Study of accelerometer assisted single key positioning user input systems

New designs of user input systems have resulted from the developing technologies and specialized user demands. Conventional keyboard and mouse input devices still dominate the input speed, but other input mechanisms are demanded in special application scenarios. Touch screen and stylus input methods have been widely adopted by PDAs and smartphones. Reduced keypads are necessary for mobile phones. A new design trend is exploring the design space in applications requiring single-handed input, even with eyes-free on small mobile devices. This requires as few keys on the input device to make it feasible to operate. But representing many characters with fewer keys can make the input ambiguous. Accelerometers embedded in mobile devices provide opportunities to combine device movements with keys for input signal disambiguation. Recent research has explored its design space for text input. In this dissertation an accelerometer assisted single key positioning input system is developed. It utilizes input device tilt directions as input signals and maps their sequences to output characters and functions. A generic positioning model is developed as guidelines for designing positioning input systems. A calculator prototype and a text input prototype on the 4+1 (5 positions) positioning input system and the 8+1 (9 positions) positioning input system are implemented using accelerometer readings on a smartphone. Users use one physical key to operate and feedbacks are audible. Controlled experiments are conducted to evaluate the feasibility, learnability, and design space of the accelerometer assisted single key positioning input system. This research can provide inspiration and innovational references for researchers and practitioners in the positioning user input designs, applications of accelerometer readings, and new development of standard machine readable sign languages

The Complete Chloroplast Genomes of Echinacanthus Species (Acanthaceae): Phylogenetic Relationships, Adaptive Evolution, and Screening of Molecular Markers

Among the four species of Echinacanthus (Acanthaceae), one distributed in the West Himalayan region and three restricted to the Sino-Vietnamese karst region. Because of its ecological significance, molecular markers are necessary for proper assessment of its genetic diversity and phylogenetic relationships. Herein, the complete chloroplast genomes of four Echinacanthus species were determined for the first time. The results indicated that all the chloroplast genomes were mapped as a circular structure and each genomes included 113 unique genes, of which 80 were protein-coding, 29 were tRNAs, and 4 were rRNAs. However, the four cp genomes ranged from 151,333 to 152,672 bp in length. Comparison of the four cp genomes showed that the divergence level was greater between geographic groups. We also analyzed IR expansion or contraction in the four cp genomes and the fifth type of the large single copy/inverted repeat region in Lamiales was suggested. Furthermore, based on the analyses of comparison and nucleotide variability, six most divergent sequences (rrn16, ycf1, ndhA, rps16-trnQ-UUG, trnS-GCU-trnG-UCC, and psaA-ycf3) were identified. A total of 37–45 simple sequence repeats were discovered in the four species and 22 SSRs were identified as candidate effective molecular markers for detecting interspecies polymorphisms. These SSRs and hotspot regions could be used as potential molecular markers for future study. Phylogenetic analysis based on Bayesian and parsimony methods did not support the monophyly of Echinacanthus. The phylogenetic relationships among the four species were clearly resolved and the results supported the recognition of the Sino-Vietnamese Echinacanthus species as a new genus. Based on the protein sequence evolution analysis, 12 genes (rpl14, rpl16, rps4, rps15, rps18, rps19, psbK, psbN, ndhC, ndhJ, rpoB, and infA) were detected under positive selection in branch of Sino-Vietnamese Echinacanthus species. These genes will lead to understanding the adaptation of Echinacanthus species to karst environment. The study will help to resolve the phylogenetic relationship and understand the adaptive evolution of Echinacanthus. It will also provide genomic resources and potential markers suitable for future species identification and speciation studies of the genus

Influence of Solid-Phase Wall Boundary Condition on CFD Simulation of Spouted Beds

The Influence of Solid-Phase Wall Boundary Condition in Terms of Specularity Coefficient and Particle-Wall Restitution Coefficient on the Flow Behavior of Spouted Beds Was Investigated using Two-Fluid Model Approach in the Computational Fluid Dynamics Software FLUENT 6.3. Parametric Studies of Specularity Coefficient and Particle-Wall Restitution Coefficient Were Performed to Evaluate their Effects on the Flow Hydrodynamics in Terms of Fountain Height, Spout Diameter, Pressure Drop, Local Voidage and Particles Velocity. the Numerical Predictions Were Compared with Available Experimental Data in the Literatures to Obtain the Suitable Values of Specularity Coefficient and Particle-Wall Restitution Coefficient for Spouted Beds. the Simulated Results Show that the Solid-Phase Wall Boundary Condition Plays an Important Role in CFD Modeling of Spouted Beds. the Specularity Coefficient Has a Pronounced Effect on the Spouting Behavior and a Small Specularity Coefficient (0.05) Can Give Good Predictions, While the Particle-Wall Restitution Coefficient is Not Critical for the Holistic Flow Characteristics. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd

