2,583 research outputs found
Introduction to the principles of vacuum physics
Vacuum physics is the necessary condition for scientific research and modem high technology. In this introduction to the physics and technology of vacuum the basic concepts of a gas composed of atoms and molecules are presented. These gas particles are contained in a partially empty volume forming the vacuum. The fundamentals of vacuum, molecular density, pressure, velocity distribution, mean free path, particle velocity, conductivity, temperature and gas flow are discussed. (11 refs)
Sketching user experiences: Hands-on course of sketching techniques for HCI research
When designing novel user experiences, paper-pencil sketches can support the design thinking process and are valuable for communicating design ideas to others. This hands-on course will demonstrate how to integrate sketching into researchers' and interaction designers' everyday practice - with a focus on applying the techniques to the design of novel user experiences. Participants will learn fundamental sketching strategies, apply these in practice during many hands-on exercises, and learn the various ways of using sketches as a tool when designing interactive systems
Texts In Reading Intervention Programs: Are They Culturally Representative Of English Learner Populations?
In this study, a total of 52 reading intervention texts were examined for cultural representation and authenticity; the texts under analysis were from Fountas and Pinnellâs Leveled Literacy Intervention and Hasselbringâs Read 180. There were four major, interrelated research questions addressed by this work, two of which dealt with cultural representation in the texts and the extent to which they aligned to the regional population and national publishing statistics. The second set of research questions addressed the level of cultural authenticity through a comparative analysis of each programâs texts. The author concludes that, in this sample of texts, Read 180 is more culturally representative of English learner populations when compared to LLI. She also documents the implications for schools who have adopted LLI and their need to ensure greater levels of cultural diversity and authenticity within classroom and school-wide leveled librarie
Gesture elicitation study on how to opt-in & Opt-out from interactions with public displays
Public interactive displays with gesture-recognizing cameras enable new forms of interactions. However, often such systems do not yet allow passers-by a choice to engage voluntarily or disengage from an interaction. To address this issue, this paper explores how people could use different kinds of gestures or voice commands to explicitly opt-in or opt-out of interactions with public installations. We report the results of a gesture elicitation study with 16 participants, generating gestures within five gesture-types for both a commercial and entertainment scenario. We present a categorization and themes of the 430 proposed gestures, and agreement scores showing higher consensus for torso gestures and for opting-out with face/head. Furthermore, patterns indicate that participants often chose non-verbal representations of opposing pairs such as âclose and openâ when proposing gestures. Quantitative results showed overall preference for hand and arm gestures, and generally a higher acceptance for gestural interaction in the entertainment setting
The Tabletop is Dead? - Long Live the Table's Top!
Research with interactive tabletop displays has shown much promise for collaborative scenarios. However, tabletops never became a commercial success and rarely exist outside the research community. Being relatively expensive, heavy and immobile hardware, and only limited availability of commercial applications were some of the reasons that these systems never made it into our offices or living rooms. The timing with the introduction of multi-touch smartphones and tablets, with their smaller form factor, better mobility, support for multi touch interaction, and an app-ecosystem, made large interactive surfaces look bulky and outdated. There is, however, a shift to an increasing number of mobile and ad-hoc scenarios, where mobile devices are used on a tableâs top
Quantum techniques using continuous variables of light
We present schemes for the generation and evaluation of continuous variable
entanglement of bright optical beams and give a brief overview of the variety
of optical techniques and quantum communication applications on this basis. A
new entanglement-based quantum interferometry scheme with bright beams is
suggested. The performance of the presented schemes is independent of the
relative interference phase which is advantageous for quantum communication
applications.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures; minor correction, accepted versio
Quantum nature of Gaussian discord : experimental evidence and role of system-environment correlations
L.M. acknowledges Project No. P205/12/0694 of Czech Science Foundation (GACR). N.K. is grateful for the support provided by the A. von Humboldt Foundation. N.Q. and N.K. acknowledge the support from the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance (SUPA) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). The project was supported within the framework of the BMBF grant âQuORepâ and in the framework of the International Max Planck Partnership (IMPP) with Scottish Universities.We provide experimental evidence of quantum features in bipartite states classified as entirely classical according to a conventional criterion based on the Glauber P function but possessing nonzero Gaussian quantum discord. Their quantum nature is experimentally revealed by acting locally on one part of the discordant state. We experimentally verify and investigate the effect of discord increase under the action of local loss and link it to the entanglement with the environment. Adding an environmental system purifying the state, we unveil the flow of quantum correlations within a global pure system using the Koashi-Winter inequality. For a discordant state generated by splitting a state in which the initial squeezing is destroyed by random displacements, we demonstrate the recovery of entanglement highlighting the role of system-environment correlations.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe
Human Observer and Automatic Assessment of Movement Related Self-Efficacy in Chronic Pain: from Exercise to Functional Activity
Clinicians tailor intervention in chronic pain rehabilitation to movement related self-efficacy (MRSE). This motivates us to investigate automatic MRSE estimation in this context towards the development of technology that is able to provide appropriate support in the absence of a clinician. We first explored clinical observer estimation, which showed that body movement behaviours, rather than facial expressions or engagement behaviours, were more pertinent to MRSE estimation during physical activity instances. Based on our findings, we built a system that estimates MRSE from bodily expressions and bodily muscle activity captured using wearable sensors. Our results (F1 scores of 0.95 and 0.78 in two physical exercise types) provide evidence of the feasibility of automatic MRSE estimation to support chronic pain physical rehabilitation. We further explored automatic estimation of MRSE with a reduced set of low-cost sensors to investigate the possibility of embedding such capabilities in ubiquitous wearable devices to support functional activity. Our evaluation for both exercise and functional activity resulted in F1 score of 0.79. This result suggests the possibility of (and calls for more studies on) MRSE estimation during everyday functioning in ubiquitous settings. We provide a discussion of the implication of our findings for relevant areas
- âŠ