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The introduction of small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) in an increasingly wide range of civil applications implies several challenges for the integration of manned and unmanned traffic in the controlled and uncontrolled low-level airspace, both at a technological and procedural level. This paper discusses the design of an integrated platform for the management of contingency events and the improvement of situation awareness of the pilot. To this end, a head-up display, based on augmented reality (AR) technology, is designed to provide the pilot with visual cues that should improve his awareness of admissible flight volumes. A force feedback is also provided by a haptic joystick, which suggests manoeuvres to avoid collisions or violation of airspace constraints. Tests in an actual airport facility are expected to be conducted in 2021. In the meantime, a possible realistic scenario is analysed, illustrating the interactions among the various actors and components of the system.

The next generation of gravitational-wave experiments, such as Einstein Telescope, Cosmic Explorer and LISA, will test the primordial black hole scenario. We provide a forecast for the minimum testable value of the abundance of primordial black holes as a function of their masses for both the unclustered and clustered spatial distributions at formation. In particular, we show that these instruments may test abundances, relative to the dark matter, as low as $10^{-10}$., Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures

The deformability of a compact object under the presence of a tidal perturbation is encoded in the tidal Love numbers (TLNs), which vanish for isolated black holes in vacuum. We show that the TLNs of black holes surrounded by matter fields do not vanish and can be used to probe the environment around binary black holes. In particular, we compute the TLNs for the case of a black hole surrounded by a scalar condensate under the presence of scalar and vector tidal perturbations, finding a strong power-law behavior of the TLN in terms of the mass of the scalar field. Using this result as a proxy for gravitational tidal perturbations, we show that future gravitational-wave detectors like the Einstein Telescope and LISA can impose stringent constraints on the mass of ultralight bosons that condensate around black holes due to accretion or superradiance. Interestingly, LISA could measure the tidal deformability of dressed black holes across the range from stellar-mass ($\approx 10^2 M_\odot$) to supermassive ($\approx 10^7 M_\odot$) objects, providing a measurement of the mass of ultralight bosons in the range $(10^{-17} - 10^{-13}) \, {\rm eV}$ with less than $10\%$ accuracy, thus filling the gap between other superradiance-driven constraints coming from terrestrial and space interferometers. Altogether, LISA and Einstein Telescope can probe tidal effects from dressed black holes in the combined mass range $(10^{-17} - 10^{-11}) \, {\rm eV}$., Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures. v2: matching published version

Primordial black holes could have been formed in the early universe from nonlinear cosmological perturbations reentering the cosmological horizon when the Universe was still radiation dominated. Starting from the shape of the power spectrum on superhorizon scales, we provide a simple prescription, based on the results of numerical simulations, to compute the threshold ${\ensuremath{\delta}}_{c}$ for primordial black hole formation. Our procedure takes into account both the nonlinearities between the Gaussian curvature perturbation and the density contrast and, for the first time in the literature, the nonlinear effects arising at horizon crossing, which increase the value of the threshold by about a factor two with respect to the one computed on superhorizon scales.

We calculate the exact formation probability of primordial black holes generated during the collapse at horizon re-entry of large fluctuations produced during inflation, such as those ascribed to a period of ultra-slow-roll. We show that it interpolates between a Gaussian at small values of the average density contrast and a Cauchy probability distribution at large values. The corresponding abundance of primordial black holes may be larger than the Gaussian one by several orders of magnitude. The mass function is also shifted towards larger masses., 4 pages, 3 figures, minor additions, references added, matches published version

Tensor non-Gaussianities are a key ingredient to test the symmetries and the presence of higher spin fields during the inflationary epoch. Indeed, the shape of the three point correlator of the graviton is totally fixed by the symmetries of the de Sitter stage and, in the case of parity conservation, gets contributions only from the ordinary gravity action plus a higher derivative term called the (Weyl)$^3$ action. We discuss current and future bounds on the three point tensor contribution from the (Weyl)$^3$ term using cosmic microwave background (CMB) bispectra. Our results indicate that forthcoming experiments, such as LiteBIRD, CMB-S4 and CORE, will detect the presence of the (Weyl)$^3$ term if $M_p^4 L^4 \sim 10^{17} r^{-4}$, where $L$ parametrizes the strength of the (Weyl)$^3$ term and $r$ is the tensor-to-scalar ratio, which corresponds to $L\gtrsim 3.2 \times 10^5 M_p^{-1}$, while the current upper limit is $M_p^4 L^4 = (1.1 \pm 4.0) \times 10^{19} r^{-4}$ (68%CL)., 8 pages, 2 figures; version matching publication in PRD

