Affordances and Feedback in Nuance-Oriented Interfaces

Virtual Environments (VEs) and perceptive user interfaces must deal with complex users and their modes of interaction. One way to approach this problem is to recognize users’ nuances (subtle conscious or unconscious actions). In exploring nuance-oriented interfaces, we attempted to let users work as they preferred without being biased by feedback or affordances in the system. The hope was that we would discover the users’ innate models of interaction. The results of two user studies were that users are guided not by any innate model but by affordances and feedback in the interface. So, without this guidance, even the most obvious and useful components of an interface will be ignored

How blockchain impacts cloud-based system performance: a case study for a groupware communication application

This paper examines the performance trade-off when implementing a blockchain architecture for a cloud-based groupware communication application. We measure the additional cloud-based resources and performance costs of the overhead required to implement a groupware collaboration system over a blockchain architecture. To evaluate our groupware application, we develop measuring instruments for testing scalability and performance of computer systems deployed as cloud computing applications. While some details of our groupware collaboration application have been published in earlier work, in this paper we reflect on a generalized measuring method for blockchain-enabled applications which may in turn lead to a general methodology for testing cloud-based system performance and scalability using blockchain. Response time and transaction throughput metrics are collected for the blockchain implementation against the non-blockchain implementation and some conclusions are drawn about the additional resources that a blockchain architecture for a groupware collaboration application impose

A survey on data integration for multi-omics sample clustering

Due to the current high availability of omics, data-driven biology has greatly expanded, and several papers have reviewed state-of-the-art technologies. Nowadays, two main types of investigation are available for a multi-omics dataset: extraction of relevant features for a meaningful biological interpretation and clustering of the samples. In the latter case, a few reviews refer to some outdated or no longer available methods, whereas others lack the description of relevant clustering metrics to compare the main approaches. This work provides a general overview of the major techniques in this area, divided into four groups: graph, dimensionality reduction, statistical and neural-based. Besides, eight tools have been tested both on a synthetic and a real biological dataset. An extensive performance comparison has been provided using four clustering evaluation scores: Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR), Davies-Bouldin(DB) index, Silhouette value and the harmonic mean of cluster purity and efficiency. The best results were obtained by using the dimensionality reduction, either explicitly or implicitly, as in the neural architecture

Joint and individual analysis of breast cancer histologic images and genomic covariates

A key challenge in modern data analysis is understanding connections between complex and differing modalities of data. For example, two of the main approaches to the study of breast cancer are histopathology (analyzing visual characteristics of tumors) and genetics. While histopathology is the gold standard for diagnostics and there have been many recent breakthroughs in genetics, there is little overlap between these two fields. We aim to bridge this gap by developing methods based on Angle-based Joint and Individual Variation Explained (AJIVE) to directly explore similarities and differences between these two modalities. Our approach exploits Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) as a powerful, automatic method for image feature extraction to address some of the challenges presented by statistical analysis of histopathology image data. CNNs raise issues of interpretability that we address by developing novel methods to explore visual modes of variation captured by statistical algorithms (e.g. PCA or AJIVE) applied to CNN features. Our results provide many interpretable connections and contrasts between histopathology and genetics

Towards Actionable Visualization for Software Developers

Abundant studies have shown that visualization is advantageous for software developers, yet adopting visualization during software development is not a common practice due to the large effort involved in finding an appropriate visualization. Developers require support to facilitate that task. Among 368 papers in SOFTVIS/VISSOFT venues, we identify 86 design study papers about the application of visualization to relieve concerns in software development. We extract from these studies the task, need, audience, data source, representation, medium and tool; and we characterize them according to the subject, process and problem domain. On the one hand, we support software developers to put visualization in action by mapping existing visualization techniques to particular needs from different perspectives. On the other hand, we highlight the problem domains that are overlooked in the field and need more support

Preserving Local Character for Sustainable Tourism Development: National Park of Theth as a Case study

This paper studies the physic/architectural character in National Park of Theth, considering it as a tourist attraction of special importance. Despite the contextual qualities typical of this alpine area, the actual construction character in Theth is changing in relation to local architecture, which requires more attention and research. The purpose of this paper is to determine whether new development design in the tourism destinations making local character count and whether including of local community in this process, can contribute positive to physical attractive environments. The objectives of the study are analyzing the local architectural character of Thethi region, which is one of the most important protected and tourism areas in Albania, and offering to be applied in Theth of a model of international experiences of engaging local people in constructive debate about local character preservation in the new development design in a place. To realize this study, authors used the information obtained from published material and also from made the observation of the situation in the Theth region regarding the physical/architectural character of its. The study was undertaken by following some logical steps. First, it explains the concept of sustainable tourism development and the concept of local character. Also, the paper argues necessity of preserving local character and involvement of local people in new development design of area for sustainable tourism. Then, the paper passed to assessment of local physic/architectural character of area and the problems shown to preservation of its in Theth. The paper presents a model to apply in Theth from international experience of engaging local people in constructive debate about how to help ensure that new development design in their area fits its surroundings and is in keeping with local character of the areas in which they live. Finally the paper gives conclusion of authors about the issue in the study for the preservation of local character in the alpine area of Thethi as we try to realize the concept of sustainable tourism development

Programmiersprachen und Rechenkonzepte

Seit 1984 veranstaltet die GI--Fachgruppe 2.1.4 "Programmiersprachen und Rechenkonzepte", die aus den ehemaligen Fachgruppen 2.1.3 "Implementierung von Programmiersprachen" und 2.1.4 "Alternative Konzepte für Sprachen und Rechner" hervorgegangen ist, regelmäßi g im Frühjahr einen Workshop im Physikzentrum Bad Honnef. Das Treffen dient in erster Linie dem gegenseitigen Kennenlernen, dem Erfahrungsaustausch, der Diskussion und der Vertiefung gegenseitiger Kontakte