11,125 research outputs found
Living with the user: Design drama for dementia care through responsive scripted experiences in the home
Participation in forms of drama and narrative can provoke empathy and creativity in user-centred design processes. In this paper, we expand upon existing methods to explore the potential for responsive scripted experiences that are delivered through the combination of sensors and output devices placed in a home. The approach is being developed in the context of Dementia care, where the capacity for rich user participation in design activities is limited. In this case, a system can act as a proxy for a person with Dementia, allowing designers to gain experiences and insight as to what it is like to provide care for, and live with, this person. We describe the rationale behind the approach, a prototype system architecture, and our current work to explore the creation of scripted experiences for design, played out though UbiComp technologies.This research is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK, (AH/K00266X/1) and Horizon Digital Economy Research (RCUK grant EP/G065802/1)
Using cultural probes to inform the design of assistive technologies
This paper discusses the practical implications of applying cultural probes to drive the design of assistive technologies. Specifically we describe a study in which a probe was deployed with home-based carers of people with dementia in order to capture critical data and gain insights of integrating the technologies into this sensitive and socially complex design space. To represent and utilise the insights gained from the cultural probes, we created narratives based on the probe data to enhance the design of assistive technologies.This work was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AH/K00266X/1) and RCUK through the Horizon Digital Economy Research grant (EP/G065802/1)
Quantum Oscillations in CuBiSe in High Magnetic Fields
CuBiSe has drawn much attention as the leading candidate to be
the first topological superconductor and the realization of coveted Majorana
particles in a condensed matter system. However, there has been increasing
controversy about the nature of its superconducting phase. This study sheds
light on present ambiguity in the normal state electronic state, by providing a
complete look at the quantum oscillations in magnetization in
CuBiSe at intense high fields up to 31T. Our study focuses on the
angular dependence of the quantum oscillation pattern in a low carrier
concentration. As magnetic field tilts from along the crystalline c-axis to
ab-plane, the change of the oscillation period follows the prediction of the
ellipsoidal Fermi surface. As the doping level changes, the 3D Fermi surface is
found to transform into quasi-cylindrical at high carrier density. Such a
transition is potentially a Lifshitz transition of the electronic state in
CuBiSe.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Generalised -manifolds
We define new Riemannian structures on 7-manifolds by a differential form of
mixed degree which is the critical point of a (possibly constrained)
variational problem over a fixed cohomology class. The unconstrained critical
points generalise the notion of a manifold of holonomy , while the
constrained ones give rise to a new geometry without a classical counterpart.
We characterise these structures by the means of spinors and show the
integrability conditions to be equivalent to the supersymmetry equations on
spinors in supergravity theory of type IIA/B with bosonic background fields. In
particular, this geometry can be described by two linear metric connections
with skew torsion. Finally, we construct explicit examples by using the device
of T-duality.Comment: 27 pages. v2: references added. v3: wrong argument (Theorem 3.3) and
example (Section 4.1) removed, further examples added, notation simplified,
all comments appreciated. v4:computation of Ricci tensor corrected, various
minor changes, final version of the paper to appear in Comm. Math. Phy
Double Charge Exchange And Configuration Mixing
The energy dependence of forward pion double charge exchange reactions on
light nuclei is studied for both the Ground State transition and the
Double-Isobaric-Analog-State transitions. A common characteristic of these
double reactions is a resonance-like peak around 50 MeV pion lab energy. This
peak arises naturally in a two-step process in the conventional pion-nucleon
system with proper handling of nuclear structure and pion distortion. A
comparison among the results of different nuclear structure models demonstrates
the effects of configuration mixing. The angular distribution is used to fix
the single particle wave function.Comment: Added 1 figure (now 8) corrected references and various other change
Non-commutative Complex Projective Spaces and the Standard Model
The standard model fermion spectrum, including a right handed neutrino, can
be obtained as a zero-mode of the Dirac operator on a space which is the
product of complex projective spaces of complex dimension two and three. The
construction requires the introduction of topologically non-trivial background
gauge fields. By borrowing from ideas in Connes' non-commutative geometry and
making the complex spaces `fuzzy' a matrix approximation to the fuzzy space
allows for three generations to emerge. The generations are associated with
three copies of space-time. Higgs' fields and Yukawa couplings can be
accommodated in the usual way.Comment: Contribution to conference in honour of A.P. Balachandran's 65th
birthday: "Space-time and Fundamental Interactions: Quantum Aspects", Vietri
sul Mare, Italy, 25th-31st May, 2003, 10 pages, typset in LaTe
Nature-Inspired Interconnects for Self-Assembled Large-Scale Network-on-Chip Designs
Future nano-scale electronics built up from an Avogadro number of components
needs efficient, highly scalable, and robust means of communication in order to
be competitive with traditional silicon approaches. In recent years, the
Networks-on-Chip (NoC) paradigm emerged as a promising solution to interconnect
challenges in silicon-based electronics. Current NoC architectures are either
highly regular or fully customized, both of which represent implausible
assumptions for emerging bottom-up self-assembled molecular electronics that
are generally assumed to have a high degree of irregularity and imperfection.
