The future of housing and technology in Japan - the Connected Homes Group Study Tour.

-Future housing; future technology; Japan

Monitoring data in R with the lumberjack package

Monitoring data while it is processed and transformed can yield detailed insight into the dynamics of a (running) production system. The lumberjack package is a lightweight package allowing users to follow how an R object is transformed as it is manipulated by R code. The package abstracts all logging code from the user, who only needs to specify which objects are logged and what information should be logged. A few default loggers are included with the package but the package is extensible through user-defined logger objects.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Journal of Statistical Softwar

Moa and the multi-model architecture: a new perspective on XNF2

Advanced non-traditional application domains such as geographic information systems and digital library systems demand advanced data management support. In an effort to cope with this demand, we present the concept of a novel multi-model DBMS architecture which provides evaluation of queries on complexly structured data without sacrificing efficiency. A vital role in this architecture is played by the Moa language featuring a nested relational data model based on XNF2, in which we placed renewed interest. Furthermore, extensibility in Moa avoids optimization obstacles due to black-box treatment of ADTs. The combination of a mapping of queries on complexly structured data to an efficient physical algebra expression via a nested relational algebra, extensibility open to optimization, and the consequently better integration of domain-specific algorithms, makes that the Moa system can efficiently and effectively handle complex queries from non-traditional application domains

Are experienced drivers more likely than novice drivers to benefit from driving simulations with a wide field of view?

This study aimed to further our understanding of the impact of a restricted field of view on visual search and hazard perception, by comparing novice and experienced driver performance in a driving simulator as a function of the available field of view. Participants encountered a series of virtual hazards during their drive while viewing the world under narrow or wide field of view conditions. The results showed that all drivers were more likely to avoid the hazards when presented with a wide view, even though the hazards only occurred in an area of the screen that was visible in both the wide and narrow view conditions. Experienced drivers also tended to have fewer crashes, and this appeared to be related to a greater speed reduction 10 metres before the hazard. This speed reduction was greatest in the wide field of view condition suggesting that additional information from wider eccentricities was useful in safely navigating the hazardous events. Gaze movement recording revealed that only experienced drivers made overt use of wider eccentricities, and this was typically in advance of any visual cues that might help identify the hazard. This suggests that either early overt attention to wider eccentricities, or continuous covert attention to these extra-foveal regions on approach to the hazard, is responsible for the safer behaviour of experienced drivers when presented with a wide field of view. We speculate about the possible underlying mechanism and discuss possible consequences for HP tests

Communicating Mobile Processes

This paper presents a new model for mobile processes in occam-pi. A process, embedded anywhere in a dynamically evolving network, may suspend itself mid-execution, be safely disconnected from its local environment, moved (by communication along a channel), reconnected to a new environment and reactivated. Upon reactivation, the process resumes execution from the same state (i.e. data values and code positions) it held when it suspended. Its view of its environment is unchanged, since that is abstracted by its synchronisation (e.g. channels and barriers) interface and that remains constant. The environment behind that interface will (usually) be completely different. The mobile process itself may contain any number of levels of dynamic sub-network. This model is simpler and, in some ways, more powerful than our earlier proposal, which required a process to terminate before it could be moved. Its formal semantics and implementation, however, throw up extra challenges. We present details and performance of an initial implementation

RFCs, MOOs, LMSs: Assorted Educational Devices\ud

This paper discusses implicit social consequences of four basic internet protocols. The results are then related to the field of computer-assisted teaching. An educational on-line community is described and compared to the emerging standard of web-based learning management.\u

Community design studio: a collaboration of architects and psychologists

The 'Community Design Studio' was a programme of collaboration between two courses, one in architecture and the other in environmental psychology. It aimed to generate a creative dialogue identifying responsible and professionally informed plans for the renewal of an inner city area in Glasgow (Govanhill) in which community participation was an essentialingredient. The collaboration took the form of architecture students, as designers and environmental psychology students as consultants, communicating electronically between Guildford (University of Surrey) and Glasgow (University of Strathclyde) and then meeting for on-site project work in London and Glasgow. The local community in Glasgow was the client for the architecture students, as the commissioner of ideas for neighbourhood regeneration. This interdisciplinary collaboration took place over nine months and generated educational, social and professional capital and challenges for both groups of young professionals. It involved long-distance collaboration through a virtual-studio with limited direct contacts; the responsibility of dealing with a 'real' client; and the cultural diversity of the two disciplines with different curricula, philosophy, teaching styles and learning outcomes. This experience also suggests potential ways to overcome the obstacles encountered in professional/community as well as inter-disciplinary collaboration and cooperation, and advocates the educational and social utility of such collaboration