A Possible Regenerative, Molten-Salt, Thermoelectric Fuel Cell

Molten or fused salts have been evaluated as possible thermoelectric materials because of the relatively good values of their figures of merit, their chemical stability, their long liquid range, and their ability to operate in conjunction with a nuclear reactor to produce heat. In general, molten salts are electrolytic conductors; therefore, there will be a transport of materials and subsequent decomposition with the passage of an electric current. It is possible nonetheless to overcome this disadvantage by using the decomposition products of the molten-salt electrolyte in a fuel cell. The combination of a thermoelectric converter and a fuel cell would lead to a regenerative system that may be useful

How Will Hydroelectric Power Generation Develop under Climate Change Scenarios?

Climate change has a large impact on water resources and thus on hydropower. Hydroelectric power generation is closely linked to the regional hydrological situation of a watershed and reacts sensitively to changes in water quantity and seasonality. The development of hydroelectric power generation in the Upper Danube basin was modelled for two future decades, namely 2021-2030 and 2051-2060, using a special hydropower module coupled with the physically-based hydrological model PROMET. To cover a possible range of uncertainties, 16 climate scenarios were taken as meteorological drivers which were defined from different ensemble outputs of a stochastic climate generator, based on the IPCC-SRES-A1B emission scenario and four regional climate trends. Depending on the trends, the results show a slight to severe decline in hydroelectric power generation. Whilst the mean summer values indicate a decrease, the mean winter values display an increase. To show past and future regional differences within the Upper Danube basin, three hydropower plants at individual locations were selected. Inter-annual differences originate predominately from unequal contributions of the runoff compartments rain, snow-and ice-melt

The stability of the h -index

Over the last years the h-index has gained popularity as a measure for comparing the impact of scientists. We investigate if ranking according to the h-index is stable with respect to (i) different choices of citation databases, (ii) normalizing citation counts by the number of authors or by removing self-citations, (iii) small amounts of noise created by randomly removing citations or publications and (iv) small changes in the definition of the index. In experiments for 5,283 computer scientists and 1,354 physicists we show that although the ranking of the h-index is stable under most of these changes, it is unstable when different databases are used. Therefore, comparisons based on the h-index should only be trusted when the rankings of multiple citation databases agre

Towards a Lightweight Approach for Modding Serious Educational Games: Assisting Novice Designers

Serious educational games (SEGs) are a growing segment of the education community’s pedagogical toolbox. Effectively creating such games remains challenging, as teachers and industry trainers are content experts; typically they are not game designers with the theoretical knowledge and practical experience needed to create a quality SEG. Here, a lightweight approach to interactively explore and modify existing SEGs is introduced, a toll that can be broadly adopted by educators for pedagogically sound SEGs. Novice game designers can rapidly explore the educational and traditional elements of a game, with a stress on tracking the SEG learning objectives, as well as allowing for reviewing and altering a variety of graphic and audio game elements

THE POLITICAL FACE OF ANTITRUST

The last twenty years have brought antitrust back to the fore as a political issue of greater salience. Several booms and busts in the economy have highlighted the issue of corporate power in the economy and the political system. The growing influence and aggressiveness of the European Union and other jurisdictions’ competition laws have highlighted the relative retreat in the United States. Political movements in the United States have brought issues of corporate power and its abuse back into the public limelight and with them a greater political salience for antitrust in the election cycle of 2020

Human Robot Interface for Assistive Grasping

This work describes a new human-in-the-loop (HitL) assistive grasping system for individuals with varying levels of physical capabilities. We investigated the feasibility of using four potential input devices with our assistive grasping system interface, using able-bodied individuals to define a set of quantitative metrics that could be used to assess an assistive grasping system. We then took these measurements and created a generalized benchmark for evaluating the effectiveness of any arbitrary input device into a HitL grasping system. The four input devices were a mouse, a speech recognition device, an assistive switch, and a novel sEMG device developed by our group that was connected either to the forearm or behind the ear of the subject. These preliminary results provide insight into how different interface devices perform for generalized assistive grasping tasks and also highlight the potential of sEMG based control for severely disabled individuals.Comment: 8 pages, 21 figure

Modality-Specific Effects of Perceptual Load in Multimedia Processing

Digital media are sensory-rich, multimodal, and often highly interactive. An extensive collection of theories and models within the field of media psychology assume the multimodal nature of media stimuli, yet there is current ambiguity as to the independent contributions of visual and auditory content to message complexity and to resource availability in the human processing system. In this article, we argue that explicating the concepts of perceptual and cognitive load can create progress toward a deeper understanding of modality-specific effects in media processing. In addition, we report findings from an experiment showing that perceptual load leads to modality-specific reductions in resource availability, whereas cognitive load leads to a modality-general reduction in resource availability. We conclude with a brief discussion regarding the critical importance of separating modality-specific forms of load in an increasingly multisensory media environment

Modality-Specific Effects of Perceptual Load in Multimedia Processing

Digital media are sensory-rich, multimodal, and often highly interactive. An extensive collection of theories and models within the field of media psychology assume the multimodal nature of media stimuli, yet there is current ambiguity as to the independent contributions of visual and auditory content to message complexity and to resource availability in the human processing system. In this article, we argue that explicating the concepts of perceptual and cognitive load can create progress toward a deeper understanding of modality-specific effects in media processing. In addition, we report findings from an experiment showing that perceptual load leads to modality-specific reductions in resource availability, whereas cognitive load leads to a modality-general reduction in resource availability. We conclude with a brief discussion regarding the critical importance of separating modality-specific forms of load in an increasingly multisensory media environment

Virtuelle Inbetriebnahme und die Nutzung von Extended Reality und Automatisiertem Testen: eine Umfrage in der Industrie

Virtual Commissioning (VC) is seen as an important technology for managing the complexity of production systems. While it is demonstrated that VC can reduce commissioning time, defect rates and costs, the rate of industrial adoption is below expectations. In this paper, we present the results of a survey conducted to investigate the use, expectations, and barriers to the use of VC with an additional focus on Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Test Automation (TA) in this context. The survey results reveal that just over half of the respondents use VC, albeit rarely to occasionally. Barriers to the use of VC are not technological. VR and AR technologies are used in many companies, but not frequently. The results indicate that the potential benefits of using these technologies are not clear enough to justify further investment in what is seen as a somewhat immature technology. TA can only be found in large companies. The main barriers are the amount of effort required to create and maintain automated tests and a general lack of know-how and resources. Respondents agree that all three technologies will become more important in the future