Here, we pragmatically and experimentally investigate important design
trade-offs and properties of an irregular, abstract, yet physically plausible
3D small-world interconnect fabric that is inspired by modern network-on-chip
paradigms. We vary the framework's key parameters, such as the connectivity,
the number of switch nodes, the distribution of long- versus short-range
connections, and measure the network's relevant communication characteristics.
We further explore the robustness against link failures and the ability and
efficiency to solve a simple toy problem, the synchronization task. The results
confirm that (1) computation in irregular assemblies is a promising and
disruptive computing paradigm for self-assembled nano-scale electronics and (2)
that 3D small-world interconnect fabrics with a power-law decaying distribution
of shortcut lengths are physically plausible and have major advantages over
local 2D and 3D regular topologies
Neutral Evolution as Diffusion in phenotype space: reproduction with mutation but without selection
The process of `Evolutionary Diffusion', i.e. reproduction with local
mutation but without selection in a biological population, resembles standard
Diffusion in many ways. However, Evolutionary Diffusion allows the formation of
local peaks with a characteristic width that undergo drift, even in the
infinite population limit. We analytically calculate the mean peak width and
the effective random walk step size, and obtain the distribution of the peak
width which has a power law tail. We find that independent local mutations act
as a diffusion of interacting particles with increased stepsize.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. Paper now representative of published articl
Importance of Fluctuations in Light on Plant Photosynthetic Acclimation
The acclimation of plants to light has been studied extensively, yet little is known about the effect of dynamic fluctuations in light on plant phenotype and acclimatory responses. We mimicked natural fluctuations in light over a diurnal period to examine the effect on the photosynthetic processes and growth of Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). High and low light intensities, delivered via a realistic dynamic fluctuating or square wave pattern, were used to grow and assess plants. Plants subjected to square wave light had thicker leaves and greater photosynthetic capacity compared with fluctuating light-grown plants. This, together with elevated levels of proteins associated with electron transport, indicates greater investment in leaf structural components and photosynthetic processes. In contrast, plants grown under fluctuating light had thinner leaves, lower leaf light absorption, but maintained similar photosynthetic rates per unit leaf area to square wave-grown plants. Despite high light use efficiency, plants grown under fluctuating light had a slow growth rate early in development, likely due to the fact that plants grown under fluctuating conditions were not able to fully utilize the light energy absorbed for carbon fixation. Diurnal leaf-level measurements revealed a negative feedback control of photosynthesis, resulting in a decrease in total diurnal carbon assimilated of at least 20%. These findings highlight that growing plants under square wave growth conditions ultimately fails to predict plant performance under realistic light regimes and stress the importance of considering fluctuations in incident light in future experiments that aim to infer plant productivity under natural conditions in the field
Dominant g(9/2)^2 neutron configuration in the 4+1 state of 68Zn based on new g factor measurements
The factor of the state in Zn has been remeasured with
improved energy resolution of the detectors used. The value obtained is
consistent with the previous result of a negative factor thus confirming
the dominant neutron nature of the state. In addition, the
accuracy of the factors of the , and states has been
improved an d their lifetimes were well reproduced. New large-scale shell model
calculations based on a Ni core and an model space
yield a theoretical value, . Although the calculated value
is small, it cannot fully explain the experimental value, . The magnitude of the deduced B(E2) of the and
transition is, however, rather well described. These results demonstrate again
the importance of factor measurements for nuclear structure determination s
due to their specific sensitivity to detailed proton and neutron components in
the nuclear wave functions.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figs, submitted to PL
- …