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In the field of autonomous driving research, the use of immersive virtual reality (VR) techniques is widespread to enable a variety of studies under safe and controlled conditions. However, this methodology is only valid and consistent if the conduct of participants in the simulated setting mirrors their actions in an actual environment. In this paper, we present a first and innovative approach to evaluating what we term the behavioural gap, a concept that captures the disparity in a participant's conduct when engaging in a VR experiment compared to an equivalent real-world situation. To this end, we developed a digital twin of a pre-existed crosswalk and carried out a field experiment (N=18) to investigate pedestrian-autonomous vehicle interaction in both real and simulated driving conditions. In the experiment, the pedestrian attempts to cross the road in the presence of different driving styles and an external Human-Machine Interface (eHMI). By combining survey-based and behavioural analysis methodologies, we develop a quantitative approach to empirically assess the behavioural gap, as a mechanism to validate data obtained from real subjects interacting in a simulated VR-based environment. Results show that participants are more cautious and curious in VR, affecting their speed and decisions, and that VR interfaces significantly influence their actions., Comment: Paper submitted to International Journal of Human Computer Interaction

The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment prepares its Phase-2 upgrade for the high-luminosity era of the LHC operation (HL-LHC). Due to the increase of occupancy, trigger latency and rates, the full electronics of the CMS Drift Tube (DT) chambers will need to be replaced. In the new design, the time bin for the digitisation of the chamber signals will be of around 1~ns, and the totality of the signals will be forwarded asynchronously to the service cavern at full resolution. The new backend system will be in charge of building the trigger primitives of each chamber. These trigger primitives contain the information at chamber level about the muon candidates position, direction, and collision time, and are used as input in the L1 CMS trigger. The added functionalities will improve the robustness of the system against ageing. An algorithm based on analytical solutions for reconstructing the DT trigger primitives, called Analytical Method, has been implemented both as a software C++ emulator and in firmware. Its performance has been estimated using the software emulator with simulated and real data samples, and through hardware implementation tests. Measured efficiencies are 96 to 98\% for all qualities and time and spatial resolutions are close to the ultimate performance of the DT chambers. A prototype chain of the HL-LHC electronics using the Analytical Method for trigger primitive generation has been installed during Long Shutdown 2 of the LHC and operated in CMS cosmic data taking campaigns in 2020 and 2021. Results from this validation step, the so-called Slice Test, are presented., Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures

Redfield master equation was applied to study the dynamics of an ensemble of interacting pairs of unlike spins at room temperature. This spin quantum system is a workbench quantum model to analyze the relaxation dynamics of a heteronuclear two-level spin system interacting by a pure dipole-dipole coupling. Expressions for the density matrix elements and their relaxation rate constants of each coherence order were computed. In addition, the solutions were evaluated considering three initial quantum states, and the theoretical predictions, such as multi-exponential evolutions and enhancement, are behaviors that the solutions preserve and agree with previous studies performed for magnetization time evolutions. Moreover, the solutions computed to predict the dynamics of the longitudinal magnetization avoid the disagreement reported by I. Solomon.

In this paper, we investigate the decay properties of the thermoelastic Timoshenko system with past history in the whole space where the thermal effects are given by Cattaneo and Fourier laws. We obtain that both systems, Timoshenko-Fourier and Timoshenko-Cattaneo, have the same rate of decay $(1 + t)^{-1/8}$ and satisfy the regularity-loss type property. Moreover, for the Cattaneo case, we show that the decay rate depends of a new condition on the wave speed of propagation $\chi_{0,\tau}$. This new condition has been recently introduced to study the asymptotic behavior in bounded domains, see for instance [5] and [27]. We found that this number also plays an important role in unbounded situation, affecting the decay rate of the solution., Comment: 24 pages

We studied a system formed by a mixture of a thermoresponsive negatively charged graft copolymer (Alg-g-PNIPAAm) with a brush-type structure, and an oppositely charged surfactant (DTAB), in bulk and at the air-solution interface. We performed experiments of surface tension, electrophoretic mobility, dynamic and static light scattering and atomic force microscopy in order to characterize the complexes formed as a function of DTAB concentration and temperature. We found that these polymer-surfactant complexes are able to respond by changing their sizes, both in bulk and at the air-solution interface, when T is increased above the coil-globule transition temperature (LSCT) of the copolymer. However, the thermoresponse was found to be dependent on surfactant concentration, cs: for cs < 2.8 mM, the size of the aggregates decreases as T increases but, for cs >= 2.8 mM, the opposite behavior takes place, i.e. the size increases with T. At the interface, the intensity of the effect produced on the surface tension by increasing T above LCST diminishes continuously as cs increases, reducing the ability of the interfacial complex to respond to temperature changes. We studied the stability of aqueous foams formulated with these mixtures as a function of T and cs. We found that the stability of the foam can be modulated by changing T, but we observed that this effect is dependent on the surfactant concentration range. We found a correlation between changes in the aggregates sizes, the surface tension behavior and the responsiveness of foam stability to changes of temperature.

