Searching in the cultural heritage domain: capturing cultural heritage expert information seeking needs

We report the results of a user study that captures knowledge on how cultural heritage experts search for information. We use a qualitative study technique with participants from four cultural heritage institutions in the Netherlands who were interviewed and asked to answer questionnaires about their daily work. Our goal is to acquire knowledge of their information seeking needs and the information sources they use. The paper provides a

Effect of mulching and organic manure on growth and yield performance of wheat

An experiment was conducted at the Agronomy Field Laboratory, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh in Rabi season (dry season) of 2014 to study the effect of mulching and organic manure on growth and yield performance of wheat. Five mulching practices viz. M1=1 irrigation at 17-21 days after sowing (DAS), M2=2 irrigations at 17-21 and 55-60 DAS, M3=3 irrigations at 17-21, 55-60 and 75-80 DAS, M4=control, M5=straw mulch (6 t ha-1) and five organic manure managements viz. O1=recommended chemical fertilizer (NPKS @ 100-23-20-16 kg ha-1), O2=poultry manure @ 6 t ha-1 (100% PM), O3=vermicompost @ 8 t ha-1 (100% VC), O4=50% chemical fertilizer+50% VC and O5=50% chemical fertilizer+50% PM were used as experimental variables. The experiment was conducted in split-plot design with three replications. The results showed that mulching had significant influence on all attributes. The highest values of all attributes were found in straw mulch treatment. It was observed that organic manure had significant influences on all characters. The highest values of yield and yield attributes were found in O5 (50% chemical fertilizer+50% PM) treatment. It was observed that effective tillers hill-1, grain yield and straw yield were significantly affected by combined effect of mulching and organic manure. The highest values obtained from mulching and O5 (50% chemical fertilizer+50% PM) treatment. Therefore, it can be inferred from the results of the study that highest production could be obtained from mulching and O5 (50% chemical fertilizer+50% PM) treatment

‘Give me a hug': the effects of touch and autonomy on people's responses to embodied social agents

Embodied social agents are programmed to display human-like social behaviour to increase intuitiveness of interacting with these agents. It is not yet clear to what extent people respond to agents’ social behaviours. One example is touch. Despite robots’ embodiment and increasing autonomy, the effect of communicative touch has been a mostly overlooked aspect of human-robot interaction. This video-based, 2x2 betweensubject survey experiment (N=119) found that the combination of touch and proactivity influenced whether people saw the robot as machine-like and dependable. Participants’ attitude towards robots in general also influenced perceived closeness between humans and robots. Results show that communicative touch is considered a more appropriate behaviour for proactive agents rather than reactive agents. Also, people that are generally more positive towards robots find robots that interact by touch less machine-like. These effects illustrate that careful consideration is necessary when incorporating social behaviours in agents’ physical interaction design

Understanding cultural heritage experts’ information seeking needs

We report on our user study on the information seeking behavior of cultural heritage experts and the sources they use to carry out search tasks. Seventeen experts from nine cultural heritage institutes in the Netherlands were interviewed and asked to answer questionnaires about their daily search activities. The interviews helped us to better understand their search motivations, types, sources and tools. A key finding of our study is that the majority of search tasks involve relatively complex information gathering. This is in contrast to the relatively simple fact-finding oriented support provided by current tools. We describe a number of strategies that experts have developed to overcome the inadequacies of their tools. Finally, based on the analysis, we derive general trends of cultural heritage experts’ information seeking needs and discuss our preliminary experiences with potential solutions

Improved tool life in end milling Ti-6Al-4V through workpiece preheating

This paper presents the investigation of tool life improvement in end-milling of Titanium Alloy Ti-6Al-4V through workpiece preheating. End milling tests were conducted on Vertical Machining Centre with full immersion cutting. Induction heating was utilized during end milling for preheating. The titanium alloy Ti-6Al-4V bar was used as the workpiece. Machining was performed with a 20 mm diameter end-mill tool holder fitted with one PCD inserts. All of the experiments were run under room temperature and preheating condition at 315, 450, and 650ºC. Flank wear has been considered as the criterion for tool failure and the wear was measured using a Hisomet II Toolmaker’s microscope. Tests were conducted until an insert was rejected when an average flank wear greater than 0.30 mm was recorded. Cutting force and torque measurements were conducted using the Kistler Rotating Cutting Force Dynamometer. Vibration during cutting was captured using an online vibration monitoring system. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) was also used to investigate the wear morphology. The results led to conclusions that workpiece preheating significantly increases the tool life of PCD inserts in end-milling of Titanium Alloy Ti-6Al-4V