Gesture-based touchless devices are becoming a widespread alternative to traditional gaming devices such as joysticks or gamepads. However, the impact of such devices on the user experience has to be evaluated, especially if we consider that most users are more familiar with classical handheld gaming controllers. In virtual reality applications, they influence not only the traditional usability, but also the user perception related to some peculiarities of immersive environments. In this paper, we evaluate both these aspects by comparing the user experience with the Myo armband touchless interface and the Vive controller distributed with the HTC Vive headset. We focused on a virtual navigator we developed for HTC Vive to allow users exploring the organs of the human body and navigating inside them. We recruited 78 subjects to test the virtual environment and asked them to fill in a questionnaire: we combined two generic purpose questionnaires focusing on the system usability (UMUX and SUS) and a presence questionnaire, which was specifically designed for virtual environments. We conducted a statistical analysis to study the effects of a touchless interaction on the user experience. The results revealed a better usability of the Vive controller, even though the effort to learn how to use the two devices is similar. In particular, difficulties in using Myo have a significant impact on immersion and adaptation in the virtual environment.

The experimentation of new effective visualization techniques provides viable technological solutions for the archaeological heritage fruition and the visitors involvement within cultural places (museums, gallery, archaeological sites).

Minimally invasive techniques, such as laparoscopy and radiofrequency ablation of tumors, bring important advantages in surgery: by minimizing incisions on the patient's body, they can reduce the hospitalization period and the risk of postoperative complications. Unfortunately, they come with drawbacks for surgeons, who have a restricted vision of the operation area through an indirect access and 2D images provided by a camera inserted in the body. Augmented reality provides an "X-ray vision" of the patient anatomy thanks to the visualization of the internal organs of the patient. In this way, surgeons are free from the task of mentally associating the content from CT images to the operative scene. We present a navigation system that supports surgeons in preoperative and intraoperative phases and an augmented reality system that superimposes virtual organs on the patient's body together with depth and distance information. We implemented a combination of visual and audio cues allowing the surgeon to improve the intervention precision and avoid the risk of damaging anatomical structures. The test scenarios proved the good efficacy and accuracy of the system. Moreover, tests in the operating room suggested some modifications to the tracking system to make it more robust with respect to occlusions. Graphical Abstract Augmented visualization in minimally invasive surgery.

We explore the possibility that Dark Matter is the lightest hadron made of two stable color octet Dirac fermions ${\cal Q}$. The cosmological DM abundance is reproduced for $M_{\cal Q}\approx 12.5$ TeV, compatibly with direct searches (the Rayleigh cross section, suppressed by $1/M_{\cal Q}^6$, is close to present bounds), indirect searches (enhanced by ${\cal Q}{\cal Q}+\bar{\cal Q}\bar{\cal Q}\to {\cal Q}\bar{\cal Q}+{\cal Q}\bar{\cal Q}$ recombination), and with collider searches (where ${\cal Q}$ manifests as tracks, pair produced via QCD). Hybrid hadrons, made of $\cal Q$ and of SM quarks and gluons, have large QCD cross sections, and do not reach underground detectors. Their cosmological abundance is $10^5$ times smaller than DM, such that their unusual signals seem compatible with bounds. Those in the Earth and stars sank to their centers; the Earth crust and meteorites later accumulate a secondary abundance, although their present abundance depends on nuclear and geological properties that we cannot compute from first principles., Comment: 36 pages, 7 figures. v3: improved computation of the relic abundance; revised estimate of the indirect detection cross section

The diffusion of small low cost sensors has opened new opportunities for the design of real-time monitoring systems in several application fields. Internet of Things (IoT) is a new branch of Information Technology that connects several of these heterogeneous devices through different network protocols to provide large scale interoperability. In this paper we describe how some open source software tools can be integrated to collect, monitor and process streams of data received in real-time by sensor devices. The tools we have employed are the Things-Board platform to collect sensor data and the Spark Streaming framework for cluster computing to perform data analytics. The presented architecture can be exploited in various monitoring scenarios (such as clinical, environmental or energetic processes) to study the trend of some key parameters and also to produce alerts in case of problematic situations. Without loss of generality, we focus on biomedical data about the breath of patients affected by chronic respiratory disease: real-time monitoring of breath parameters enables automatic ventilotherapy and allows also to warn doctors in time in severe cases.

