83,115 research outputs found
Gestalt Theory in Visual Screen Design — A New Look at an old subject
Although often presented as a single basis for educational visual screen design, Gestalt theory is not a single small set of visual principles uniformly applied by all designers. In fact, it appears that instructional visual design literature often deals with only a small set of Gestalt laws. In this project Gestalt literature was consulted to distil the most relevant Gestalt laws for educational visual screen design. Eleven laws were identified. They deal with balance/symmetry, continuation, closure, figure-ground, focal point, isomorphic correspondence, prÅ gnanz, proximity, similarity, simplicity, and unity/harmony. To test the usefulness of these laws in visual screen design they were applied to the redesign of an instructional multimedia application, 'WoundCare', designed to teach nursing students wound management. The basic text-based screens in the original WoundCare application were replaced with graphical user interface screens, that were designed according to these principles. The new screen designs were then evaluated by asking students and others to compare the designs. The viewers were also asked to rate directly the value of using the eleven Gestalt design principles in the redesign, both for improving the product's appearance and improving its value for learning. The evaluation results were overwhelmingly positive. Both the new design and the value of applying the eleven Gestalt laws to improve learning were strongly supported by the students' opinions. However, some differences in the value of applying particular Gestalt laws to the interface design were identified and this forms a useful direction for future research
Fitting Precision Electroweak Data with Exotic Heavy Quarks
The 1999 precision electroweak data from LEP and SLC persist in showing some
slight discrepancies from the assumed standard model, mostly regarding and
quarks. We show how their mixing with exotic heavy quarks could result in a
more consistent fit of all the data, including two unconventional
interpretations of the top quark.Comment: 7 pages, no figure, 2 typos corrected, 1 reference update
Photonic quantum transport in a nonlinear optical fiber
We theoretically study the transmission of few-photon quantum fields through a strongly nonlinear optical medium. We develop a general approach to investigate nonequilibrium quantum transport of bosonic fields through a finite-size nonlinear medium and apply it to a recently demonstrated experimental system where cold atoms are loaded in a hollow-core optical fiber. We show that when the interaction between photons is effectively repulsive, the system acts as a single-photon switch. In the case of attractive interaction, the system can exhibit either antibunching or bunching, associated with the resonant excitation of bound states of photons by the input field. These effects can be observed by probing statistics of photons transmitted through the nonlinear fiber
Rank-ordered Multifractal Spectrum for Intermittent Fluctuations
We describe a new method that is both physically explicable and
quantitatively accurate in describing the multifractal characteristics of
intermittent events based on groupings of rank-ordered fluctuations. The
generic nature of such rank-ordered spectrum leads it to a natural connection
with the concept of one-parameter scaling for monofractals. We demonstrate this
technique using results obtained from a 2D MHD simulation. The calculated
spectrum suggests a crossover from the near Gaussian characteristics of small
amplitude fluctuations to the extreme intermittent state of large rare events.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure
Experimental atmospheric absorption values from aircraft flyover noise signals
Analysis of aircraft noise recordings to determine experimental values of atmospheric sound absorptio
Intensity dependences of the nonlinear optical excitation of plasmons in graphene
Recently, we demonstrated an all-optical coupling
scheme for plasmons, which takes advantage of the
intrinsic nonlinear optical response of graphene.
Frequency mixing using free-space, visible light
pulses generates surface plasmons in a planar
graphene sample, where the phase matching
condition can define both the wavevector and energy
of surface waves and intraband transitions. Here,
we also show that the plasmon generation process is
strongly intensity-dependent, with resonance features
washed out for absorbed pulse fluences greater than
0.1 J m−2. This implies a subtle interplay between the
nonlinear generation process and sample heating. We
discuss these effects in terms of a non-equilibrium
charge distribution using a two-temperature model.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft
Effects of viscosity and external constraints on wave transmission in blood vessels
Viscosity and external constraints studied for effects on wave transmission in blood vessel
Study of providing omnidirectional vibration isolation to entire space shuttle payload packages
Techniques to provide omnidirectional vibration isolation for a space shuttle payload package were investigated via a reduced-scale model. Development, design, fabrication, assembly and test evaluation of a 0.125-scale isolation model are described. Final drawings for fabricated mechanical components are identified, and prints of all drawings are included
Solubility of Sulfur Dioxide in Sulfuric Acid
The solubility of sulfur dioxide in 50% (wt./wt.) sulfuric acid was evaluated by regular solution theory, and the results verified by experimental measurements in the temperature range of 25 C to 70 C at pressures of 60 to 200 PSIA. The percent (wt./wt.) of sulfur dioxide in 50% (wt./wt.) sulfuric acid is given by the equation %SO2 = 2.2350 + 0.0903P - 0.00026P 10 to the 2nd power with P in PSIA
Strong coupling of single emitters to surface plasmons
We propose a method that enables strong, coherent coupling between individual
optical emitters and electromagnetic excitations in conducting nano-structures.
The excitations are optical plasmons that can be localized to sub-wavelength
dimensions. Under realistic conditions, the tight confinement causes optical
emission to be almost entirely directed into the propagating plasmon modes via
a mechanism analogous to cavity quantum electrodynamics. We first illustrate
this result for the case of a nanowire, before considering the optimized
geometry of a nanotip. We describe an application of this technique involving
efficient single-photon generation on demand, in which the plasmons are
efficiently out-coupled to a dielectric waveguide. Finally we analyze the
effects of increased scattering due to surface roughness on these
nano-structures.Comment: 34 pages, 7 figure
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