Using virtual worlds as collaborative environments for innovation and design: lessons learned and observations from case studies in architectural projects

In this paper we discuss observations and lessons learned in conducting architectural design projects in virtual worlds. By integrating a community of users in virtual worlds into a collaborative architectural design process, organisations can tap the community's creativity and intelligence through immersive technology. The paper provides an overview of the latest advances of information and communication technologies in immersive virtual environments and discusses some of the observations and lessons learned which should be taken into account in developing collaboration models for such activities. Here we propose four modes of collaboration, based on the choices for degree of openness and governance structure, which are illustrated by four case studies

Strategic style change using grammar transformations

New styles can be created by modifying existing ones. In order to formalize style change using grammars, style has to be formally defined in the design language of a grammar. Previous studies in the use of grammars for style change do not give explicit rationale for transformation. How would designers decide which rules to modify in a grammar to generate necessary changes in style(s) of designs? This paper addresses the aforementioned issues by presenting a framework for strategic style change using goal-driven grammar transformations. The framework employs a style description scheme constructed by describing the aesthetic qualities of grammar elements using adjectival descriptors. We present techniques for the formal definition of style in the designs generated by grammars. The utility of the grammar transformation framework and the style description scheme is tested with an example of mobile phone design. Analyses reveal that constraining rules in grammars is a valid technique for generating designs with a dominance of desired adjectival descriptors, thus aiding in strategic style change

Febrile Response and Decrease in Circulating Lymphocytes Following Acute Infection of White-Tailed Deer Fawns with Either a BVDV1 or a BVDV2 Strain

Although commonly associated with infection in cattle, bovine viral diarrhea viruses (BVDV) also replicate in many domestic and wildlife species, including cervids. Bovine viral diarrhea viruses have been isolated from a number of cervids, including mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), European roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), red deer (Cervus elaphus), white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), and mouse deer (Tragulus javanicus), but little information is available regarding clinical presentation and progression of infection in these species. In preliminary studies of experimental infection of deer with BVDV, researchers noted seroconversion but no clinical signs. In this study, we infected white-tailed deer fawns that were negative for BVDV and for antibodies against BVDV, with either a type 1 or a type 2 BVDV that had been isolated from whitetailed deer. Fawns were monitored for changes in basal temperature, circulating lymphocytes, and platelets. The clinical progression following inoculation in these fawns was similar to that seen with BVDV infections in cattle and included fever and depletion of circulating lymphocytes. Because free-ranging cervid populations are frequently in contact with domestic cattle in the United States, possible transfer of BVDV between cattle and cervids has significant implications for proposed BVDV control programs

The GFCAT: a catalog of ultraviolet variables observed by GALEX with sub-minute resolution

We have performed the first systematic search of the full GALEX data archive for astrophysical variability on timescales of seconds to minutes by rebinning data across the whole mission to 30-second time resolution. The result is the GALEX Flare Catalog (GFCAT) which describes 1426 ultraviolet variable sources, including stellar flares, eclipsing binaries, $\delta$ Scuti and RR Lyrae variables, and Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). Many of these sources have never previously been identified as variable. We have also assembled a table of observations of ultraviolet flares and accompanying statistics and measurements, including energies, and of candidate eclipsing stars. This effort was enabled by a significantly-enhanced version of the gPhoton software for analyzing time-domain GALEX data; this gPhoton2 package is available to support follow-on efforts.Comment: accepted in ApJS; data available as a MAST High Level Science Product via https://dx.doi.org/10.17909/8d57-169

Design grammars as evaluation tools in the first year studio

This paper describes a teaching experience conducted and carried out as part of the coursework of first year students. The workshop is the third of three workshops planned to take place during the course of the first year studio, aimed at introducing new ways of thinking and introducing students to a new pattern of architectural education. The experiment was planned under the theme of “Evaluation” during the final stage. A grammatical approach was chosen to deliver the methodology in the design studio, based on shape grammars

Rare isotope production in statistical multifragmentation

Producing rare isotopes through statistical multifragmentation is investigated using the Mekjian method for exact solutions of the canonical ensemble. Both the initial fragmentation and the the sequential decay are modeled in such a way as to avoid Monte Carlo and thus provide yields for arbitrarily scarce fragments. The importance of sequential decay, exact particle-number conservation and the sensitivities to parameters such as density and temperature are explored. Recent measurements of isotope ratios from the fragmentation of different Sn isotopes are interpreted within this picture.Comment: 10 eps figure

