Fusion interfaces for tactical environments: An application of virtual reality technology

The term Fusion Interface is defined as a class of interface which integrally incorporates both virtual and nonvirtual concepts and devices across the visual, auditory, and haptic sensory modalities. A fusion interface is a multisensory virtually-augmented synthetic environment. A new facility has been developed within the Human Engineering Division of the Armstrong Laboratory dedicated to exploratory development of fusion interface concepts. This new facility, the Fusion Interfaces for Tactical Environments (FITE) Facility is a specialized flight simulator enabling efficient concept development through rapid prototyping and direct experience of new fusion concepts. The FITE Facility also supports evaluation of fusion concepts by operation fighter pilots in an air combat environment. The facility is utilized by a multidisciplinary design team composed of human factors engineers, electronics engineers, computer scientists, experimental psychologists, and oeprational pilots. The FITE computational architecture is composed of twenty-five 80486-based microcomputers operating in real-time. The microcomputers generate out-the-window visuals, in-cockpit and head-mounted visuals, localized auditory presentations, haptic displays on the stick and rudder pedals, as well as executing weapons models, aerodynamic models, and threat models

Poststructuralist fiddling while the world burns: Exiting the self made crisis of “architectural culture”

We critique the current crisis for the environmental design professions: facing urgent ecological, social and economic imperatives, key leadership has become mired in the confusions of do nothing postmodernist artistic doctrine. The result is a self made state of paralysis, leaving the egregious mistakes of the past to be endlessly repeated, while it only matters that they are cloaked in ever more aesthetically extravagant artistic garb. We argue that this self excusing paralysis arises because, under a poststructuralist infatuation with ambiguity, multiplicity and constructed meaning, an effective shared framework to address the urgent challenges of the built environment becomes impossible. This paralysis is rewarded, however, because it serves narrow economic interests, which are happy to find rationalisations for projects that might otherwise be rejected as of inferior quality. We conclude with the hopeful observation that the ingredients of such a framework are indeed emerging from the biological sciences and other fields. However, to make use of them, we argue, professionals must learn to critique, and finally to dispense with, the misapplications of non productive forms of thinking, a number of which we specify herein. We hope this paper will serve as one small step on that important path

New Urbanism in the New Urban Agenda: Threads of an Unfinished Reformation

We present evidence that New Urbanism, defined as a set of normative urban characteristics codified in the 1996 Charter of the New Urbanism, reached a seminal moment - in mission if not in name - with the 2016 New Urban Agenda, a landmark document adopted by acclamation by all 193 member states of the United Nations. We compare the two documents and find key parallels between them (including mix of uses, walkable multi-modal streets, buildings defining public space, mix of building ages and heritage patterns, co-production of the city by the citizens, and understanding of the city as an evolutionary self-organizing structure). Both documents also reveal striking contrasts with the highly influential 20th century Athens Charter, from 1933, developed by the Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne. Yet, both newer documents also still face formidable barriers to implementation, and, as we argue, each faces similar challenges in formulating effective alternatives to business as usual. We trace this history up to the present day, and the necessary requirements for what we conclude is an 'unfinished reformation' ahead

Introduction: Toward a "Post-Alexandrian" Agenda

Christopher Alexander, who died in March 2022, was undeniably one of the most influential, if sometimes controversial, urban thinkers of the last half-century. From Notes on the Synthesis of Form, his first book and Harvard PhD thesis, to the landmark "A City is Not a Tree," to the classic best-sellers A Pattern Language and The Timeless Way of Building, to his more difficult and controversial magnum opus, The Nature of Order, Alexander has left a body of work whose breadth and depth is only now coming into view. Yet Alexander’s legacy is also the subject of intense debate and critique within the planning and design fields. This introduction provides an overview of the thematic issue of Urban Planning titled "Assessing the Complex Contributions of Christopher Alexander." Its purpose is to provide greater clarity on where Alexander's contribution is substantial, and where there are documented gaps and remaining challenges. Most importantly, the thematic issue aims to identify fruitful avenues for further research and development, taking forward some of the more promising but undeveloped insights of this seminal 20th-century thinker

Public Space in the New Urban Agenda: Research into Implementation

The New Urban Agenda is a landmark international framework for urbanisation for the next two decades, adopted by acclamation by all 193 countries of the United Nations. Nonetheless, implementation remains an enormous challenge, as does the related need for research evidence to inform practice. This thematic issue brings together research from a number of participants of the Future of Places conference series, contributin new research to inform the development and implementation of the New Urban Agenda, and with a focus on the fundamental topic of public space creation and improvement

Developing Systems for Cyber Situational Awareness

In both military and commercial settings, the awareness of Cyber attacks and the effect of those attacks on the mission space of an organization has become a targeted information goal for leaders and commanders at all levels. We present in this paper a defining framework to understand situational awareness (SA)—especially as it pertains to the Cyber domain—and propose a methodology for populating the cognitive domain model for this realm based on adversarial knowledge involved with Cyber attacks. We conclude with considerations for developing Cyber SA systems of the future

Generalizing the autonomous Kepler Ermakov system in a Riemannian space

We generalize the two dimensional autonomous Hamiltonian Kepler Ermakov dynamical system to three dimensions using the sl(2,R) invariance of Noether symmetries and determine all three dimensional autonomous Hamiltonian Kepler Ermakov dynamical systems which are Liouville integrable via Noether symmetries. Subsequently we generalize the autonomous Kepler Ermakov system in a Riemannian space which admits a gradient homothetic vector by the requirements (a) that it admits a first integral (the Riemannian Ermakov invariant) and (b) it has sl(2,R) invariance. We consider both the non-Hamiltonian and the Hamiltonian systems. In each case we compute the Riemannian Ermakov invariant and the equations defining the dynamical system. We apply the results in General Relativity and determine the autonomous Hamiltonian Riemannian Kepler Ermakov system in the spatially flat Friedman Robertson Walker spacetime. We consider a locally rotational symmetric (LRS) spacetime of class A and discuss two cosmological models. The first cosmological model consists of a scalar field with exponential potential and a perfect fluid with a stiff equation of state. The second cosmological model is the f(R) modified gravity model of {\Lambda}_{bc}CDM. It is shown that in both applications the gravitational field equations reduce to those of the generalized autonomous Riemannian Kepler Ermakov dynamical system which is Liouville integrable via Noether integrals.Comment: Reference [25] update, 21 page