9,118 research outputs found
Using film cutting in interface design
It has been suggested that computer interfaces could be made more usable if their designers utilized cinematography techniques, which have evolved to guide
the viewer through a narrative despite frequent discontinuities in the presented scene (i.e., cuts between shots). Because of differences between the domains of
film and interface design, it is not straightforward to understand how such techniques can be transferred. May and Barnard (1995) argued that a psychological
model of watching film could support such a transference. This article presents an extended account of this model, which allows identification of the practice of collocation
of objects of interest in the same screen position before and after a cut. To verify that filmmakers do, in fact, use such techniques successfully, eye movements
were measured while participants watched the entirety of a commerciall
Systems, interactions and macrotheory
A significant proportion of early HCI research was guided by one very clear vision: that the existing theory base in psychology and cognitive science could be developed to yield engineering tools for use in the interdisciplinary context of HCI design. While interface technologies and heuristic methods for behavioral evaluation have rapidly advanced in both capability and breadth of application, progress toward deeper theory has been modest, and some now believe it to be unnecessary. A case is presented for developing new forms of theory, based around generic âsystems of interactors.â An overlapping, layered structure of macro- and microtheories could then serve an explanatory role, and could also bind together contributions from the different disciplines. Novel routes to formalizing and applying such theories provide a host of interesting and tractable problems for future basic research in HCI
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Researching Across Two Cultures: Shifting Positionality
Embodied and creative research methods provoke honesty, emotion, and vulnerability in participants, which add to the richness of the stories they tell and are willing to share. The positionality of the researcher is less of âinterviewerâ and more âco-producerâ or participant in a dialogue. Visual and creative approaches invite participants to share in ways in which they are not able or willing through words alone. The data and outputs they produce, with film, art, or objects, can in turn affect those who see it more than written text and need to be analysed and disseminated along with more traditional transcripts, articles, and presentations. In the context of investigating sensitive issues such as those around embodied identity, these methods, which use embodied methods to explore embodied research questions, may feel the most appropriate. These approaches lie along the boundary of therapy and research, asking much of researchers who are unlikely to have received therapeutic training or ongoing support. Due to this deficit, the researched may find that their experience is not held or contained in a way that the content would demand. Similarly, the data themselves lie on the boundary of art and research, in that they can be seen as more than a tool to facilitate reflection, but as artifacts in their own right. What are the implications in this scenario? Where should we position ourselves and our work along these boundaries? Who holds the space for the researcher and the researched if both are made vulnerable
Collocating Interface Objects: Zooming into Maps
May, Dean and Barnard [10] used a theoretically based model to argue that objects in a wide range of interfaces should be collocated following screen changes such as a zoom-in to detail. Many existing online maps do not follow this principle, but move a clicked point to the centre of the subsequent display, leaving the user looking at an unrelated location. This paper presents three experiments showing that collocating the point clicked on a map so that the detailed location appears in the place previously occupied by the overview location makes the map easier to use, reducing eye movements and interaction duration. We discuss the benefit of basing design principles on theoretical models so that they can be applied to novel situations, and so designers can infer when to use and not use them
Schwarzschild-anti de Sitter within an Isothermal Cavity: Thermodynamics, Phase Transitions and the Dirichlet Problem
The thermodynamics of Schwarzschild black holes within an isothermal cavity
and the associated Euclidean Dirichlet boundary-value problem are studied for
four and higher dimensions in anti-de Sitter (AdS) space. For such boundary
conditions classically there always exists a unique hot AdS solution and two or
no Schwarzschild-AdS black-hole solutions depending on whether or not the
temperature of the cavity-wall is above a minimum value, the latter being a
function of the radius of the cavity. Assuming the standard area-law of
black-hole entropy, it was known that larger and smaller holes have positive
and negative specific heats and hence are locally thermodynamically stable and
unstable respectively. In this paper we present the first derivation of this by
