Interactive Media for Cultural Heritage

Recently, the latest edited book I co-authored with colleagues from CYENS – Centre of Excellence and the University of Cyprus was published by Springer Series on Cultural Computing. The book is entitled ‘Interactive Media for Cultural Heritage’ and presents the full range of interactive media technologies and their applications in Digital Cultural Heritage. It offers a forum for interaction and collaboration among the interactive media and cultural heritage research communities.

The aim of this book is to provide a point of reference for the latest advancements in the different fields of interactive media applied in Digital Cultural Heritage research, ranging from visual data acquisition, classification, analysis and synthesis, 3D modelling and reconstruction, to new forms of interactive media presentation, visualization and immersive experience provision via extended reality, collaborative spaces, serious games and digital storytelling.

More information:

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-61018-9

Early Life Stress and Maladaptive Behavior

Adverse early experiences, such as parental neglect, abuse, the death of a loved one, or other traumatic events, are known to influence how humans will behave as adults. For instance, studies have found that victims of childhood abuse are at a higher risk of developing mood or conduct disorders characterized by altered social behaviors, such as aggressive, withdrawn or mistrustful tendencies. Shedding light on the link between early life stress and maladaptive behaviors could be of great value, as it could help to devise new interventions designed to educate parents, protect children from abuse, or support people who had adverse childhood experiences. Researchers at Icahn School of Medicine's Nash Family Department of Neuroscience and Friedman Brain Institute recently reviewed existing literature on this topic, particularly studies exploring the link between early life stress and aggressive behaviors in various animal species.

Researchers outline some of the primary findings that linked stress exposure early on in life with aggression in adulthood, both in humans, other mammals, and non-mammalian animal species. They observe that most animals displaying these behaviors appear to exhibit deficits in the processing of rewards. When they reviewed past studies, they found that chronic exposure to stressful events during early development can increase the level of corticosterone, a steroid that regulates stress responses, in many animal species, while also prompting changes in the expression of neurotransmitters and neuromodulators. In addition, adverse early experiences have been linked to alterations in the organization of various key brain regions, including the hypothalamus, hippocampus and amygdala, and their communication with parts of the brain that process rewards.

More information:

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-01-exploring-link-early-life-stress.html

BESC 2023 Keynote

On the 31^st October 2023, I gave a keynote at the 10^th International Conference on Behavioural and Social Computing (BESC 2023). The talk was entitled ‘Emerging Extended Reality Applications’ and showcased how XR technologies can be used for emerging application domains. Firstly, I introduced the main concepts and principles behind XR. This covered a brief overview of both software and hardware technologies but also adjacent technologies such as human-computer interaction and brain-computer interfaces.

In the second part, the talk demonstrated novel applications that have been experimentally used in laboratory environments but are expected to become the new standards in the broad field of computer science and engineering. Case studies cover research prototypes from several application domains ranging from education, cultural heritage, health, and psychology originating from different research funded projects such as XR4ED and imareculture EU projects.

More information:

http://besc-conf.org/2023/keynote-speakers

MultiTime Lab Talk 2023

On the 13^th of June 2023, I gave an invited talk at the which is part of the Department of Psychology at Panteion University, Athens Greece. The title of my talk was ‘Extended Reality: Theory and Applications’.

I gave first an overview of what is extended reality including the most characteristic technologies for visualization tracking and interaction design. The second part of my presentation included examples from my research ranging from embodiment, illusory touch, brain interaction, moral dilemmas and education.

More information:

https://argirovatakis.com/ArgiroVatakis/Welcome.html