Truth and directness in pictorial assertion

This paper develops an account of accuracy and truth in pictorial assertion. It argues that there are two ways in which pictorial assertions can be indirect: with respect to their content and with respect to their target. This twofold indirectness explains how accurate, unedited pictures can be used to make false pictorial assertions. It captures the fishiness of true pictorial assertions involving target-indirectness, such as true pictorial assertions involving outdated pictures. And it raises the question whether target-indirectness may also arise in linguistic assertion

Synergistic effects between global warming and water quality change on modelled macrophyte species richness

Submerged freshwater macrophytes are crucial for the functioning of lakes. Their growth and survival follow environmental conditions like light, temperature, and nutrient availability. Hence, the impending increase in water temperature as well as changes of nutrients and turbidity will lead to changes in macrophyte geographic and depth distribution: Herein, we assess these potential changes. We apply an eco-physiological macrophyte growth model to simulate biomass growth and survival of virtual species defined by random trait combinations within expert-derived trait ranges for oligotraphentic, mesotraphentic, and eutraphentic species groups in deep lakes in Bavaria, Germany, which cover clear, moderate, and turbid lake conditions. The emergent potential species richness is compared with empirically observed species richness to evaluate general predictions for current conditions. Thereafter, we apply the model to scenarios of temperature increase and of turbidity and nutrient change to assess potential changes in species richness and the influence of species\u27 traits on being an environmental change ‘winner\u27 or ‘loser\u27. We find a cross-lake, hump-shaped pattern of potential species richness along depth. This largely reflects observed patterns, although mismatches were also detected and might be explained by missing processes and environmental heterogeneity within the lake. Rising temperature leads to increased richness of potential species in all lake types, species groups, and depths. Turbidity and nutrient change effects depend on depth and lake type. ‘Loser species\u27 under increased turbidity and nutrient level are light consumptive and sensible to disturbances, while ‘winner species\u27 have a high biomass production. These findings show that the hump-shaped depth distributions of submerged macrophyte diversity can emerge solely considering eco-physiology. The differential responses to environmental changes imply that management measures must account for lake type because those responses can have opposite trends depending on lake depth and type

Integrating Julia Code into the Unity Game Engine to Dive into Aquatic Plant Growth

Ecologists use process-based ecological models to predict biodiversity, but their complex results can be challenging to com- municate. This challenge can be addressed through interactive visual simulations, which are easy to create with sophisticated game engines such as Unity. However, mechanistic models are increasingly written in the Julia programming language and Unity does not support its integration. In this paper, we present a Julia-Unity plugin that allows direct coupling of Julia and Unity codes. It was developed in a user-centred, iterative manner. The given use case of an immersive, interactive simulation of a macrophyte growth model was tailored to public outreach and science communication. The resulting, rather versatile plugin is a novel tool that features immersive visualisations of Julia-coded simulation models, ecological or otherwise. Due to the features of a game engine, they are particularly apt to engage a wider audience, facilitate collaboration and interdisciplinary work, and enable the exploration of complex systems

Annual Report 1999 / Department for Computer Science

Selbstdarstellung des Instituts für Informatik der BTU Cottbus und Berichte der Lehrstühle für das Jahr 1999.Presentation of the Department for Computer Science of the BTU Cottbus and reports of the chairs at the department for the year 1999

Table Tennis and Physics

Table tennis is a fascinating sport with a lot of physics elements. This chapter will concentrate on the forces acting on a table tennis ball. Insights from molecular dynamics simulations clarify the basic properties of table tennis balls interacting with surfaces and their high coefficient of restitution. The table tennis ball trajectory is discussed considering the different force balance contributions. The sum of the gravitational force and the forces from aerodynamics, namely drag and lift, determine the flight path. Extensive numerical modeling is used to study the impact of changes in ball size and net height to the game characteristics. Half a billion different initial conditions like hitting location, initial spin and velocities were analyzed to reach sufficient statistical significance for the different cases. An advanced statistical analysis of the database generated by the simulation is presented