2,617 research outputs found
Decoding a Complex Visualization in a Science Museum -- An Empirical Study
This study describes a detailed analysis of museum visitors' decoding process
as they used a visualization designed to support exploration of a large,
complex dataset. Quantitative and qualitative analyses revealed that it took,
on average, 43 seconds for visitors to decode enough of the visualization to
see patterns and relationships in the underlying data represented, and 54
seconds to arrive at their first correct data interpretation. Furthermore,
visitors decoded throughout and not only upon initial use of the visualization.
The study analyzed think-aloud data to identify issues visitors had mapping the
visual representations to their intended referents, examine why they occurred,
and consider if and how these decoding issues were resolved. The paper also
describes how multiple visual encodings both helped and hindered decoding and
concludes with implications on the design and adaptation of visualizations for
informal science learning venues.Comment: IEEE VIS (InfoVis/VAST/SciVis) 2019 ACM 2012 CCS - Human-centered
computing, Visualization, Empirical studies in visualizatio
Design of electronics for a high-resolution, multi-material, and modular 3D printer
Thesis: M. Eng., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2013.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (pages 66-68).Electronics for a high-resolution, multi-material, and modular 3D printer were designed and implemented. The driver for a piezoelectric inkjet print head can fire its nozzles with one of three droplet sizes ranging from 6 pL to 26 pL at approximately 10 kHz. The system developed for curing photopolymer materials is low-power, low-cost, and safe, using ultraviolet light-emitting diodes instead of a gas-discharge lamp. Fabrication cost is less than $10,000, but the printer's 600 DPI resolution is comparable to that of industrial 3D printers. Printed objects exhibit detailed features and a gradual transition between materials with different mechanical properties. The printer's modular design allows modification of the printer to employ different fabrication technologies.by Joyce G. Kwan.M. Eng
Sea of Genes: Combining Animation and Narrative Strategies to Visualize Metagenomic Data for Museums
We examine the application of narrative strategies to present a complex and
unfamiliar metagenomics dataset to the public in a science museum. Our dataset
contains information about microbial gene expressions that scientists use to
infer the behavior of microbes. This exhibit had three goals: to inform (the)
public about microbes' behavior, cycles, and patterns; to link their behavior
to the concept of gene expression; and to highlight scientists' use of gene
expression data to understand the role of microbes. To address these three
goals, we created a visualization with three narrative layers, each layer
corresponding to a goal. This study presented us with an opportunity to assess
existing frameworks for narrative visualization in a naturalistic setting. We
present three successive rounds of design and evaluation of our attempts to
engage visitors with complex data through narrative visualization. We highlight
our design choices and their underlying rationale based on extant theories. We
conclude that a central animation based on a curated dataset could successfully
achieve our first goal, i.e., to communicate the aggregate behavior and
interactions of microbes. We failed to achieve our second goal and had limited
success with the third goal. Overall, this study highlights the challenges of
telling multi-layered stories and the need for new frameworks for communicating
layered stories in public settings.Comment: This manuscript has been accepted to VIS 2020 and TVCG 9 pages 2
reference
MultiFab: a machine vision assisted platform for multi-material 3D printing
We have developed a multi-material 3D printing platform that is high-resolution, low-cost, and extensible. The key part of our platform is an integrated machine vision system. This system allows for self-calibration of printheads, 3D scanning, and a closed-feedback loop to enable print corrections. The integration of machine vision with 3D printing simplifies the overall platform design and enables new applications such as 3D printing over auxiliary parts. Furthermore, our platform dramatically expands the range of parts that can be 3D printed by simultaneously supporting up to 10 different materials that can interact optically and mechanically. The platform achieves a resolution of at least 40 μm by utilizing piezoelectric inkjet printheads adapted for 3D printing. The hardware is low cost (less than $7,000) since it is built exclusively from off-the-shelf components. The architecture is extensible and modular -- adding, removing, and exchanging printing modules can be done quickly. We provide a detailed analysis of the system's performance. We also demonstrate a variety of fabricated multi-material objects.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant CCF-1138967)United States. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Grant N66001-12-1-4242
Growing Extended Laughlin States in a Quantum Gas Microscope: A Patchwork Construction
The study of fractional Chern insulators and their exotic anyonic excitations
poses a major challenge in current experimental and theoretical research.
Quantum simulators, in particular ultracold atoms in optical lattices, provide
a promising platform to realize, manipulate, and understand such systems with a
high degree of controllability. Recently, an atomic Laughlin state
has been realized experimentally for a small system of two particles on 4 by 4
sites. The next challenge concerns the preparation of Laughlin states in
extended systems, ultimately giving access to anyonic braiding statistics or
gapless chiral edge-states in systems with open boundaries. Here, we propose
and analyze an experimentally feasible scheme to grow larger Laughlin states by
connecting multiple copies of the already existing 4-by-4-system. First, we
present a minimal setting obtained by coupling two of such patches, producing
an extended 8-by-4-system with four particles. Then, we analyze different
preparation schemes, setting the focus on two shapes for the extended system,
and discuss their respective advantages: While growing strip-like lattices
could give experimental access to the central charge, square-like geometries
are advantageous for creating quasi-hole excitations in view of braiding
protocols. We highlight the robust quantization of the fractional quasi-hole
charge upon using our preparation protocol. We benchmark the performance of our
patchwork preparation scheme by comparing it to a protocol based on coupling
one-dimensional chains. We find that the patchwork approach consistently gives
higher target-state fidelities, especially for elongated systems. The results
presented here pave the way towards near-term implementations of extended
Laughlin states in quantum gas microscopes and the subsequent exploration of
exotic properties of topologically ordered systems in experiments.Comment: 18 pages, 21 figure
Signatures of bath-induced quantum avalanches in a many-body--localized system
Strongly correlated systems can exhibit surprising phenomena when brought in
a state far from equilibrium. A spectacular example are quantum avalanches,
that have been predicted to run through a many-body--localized system and
delocalize it. Quantum avalanches occur when the system is locally coupled to a
small thermal inclusion that acts as a bath. Here we realize an interface
between a many-body--localized system and a thermal inclusion of variable size,
and study its dynamics. We find evidence for accelerated transport into the
localized region, signature of a quantum avalanche. By measuring the
site-resolved entropy we monitor how the avalanche travels through the
localized system and thermalizes it site by site. Furthermore, we isolate the
bath-induced dynamics by evaluating multipoint correlations between the bath
and the system. Our results have fundamental implications on the robustness of
many-body--localized systems and their critical behavior.Comment: 5+2 pages, 4 figure
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GenderMag: A Method for Evaluating Software’s Gender Inclusiveness
In recent years, research into gender differences has established that individual differences in how people problem-solve often cluster by gender. Research also shows that these differences have direct implications for software that aims to support users’ problem-solving activities, and that much of this software is more supportive of problem-solving processes favored (statistically) more by males than by females. However, there is almost no work considering how software practitioners—such as User Experience (UX) professionals or software developers—can find gender-inclusiveness issues like these in their software. To address this gap, we devised the GenderMag method for evaluating problem-solving software from a gender-inclusiveness perspective. The method includes a set of faceted personas that bring five facets of gender difference research to life, and embeds use of the personas into a concrete process through a gender-specialized Cognitive Walkthrough. Our empirical results show that a variety of practitioners who design software—without needing any background in gender research—were able to use the GenderMag method to find gender-inclusiveness issues in problem-solving software. Our results also show that the issues the practitioners found were real and fixable. This work is the first systematic method to find gender-inclusiveness issues in software, so that practitioners can design and produce problem-solving software that is more usable by everyone
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