

We propose a technique that allows an unprecedented level of dexterity in electrical muscle stimulation (EMS), i.e., it allows interactive EMS-based devices to flex the user's fingers independently of each other. EMS is a promising technique for force feedback because of its small form factor when compared to mechanical actuators. However, the current EMS approach to flexing the user's fingers (i.e., attaching electrodes to the base of the forearm, where finger muscles anchor) is limited by its inability to flex a target finger's metacarpophalangeal (MCP) joint independently of the other fingers. In other words, current EMS devices cannot flex one finger alone, they always induce unwanted actuation to adjacent fingers. To tackle the lack of dexterity, we propose and validate a new electrode layout that places the electrodes on the back of the hand, where they stimulate the interossei/lumbricals muscles in the palm, which have never received attention with regards to EMS. In our user study, we found that our technique offers four key benefits when compared to existing EMS electrode layouts: our technique (1) flexes all four fingers around the MCP joint more independently; (2) has less unwanted flexion of other joints (such as the proximal interphalangeal joint); (3) is more robust to wrist rotations; and (4) reduces calibration time. Therefore, our EMS technique enables applications for interactive EMS systems that require a level of flexion dexterity not available until now. We demonstrate the improved dexterity with four example applications: three musical instrumental tutorials (piano, drum, and guitar) and a VR application that renders force feedback in individual fingers while manipulating a yo-yo.
Demonstrating Flower Jelly Printer for Parametrically Designed Flower Jelly

Flower jellies, a delicate dessert in which a flower-shaped jelly floats inside another clear jelly, fascinate people with both their beauty and elaborate construction. In efforts to simplify the challenging fabrication and enrich the design space of this dessert, we present Flower Jelly Printer: a printing device and design software for digitally fabricating flower jellies. Our design software lets users play with parameters and preview the resulting forms until achieving their desired shapes. We also developed slit injection printing that directly injects colored jelly into a base jelly, and shared several design examples to show the breadth of design possibilities. We hope to enable more people to design and create their own flower jellies while expanding access and the design space for digitally fabricated foods.
Using Breath-like Cues for Guided Breathing

Breathing exercises reduce stress and anxiety and are commonly implemented in well-being applications. Here, we compare how well three synthetic auditory feedback stimuli (breath, music, and compound) can guide slow and fast breathing. The results indicate that all three feedback types helped participants entrain the target breathing rate, however, the deviation from the target rate was higher for fast compared to slow breathing. Importantly, when target rate was fast, the compound feedback type resulted in a significantly smaller average respiration error and a longer duration close to the target respiration rate and the breath feedback type resulted in a smaller average deviation from target pace compared to music feedback type. The results point towards an advantage of compound and ecological sound stimuli in particular when the target respiration rate is fast.
Physical Warm-up Games: Exploring the Potential of Play and Technology Design

Warm-up games are widespread practices in multiple activities across domains, yet little scholarly work can be found about their role in physical training. Here, we study potential goals and benefits of warm-up games, and explore opportunities for technology inclusion through investigating a collection of warm-up games gathered: online, from a survey of online warm-up games curated, described, and used by Physical Education teachers; and in person, from an ongoing design research work as part of a technology-supported circus training course. Further, in the context of the latter, we conducted explorative design interventions, augmenting a range of the warm-up games with wearable technology. Our work surfaces major goals and benefits of warm-up games, which can be broadly classified as preparing participants physically, socially, and mentally. We also show how the inclusion of open-ended technology can support these goals and discuss broader opportunities for technology inclusion in warm-up games.
Teardrop Glasses: Pseudo Tears Induce Sadness in You and Those Around You

Emotional contagion is a phenomenon in which one’s emotions are transmitted among individuals unconsciously by observing others’ emotional expressions. In this paper, we propose a method for mediating people’s emotions by triggering emotional contagion through artificial bodily changes such as pseudo tears. We focused on shedding tears because of the link to several emotions besides sadness. In addition, it is expected that shedding tears would induce emotional contagion because it is observable by others. We designed an eyeglasses-style wearable device, Teardrop glasses, that release water drops near the wearer’s eyes. The drops flow down the cheeks and emulate real tears. The study revealed that artificial crying with pseudo tears increased sadness among both wearers and those observing them. Moreover, artificial crying attenuated happiness and positive feelings in observers. Our findings show that actual bodily changes are not necessary for inducing emotional contagion as artificial bodily changes are also sufficient.
“Disadvantaged in the American-dominated Internet”: Sex, Work, and Technology

