The proliferation of high resolution and affordable virtual reality (VR) headsets is quickly making room-scale VR experiences available in our homes. Most VR experiences strive to achieve complete immersion by creating a disconnect from the real world. However, due to the lack of a standardized notification management system and minimal context awareness in VR, an immersed user may face certain situations such as missing an important phone call (digital scenario), tripping over wandering pets (physical scenario), or losing track of time (temporal scenario). In this paper, we present the results of 1) a survey across 61 VR users to understand common interruptions and scenarios that would benefit from some form of notifications; 2) a design exercise with VR professionals to explore possible notification methods; and 3) an empirical study on the noticeability and perception of 5 different VR interruption scenarios across 6 modality combinations (e.g., audio, visual, haptic, audio + haptic, visual + haptic, and audio + visual) implemented in Unity and presented using the HTC Vive headset. Finally, we combine key learnings from each of these steps along with participant feedback to present a set of observations and recommendations for notification design in VR.

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Resumen El presente estudio tiene como objetivo modelar un sistema predictivo de retención de los estudiantes de primer año de la Universidad Bernardo O´Higgins - UBO (Santiago de Chile), determinando cuáles de las variables de entrada a la educación superior, ya sean estas académicas, sociales o familiares, se revelan significativas para este análisis. La construcción del modelo de investigación se sustentó en una exhaustiva revisión bibliográfica que permitió identificar variables explicativas de la deserción universitaria en el contexto nacional. Luego, a partir de la sistematización de antecedentes socioeducativos de los estudiantes de las cohortes 2014 y 2015 disponibles en los sistemas informáticos de la universidad, se consolidó una matriz tripartita con los datos asociados a las variables que emergieron del análisis de los referentes consultados. Consecuentemente, se analizó la relación de cada una de las variables explicativas del estudio con la variable control deserción estudiantil. El análisis bivariado permitió identificar diecisiete variables, significativamente asociadas con la deserción estudiantil y precisar las relaciones de dependencia con el abandono de estudios. El modelo multivariado predijo en un 86,4 % la conducta de abandono señalando siete variables categóricas independientes que, finalmente, se develan como factores relevantes del modelo predicción. Las variadas y sustentadas interpretaciones entregadas en los resultados del modelo, así como las sugerencias propuestas para mejorar el índice de retención universitaria, entregan un valor directo al estudio dirigido a optimizar uno de los indicadores más importantes vinculados a una gestión de calidad en las universidades, como es, la retención estudiantil.

Augmented Reality (AR) technology creates new immersive experiences in entertainment, games, education, retail, and social media. AR content is often primarily visual and it is challenging to enable access to it non-visually due to the mix of virtual and real-world content. In this paper, we identify common constituent tasks in AR by analyzing existing mobile AR applications for iOS, and characterize the design space of tasks that require accessible alternatives. For each of the major task categories, we create prototype accessible alternatives that we evaluate in a study with 10 blind participants to explore their perceptions of accessible AR. Our study demonstrates that these prototypes make AR possible to use for blind users and reveals a number of insights to move forward. We believe our work sets forth not only exemplars for developers to create accessible AR applications, but also a roadmap for future research to make AR comprehensively accessible. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Human computer interaction (HCI); Accessibility technologies; Mixed / augmented reality.

Audio descriptions make videos accessible to those who cannot see them by describing visual content in audio. Producing audio descriptions is challenging due to the synchronous nature of the audio description that must fit into gaps of other video content. An experienced audio description author will produce content that fits narration necessary to understand, enjoy, or experience the video content into the time available. This can be especially tricky for novices to do well. In this paper, we introduce a tool, Rescribe, that helps authors create and refine their audio descriptions. Using Rescribe, authors first create a draft of all the content they would like to include in the audio description. Rescribe then uses a dynamic programming approach to optimize between the length of the audio description, available automatic shortening approaches, and source track lengthening approaches. Authors can iteratively visualize and refine the audio descriptions produced by Rescribe, working in concert with the tool. We evaluate the effectiveness of Rescribe through interviews with blind and visually impaired audio description users who give feedback on Rescribe results. In addition, we invite novice users to create audio descriptions with Rescribe and another tool, finding that users produce audio descriptions with fewer placement errors using Rescribe.