The Optimal Linear Secret Sharing Scheme for Any Given Access Structure

Any linear code can be used to construct a linear secret sharing scheme. In this paper, it is shown how to decide optimal linear codes (i.e., with the biggest information rate) realizing a given access structure over finite fields. It amounts to solving a system of quadratic equations constructed from the given access structure and the corresponding adversary structure. The system becomes a linear system for binary codes. An algorithm is also given for finding the adversary structure for any given access structure

Examining Biased Assimilation of Brand-related Online Reviews

This paper examines the impact of pre-existing brand attitudes on consumer processing of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). This topic is particularly important for brands that simultaneously possess strongly pronounced proponents as well as opponents. Two experimental studies using univalent (study 1, N = 538) and mixed (study 2, N = 262) sets of online reviews find indications for biased assimilation effects of eWOM processing. Consumers perceive positive (negative) arguments in online reviews as more (less) persuasive when having a positive (negative) attitude towards the brand. Perceived persuasiveness in turn influences behavioral intentions and acts as a mediator on the relationship between attitude and behavioral intentions. We examine two moderators of this effect. When priming individuals to focus on other consumers (vs. a self-focus prime), the biased assimilation effect is weaker (study 3a, N = 131). In contrast, we show that biased assimilation becomes stronger under conditions of high (vs. low) cognitive impairment (study 3b, N = 124). Our findings contribute to the literature on the relationship between eWOM and brands and advance our understanding of potential outcomes of brand polarization

Divisible On-line/Off-line Signatures

On-line/Off-line signatures are used in a particular scenario where the signer must respond quickly once the message to be signed is presented. The idea is to split the signing procedure into two phases: the off-line and on-line phases. The signer can do some pre-computations in off-line phase before he sees the message to be signed. In most of these schemes, when signing a message $m$, a partial signature of $m$ is computed in the off-line phase. We call this part of signature the off-line signature token of message $m$. In some special applications, the off-line signature tokens might be exposed in the off-line phase. For example, some signers might want to transmit off-line signature tokens in the off-line phase in order to save the on-line transmission bandwidth. Another example is in the case of on-line/off-line threshold signature schemes, where off-line signature tokens are unavoidably exposed to all the players in the off-line phase. This paper discusses this exposure problem and introduces a new notion: divisible on-line/off-line signatures, in which exposure of off-line signature tokens in off-line phase is allowed. An efficient construction of this type of signatures is also proposed. Furthermore, we show an important application of divisible on-line/off-line signatures in the area of on-line/off-line threshold signatures

Accurate Object Recognition with Assembling Appearance and Motion Information

How to effectively detect object and accurately give out its visible parts is a major challenge for object detection. In this paper we propose an explicit occlusion model through integrating appearance and motion information. The model combines together two parts: part-level object detection with single frame and object occlusion estimation with continuous frames. It breaks through the performance bottleneck caused by lack of information and effectively improves object detection rate under severe occlusion. Through reevaluating the semantic parts, the detecting performance of partial object detectors is largely enhanced. The explicit model enables the partial detectors to have the capability of occlusion estimation. By discarding the geometric representation in rigid single-angle perspective and applying effective pattern of objective shape, our proposed approaches greatly improve the performance and robustness of similarity measurement. For validating the performance of proposed methods, we designed a comparative experiment on challenging pedestrian frame sequences database. The experimental results on challenging pedestrian frame sequence demonstrate that, compared to the traditional algorithms, the methods proposed in this paper have significantly improved the detection rate for severe occlusion. Furthermore, it also can achieve better localization of semantic parts and estimation of occluding

Accurate Object Recognition with Assembling Appearance and Motion Information

How to effectively detect object and accurately give out its visible parts is a major challenge for object detection. In this paper we propose an explicit occlusion model through integrating appearance and motion information. The model combines together two parts: part-level object detection with single frame and object occlusion estimation with continuous frames. It breaks through the performance bottleneck caused by lack of information and effectively improves object detection rate under severe occlusion. Through reevaluating the semantic parts, the detecting performance of partial object detectors is largely enhanced. The explicit model enables the partial detectors to have the capability of occlusion estimation. By discarding the geometric representation in rigid single-angle perspective and applying effective pattern of objective shape, our proposed approaches greatly improve the performance and robustness of similarity measurement. For validating the performance of proposed methods, we designed a comparative experiment on challenging pedestrian frame sequences database. The experimental results on challenging pedestrian frame sequence demonstrate that, compared to the traditional algorithms, the methods proposed in this paper have significantly improved the detection rate for severe occlusion. Furthermore, it also can achieve better localization of semantic parts and estimation of occluding