Fade-up notifications for alerts, optional content, and advertising

This disclosure describes fade-up messages that can be used to provide display of content such as advertisements without diverting user attention. Fade-up messages utilize a gradual change in the transparency of the message. Fade-up messages are designed with easily recognizable images, and do not include text and/or numbers. The user perceives the content of the message subconsciously and is not given an impression of being interrupted. Perceived unconsciously, fade-ups inform the user without interrupting them, enabling a user to self-interrupt and take conscious action to select the message. Fade-up messages enable advertisers and other parties to gently notify a user with a particular message, without the intrusiveness of a pop-up message

Volumetric Slider On User Interface

A device and a method are disclosed for providing an improved volumetric slider on a touch user interface (UI). The device includes a UI, such as a touch screen, displaying a volumetric slider or controller. The controller is designed as a blob for adjusting the volume by a natural pinch or un-pinch motion using fingertips. The un-pinch motion stretches the blob to create two smaller blobs and a visually-compelling thread, which indicates a distance between the two smaller blobs. The thread allows the user to judge the adjustment they have made to the volume. Further, the thread can be brought to zero value by the pinch motion of the fingertips to bring the two smaller blobs together. The disclosed concept may also be applied to controls across a higher number of dimensions in 3D or 4D environments, such as virtual reality or augmented reality

Approaches to providing missing transfer parameter values in the ERICA Tool: how well do they work?

A required parameter for the ERICA Tool is the concentration ratio (CR), which is used to describe the transfer from environmental media to a range of organisms. For the original parameterisation of the ERICA Tool, 60% of these values were derived using a variety of extrapolation approaches, including the application of allometric models, the use of values for a similar organism or element with similar biogeochemical behaviour and the use of values from a different ecosystem. Although similar approaches are applied in other assessment systems, there has been little attempt to see how well these approaches perform. In this paper, CR values in the ERICA Tool derived using extrapolation approaches are compared to more recently available empirical data from the IAEA wildlife transfer database. The primary purpose of the default CR database in the ERICA Tool, and other models, is to enable the user to conduct conservative screening assessments. Conservatism was therefore introduced to the analyses by selecting the 95th percentile CR values for subsequent calculations. The extrapolation methodologies are not guaranteed to provide conservative estimates of empirical 95th percentile CRs. For the terrestrial ecosystem, the extrapolation methods provide underpredictions of empirical 95th percentiles as often as they produce overpredictions. In a few cases the underestimation of CR values, when considering all ecosystems, is substantial - by orders of magnitude - which is clearly unacceptable for a screening assessment. Thus, although extrapolation approaches will remain an essential component of screening assessments in the future, because data gaps will always be present, diligence is important in their application. Finally, by synthesizing the results from the current analyses and through other considerations, some recommendations are provided with regards to modifying the original guidance on use of extrapolation approaches in the ERICA Tool

Exploring taxonomic and phylogenetic relationships to predict radiocaesium transfer to marine biota

One potentially useful approach to fill data gaps for concentration ratios, CRs, is based upon the hypothesis that an underlying taxonomic and/or phylogenetic relationship exists for radionuclide transfer. The objective of this study was to explore whether these relationships could be used to explain variation in the transfer of radiocaesium to a wide range of marine organisms. CR data for 137Cs were classified in relation to taxonomic family, order, class and phylum. A Residual Maximum Likelihood (REML) mixed-model regression modelling approach was adopted. The existence of any patterns were then explored using phylogenetic trees constructed with mitochondrial COI gene sequences from various biota groups and mapping the REML residual means onto these trees. A comparison of the predictions made using REML with blind datasets allowed the efficacy of the procedure to be tested. The only significant correlation between predicted and measured activity concentrations was revealed at the taxonomic level of order when comparing REML analysis output with data from the Barents Sea Region. For this single case a correlation 0.80 (Spearman rank) was derived which was significant at the 0.01 level (1-tailed test) although this was not the case once a (Bonferroni) correction was applied. The application of the REML approach to marine datasets has met with limited success, and the phylogenetic trees illustrate complications of using predictions based on values from different levels of taxonomic organization, where predicted values for the order level can mask the values at lower taxonomic levels. Any influence of taxonomy and phylogeny on transfer is not immediately conspicuous and categorizing marine organisms in this way is limited in providing a potentially robust prognostic extrapolation tool. Other factors may plausibly affect transfer to a much greater degree in marine systems, such as quite diverse life histories and different diets, which may confound any phylogenetic pattern

Applying process-based models to the Borssele scenario

The objective of this paper is to consider the implications of employing process-based models on predictions for radionuclide activity concentrations in grass and cow milk. The FDMT (Food Chain and Dose Module for Terrestrial Pathways as used in the JRODOS and ARGOS decision support systems) model has been transferred to a modelling platform enabling sub-models to be modified and replaced. Primarily, this has involved invoking process-based models for 137Cs and 90Sr that account for soil chemistry in simulating bioavailability and plant transfer. The implementation of such models can lead to quite dramatic differences in predicted activity concentrations of radionuclides in grass and milk compared to a default FDMT set-up for time periods later than a few weeks post deposition. Considering transfer within a spatial context, by combining information from the outputs of process-based models with illustrative soil maps, leads to the observation that the most elevated 137Cs and 90Sr concentrations in grass and milk might not necessarily occur in areas where deposition is highest. Not accounting for soil type when modelling food chain transfer might lead to the sub-optimal allocation of resources or misidentification of the most vulnerable areas in the long-term after an accidental release

Unifying interaction across distributed controls in a smart environment using anthropology-based computing to make human-computer interaction "Calm"

Rather than adapt human behavior to suit a life surrounded by computerized systems, is it possible to adapt the systems to suit humans? Mark Weiser called for this fundamental change to the design and engineering of computer systems nearly twenty years ago. We believe it is possible and offer a series of related theoretical developments and practical experiments designed in an attempt to build a system that can meet his challenge without resorting to black box design principles or Wizard of Oz protocols. This culminated in a trial involving 32 participants, each of whom used two different multimodal interactive techniques, based on our novel interaction paradigm, to intuitively control nine distributed devices in a smart home setting. The theoretical work and practical developments have led to our proposal of seven contributions to the state of the art

A new version of the ERICA tool to facilitate impact assessments of radioactivity on wild plants and animals

A new version of the ERICA Tool (version 1.2) was released in November 2014; this constitutes the first major update of the Tool since release in 2007. The key features of the update are presented in this article. Of particular note are new transfer databases extracted from an international compilation of concentration ratios (CRwo-media) and the modification of ‘extrapolation’ approaches used to select transfer data in cases where information is not available. Bayesian updating approaches have been used in some cases to draw on relevant information that would otherwise have been excluded in the process of deriving CRwo-media statistics. All of these efforts have in turn led to the requirement to update Environmental Media Concentration Limits (EMCLs) used in Tier 1 assessments. Some of the significant changes with regard to EMCLs are highlighte