Cell Therapy for Type 1 Diabetes

Acknowledgements The work described in this review was supported by a grant from the MRC. K.R.M. is supported by a fellowship from the Scottish Translational Medicines and Therapeutics Initiative through the Wellcome Trust.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Transport in a sustainable urban future

Transport is acknowledged as a vital ingredient of any credible strategy for the sustainable city because of the key role it plays in promoting economic development, quality of life and wellbeing. Yet managing urban transport effectively, given its complex and intersecting economic, environmental and social impacts, is also precisely the kind of ‘wicked problem’ that policy makers consistently find hard to resolve (Docherty and Shaw, 2011a; Conklin, 2006; Rittel and Webber, 1973). Many of the reasons for this are longstanding and emanate in particular from the dominance of the private car in meeting the demand for mobility, which has built up over many decades in the developed world, but which is now being reproduced at a much higher pace in the fast growing cities of the Pacific Rim and elsewhere (Newman and Kenworthy, 1999; Lyons and Loo, 2008). Although it has undoubtedly transformed our patterns of travel and consumption, concerns over the limitations and externalities of private car transport – primarily traffic congestion, environmental degradation and social exclusion – have for many years stimulated various initiatives designed to mitigate these externalities (Feitelson and Verhoef, 2001; Knowles et al, 2008). The conflict between the car, long promoted by neoliberal voices as a potent weapon of the free market and individual liberty, and competing visions of a more ‘public’ transport system based on collective modes such as the bus and train, and active travel by walking and cycling, has been played out over many years. Nowhere has this conflict been more intense than in cities, as it is here that the problems such as congestion, poor local air quality and mobility deprivation are often at their most intense (Cahill, 2010; Docherty et al, 2008)

MISSED: an environment for mixed-signal microsystem testing and diagnosis

A tight link between design and test data is proposed for speeding up test-pattern generation and diagnosis during mixed-signal prototype verification. Test requirements are already incorporated at the behavioral level and specified with increased detail at lower hierarchical levels. A strict distinction between generic routines and implementation data makes reuse of software possible. A testability-analysis tool and test and DFT libraries support the designer to guarantee testability. Hierarchical backtrace procedures in combination with an expert system and fault libraries assist the designer during mixed-signal chip debuggin

A disintegrating cosmic string

We present a simple sandwich gravitational wave of the Robinson-Trautman family. This is interpreted as representing a shock wave with a spherical wavefront which propagates into a Minkowski background minus a wedge. (i.e. the background contains a cosmic string.) The deficit angle (the tension) of the string decreases through the gravitational wave, which then ceases. This leaves an expanding spherical region of Minkowski space behind it. The decay of the cosmic string over a finite interval of retarded time may be considered to generate the gravitational wave.Comment: 3 pages, 1 figure, to appear in Class. Quantum Gra

Quality delivery of mobile video: In-depth understanding of user requirements

The increase of powerful mobile devices has accelerated the demand for mobile videos. Previous studies in mobile video have focused on understanding of mobile video usage, improvement of video quality, and user interface design in video browsing. However, research focusing on a deep understanding of users’ needs for a pleasing quality delivery of mobile video is lacking. In particular, what quality-delivery mode users prefer and what information relevant to video quality they need requires attention. This paper presents a qualitative interview study with 38 participants to gain an insight into three aspects: influencing factors of user-desired video quality, user-preferred quality-delivery modes, and user-required interaction information of mobile video. The results show that user requirements for video quality are related to personal preference, technology background and video viewing experience, and the preferred quality-delivery mode and interactive mode are diverse. These complex user requirements call for flexible and personalised quality delivery and interaction of mobile video

Online banking customization via tag-based interaction

In this paper, we describe ongoing work on online banking customization with a particular focus on interaction. The scope of the study is confined to the Australian banking context where the lack of customization is evident. This paper puts forward the notion of using tags to facilitate personalized interactions in online banking. We argue that tags can afford simple and intuitive interactions unique to every individual in both online and mobile environments. Firstly, through a review of related literature, we frame our work in the customization domain. Secondly, we define a range of taggable resources in online banking. Thirdly, we describe our preliminary prototype implementation with respect to interaction customization types. Lastly, we conclude with a discussion on future work

