The Light and Period Variations of the Eclipsing Binary BX Draconis

New CCD photometric observations of BX Dra were obtained for 26 nights from 2009 April to 2010 June. The long-term photometric behaviors of the system are presented from detailed studies of the period and light variations, based on the historical data and our new observations. All available light curves display total eclipses at secondary minima and inverse O'Connell effects with Max I fainter than Max II, which are satisfactorily modeled by adding the slightly time-varying hot spot on the primary star. A total of 87 times of minimum light spanning over about 74 yrs, including our 22 timing measurements, were used for ephemeris computations. Detailed analysis of the O-C diagram showed that the orbital period has changed in combinations with an upward parabola and a sinusoidal variation. The continuous period increase with a rate of +5.65 \times 10^-7 d yr^-1 is consistent with that calculated from the Wilson-Devinney synthesis code. It can be interpreted as a mass transfer from the secondary to the primary star at a rate of 2.74 \times 10^-7 M\odot yr^-1, which is one of the largest rates for contact systems. The most likely explanation of the sinusoidal variation with a period of 30.2 yrs and a semi-amplitude of 0.0062 d is a light-traveltime effect due to the existence of a circumbinary object. We suggest that BX Dra is probably a triple system, consisting of a primary star with a spectral type of F0, its secondary component of spectral type F1-2, and an unseen circumbinary object with a minimum mass of M3 = 0.23 M\odot.Comment: 24 pages, including 5 figures and 9 tables, accepted for publication in PAS

An Efficient Algorithm for VC-1 to H.264 Video Transcoding in Progressive Compression

The high definition video adoption has been growing rapidly for the last two years. The two high definition DVD formats HD-DVD and Blueray have mandated MPEG-2, H.264 and VC-1 as video compression formats. The coexistence of these different video coding standards creates a need for transcoding. In this paper, an efficient transcoding algorithm from VC-1 video to H.264 video is discussed. While there has been recent work on MPEG-2 to H.264 transcoding, the published work on VC-1 to H.264 transcoding is non-existent. There is very limited amount of published work on VC-1. This paper gives a brief overview of VC-1 and discusses the opportunities for low-complexit

MR Imaging of Shaken Baby Syndrome Manifested as Chronic Subdural Hematoma

Shaken baby syndrome (SBS) is a form of child abuse that can cause significant head injuries, of which subdural hematoma (SDH) is the most common manifestation. We report the MRI findings of chronic SDH in three cases of SBS, involving two-, three- and eight-month-old babies. The SDH signal was mostly low on T1-weighted images and high on T2-weighted images, suggesting chronic SDH. In chronic SDH, a focal high signal on T1-weighted images was also noted, suggesting rebleeding. Contrast-enhanced MRI revealed diffuse dural enhancement

Toward an Evaluation Model of User Experiences on Virtual Reality Indoor Bikes

This paper deals with deriving a model or framework to evaluate user experiences (UX) of virtual reality (VR) systems, especially, VR indoor bikes which are under construction. Recently, VR is one of the most appealing areas attracting people’s interests around the world. Many products armed with it increasingly emerge on the market, and it is expected that the use of VR systems will continue to increase sharply in the future. However, UX of such products cannot be evaluated appropriately at the moment due to a lack of proper evaluation models. In a broad sense, UX that may stem from human machine interface in ergonomics covers affect, usability, and user value in spite of some differences in definition among the researchers. While evaluations of UX on the products without VR have been overall justifiably performed, UX has been evaluated neither systematically nor strictly on the products with VR. Through the analyses of expert reviews, we newly identify an additional component and its elements, and modify some elements of the three existing components for evaluating UX on the VR systems. As a result, we propose a comprehensive evaluation model of UX, which consists of four factors: usability, affect, user value, and presence feeling. In addition, we determine the components and their elements for specific VR indoor bikes similarly through the analyses of expert surveys and focus-group discussions, which results in developing a questionnaire for users. Finally, along with the questionnaire, we propose a specific evaluation model for VR indoor bikes