showing that the standard area law of black-hole entropy holds in the
semi-classical approximation of the Euclidean path integral for such boundary
conditions. We further show that for wall-temperatures above a critical value a
phase transition takes hot AdS to the larger Schwarzschild-AdS within the
cavity. The larger hole thus can be globally thermodynamically stable above
this temperature. The phase transition can occur for a cavity of arbitrary
radius above a (corresponding) critical temperature. In the infinite cavity
limit this picture reduces to that considered by Hawking and Page. The case of
five dimensions is found to be rather special since exact analytic expressions
can be obtained for the masses of the two holes as functions of cavity radius
and temperature thus solving exactly the Euclidean Dirichlet problem. This
makes it possible to compute the on-shell Euclidean action as functions of them
from which other quantities of interest can be evaluated exactly.Comment: 23 pages, Late
Nernst effect in the electron-doped cuprates
We calculate the normal state Nernst signal in the cuprates resulting from a
reconstruction of the Fermi surface due to spin density wave order. An order
parameter consistent with the reconstruction of the Fermi surface detected in
electron-doped materials is shown to sharply enhance the Nernst signal close to
optimal doping. Within a semiclassical treatment, the obtained magnitude and
position of the enhanced Nernst signal agrees with Nernst measurements in
electron-doped cuprates.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, revised version as accepted by Phys. Rev. B,
changed several citations and reference
Predicting space climate change
The recent decline in the open magnetic flux of the Sun heralds the end of the Grand Solar Maximum (GSM) that has persisted throughout the space age, during which the largestâfluence Solar Energetic Particle (SEP) events have been rare and Galactic Cosmic Ray (GCR) fluxes have been relatively low. In the absence of a predictive model of the solar dynamo, we here make analogue forecasts by studying past variations of solar activity in order to evaluate how longâterm change in space climate may influence the hazardous energetic particle environment of the Earth in the future. We predict the probable future variations in GCR flux, nearâEarth interplanetary magnetic field (IMF), sunspot number, and the probability of large SEP events, all deduced from cosmogenic isotope abundance changes following 24 GSMs in a 9300âyear record
The Distribution of X-ray Dips with Orbital Phase in Cygnus X-1
We present results of a comprehensive study of the distribution of absorption
dips with orbital phase in Cygnus X-1. Firstly, the distribution was obtained
using archival data from all major X-ray observatories and corrected for the
selection effect that phase zero (superior conjunction of the black hole) has
been preferentially observed. Dip occurrence was seen to vary strongly with
orbital phase \phi, with a peak at \phi ~ 0.95, i.e. was not symmetric about
phase zero. Secondly, the RXTE ASM has provided continuous coverage of the Low
State of Cygnus X-1 since Sept. 1996, and we have selected dip data based on
increases in hardness ratio. The distribution, with much increased numbers of
dip events, confirms that the peak is at \phi ~ 0.95, and we report the
discovery of a second peak at \phi ~ 0.6. We attribute this peak to absorption
in an accretion stream from the companion star HDE 226868. We have estimated
the ionization parameter at different positions showing that radiative
acceleration of the wind is suppressed by photoionization in particular regions
in the binary system. To obtain the variation of column density with phase, we
make estimates of neutral wind density for the extreme cases that acceleration
of the wind is totally suppressed, or not suppressed at all. An accurate
description will lie between these extremes. In each case, a strong variation
of column density with orbital phase resulted, similar to the variation of dip
occurrence. This provides evidence that formation of the blobs in the wind
which lead to absorption dips depends on the density of the neutral component
in the wind, suggesting possible mechanisms for blob growth.Comment: 9 pages, Latex, 7 ps figures. accepted by MNRA
Thermoelectric studies of KxFe2-ySe2: weakly correlated superconductor
We report thermal transport measurement of KxFe2-ySe2 superconducting single
crystal. Significant peak anomaly in thermal conductivity is observed at nearly
TC/2 indicating a large phonon mean-free-path in the superconducting state. The
zero-temperature extrapolated thermoelectric power is smaller than the value in
typical strongly correlated superconductors, implying large normalized Fermi
temperature. In contrast to other iron superconductors, thermoelectric power in
our sample does not exhibit significant anomalies. These findings indicate that
KxFe2-ySe2 is a weakly or intermediately correlated superconductor without
significant Fermi surface nesting.Comment: Revised version, 5 pages, 5 figures, Will appear in Physical Review
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