19,579 research outputs found
The experience of enchantment in human-computer interaction
Improving user experience is becoming something of a rallying call in human–computer interaction but experience is not a unitary thing. There are varieties of experiences, good and bad, and we need to characterise these varieties if we are to improve user experience. In this paper we argue that enchantment is a useful concept to facilitate closer relationships between people and technology. But enchantment is a complex concept in need of some clarification. So we explore how enchantment has been used in the discussions of technology and examine experiences of film and cell phones to see how enchantment with technology is possible. Based on these cases, we identify the sensibilities that help designers design for enchantment, including the specific sensuousness of a thing, senses of play, paradox and openness, and the potential for transformation. We use these to analyse digital jewellery in order to suggest how it can be made more enchanting. We conclude by relating enchantment to varieties of experience.</p
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Sugar and Slavery: An Economic History of the British West Indies, 1623-1775
HST and Spitzer Observations of the Host Galaxy of GRB 050904: A Metal-Enriched, Dusty Starburst at z=6.295
We present deep Hubble Space Telescope and Spitzer Space Telescope
observations of the host galaxy of GRB 050904 at z=6.295. The host is detected
in the H-band and marginally at 3.6 micron. From these detections, and limits
in the z'-band and 4.5 micron, we infer an extinction-corrected absolute
magnitude, M(UV)=-20.7 mag, or ~L*, a substantial star formation rate of 15
solar masses per year, and a stellar mass of a few 10^9 solar masses. A
comparison to the published sample of spectroscopically-confirmed galaxies at
z>5.5 reveals that the host of GRB 050904 would evade detection and/or
confirmation in any of the current surveys due to the lack of detectable
Ly-alpha emission, which is likely the result of dust extinction (A[1200]~1.5
mag). This suggests that not all luminous starburst galaxies at z~6 are
currently being accounted for. Most importantly, using the metallicity of
Z~0.05 solar inferred from the afterglow absorption spectrum, our observations
indicate for the first time that the observed evolution in the mass- and
luminosity-metallicity relations from z=0 to z~2 continues on to z>6. The ease
of measuring redshifts and metallicities from the afterglow emission suggests
that in tandem with the next generation ground- and space-based telescopes, a
GRB mission with dedicated near-IR follow-up can provide unique information on
the evolution of stars and galaxies through the epoch of re-ionization.Comment: Submitted to ApJ; 11 pages, 5 figures; A high-resolution version of
figure 1 can be found at http://www.ociw.edu/~eberger/fig1.050904.berger.ep
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Making Sense of Family Deaths in Urban Senegal: Diversities, Contexts, and Comparisons
Despite calls for cross-cultural research, Minority world perspectives still dominate death and bereavement studies, emphasizing individualized emotions and neglecting contextual diversities. In research concerned with contemporary African societies, on the other hand, death and loss are generally subsumed within concerns about AIDS or poverty, with little attention paid to the emotional and personal significance of a death. Here, we draw on interactionist sociology to present major themes from a qualitative study of family deaths in urban Senegal, theoretically framed through the duality of meanings-in-context. Such themes included family and community as support and motivation; religious beliefs and practices as frameworks for solace and (regulatory) meaning; and material circumstances as these are intrinsically bound up with emotions. Although we identify the experience of (embodied, emotional) pain as a common response across Minority and Majority worlds, we also explore significant divergencies, varying according to localized contexts and broader power dynamics
Models of the ICM with Heating and Cooling: Explaining the Global and Structural X-ray Properties of Clusters
(Abridged) Theoretical models that include only gravitationally-driven
processes fail to match the observed mean X-ray properties of clusters. As a
result, there has recently been increased interest in models in which either
radiative cooling or entropy injection play a central role in mediating the
properties of the intracluster medium. Both sets of models give reasonable fits
to the mean properties of clusters, but cooling only models result in fractions
of cold baryons in excess of observationally established limits and the