How do people in a precarious profession leverage technology to grow their business and improve their quality of life? Sex workers sit at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities and make up a sizeable workforce: the United Nations estimates that at least 42 million sex workers are conducting business across the globe. Yet, little research has examined how well technology fulfills sex workers’ business needs in the face of unique social, political, legal, and safety constraints. We present interviews with 29 sex workers in Germany and Switzerland where such work is legal, offering a first HCI perspective on this population’s use of technology. While our participants demonstrate savvy navigation of online spaces, sex workers encounter frustrating barriers due to an American-dominated internet that enforces puritan values globally. Our findings raise concerns about digital discrimination against sex workers and suggest concrete directions for the design of more inclusive technology.
It’s About Time: A View of Crowdsourced Data Before and During the Pandemic

Data attained through crowdsourcing have an essential role in the development of computer vision algorithms. Crowdsourced data might include reporting biases, since crowdworkers usually describe what is “worth saying” in addition to images’ content. We explore how the unprecedented events of 2020, including the unrest surrounding racial discrimination, and the COVID-19 pandemic, might be reflected in responses to an open-ended annotation task on people images, originally executed in 2018 and replicated in 2020. Analyzing themes of Identity and Health conveyed in workers’ tags, we find evidence that supports the potential for temporal sensitivity in crowdsourced data. The 2020 data exhibit more race-marking of images depicting non-Whites, as well as an increase in tags describing Weight. We relate our findings to the emerging research on crowdworkers’ moods. Furthermore, we discuss the implications of (and suggestions for) designing tasks on proprietary platforms, having demonstrated the possibility for additional, unexpected variation in crowdsourced data due to significant events.
AtaTouch: Robust Finger Pinch Detection for a VR Controller Using RF Return Loss

Handheld controllers are an essential part of VR systems. Modern sensing techniques enable them to track users’ finger movements to support natural interaction using hands. The sensing techniques, however, often fail to precisely determine whether two fingertips touch each other, which is important for the robust detection of a pinch gesture. To address this problem, we propose AtaTouch, which is a novel, robust sensing technique for detecting the closure of a finger pinch. It utilizes a change in the coupled impedance of an antenna and human fingers when the thumb and finger form a loop. We implemented a prototype controller in which AtaTouch detects the finger pinch of the grabbing hand. A user test with the prototype showed a finger-touch detection accuracy of 96.4%. Another user test with the scenarios of moving virtual blocks demonstrated low object-drop rate (2.75%) and false-pinch rate (4.40%). The results and feedback from the participants support the robustness and sensitivity of AtaTouch.
A Decade of Sustainable HCI: Connecting SHCI to the Sustainable Development Goals

Sustainable HCI (SHCI) constitutes a relatively new research field within HCI. We have identified four literature reviews of the field conducted between 2009-2014. In this paper, we present and discuss the results of a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed conference and journal articles that have been published in the field during the last ten years (2010-2019). To this end, we apply the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a framework to classify and discern high-level goals SHCI researchers have worked towards during this period. This paper contributes to HCI by 1) identifying Sustainable Development Goals that SHCI researchers have worked towards, 2) discerning main research trends in the field during the last decade, 3) using the SDG framework generatively to enumerate and reflect on areas that this far have not been covered by SHCI research and 4) presenting takeaways and opportunities for further research by the larger HCI community.
Integrating a Voice User Interface into a Virtual Therapy Platform

More than 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. serving as family caregivers are the backbones of the healthcare system. Caregiving activities significantly affect their physical and mental health, sleep, work, and family relationships over extended periods. Many caregivers tend to downplay their own health needs and have difficulty accessing support. Failure to maintain their own health leads to diminished ability in providing high-quality care to their loved ones. Voice user interfaces (VUIs) hold promise in providing tailored support family caregivers need in maintaining their own health, such as flexible access and handsfree interactions. This work is the integration of VUIs into a virtual therapy platform to promote user engagement in self-care practices. We conducted user research with family caregivers and subject matter experts, and designed multiple prototypes with user evaluations. Advantages, limitations, and design considerations for integrating VUIs into virtual therapy are discussed.
“Developers Are Responsible”: What Ad Networks Tell Developers About Privacy

Advertising networks enable developers to create revenue, but using them potentially impacts user privacy and requires developers to make legal decisions. To understand what privacy information ad networks give developers, we did a walkthrough of four popular ad network guidance pages with a senior Android developer by looking at the privacy-related information presented to developers. We found that information is focused on complying with legal regulations, and puts the responsibility for such decisions on the developer. Also, sample code and settings often have privacy-unfriendly defaults laced with dark patterns to nudge developers’ decisions towards privacy-unfriendly options such as sharing sensitive data to increase revenue. We conclude by discussing future research around empowering developers and minimising the negative impacts of dark patterns.
In Search of the Alternative Future: Developing Participatory Digital Citizenship to Address the Crisis of Democracy