A complex biologic network regulates kidney perfusion under physiologic conditions. This system is profoundly perturbed following renal ischemia, a leading cause of acute kidney injury (AKI) -a life-threatening condition that frequently complicates the care of hospitalized patients. Therapeutic approaches to prevent and treat AKI are extremely limited. Better understanding of the molecular pathways promoting postischemic reflow could provide new candidate targets for AKI therapeutics. Due to its role in adapting tissues to hypoxia, we hypothesized that extracellular adenosine has a regulatory function in the postischemic control of renal perfusion. Consistent with the notion that equilibrative nucleoside transporters (ENTs) terminate adenosine signaling, we observed that pharmacologic ENT inhibition in mice elevated renal adenosine levels and dampened AKI. Deletion of the ENTs resulted in selective protection in Ent1 -/-mice. Comprehensive examination of adenosine receptor-knockout mice exposed to AKI demonstrated that renal protection by ENT inhibitors involves the A2B adenosine receptor. Indeed, crosstalk between renal Ent1 and Adora2b expressed on vascular endothelia effectively prevented a postischemic no-reflow phenomenon. These studies identify ENT1 and adenosine receptors as key to the process of reestablishing renal perfusion following ischemic AKI. If translatable from mice to humans, these data have important therapeutic implications. IntroductionAcute kidney injury (AKI) is clinically defined by an abrupt reduction in kidney function (e.g., a decrease in glomerular filtration rate [GFR]), occurring over a period of minutes to days. AKI is frequently caused by an obstruction of renal blood flow (renal ischemia) and represents an important cause of morbidity and mortality of patients (1-3). Indeed, a recent study revealed that only a mild increase (0.3 mg/dl) in the serum creatinine level is associated with a 70% greater risk of death than in patients without this increase (2, 3). Particularly for surgical patients, AKI represents a significant threat. For example, surgical procedures requiring cross-clamping of the aorta and renal vessels are associated with a rate of AKI of up to 30% (4). Similarly, AKI after cardiac surgery occurs in up to 10% of patients under normal circumstances and is associated with dramatic increases in mortality (5). In addition, patients with sepsis frequently go on to develop AKI, and the combination of moder-

SynchroWatch is a one-handed interaction technique for smartwatches that uses rhythmic correlation between a user's thumb movement and on-screen blinking controls. Our technique uses magnetic sensing to track the synchronous extension and reposition of the thumb, augmented with a passive magnetic ring. The system measures the relative changes in the magnetic field induced by the required thumb movement and uses a time-shifted correlation approach with a reference waveform for detection of synchrony. We evaluated the technique during three distraction tasks with varying degrees of hand and finger movement: active walking, browsing on a computer, and relaxing while watching online videos. Our initial offline results suggest that intentional synchronous gestures can be distinguished from other movement. A second evaluation using a live implementation of the system running on a smartwatch suggests that this technique is viable for gestures used to respond to notifications or issue commands. Finally, we present three demonstration applications that highlight the technique running in real-time on the smartwatch.

Activity recognition in the home has been long recognized as the foundation for many desirable applications in fields such as home automation, sustainability, and healthcare. However, building a practical home activity monitoring system remains a challenge. Striking a balance between cost, privacy, ease of installation and scalability continues to be an elusive goal. In this paper, we explore infrastructure-mediated sensing combined with a vector space model learning approach as the basis of an activity recognition system for the home. We examine the performance of our single-sensor water-based system in recognizing eleven high-level activities in the kitchen and bathroom, such as cooking and shaving. Results from two studies show that our system can estimate activities with overall accuracy of 82.69% for one individual and 70.11% for a group of 23 participants. As far as we know, our work is the first to employ infrastructuremediated sensing for inferring high-level human activities in a home setting.