Scaling Effects in Laser-Based Additive Manufacturing Processes

Mechanical Engineerin

Citizenship Education and Current Educational Reform

This article examines the character of citizenship education in Canada as it is represented in the official policy documents of the provinces and territories, as opposed to the actual classroom practice of the curriculum-in-use. We consider policies in light of a typology of citizenship ranging from elitist to activist, and identify common as well as particular features of citizenship education. We find that the official curriculum of educational policy inclines towards an activist conception of citizenship. Cet article compare la formation en civisme au Canada, telle qu’elle se dégage des documents de politiques officielles des provinces et des territoires, aux cours de civisme dispensés dans les classes elles-mêmes. Les auteurs analysent les politiques à l’aide d’une typologie du civisme allant de l’élitisme à l’activisme et identifient les caractéristiques communes et distinctes de la formation en civisme. Selon les auteurs, les programmes officiels en la matière tendent plutôt vers une conception activiste du civisme.

Ransomware: A Bibliometric Research Study

This study gathered and analyzed data of published scholarly literature regarding ransomware in order to share this knowledge with LIS professionals for their own use and education. It focused on scholarly journals over the last decade (2010-2020)

A Multimedia Manual On The World Wide Web For Telecommunications Equipment

An interactive multimedia educational manual on the Internet through the World Wide Web for commercial optical fiber telecommunications equipment is described. The Telecommunications Laboratory Manual is a vehicle for enhancing engineering education with realistic laboratory or virtual laboratory experience. The manual provides a brief system tutorial, operating instructions, on-line help, and multimedia experimental demonstrations. It incorporates block diagrams, photographic images, and hypertext links that are mouse clickable, allowing users to access documents or links describing components or processes in any order. An experimental section guides students through laboratory experiences, demonstrates selected equipment characteristics, and provides for direct instructor contact through e-mail. Other remote resources on the Internet are linked to create a global multimedia library. This paper describes the manual, its multimedia design, its use in the curriculum, and its further potential. © 1996 IEEE

Layour Appropriateness: A metric for evaluating user interface widget layout

Numerous methods to evaluate user interfaces have been investigated. These methods vary greatly in the attention paid to the users tasks. Some methods require detailed task descriptions while others are task-independent. Unfortunately, collecting detailed task information can be difficult. On the other hand, task-independent methods cannot evaluate a design for the tasks users actually perform. The goal of this research is to develop a metric, which incorporates simple task descriptions, that can assist designers in organizing widgets in the user interface. Simple task descriptions provide some of the benefits, without the difficulties, of performing a detailed task analysis. The metric, Layout Appropriateness (LA), requires a description of the sequences of widget-level actions users perform and how frequently each sequence is used. This task description can either be from observations of an existing system or from a simplified task analysis. The appropriateness of a given layout is computed by weighting the cost of each sequence of actions by how frequently the sequence is performed. This emphasizes frequent methods of accomplishing tasks while incorporating less frequent methods in the design. Currently costs are based on the distance users must move the mouse. Other measures such as the number of eye fixations necessary to extract the relevant information or measure like the number of changes in direction may also prove useful, but must be validated before they are made available for use. In addition to providing an comparison of a proposed or existing layouts, an LA-optimal layout is presented to the designer. The designer can compare the LA-optimal and existing layouts or start with the LA-optimal layout and modify it to take additional factors into consideration. Software engineers who occasionally face interface design problems and user interface designers can benefit from the explicit focus on the users tasks that LA incorporates into automated user interface evaluation. (Also cross-referenced as CAR-TR-603

Improving Touchscreen Keyboards: Design issues and a comparison with other devices

This study explored touchscreen keyboards using high precision touchscreen strategies. Phase one evaluated three possible monitor positions: 30, 45, and 75 degrees from horizontal. Results indicate that the 75 degree angle, approximately the standard monitor position, resulted in more fatigue and lower preference ratings. Phase two collected touch bias and key size data for the 30 degree angle. Subjects consistently touched below targets, and touched to the left of targets on either side of the screen. Using these data, a touchscreen keyboard was designed. Phase three compared this keyboard with a mouse activated keyboard, and the standard QWERTY keyboard for typing relatively short strings of 6, 19, and 44 characters. Results indicate that users can type approximately 25 words per minute with the touchscreen keyboard, compared to 17 WPM using the mouse, and 58 WPM when using the keyboard. Possible improvements to touchscreen keyboards are suggested. (Also cross-referenced as CAR-TR-515

Split menus: Effectively using selection frequency to organize menus

When some items in a menu are selected more frequently than others, as is often the case, designers or individual users may be able to speed performance and improve satisfaction by placing several high-frequency items at the top of the menu. Design guidelines for split menus were developed and applied. Split menus were implemented and tested in two field studies and a controlled experiment. In the field study conditions performance times were reduced from 17 or 58% depending on the site and menus. In the controlled experiment split menus were significantly faster than alphabetic menus and yielded significantly higher subjective preferences. A possible resolution to the continuing debate among cognitive theorists about predicting menu selection times is offered. We conjecture and offer evidence that the logarithmic model applies to familiar (high-frequency) items and the linear model applies to unfamiliar (low-frequency) items. (Also cross-referenced as CAR-TR-649) ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, vol. 1, #1 (March 1994) 27-51 %I Human Computer Interaction Laborator

Directory services for Internet telephony : creating a spanning layer over the Internet and telephone networks

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1997.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 57-58).by Andrew Lester Sears.M.S

High Precision Touchscreens: Design Strategies and Comparisons with a Mouse

Three studies were conducted comparing speed of performance, error rates, and user preference ratings for three selection devices. The devices tested were a touchscreen, a touchscreen with stabilization (stabilization software filters and smooths raw data from hardware), and a mouse. The task was the selection of rectangular targets 1, 4, 16, and 32 pixels per side (0.4x0.6, 1.7x2.2, 6.9x9.0, 13.8x17.9 mm respectively). Touchscreen users were able to point at single pixel targets, thereby countering widespread expectations of poor touchscreen resolution. The results show no difference in performance between the mouse and touchscreen for targets ranging from 32 to 4 pixels per side. In addition, stabilization significantly reduced the error rates for the touchscreen when selecting small targets. These results imply that touchscreens, when properly used, have attractive advantages in selecting targets as small as 4 pixels per size (approximately one-quarter of the size of a single character). A variant of Fitts' Law is proposed to predict touchscreen pointing times. Ideas for future research are also presented. (Also cross-referenced as CAR-TR-450