246 research outputs found
Recommended from our members
Discovering the Unfindable: The Tension Between Findability and Discoverability in a Bookshop Designed for Serendipity
Serendipity is a key aspect of user experience, particularly in the context of information acquisition - where it is known as information encountering. Unexpectedly encountering interesting or useful information can spark new insights while surprising and delighting. However, digital environments have been designed primarily for goal-directed seeking over loosely-directed exploration, searching over discovering. In this paper we examine a novel physical environment - a bookshop designed primarily for serendipity - for cues as to how information encountering might be helped or hindered by digital design. Naturalistic observations and interviews revealed it was almost impossible for participants to find specific books or topics other than by accident. But all unexpectedly encoun-tered interesting books, highlighting a tension between findability and discoverability. While some of the bookshop’s design features enabled information en-countering, others inhibited it. However, encountering was resilient, as it occurred despite participants finding it hard to understand the purpose of even those features that did enable it. Findings suggest the need to consider how transparent or opaque the purpose of design features should be and to balance structure and lack of it when designing digital environments for findability and discoverability
Dynamical simulation of transport in one-dimensional quantum wires
Transport of single-channel spinless interacting fermions (Luttinger liquid)
through a barrier has been studied by numerically exact quantum Monte Carlo
methods. A novel stochastic integration over the real-time paths allows for
direct computation of nonequilibrium conductance and noise properties. We have
examined the low-temperature scaling of the conductance in the crossover region
between a very weak and an almost insulating barrier.Comment: REVTex, 4 pages, 2 uuencoded figures (submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett.
Comparative study of semiclassical approaches to quantum dynamics
Quantum states can be described equivalently by density matrices, Wigner
functions or quantum tomograms. We analyze the accuracy and performance of
three related semiclassical approaches to quantum dynamics, in particular with
respect to their numerical implementation. As test cases, we consider the time
evolution of Gaussian wave packets in different one-dimensional geometries,
whereby tunneling, resonance and anharmonicity effects are taken into account.
The results and methods are benchmarked against an exact quantum mechanical
treatment of the system, which is based on a highly efficient Chebyshev
expansion technique of the time evolution operator.Comment: 32 pages, 8 figures, corrected typos and added references; version as
publishe
Recommended from our members
Defining and applying a language for discovery
In order to design better search experiences, we need to understand the complexities of human information-seeking behaviour. In this paper, we propose a model of information behaviour based on the needs of users across a range of search and discovery scenarios. The model consists of a set of modes that that users employ to satisfy their information goals.
We discuss how these modes relate to existing models of human information seeking behaviour, and identify areas where they differ. We then examine how they can be applied in the design of interactive systems, and present examples where individual modes have been implemented in interesting or novel ways. Finally, we consider the ways in which modes combine to form distinct chains or patterns of behaviour, and explore the use of such patterns both as an analytical tool for understanding information behaviour and as a generative tool for designing search and discovery experiences
Recommended from our members
On Birthing Dancing Stars: The Need for Bounded Chaos in Information Interaction
While computers causing chaos is acommon social trope, nearly the entirety of the history of computing is dedicated to generating order. Typical interactive information retrieval tasks ask computers to support the traversal and exploration of large, complex information spaces. The implicit assumption is that they are to support users in simplifying the complexity (i.e. in creating order from chaos). But for some types of task, particularly those that involve the creative application or synthesis of knowledge or the creation of new knowledge, this assumption may be incorrect. It is increasingly evident that perfect order—and the systems we create with it—support highly-structured information tasks well, but provide poor support for less-structured tasks.We need digital information environments that help create a little more chaos from order to spark creative thinking and knowledge creation. This paper argues for the need for information systems that offerwhat we term ‘bounded chaos’, and offers research directions that may support the creation of such interface
Suppression of decoherence via strong intra-environmental coupling
We examine the effects of intra-environmental coupling on decoherence by
constructing a low temperature spin--spin-bath model of an atomic impurity in a
Debye crystal. The impurity interacts with phonons of the crystal through
anti-ferromagnetic spin-spin interactions. The reduced density matrix of the
central spin representing the impurity is calculated by dynamically integrating
the full Schroedinger equation for the spin--spin-bath model for different
thermally weighted eigenstates of the spin-bath. Exact numerical results show
that increasing the intra-environmental coupling results in suppression of
decoherence. This effect could play an important role in the construction of
solid state quantum devices such as quantum computers.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, Revtex fil
Mixing Quantum and Classical Mechanics
Using a group theoretical approach we derive an equation of motion for a
mixed quantum-classical system. The quantum-classical bracket entering the
equation preserves the Lie algebra structure of quantum and classical
mechanics: The bracket is antisymmetric and satisfies the Jacobi identity, and,
therefore, leads to a natural description of interaction between quantum and
classical degrees of freedom. We apply the formalism to coupled quantum and
classical oscillators and show how various approximations, such as the
mean-field and the multiconfiguration mean-field approaches, can be obtained
from the quantum-classical equation of motion.Comment: 31 pages, LaTeX2
Mapping Patent Classifications: Portfolio and Statistical Analysis, and the Comparison of Strengths and Weaknesses
The Cooperative Patent Classifications (CPC) jointly developed by the
European and US Patent Offices provide a new basis for mapping and portfolio
analysis. This update provides an occasion for rethinking the parameter
choices. The new maps are significantly different from previous ones, although
this may not always be obvious on visual inspection. Since these maps are
statistical constructs based on index terms, their quality--as different from
utility--can only be controlled discursively. We provide nested maps online and
a routine for portfolio overlays and further statistical analysis. We add a new
tool for "difference maps" which is illustrated by comparing the portfolios of
patents granted to Novartis and MSD in 2016.Comment: Scientometrics 112(3) (2017) 1573-1591;
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11192-017-2449-
- …