Virtual reality game to objectively detect ADHD

Aalto University

December 20, 2022

ADHD is a common attention disorder that affects around six percent of the world's children. Despite
decades of searching for objective markers, ADHD diagnosis is still based on questionnaires,
interviews and subjective observation. The results can be ambiguous, and standard behavioural
tests don't reveal how children manage everyday situations. Recently, a team consisting of
researchers from Aalto University, the University of Helsinki, and Åbo Akademi University developed
a virtual reality game called EPELI that can be used to assess ADHD symptoms in children by
simulating situations from everyday life.

Now, the team tracked the eye movements of children in a virtual reality game and used machine
learning to look for differences in children with ADHD. The new study involved 37 children diagnosed
with ADHD and 36 children in a control group. The children played EPELI and a second game,
Shoot the Target, in which the player is instructed to locate objects in the environment and "shoot"
them by looking at them. 

Solar-powered system converts plastic and

greenhouse gases into sustainable fuels

University of Cambridge

January 9, 2023

The reactor converts the carbon dioxide (CO2) and plastics into different products that are useful in a
range of industries. In tests, CO2 was converted into syngas, a key building block for sustainable
liquid fuels, and plastic bottles were converted into glycolic acid, which is widely used in the
cosmetics industry. The system can easily be tuned to produce different products by changing the
type of catalyst used in the reactor.

The team designed different catalysts, which were integrated into the light absorber. By changing the
catalyst, the researchers could then change the end product. Tests of the reactor under normal
temperature and pressure conditions showed that the reactor could efficiently convert PET plastic
bottles and CO2 into different carbon-based fuels such as CO, syngas or formate, in addition to
glycolic acid. The Cambridge-developed reactor produced these products at a rate that is also much
higher than conventional photocatalytic CO2 reduction processes.