Second language user support

Computer users rarely experience entirely trouble-free interaction. The natural variety ofindividuals ensures that no software systems yield constantly fluent interaction for allusers. In consequence, software designers often strive to ameliorate this situation bybuilding 'user support' into their systems. User support can take different forms but,conventionally, each aims to assist the needy end-user by means of facilities directly supporting the performance of certain operations, or through supply of information thatadvises the user on available system functionality.The present paper briefly characterises a range of user support facilities before describingone requirement in greater detail. This aspect considers the needs of users whose mother-tongue is not English, but who are obliged to use English-based information systems. Inthis context, 'helping the user' must reasonably extend beyond mere advice on systemoperation to selective elucidation of information content. We regard this move as alogical extension of the user support concept, by seeking to address specific interactionneeds in a target user population. An example of this approach is described through aninformation system, in the domain of civil engineering, for native Chinese speakers ofEnglish

AGGREGATION WITHOUT SEPARABILITY: TESTS OF U.S. AND MEXICAN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION DATA

The generalized composite commodity theorem (Lewbel 1996) is used to test for consistent aggregation of U.S. and Mexican agricultural production data in each of the categories for which earlier tests rejected homothetic separability. All U.S. agricultural outputs can be justifiably aggregated into as few as four categories. All Mexican agricultural outputs can be aggregated into as few as five categories. The aggregation of all outputs into a single output cannot be supported in either country by sufficient conditions provided by the generalized composite commodity theorem and/or a homothetically separable technology.aggregation, separability, generalized composite commodity theorem, Demand and Price Analysis,

The Spatial Extent of Attention During Driving

The present study examined the limits of spatial attention during driving using a dual-task performance paradigm. Drivers were asked to follow a lead vehicle that varied in speed while also detecting a light change in an array located above the roadway. Reaction time increased and accuracy decreased as a function of the horizontal location of the light change and the distance, from the driver, of the light change. In addition, RMS error in car following increased immediately following the light change. These results demonstrate that when drivers attend to a centrally located task, their ability to respond to other events varies as a function of horizontal visual angle and distance in the scene

Age-Related Driving Performance: Effect of Fog Under Dual-Task Conditions

The present study investigated the driving performance of older and younger drivers using a dual-task paradigm. Drivers were requred to do a car-following task while detecting a signal light change in a light array above the roadway in the driving simulator under different fog conditions. Decreased accuracies and longer response times were recorded for older drivers, compared to younger drivers, expecially under dense fog conditions. In addition, older drivers had decreased car following performance when simultaneously performing the light-detection task. These results suggets that under poor weather conditions (e.g. fog), with reduced visibility, older drivers may have an increased accident risk because of a decreased ability to perform multiple tasks

Low-cost, high performance solar vapor generation

Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 2018.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (pages 163-170).Sustainable access to energy and access to water are two of the defining technological problems that society currently faces. Threats of climate change and depletion of fossil fuel reserves are forcing a shift towards more renewable sources of energy, such as solar energy and others. At the same time, water resources are becoming scarcer, caused by unsustainable extraction of ground water resources. Current projections show that by 2025, the population of people living in water-stressed areas is expected to increase to 3.9 billion. Exacerbating this problem is continuing urbanization, which stresses local water supplies further. The two problems of energy and water are inextricably tied together. Water processing, such as desalination and wastewater management, fundamentally requires energy inputs, while energy production often requires water for operational cooling. This thesis focuses on developing technologies for low-intensity utilization of solar energy for desalination and wastewater management. Traditional solar thermal technologies collect sunlight, and use motorized optical concentrators to concentrate the weak solar flux to create high temperature steam, often 400'C or higher. These optical concentrators are costly and require maintenance that are unattractive in many small-scale and low-intensity applications. These applications include distributed desalination, medical sterilization, wastewater management, and more. In this thesis, the research has focused on 1) evaporation mechanisms in nanofluids for solar applications, 2) a solar steam generation structure that operates without optical concentrators, and 3) a floating solar still that produces water without the need for periodic cleaning of excess salts, and has a material cost of $3 to supply individual daily drinking water needs, which can be paid back quickly for some regions like the Maldive. One of the first approaches to solar vapor generation was to use nanoparticles suspended in water, or nanofluids, to localize solar absorption to near the evaporation surface. This approach reduces the temperature drop between the heat generation site and the evaporation surface, increasing the evaporation rate. This thesis first explores the vapor generation mechanisms in nanofluid-based solar vapor generation, and develops a small-scale nanofluid-based solar receiver that could generate vapor at 70% efficiency. A theory was developed to show how nanoparticle suspension could affect the nanofluid transient performance. This thesis next demonstrates a small-scale floating solar steam generator, that does not require optical concentration. This was achieved by further extending the heat localization concept, using various widely available materials to reduce radiative, convective, and conductive losses. By reconfiguring the device, steam at 100°C or vapor at 70% efficiency could be produced. The basic steam generator was then improved and adapted to reject excess salts left behind from vapor formation. The salt rejecting structure was coupled with a condensation cover, to form a floating solar still that was demonstrated to operate in the ocean, simultaneously producing drinkable water and rejecting the excess salts. Salt rejection experiments were conducted to prove the long-term ability of the structure to operate in saline waters.by George Wei Ni.Ph. D

