THE TALE OF TWO TRAVERSES Innovation and Accumulation in the First Two Centuries of U.S. Economic Growth

Both the macroeconomic and the microeconomic evidence from U. S. economy’s experience over the past two centuries leads to a view of technological change (broadly conceived) as having not been “neutral” in its effects upon growth. The specific meaning of “non-neutrality” in this context is that technical and organizational innovation had effects upon the derived demands for factors of production, and these tended to alter the relative prices of the heterogeneous array of productive assets in the economy. By directly and indirectly impinging on relative real rates of remuneration established in the markets for particular types of human labor and skill, and for the services of specific tangible and intangible capital, “technological change” altered key conditions governing the absolute and relative growth rates of the various macroeconomic factors of production. On the other hand, because innovation exhibited strong cumulative features reflecting the influence of “localized learning,” past domestic factor market conditions exerted a persisting influence upon the globally non-neutral trajectory of American technological and organizational development. This essay thus explores two broad and related historical themes. Firstly, the non- neutrality of the impacts of innovations on the demand side of the markets for productive inputs implies that “innovation” should be understood as contributing to complex interactions among all the proximate “sources of growth.” Even though the latter are usually presented by exercises in “growth accounting” as distinct and separate dynamic elements contributing to the rise of labor productivity and per capita real output, the identification of the total factor productivity “residual” as the “contribution” of technological change is mistaken in ignoring the quantitatively important effect of successive capital- deepening “traverses” to the growth of labor productivity. The second theme underscores a fundamental contrast between the twentieth and the nineteenth century growth processes, in regard to the impacts of the predominant “bias” of the direction of innovation: the relative shift away from the accumulation of stocks of tangible reproducible capital and towards the formation of intangible productive assets by in investments in education, training and the search for new scientific and technological knowledge.

Tangible user interfaces : past, present and future directions

In the last two decades, Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) have emerged as a new interface type that interlinks the digital and physical worlds. Drawing upon users' knowledge and skills of interaction with the real non-digital world, TUIs show a potential to enhance the way in which people interact with and leverage digital information. However, TUI research is still in its infancy and extensive research is required in or- der to fully understand the implications of tangible user interfaces, to develop technologies that further bridge the digital and the physical, and to guide TUI design with empirical knowledge. This paper examines the existing body of work on Tangible User In- terfaces. We start by sketching the history of tangible user interfaces, examining the intellectual origins of this field. We then present TUIs in a broader context, survey application domains, and review frame- works and taxonomies. We also discuss conceptual foundations of TUIs including perspectives from cognitive sciences, phycology, and philoso- phy. Methods and technologies for designing, building, and evaluating TUIs are also addressed. Finally, we discuss the strengths and limita- tions of TUIs and chart directions for future research

Assessing Distance Perception In Virtual And Augmented Realities With Electroencephalography

A comfinding in spatial perception research is that subjects tend to underestimate distances in virtual reality compared to the real world. The degree and methods of measurement of underestimation vary between studies, but the trend of underestimation is consistent. This study uses electroencephalography as a neuroimaging technique to examine patterns of brain activity when fixating objects in near space and far space in the real world, in virtual reality, and in augmented reality. For the augmented reality condition, a custom optical see-through augmented reality head-mounted display (HMD) was built and calibrated. A calibration method was developed to correct the geometric distortion introduced by the HMD\u27s optical combiners. This method also calibrates a motion tracker mounted on the HMD to allow for tracking of head movements

From Sensor to Observation Web with Environmental Enablers in the Future Internet

This paper outlines the grand challenges in global sustainability research and the objectives of the FP7 Future Internet PPP program within the Digital Agenda for Europe. Large user communities are generating significant amounts of valuable environmental observations at local and regional scales using the devices and services of the Future Internet. These communities’ environmental observations represent a wealth of information which is currently hardly used or used only in isolation and therefore in need of integration with other information sources. Indeed, this very integration will lead to a paradigm shift from a mere Sensor Web to an Observation Web with semantically enriched content emanating from sensors, environmental simulations and citizens. The paper also describes the research challenges to realize the Observation Web and the associated environmental enablers for the Future Internet. Such an environmental enabler could for instance be an electronic sensing device, a web-service application, or even a social networking group affording or facilitating the capability of the Future Internet applications to consume, produce, and use environmental observations in cross-domain applications. The term ?envirofied? Future Internet is coined to describe this overall target that forms a cornerstone of work in the Environmental Usage Area within the Future Internet PPP program. Relevant trends described in the paper are the usage of ubiquitous sensors (anywhere), the provision and generation of information by citizens, and the convergence of real and virtual realities to convey understanding of environmental observations. The paper addresses the technical challenges in the Environmental Usage Area and the need for designing multi-style service oriented architecture. Key topics are the mapping of requirements to capabilities, providing scalability and robustness with implementing context aware information retrieval. Another essential research topic is handling data fusion and model based computation, and the related propagation of information uncertainty. Approaches to security, standardization and harmonization, all essential for sustainable solutions, are summarized from the perspective of the Environmental Usage Area. The paper concludes with an overview of emerging, high impact applications in the environmental areas concerning land ecosystems (biodiversity), air quality (atmospheric conditions) and water ecosystems (marine asset management)

A dramaturgy of intermediality: composing with integrative design

The thesis investigates and develops a compositional system on intermediality in theatre and performance as a dramaturgical practice through integrative design. The position of the visual/sonic media in theatre and performance has been altered by the digitalisation and networking of media technologies, which enables enhanced dynamic variables in the intermedial processes. The emergent intermediality sites are made accessible by developments in media technologies and form part of broader changes towards a mediatised society: a simultaneous shift in cultural contexts, theatre practice and audience perception. The practice-led research is situated within a postdramatic context and develops a system of compositional perspectives and procedures to enhance the knowledge of a dramaturgy on intermediality. The intermediality forms seem to re-situate the actual/virtual relations in theatre and re-construct the processes of theatricalisation in the composition of the stage narrative. The integration of media and performers produces a compositional environment of semiosis, where the theatre becomes a site of narration, and the designed integration in-between medialities emerges as intermediality sites in the performance event. A selection of performances and theatre directors is identified, who each in distinct ways integrate mediating technologies as a core element in their compositional design. These directors and performances constitute a source of reflection on compositional strategies from the perspective of practice, and enable comparative discussions on dramaturgical design and the consistency of intermediality sites. The practice-led research realised a series of prototyping processes situated in performance laboratories in 2004-5. The laboratories staged investigations into the relation between integrative design procedures and parameters for composition of intermediality sites, particularly the relative presence in-between the actual and the virtual, and the relative duration and distance in-between timeness and placeness. The integration of performer activities and media operations into dramaturgical structures were developed as a design process of identifying the mapping and experiencing the landscape through iterative prototyping. The developed compositional concepts and strategies were realised in the prototype performance Still I Know Who I Am, performed October 2006. This final research performance was a full-scale professional production, which explored the developed dramaturgical designs through creative practice. The performance was realised as a public event, and composed of a series of scenes, each presenting a specific composite of the developed integrative design strategies, and generating a particular intermediality site. The research processes in the performance laboratories and the prototype performance developed on characteristics, parameters and procedures of compositional strategies, investigating the viability of a dramaturgy of intermediality through integrative design. The practice undertaken constitutes raw material from which the concepts are drawn and underpins the premises for the theoretical reflections