New Time-Resolved, Multi-Band Flares In The GJ 65 System With gPhoton

Characterizing the distribution of flare properties and occurrence rates is important for understanding habitability of M dwarf exoplanets. The GALEX space telescope observed the GJ 65 system, composed of the active, flaring M stars BL Cet and UV Cet, for 15900 seconds (~4.4 hours) in two ultraviolet bands. The contrast in flux between flares and the photospheres of cool stars is maximized at ultraviolet wavelengths, and GJ 65 is the brightest and nearest flaring M dwarf system with significant GALEX coverage. It therefore represents the best opportunity to measure low energy flares with GALEX. We construct high cadence light curves from calibrated photon events and find 13 new flare events with NUV energies ranging from 10^28.5 - 10^29.5 ergs and recover one previously reported flare with an energy of 10^31 ergs. The newly reported flares are among the smallest M dwarf flares observed in the ultraviolet with sufficient time resolution to discern light curve morphology. The estimated flare frequency at these low energies is consistent with extrapolation from the distributions of higher-energy flares on active M dwarfs measured by other surveys. The largest flare in our sample is bright enough to exceed the local non-linearity threshold of the GALEX detectors, which precludes color analysis. However, we detect quasi-periodic pulsations (QPP) during this flare in both the FUV and NUV bands at a period of ~50 seconds, which we interpret as a modulation of the flare's chromospheric thermal emission through periodic triggering of reconnection by external MHD oscillations in the corona.Comment: 22 pages, 20 figures, Jupyter Python notebooks to reproduce figures and tables available on GitHub at https://github.com/MillionConcepts/gfcat_gj6

Assessing the skill of a high-resolution marine biophysical model using geostatistical analysis of mesoscale ocean chlorophyll variability from field observations and remote sensing

© The Author(s), 2021. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creaive Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Eveleth, R., Glover, D. M., Long, M. C., Lima, I. D., Chase, A. P., & Doney, S. C. . Assessing the skill of a high-resolution marine biophysical model using geostatistical analysis of mesoscale ocean chlorophyll variability from field observations and remote sensing. Frontiers in Marine Science, 8, (2021): 612764, https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.612764.High-resolution ocean biophysical models are now routinely being conducted at basin and global-scale, opening opportunities to deepen our understanding of the mechanistic coupling of physical and biological processes at the mesoscale. Prior to using these models to test scientific questions, we need to assess their skill. While progress has been made in validating the mean field, little work has been done to evaluate skill of the simulated mesoscale variability. Here we use geostatistical 2-D variograms to quantify the magnitude and spatial scale of chlorophyll a patchiness in a 1/10th-degree eddy-resolving coupled Community Earth System Model simulation. We compare results from satellite remote sensing and ship underway observations in the North Atlantic Ocean, where there is a large seasonal phytoplankton bloom. The coefficients of variation, i.e., the arithmetic standard deviation divided by the mean, from the two observational data sets are approximately invariant across a large range of mean chlorophyll a values from oligotrophic and winter to subpolar bloom conditions. This relationship between the chlorophyll a mesoscale variability and the mean field appears to reflect an emergent property of marine biophysics, and the high-resolution simulation does poorly in capturing this skill metric, with the model underestimating observed variability under low chlorophyll a conditions such as in the subtropics.This work was supported in part by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the North Atlantic Aerosol and Marine Ecosystems Study (NAAMES; NASA grant 80NSSC18K0018). The CESM project is supported by the National Science Foundation and the Office of Science (BER) of the United States Department of Energy. Computing resources were provided by the Climate Simulation Laboratory at NCAR’s Computational and Information Systems Laboratory (CISL), sponsored by the National Science Foundation and other agencies. This research was enabled by CISL compute and storage resources

Canonical and Microcanonical Distributions for Fermi Systems

Recursion relations are presented that allow exact calculation of canonical and microcanonical partition functions of degenerate Fermi systems, assuming no explicit two-body interactions. Calculations of the level density, sorted by angular momentum, are presented for Ni-56 are presented. The issue of treating unbound states is also addressed.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

The GALEX View of "Boyajian's Star" (KIC 8462852)

The enigmatic star KIC 8462852, informally known as "Boyajian's Star", has exhibited unexplained variability from both short timescale (days) dimming events, and years-long fading in the Kepler mission. No single physical mechanism has successfully explained these observations to date. Here we investigate the ultraviolet variability of KIC 8462852 on a range of timescales using data from the GALEX mission that occurred contemporaneously with the Kepler mission. The wide wavelength baseline between the Kepler and GALEX data provides a unique constraint on the nature of the variability. Using 1600 seconds of photon-counting data from four GALEX visits spread over 70 days in 2011, we find no coherent NUV variability in the system on 10-100 second or months timescales. Comparing the integrated flux from these 2011 visits to the 2012 NUV flux published in the GALEX-CAUSE Kepler survey, we find a 3% decrease in brightness for KIC 8462852. We find this level of variability is significant, but not necessarily unusual for stars of similar spectral type in the GALEX data. This decrease coincides with the secular optical fading reported by Montet & Simon (2016). We find the multi-wavelength variability is somewhat inconsistent with typical interstellar dust absorption, but instead favors a R$_V$ = 5.0 $\pm$ 0.9 reddening law potentially from circumstellar dust.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, ApJ Accepte