Fine structure in the {\alpha}-decay of odd-even nuclei

Systematic study on {\alpha}-decay fine structure is presented for the first time in the case of odd-even nuclei in the range 83 \leq Z \leq 101. The model used for the study is the recently proposed Coulomb and proximity potential model for deformed nuclei (CPPMDN), which employs deformed Coulomb potential, deformed two term proximity potential and centrifugal potential. The computed partial half lives, total half lives and branching ratios are compared with experimental data and are in good agreement. The standard deviation of partial half-life is 1.08 and that for branching ratio is 1.21. Our formalism is also successful in predicting angular momentum hindered and structure hindered transitions. The present study reveals that CPPMDN is a unified theory which is successful in explaining alpha decay from ground and isomeric state; and alpha fine structure of even-even, even-odd and odd-even nuclei. Our study relights that the differences in the parent and daughter surfaces or the changes in the deformation parameters as well as the shell structure of the parent and daughter nuclei, influences the alpha decay probability.Comment: 35 pages, 5 figure

Low Cost, Robust, Environmentally Friendly Geopolymer–Mesoporous Carbon Composites for Efficient Solar Powered Steam Generation

High-efficiency, environment friendly, renewable energy-based methods of desalination represent attractive and potentially very powerful solutions to the long-standing problem of global water shortage. Many new laboratory-scale materials have been developed for photothermal desalination but the development of low-cost, easy-to-manufacture, and scalable materials and systems that can convert solar irradiation into exploitable thermal energy in this context is still a significant challenge. This paper presents work on a geopolymer–biomass mesoporous carbon composite (GBMCC) device with mesoporous and macroporous structures for harvesting solar energy, which is then used in a device to generate water vapor with high efficiency using negative pressure, wind-driven, steam generation. The GBMCC device gives water evaporation rates of 1.58 and 2.71 kg m−2 h−1 under 1 and 3 suns illumination, with the solar thermal conversion efficiency up to 84.95% and 67.6%, respectively. A remarkable, record high water vapor generation rate of 7.55 kg m−2 h−1 is achieved under 1 sun solar intensity at the wind speed of 3 m s−1. This is a key step forward todays efficient, sustainable and economical production of clean water from seawater or common wastewater with free solar energy

Origin of two-band chorus in the radiation belt of Earth.

Naturally occurring chorus emissions are a class of electromagnetic waves found in the space environments of the Earth and other magnetized planets. They play an essential role in accelerating high-energy electrons forming the hazardous radiation belt environment. Chorus typically occurs in two distinct frequency bands separated by a gap. The origin of this two-band structure remains a 50-year old question. Here we report, using NASA's Van Allen Probe measurements, that banded chorus waves are commonly accompanied by two separate anisotropic electron components. Using numerical simulations, we show that the initially excited single-band chorus waves alter the electron distribution immediately via Landau resonance, and suppress the electron anisotropy at medium energies. This naturally divides the electron anisotropy into a low and a high energy components which excite the upper-band and lower-band chorus waves, respectively. This mechanism may also apply to the generation of chorus waves in other magnetized planetary magnetospheres

Solar steam generation by heat localization

Currently, steam generation using solar energy is based on heating bulk liquid to high temperatures. This approach requires either costly high optical concentrations leading to heat loss by the hot bulk liquid and heated surfaces or vacuum. New solar receiver concepts such as porous volumetric receivers or nanofluids have been proposed to decrease these losses. Here we report development of an approach and corresponding material structure for solar steam generation while maintaining low optical concentration and keeping the bulk liquid at low temperature with no vacuum. We achieve solar thermal efficiency up to 85% at only 10 kW m[superscript −2]. This high performance results from four structure characteristics: absorbing in the solar spectrum, thermally insulating, hydrophilic and interconnected pores. The structure concentrates thermal energy and fluid flow where needed for phase change and minimizes dissipated energy. This new structure provides a novel approach to harvesting solar energy for a broad range of phase-change applications.United States. Dept. of Energy. Office of Basic Energy Sciences (Energy Frontiers Research Center. Award DE-SC0001299)United States. Dept. of Energy. Office of Basic Energy Sciences (Energy Frontiers Research Center. Award DE-FG02-09ER46577))United States. Air Force Office of Scientific Research (FA9550-11-1-0174)Masdar Institute of Science & Technology - MIT Technology & Development ProgramNatural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canad