Background/Context: Literacy skills are critical to understanding information presented in written or oral formats and communicating effectively with others. These skills are important to students' success in school and later in life, including improved individual health and economic outcomes, increased civic engagement, and enhanced community well-being. Therefore, identifying effective reading interventions in Spanish in the elementary grades is of great importance. Purpose/Objective/Research Question: The purpose of this review is to examine and synthetize the research evidence underlying reading interventions in Spanish across Spanish speaking countries or countries where students develop literacy in Spanish (e.g., US). Our scoping search has identified two reviews in Spanish-speaking students focusing on reading comprehension as the outcome (Balbi et al., 2018; Ripoll and Aguado, 2014). Although we will build upon those previous reviews, our review includes more stringent inclusion criteria, so that only high-quality evidence is identified and synthesized. Method: This study uses a systematic review approach (The Campbell Collaboration, 2019), which involves traditional meta-analysis techniques of systematic reviews and effect size calculations (Lipsey & Wilson, 2001). Inclusion criteria: 1. Studies must focus on Spanish as L1 and use Spanish as the language of instruction. 2. Studies must use Spanish as the target language in Spanish Speaking countries (or any other that provide equivalent conditions). 3. Studies must evaluate programs and practices implemented in pre-K-6 education. 4. Studies must compare children taught in classes using a given literacy program or practice with those in control classes using standard methods. 5. Duration of the study must be a minimum of 12 weeks or an approximately equivalent number of sessions. 6. Studies must demonstrate baseline equivalence between groups based on the analytic sample (after attrition) within +/- 0.25 SD. 7. Studies have to have at least 2 teachers/schools and 30 students in each treatment group. 8. Studies may be published without time limits. 9. No geographical restriction was included. 10. No cultural restriction was included. 11. Study reports must be available in Spanish or English. 12. No specific document type was restricted. 13. Studies must evaluate programs that could be replicated. Literature search procedure: In order to identify potential candidates for our final sample of studies meeting the inclusion criteria, two main search strategies have been conducted. A "Primary search" of databases including a wide range of electronic databases like: Web of Science (WoS), Proquest, Scopus, OvidSP, EBSCOhost, Taylor & Francis, Springer Link, Science Direct, REDINED, REDUC, ÍnDICEs-CSIC, Redalyc, Dialnet. "Complementary search" included Google Scholar, other internet engines, hand searching of relevant educational websites, literature snowballing, and contacting experts. References from previous reviews were also examined for possible inclusion as well. Various combinations of keywords, such as "reading", "Spanish", "intervention", "literacy achievement", "school", "pre-k", "K-6", "control group", "comparison group", "quasi-experiment", "randomised control design" were used to identify studies. Search results were limited to studies published until June 2020. Effect sizes: Effect sizes were calculated in terms of Hedges' g. Standardised mean difference effect sizes were calculated using procedures for Hedges' g as the difference between adjusted post-test scores for treatment and control students, divided by the pooled standard deviation of unadjusted post-test scores for treatment and control, with a correction applied for small sample sizes (Hedges, 1981). Alternative procedures were used to estimate effect sizes when unadjusted post-tests or unadjusted standard deviations were not reported, as described by Lipsey and Wilson (2001). Overall mean effect sizes were calculated across studies and programs, weighted by inverse variance, adjusted for clustering as described by Hedges (2007). We used a multivariate meta-regression model with robust variance estimation (RVE) to conduct the meta-analysis (Hedges et al., 2010). To assess the degree of heterogeneity in the effect sizes, a 95% prediction interval was calculated for each of the full meta-regressions (Borenstein et al., 2017). Findings: A total of 10 studies met the inclusion criteria for Spanish reading interventions (see Figure 1). The studies included were of high methodological quality: 9 (90%) of the studies were randomised trials and 1 (10%) was a quasi-experimental study. The full meta-regression model is shown in Table 1. For all studies, this model controlled for grade level and outcome type. There was a large, positive effect across all studies (ES = +0.33, p < 0.05).There was substantial heterogeneity across this sample, with a 95% PI of -0.16 to 0.83. Two moderators were identified and explored statistically (see Table 2). Neither grade level or outcome type were significant moderators. Conclusions: This meta-analysis provides encouraging findings, suggesting that some interventions for Spanish reading exist that can effectively help readers in K-6 education. In this vein, the present study found a large, positive effect overall, and significant impacts for the categories K-2, Reading Comprehension, and Phonological Awareness. Thus, this meta-analysis suggests that if implemented with fidelity, Spanish readers mastering core reading elements in Spanish can be improved, although the need for more rigorous interventions and evaluation research designs on reading interventions should be a national priority.