Transport strategy in Scotland since devolution

This article critically reviews how the Scottish Executive's approach to transport has developed since devolution. Although there is much to commend, a number of concerns can be identified, including the possibility that a number of strategic infrastructure schemes appear to have been approved on political rather than on technical grounds. It is difficult to know whether the current set of transport infrastructure investment plans represents good value for public money

Stigmergy in Web 2.0: a model for site dynamics

Building Web 2.0 sites does not necessarily ensure the success of the site. We aim to better understand what improves the success of a site by drawing insight from biologically inspired design patterns. Web 2.0 sites provide a mechanism for human interaction enabling powerful intercommunication between massive volumes of users. Early Web 2.0 site providers that were previously dominant are being succeeded by newer sites providing innovative social interaction mechanisms. Understanding what site traits contribute to this success drives research into Web sites mechanics using models to describe the associated social networking behaviour. Some of these models attempt to show how the volume of users provides a self-organising and self-contextualisation of content. One model describing coordinated environments is called stigmergy, a term originally describing coordinated insect behavior. This paper explores how exploiting stigmergy can provide a valuable mechanism for identifying and analysing online user behavior specifically when considering that user freedom of choice is restricted by the provided web site functionality. This will aid our building better collaborative Web sites improving the collaborative processes

Understanding user experience of mobile video: Framework, measurement, and optimization

Since users have become the focus of product/service design in last decade, the term User eXperience (UX) has been frequently used in the field of Human-Computer-Interaction (HCI). Research on UX facilitates a better understanding of the various aspects of the user’s interaction with the product or service. Mobile video, as a new and promising service and research field, has attracted great attention. Due to the significance of UX in the success of mobile video (Jordan, 2002), many researchers have centered on this area, examining users’ expectations, motivations, requirements, and usage context. As a result, many influencing factors have been explored (Buchinger, Kriglstein, Brandt & Hlavacs, 2011; Buchinger, Kriglstein & Hlavacs, 2009). However, a general framework for specific mobile video service is lacking for structuring such a great number of factors. To measure user experience of multimedia services such as mobile video, quality of experience (QoE) has recently become a prominent concept. In contrast to the traditionally used concept quality of service (QoS), QoE not only involves objectively measuring the delivered service but also takes into account user’s needs and desires when using the service, emphasizing the user’s overall acceptability on the service. Many QoE metrics are able to estimate the user perceived quality or acceptability of mobile video, but may be not enough accurate for the overall UX prediction due to the complexity of UX. Only a few frameworks of QoE have addressed more aspects of UX for mobile multimedia applications but need be transformed into practical measures. The challenge of optimizing UX remains adaptations to the resource constrains (e.g., network conditions, mobile device capabilities, and heterogeneous usage contexts) as well as meeting complicated user requirements (e.g., usage purposes and personal preferences). In this chapter, we investigate the existing important UX frameworks, compare their similarities and discuss some important features that fit in the mobile video service. Based on the previous research, we propose a simple UX framework for mobile video application by mapping a variety of influencing factors of UX upon a typical mobile video delivery system. Each component and its factors are explored with comprehensive literature reviews. The proposed framework may benefit in user-centred design of mobile video through taking a complete consideration of UX influences and in improvement of mobile videoservice quality by adjusting the values of certain factors to produce a positive user experience. It may also facilitate relative research in the way of locating important issues to study, clarifying research scopes, and setting up proper study procedures. We then review a great deal of research on UX measurement, including QoE metrics and QoE frameworks of mobile multimedia. Finally, we discuss how to achieve an optimal quality of user experience by focusing on the issues of various aspects of UX of mobile video. In the conclusion, we suggest some open issues for future study