Aim of this work was to study the perception of affordances in VR according to a cognitive neuroscience. In order to investigate this topic we focused our analysis on the perception of affordances during a game, the Leap Motion Controller (LM). The sample was composed of 10 university students matched by age and sex. The subjects performed in Thinking training and in Immersive Affordance Condition (a virtual training with LM and a Real training). After each training the subject had to perform a recognition task. During the task ERP components were measured through EEG. The results highlighted that, during the LM training, attentional components changed. In the occipital lobes, which is entrusted to visual sensory, we got increased latencies; on the contrary, in frontal lobe, where the brain mainly activates for attention and action planning, we got decreased latencies.

P2P streaming systems exploit the high scalability of P2P networks to propagate multimedia streams to wide areas in a distributed fashion. A P2P network is made up of several logic connections among peer nodes, which can form a mesh or a tree overlay. Interactive real-time streaming imposes very strict delay constraints: in e-learning environments, for instance, only a high level of synchrony with the live event may allow users to ask questions in real-time to the lecture speaker. Despite their resilience to peer churning, mesh overlays are affected by a high and variable delay, which hampers their adoption in interactive applications. Playback discontinuity, caused by missing chunks, may be a serious problem too, since it may compromise the speech understanding. On the contrary, multi-tree MDC-based overlays can guarantee a smooth playback continuity, since a stream can be fluently reproduced also when some descriptions are lost. The queuing and the elaboration delay of the nodes should be kept under control to reduce the overall end-to-end delay on each tree branch. In this work we describe a framework for the construction of reliable tree overlays: we designed a smooth switch-to-fallback mechanism to quickly replace nodes leaving the overlay, a channel for packet recovery and a very efficient engine that collects MDC descriptions coming from parent nodes. The experimental data we reported in the last section reveal a low CPU usage and a very low elaboration delay in collecting MDC descriptions.

 Abstract—In spite of massive research efforts devoted to the advance of the technologies for large-scale live distribution of audio-video IP streams, no totally satisfying solutions seem to have emerged so far. CDNs are still expensive and P2P-TV systems face substantial delay limitations. As the deployment of a global terrestrial IP multicast infrastructure still looks far, turning the attention to satellite-based multicast would seem a sensible choice. However, the cost of such technology has been a stumbling block until now. That is where the CHARMS architecture comes in. It is designed to take advantage of the formidable properties of the satellite without requiring a generic user to install any sort of satellite receiver or dish. Its cornerstone is the recursive terrestrial relaying of satellite streams a number of properly equipped hosts are able to receive. The present paper relates about the results of the OpenSatRelaying project, aimed at the implementation and testing of the CHARMS architecture.

—Peer-to-peer streaming is a well-known technology for the large-scale distribution of audio/video contents. Its widespread adoption derives from the possibility of having a good scalability without the need for the deployment of expensive infrastructures such as Content Delivery Networks (CDNs). We think real-time streaming of lessons could open new interesting opportunities in e-learning systems by encouraging interactivity between teachers and learners. Delay requirements are very strict in interactive e-learning scenarios, where playback lag between the event in the real world and the received audio/video should not exceed a few seconds. Only a very short delay would allow students to ask questions during the lesson. At the same time, playback continuity is a key aspect too, since holes in the stream reproduction could seriously compromise the understanding of lectures. In this paper we compared some solutions that try to overcome the limitations of traditional mesh-based P2P systems, which are usually affected by long and unpredictable delays. We finally tried to outline which of the analyzed solutions appears the most suitable one to meet e-learning requirements.

Native IP multicast would be the best solution to distribute live streaming contents among various destinations since the real-time nature of such applications usually imposes strict delay constraints. Application Layer Multicast (ALM) platforms are emerging as a solution to overcome the well- known lack of a globally supported native multicast. Since the development of ALM applications is slowed by complexity and portability issues, we designed an open source C library framework that takes care of RTP/RTCP technical details and fosters a modular and higher level design. Besides it frees ALM developers from spending time in porting operations from Unix to Windows operating systems.