Aerospace medicine and biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes (supplement 382)

This bibliography lists 119 reports, articles, and other documents recently introduced into the NASA Scientific and Technical Information System. Subject coverage includes the following: aerospace medicine and physiology, life support systems and man/system technology, protective clothing, exobiology and extraterrestrial life, planetary biology, and flight crew behavior and performance

A white paper: NASA virtual environment research, applications, and technology

Research support for Virtual Environment technology development has been a part of NASA's human factors research program since 1985. Under the auspices of the Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology (OAST), initial funding was provided to the Aerospace Human Factors Research Division, Ames Research Center, which resulted in the origination of this technology. Since 1985, other Centers have begun using and developing this technology. At each research and space flight center, NASA missions have been major drivers of the technology. This White Paper was the joint effort of all the Centers which have been involved in the development of technology and its applications to their unique missions. Appendix A is the list of those who have worked to prepare the document, directed by Dr. Cynthia H. Null, Ames Research Center, and Dr. James P. Jenkins, NASA Headquarters. This White Paper describes the technology and its applications in NASA Centers (Chapters 1, 2 and 3), the potential roles it can take in NASA (Chapters 4 and 5), and a roadmap of the next 5 years (FY 1994-1998). The audience for this White Paper consists of managers, engineers, scientists and the general public with an interest in Virtual Environment technology. Those who read the paper will determine whether this roadmap, or others, are to be followed

Response surface methods applied to submarine concept exploration

CIVINS (Civilian Institutions) Thesis documentIt is estimated that 70 to 85 percent of a naval ship's life-cycle cost is determined during the concept exploration phase which places an importance in the methodology used by the designer to select the concept design. But trade-off studies are guided primarily by past experience, rules-of-thumb, and designer preference. This approach is ad hoc, not efficient and may not lead to an optimum concept design. Even worse, once the designer has a 'good' concept design, he has no process or methodology to determine whether a better concept design is possible or not. A methodology is required to search the design space for an optimal solution based on the specified preferences from the customer. But the difficulty is the design space, which is non-linear, discontinuous, and bounded by a variety of constraints, goals, and thresholds. Then the design process itself is difficult to optimize because of the coupling among decomposed engineering disciplines and sub-system interactions. These attributes prevent application of mature optimization techniques including Lagrange multipliers, steepest ascent methods, linear programming, non-linear programming, and dynamic programming. To further improve submarine concept exploration, this thesis examines a statistical technique called Response Surface Methods (RSM). The purpose of RSM is to lead to an understanding of the relationship between the input (factors) and Output (response) variables, often to further the optimization of the underlying process. The RSM approach allows the designers to find a local optimal and examine how the design factors affect the response in the region around the generated optimal point.http://archive.org/details/responsesurfacem1094510921CIVIN

Proceedings of the 1st European conference on disability, virtual reality and associated technologies (ECDVRAT 1996)

The proceedings of the conferenc

Sonic interactions in virtual environments

This book tackles the design of 3D spatial interactions in an audio-centered and audio-first perspective, providing the fundamental notions related to the creation and evaluation of immersive sonic experiences. The key elements that enhance the sensation of place in a virtual environment (VE) are: Immersive audio: the computational aspects of the acoustical-space properties of Virutal Reality (VR) technologies Sonic interaction: the human-computer interplay through auditory feedback in VE VR systems: naturally support multimodal integration, impacting different application domains Sonic Interactions in Virtual Environments will feature state-of-the-art research on real-time auralization, sonic interaction design in VR, quality of the experience in multimodal scenarios, and applications. Contributors and editors include interdisciplinary experts from the fields of computer science, engineering, acoustics, psychology, design, humanities, and beyond. Their mission is to shape an emerging new field of study at the intersection of sonic interaction design and immersive media, embracing an archipelago of existing research spread in different audio communities and to increase among the VR communities, researchers, and practitioners, the awareness of the importance of sonic elements when designing immersive environments

METROPOLITAN ENCHANTMENT AND DISENCHANTMENT. METROPOLITAN ANTHROPOLOGY FOR THE CONTEMPORARY LIVING MAP CONSTRUCTION

We can no longer interpret the contemporary metropolis as we did in the last century. The thought of civil economy regarding the contemporary Metropolis conflicts more or less radically with the merely acquisitive dimension of the behaviour of its citizens. What is needed is therefore a new capacity for imagining the economic-productive future of the city: hybrid social enterprises, economically sustainable, structured and capable of using technologies, could be a solution for producing value and distributing it fairly and inclusively. Metropolitan Urbanity is another issue to establish. Metropolis needs new spaces where inclusion can occur, and where a repository of the imagery can be recreated. What is the ontology behind the technique of metropolitan planning and management, its vision and its symbols? Competitiveness, speed, and meritocracy are political words, not technical ones. Metropolitan Urbanity is the characteristic of a polis that expresses itself in its public places. Today, however, public places are private ones that are destined for public use. The Common Good has always had a space of representation in the city, which was the public space. Today, the Green-Grey Infrastructure is the metropolitan city's monument that communicates a value for future generations and must therefore be recognised and imagined; it is the production of the metropolitan symbolic imagery, the new magic of the city