In this workshop, we strive to formulate a working definition of a participatory digital citizenship, and to share issues, challenges, opportunities, methods and empirical examples pertaining to participatory digital citizenship as a goal. The rational for such a work lies in extensive digitalization of everyday life, which has turned data into valuable capital and a means of manipulation. Excessively datafied environments and more and more powerful algorithms and artificial intelligences used for processing data pose a threat to societies’ democratic arrangements and principles. Our goal is to explore the possibilities and limitations of expanding the concept of digital citizenship towards a direction that addresses the deep power asymmetry existing between the ones that use data and ones that are monitored.
On Ubiquitous Technology, a Digital World and their Influence on People’s Feeling and Control of Presence in  Everyday Life

Ubiquitous technology, e.g., smartphones or tablets, has created a continuously available digital world, drastically changing our feeling of being in the here and now – named presence. We thus increasingly shift between the real and the digital world, ranging from losing awareness of real surroundings to cutting out the digital world to truly be in the real one. In this work, we aim to explore the middle ground in between. We move beyond classic VR research on presence and look at everyday ubiquitous technology and its influence on presence in the real and digital world. By means of a focus group (N=6) and a subsequent online survey (N=36), we gathered individual notions of presence as well as experiences and situations in which people move between the worlds. We discuss the need to further explore presence and its dynamics across the real and digital worlds in everyday life.
Breaking out of the Lab: Mitigating Mind Wandering with Gaze-Based Attention-Aware Technology in Classrooms

We designed and tested an attention-aware learning technology (AALT) that detects and responds to mind wandering (MW), a shift in attention from task-related to task-unrelated thoughts, that is negatively associated with learning. We leveraged an existing gaze-based mind wandering detector that uses commercial off the shelf eye tracking to inform real-time interventions during learning with an Intelligent Tutoring System in real-world classrooms. The intervention strategies, co-designed with students and teachers, consisted of using student names, reiterating content, and asking questions, with the aim to reengage wandering minds and improve learning. After several rounds of iterative refinement, we tested our AALT in two classroom studies with 287 high-school students. We found that interventions successfully reoriented attention, and compared to two control conditions, reduced mind wandering, and improved retention (measured via a delayed assessment) for students with low prior-knowledge who occasionally (but not excessively) mind wandered. We discuss implications for developing gaze-based AALTs for real-world contexts.
Tactile Fixations: A Behavioral Marker on How People with Visual Impairments Explore Raised-line Graphics

Raised-line graphics are tactile documents made for people with visual impairments (VI). Their exploration relies on a complex two-handed behavior. To better understand the cognitive processes underlying this exploration, we proposed a new method based on “tactile fixations”. A tactile fixation occurs when a finger is stationary within a specific spatial and temporal window. It is known that stationary fingers play an active role when exploring tactile graphics, but they have never been defined or studied before. In this study, we first defined the concept of tactile fixation, then we conducted a behavioral study with ten participants with VI in order to assess the role of tactile fixations under different conditions. The results show that tactile fixations vary according to different factors such as the graphic type as well as the involved hand and the aim of the exploration.
Should Robots Blush?

Social interaction is the most complex challenge in daily life. Inevitably, social robots will encounter interactions that are outside their competence. This raises a basic design question: how can robots fail gracefully in social interaction? The characteristic human response to social failure is embarrassment. Usefully, embarrassment signals both recognition of a problem and typically enlists sympathy and assistance to resolve it. This could enhance robot acceptability and provides an opportunity for interactive learning. Using a speculative design approach we explore how, when and why robots might communicate embarrassment. A series of specially developed cultural probes, scenario development and low-fidelity prototyping exercises suggest that: embarrassment is relevant for managing a diverse range of social scenarios, impacts on both humanoid and non-humanoid robot design, and highlights the critical importance of understanding interactional context. We conclude that embarrassment is fundamental to competent social functioning and provides a potentially fertile area for interaction design.
Understanding the Role of Technology to Support Breastfeeding

Breastfeeding brings benefits for newborns and parents, but can be a challenging process. In this paper, we leverage a mixed-methods approach that builds on the Integrated Behavioural Model (IBM) to explore parents’ perspectives toward breastfeeding along with their lived experiences, and examine the role of technology in this setting. Results of twelve semi-structured interviews and 175 online survey responses suggest generally positive attitudes toward breastfeeding and good theoretical knowledge. This is combined with a complex lived experience of breastfeeding where main challenges are situated in practical, emotional, and environmental/societal aspects, which are currently not sufficiently recognised by technology that seeks to support breastfeeding. Building upon our findings, we present points for reflection for the design of technology to support breastfeeding, focusing on the importance of drawing from the lived experience of parents, and ensuring that technology not only casts breastfeeding as an individual but also as a collective effort.