simplest entropy injection models do not treat the "cooling core" structure
present in many clusters and cannot account for entropy profiles revealed by
recent X-ray observations. We consider models that marry radiative cooling with
entropy injection, and confront model predictions for the global and structural
properties of massive clusters with the latest X-ray data. The models
successfully and simultaneously reproduce the observed L-T and L-M relations,
yield detailed entropy, surface brightness, and temperature profiles in
excellent agreement with observations, and predict a cooled gas fraction that
is consistent with observational constraints. The model also provides a
possible explanation for the significant intrinsic scatter present in the L-T
and L-M relations and provides a natural way of distinguishing between clusters
classically identified as "cooling flow" clusters and dynamically relaxed
"non-cooling flow" clusters. The former correspond to systems that had only
mild levels (< 300 keV cm^2) of entropy injection, while the latter are
identified as systems that had much higher entropy injection. This is borne out
by the entropy profiles derived from Chandra and XMM-Newton.Comment: 20 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical
Journa
Assessing Human Error Against a Benchmark of Perfection
An increasing number of domains are providing us with detailed trace data on
human decisions in settings where we can evaluate the quality of these
decisions via an algorithm. Motivated by this development, an emerging line of
work has begun to consider whether we can characterize and predict the kinds of
decisions where people are likely to make errors.
To investigate what a general framework for human error prediction might look
like, we focus on a model system with a rich history in the behavioral
sciences: the decisions made by chess players as they select moves in a game.
We carry out our analysis at a large scale, employing datasets with several
million recorded games, and using chess tablebases to acquire a form of ground
truth for a subset of chess positions that have been completely solved by
computers but remain challenging even for the best players in the world.
We organize our analysis around three categories of features that we argue
are present in most settings where the analysis of human error is applicable:
the skill of the decision-maker, the time available to make the decision, and
the inherent difficulty of the decision. We identify rich structure in all
three of these categories of features, and find strong evidence that in our
domain, features describing the inherent difficulty of an instance are
significantly more powerful than features based on skill or time.Comment: KDD 2016; 10 page
Detection of HC11N in the Cold Dust Cloud TMC-1
Two consecutive rotational transitions of the long cyanopolyyne HC11N,
J=39-38, and J=38-37, have been detected in the cold dust cloud TMC-1 at the
frequencies expected from recent laboratory measurements by Travers et al.
(1996), and at about the expected intensities. The astronomical lines have a
mean radial velocity of 5.8(1) km/s, in good agreement with the shorter
cyanopolyynes HC7N and HC9N observed in this very sharp-lined source [5.82(5)
and 5.83(5) km/s, respectively]. The column density of HC11N is calculated to
be 2.8x10^(11) cm^(-2). The abundance of the cyanopolyynes decreases smoothly
with length to HC11N, the decrement from one to the next being about 6 for the
longer carbon chains.Comment: plain tex 10 pages plus 3 ps fig file
Interesting thermomagnetic history effects in the antiferromagnetic state of SmMn_2Ge_2
We present results of magnetization measurements showing that the magnetic
response of the antiferromagnetic state of SmMn_2Ge_2 depends on the path used
in the field(H)-temperature(T) phase space to reach this state. Distinct
signature of metastablity is observed in this antiferromagnetic state when
obtained via field-cooling/field-warming paths. The isothermal M-H loops show
lack of end-point memory, reminiscent of that seen in metastable vortex states
near the field-induced first order phase transition in various type-II
superconductors.Comment: 11 pages of text and 3 figure
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Interim report, cocked-slug, flush-charging relations for C-Pile conditions
Pile Engineering Sub-Section has been investigating the causes and effects of cocked slugs in process tubes for the past year because they are suspected to be the cause for some slug ruptures. In Project CG-642 - Continuous Charge-Discharge Equipment - C Reactor it is proposed that slugs be flush charged into the process tubes. This document reports the effect of flush charging slugs on their tendency to cock as discovered in laboratory tests
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