Designing an Adaptive Interface: Using Eye Tracking to Classify How Information Usage Changes Over Time in Partially Automated Vehicles

While partially automated vehicles can provide a range of benefits, they also bring about new Human Machine Interface (HMI) challenges around ensuring the driver remains alert and is able to take control of the vehicle when required. While humans are poor monitors of automated processes, specifically during ‘steady state’ operation, presenting the appropriate information to the driver can help. But to date, interfaces of partially automated vehicles have shown evidence of causing cognitive overload. Adaptive HMIs that automatically change the information presented (for example, based on workload, time or physiologically), have been previously proposed as a solution, but little is known about how information should adapt during steady-state driving. This study aimed to classify information usage based on driver experience to inform the design of a future adaptive HMI in partially automated vehicles. The unique feature of this study over existing literature is that each participant attended for five consecutive days; enabling a first look at how information usage changes with increasing familiarity and providing a methodological contribution to future HMI user trial study design. Seventeen participants experienced a steady-state automated driving simulation for twenty-six minutes per day in a driving simulator, replicating a regularly driven route, such as a work commute. Nine information icons, representative of future partially automated vehicle HMIs, were displayed on a tablet and eye tracking was used to record the information that the participants fixated on. The results found that information usage did change with increased exposure, with significant differences in what information participants looked at between the first and last trial days. With increasing experience, participants tended to view information as confirming technical competence rather than the future state of the vehicle. On this basis, interface design recommendations are made, particularly around the design of adaptive interfaces for future partially automated vehicles

An Evolutionary Analysis of Investment in Electricity Markets

Electricity markets are being liberalised and open to private competition in several countries. These liberalized electricity markets are very complex as the interactions between demand and supply are subject to several technicalities arising from the commodity being traded: electricity. One of these technicalities is that generators cannot store electricity: this fact implies that it needs to generate its production real-time. A second problem with this market are the different generation technologies used at different levels of demand, which implies that at different times of the day different generation costs are supported to meet demand: due to ramp-rate constraints, capacity available, and fixed and start-up costs. In this paper we analyze the issue of investment and the electricity system’s long-term security in an industry where a regulator controls the short-term prices, imposing a perfect competition outcome for “low†demand hours and a price cap at times where load is shed. We look at the following research questions: a) How does the oligopolistic structure of the market interact with the value of the different technologies? b) How do players define their investment strategies? c) How do the regulatory policies affect the investment in generation? Do they work similarly under perfect competition and oligopoly? d) Can markets invest enough capacity to ensure the long run security of the market? The main results of our analysis are following: 1. The impact of a given investment on the market price is independent of the player investing. 2. The impact of an investment on price is a function of the technology in which the investment takes place and of the cycle to which the price refers to. 3. The impact of price caps on the evolution of the market structure is non-linear, it cannot be too low or too high. 4. An oligopolistic electricity market fails to deliver the needed investment unless the regulators intervene. 5. The higher the reserve margin the higher the total investment. However, this instrument by itself was not able to provide the incentive needed to ensure the long-term security of the system, as in any of the experiments analyzed the peak demand is not completely satisfied. 6. Even a slight increase in demand, due to the reserve margin, leads to important changes on the relative value of the different technologies. 7. The main task of the regulatory authorities is to define a level of capacity payments that give the necessary incentive to investment, at the minimum cost: Capacity Payments are very important in shaping the generation structure. 8. Uncertainty reduces the value of Peak plants: this result clearly contradicts any common sense in these matters, as one would expect the presence of price uncertainty to be beneficial to Peak plants. The proportion invested in baseload plants increases with uncertainty of the energy price, decreasing the investment in shoulder plant.agent-based, electricity markets, evolution, investment, regulation, simulation

Transmission coefficient and two-fold degenerate discrete spectrum of spin-1 bosons in a double-step potential

The scattering of spin-1 bosons in a nonminimal vector double-step potential is described in terms of eigenstates of the helicity operator and it is shown that the transmission coefficient is insensitive to the choice of the polarization of the incident beam. Poles of the transmission amplitude reveal the existence of a two-fold degenerate spectrum. The results are interpreted in terms of solutions of two coupled effective Schr\"{o}dinger equations for a finite square well with additional $\delta$-functions situated at the borders.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1203.119

An alternative theoretical approach to describe planetary systems through a Schrodinger-type diffusion equation

In the present work we show that planetary mean distances can be calculated with the help of a Schrodinger-type diffusion equation. The obtained results are shown to agree with the observed orbits of all the planets and of the asteroid belt in the solar system, with only three empty states. Furthermore, the equation solutions predict a fundamental orbit at 0.05 AU from solar-type stars, a result confirmed by recent discoveries. In contrast to other similar approaches previously presented in the literature, we take into account the flatness of the solar system, by considering the flat solutions of the Schrodinger-type equation. The model has just one input parameter, given by the mean distance of Mercury.Comment: 6 pages. Version accepted for publication in Chaos, Solitons & Fractal

Estimative for the size of the compactification radius of a one extra dimension Universe

In this work, we use the Casimir effect to probe the existence of one extra dimension. We begin by evaluating the Casimir pressure between two plates in a $M^4\times S^1$ manifold, and then use an appropriate statistical analysis in order to compare the theoretical expression with a recent experimental data and set bounds for the compactification radius

Emergentism and musicology: an alternative perspective to the understanding of dissonance.

In this paper we develop an approach to musicology within the discussion of emergentism. First of all, we claim that some theories of musicology could be insufficient in describing and explaining musical phenomena when emergent properties are not taken into account. Actually, musicology usually considers just syntactical elements, structures and processes and puts only a little emphasis, if any, over perceptual aspects of human hearing. On the other hand, recent research efforts are currently being directed towards an understanding of the emergent properties of auditory perception, especially in fields such as cognitive science. Such research leads to other views concerning old issues in musicology and could create a fruitful approach, filling the gap between musicology and auditory perception