Cognitive and psychological science insights to improve climate change data visualization

Visualization of climate data plays an integral role in the communication of climate change findings to both expert and non-expert audiences. The cognitive and psychological sciences can provide valuable insights into how to improve visualization of climate data based on knowledge of how the human brain processes visual and linguistic information. We review four key research areas to demonstrate their potential to make data more accessible to diverse audiences: directing visual attention, visual complexity, making inferences from visuals, and the mapping between visuals and language. We present evidence-informed guidelines to help climate scientists increase the accessibility of graphics to non-experts, and illustrate how the guidelines can work in practice in the context of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change graphics

Paired Graphics: An Exploratory Study of Graphicacy

Adults viewed 37 varied paired graphics derived from school science textbooks and explained meaningful aspects of each item. Verbal responses and eye tracking results indicated that participants understood most of the items and directed their attention to high relevance aspects of the graphics. Although some variables,such as the typicality of the graphic pairs appeared to influence comprehension, others such as content complexity seemed to have no effect. The findings will be used as baseline data for current studies of children’s approaches to paired graphics and more formal investigations of the nature of graphicacy

Graphicacy: Do Readers of Science Textbooks Need It?

In contrast to literacy and numeracy, graphicacy is under-explored. Yet it is not only linked to fundamental cognitive abilities, but is also important in all areas of instruction. This paper reports an analysis of the graphics that appear in K-12 science school books. The questions were the following: what skills might school students need to understand these graphics? Do books provide guidance or instructions to help students process these graphics? We found that many graphics required a high level of graphicacy, in terms of strategies and skills required to understand them. Moreover, strategic guidance or instructional help were rarely provided

Multi-scale mechanical characterization of the interface in 3D printed concrete

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Photovoltaic Solar Cells for Outdoor LiFi Communications

International audienceIncreasing demand of wireless devices contributes to radiofrequency (RF) congestion. Light Fidelity (LiFi) promises to be an interesting alternative by using the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum instead of the RF part as nearly all existing wireless transmission systems do. A basic LiFi system is composed of one intensity-controlled light-emitting diode (LED) and one receiver device sensitive to very high-frequency (thus invisible to human sight) modulations of the luminous intensity. In most cases, the photoreceptor is a silicon photodiode of PIN (P-type intrinsic N-type) or APD (Avalanche photodiode) conception. Recently, a few studies suggest that photovoltaic (PV) modules could be used to implement outdoor LiFi transmissions, i.e., under direct sunlight exposure. In this paper, we propose to compare the behavior of a PV module and a commercial APD-based photodetector (without any optical lens or colored filter) for experimental LiFi transmissions on both indoor and outdoor conditions. The performance of the two solutions is quantified in terms of various frequency responses like attenuation, signal-to-noise ratio, or bit-error rate. The results show that, while the photodiode exhibits very good performance in indoor conditions, its frequency response is rapidly deteriorating when a sunlight exposure of more than 200W/m 2 is superimposed over the LiFi signal. We demonstrate that a PV module in Voc (open-circuit voltage) condition still operates a LiFi transmission under additional solar illumination

Multi-technique physico-chemical characterization of particles generated by a gasoline engine: Towards measuring tailpipe emissions below 23 nm

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Multi-technique physico-chemical characterization of particles generated by a gasoline engine: Towards measuring tailpipe emissions below 23 nm

Particulate emissions from on-road motor vehicles are the focus of intensive current research due to the impact of the ambient particulate matter (PM) levels on climate and human health. Constant improvement in engine technology has led to significant decrease in the number and mass of emitted PM, but particular concern is raised nowadays by the ultrafine particles. In this context, there is a critical lack of certification procedures for the measurement of the smallest-size (<23 nm) particulate matter emissions. To support the engine development process as well as future certification procedures, a measurement technology for sub-23 nm particles must be designed. The development of a reliable measurement procedure entails understanding the formation and evolution of particles from the engine to the tailpipe via multiple analytical techniques and theoretical simulations. We present here extensive experimental characterization of ultrafine particles emitted by a gasoline direct injection single-cylinder engine as particle generator. The particles were sampled using a cascade impactor which allows size-separation into 13 different size bins. Chemical characterization of the collected size-selected particles was performed using mass spectrometry, which gives access to detailed molecular information on chemical classes of critical interest such as organosulphates, oxygenated hydrocarbons, nitrogenated hydrocarbons, metals, or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Additionally, the morphology of the emitted particles was probed with atomic force (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Tip-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (TERS) was applied for the first time to sub-10 nm combustion-generated particles to gather information on their nanostructure. The extensive database built from these multiple experimental characterizations has been used as input of a theoretical approach to simulate and validate engine out-emissions. These studies were performed in the framework of the H2020 PEMS4Nano project which aims to the development of a robust, reliable and reproducible measurement technology for particles down to 10 nm for both chassis dyno and real driving emissions (RDE)