1,469 research outputs found
Measuring Symbol and Icon Characteristics: Norms for Concreteness, Complexity, Meaningfulness, Familiarity, and Semantic Distance for 239 Symbols
This paper provides rating norms for a set of symbols and icons selected from a wide variety of sources. These ratings enable the effects of symbol characteristics on user performance to be systematically investigated. The symbol characteristics that have been quantified are considered to be of central relevance to symbol usability research and include concreteness, complexity, meaningfulness, familiarity, and semantic distance. The interrelationships between each of these dimensions is examined and the importance of using normative ratings for experimental research is discussed
Evocative computing – creating meaningful lasting experiences in connecting with the past
We present an approach – evocative computing – that demonstrates how ‘at hand’ technologies can be ‘picked up’ and used by people to create meaningful and lasting experiences, through connecting and interacting with the past. The approach is instantiated here through a suite of interactive technologies configured for an indoor-outdoor setting that enables groups to explore, discover and research the history and background of a public cemetery. We report on a two-part study where different groups visited the cemetery and interacted with the digital tools and resources. During their activities serendipitous uses of the technology led to connections being made between personal memo-ries and ongoing activities. Furthermore, these experiences were found to be long-lasting; a follow-up study, one year later, showed them to be highly memorable, and in some cases leading participants to take up new directions in their work. We discuss the value of evocative computing for enriching user experiences and engagement with heritage practices
On Uniquely Closable and Uniquely Typable Skeletons of Lambda Terms
Uniquely closable skeletons of lambda terms are Motzkin-trees that
predetermine the unique closed lambda term that can be obtained by labeling
their leaves with de Bruijn indices. Likewise, uniquely typable skeletons of
closed lambda terms predetermine the unique simply-typed lambda term that can
be obtained by labeling their leaves with de Bruijn indices.
We derive, through a sequence of logic program transformations, efficient
code for their combinatorial generation and study their statistical properties.
As a result, we obtain context-free grammars describing closable and uniquely
closable skeletons of lambda terms, opening the door for their in-depth study
with tools from analytic combinatorics.
Our empirical study of the more difficult case of (uniquely) typable terms
reveals some interesting open problems about their density and asymptotic
behavior.
As a connection between the two classes of terms, we also show that uniquely
typable closed lambda term skeletons of size are in a bijection with
binary trees of size .Comment: Pre-proceedings paper presented at the 27th International Symposium
on Logic-Based Program Synthesis and Transformation (LOPSTR 2017), Namur,
Belgium, 10-12 October 2017 (arXiv:1708.07854
Recurrent Neutrino Emission from Supermassive Black Hole Mergers
The recent detection of possible neutrino emission from the blazar TXS
0506+056 was the first high-energy neutrino associated with an astrophysical
source, making this special type of active galaxies promising neutrino
emitters. The fact that two distinct episodes of neutrino emission were
detected with a separation of around 3 years suggests that emission could be
periodic. Periodic emission is expected from supermassive binary black hole
systems due to jet precession close to the binary's merger. Here we show that
if TXS 0506+056 is a binary source then the next neutrino flare could occur
before the end of 2021. We derive the binary properties that would lead to the
detection of gravitational waves from this system by LISA. Our results for the
first time quantify the time scale of these correlations for the example of TXS
0506+056, providing clear predictions for both the neutrino and
gravitational-wave signatures of such sources.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, submitte
Finite-lattice expansion for Ising models on quasiperiodic tilings
Low-temperature series are calculated for the free energy, magnetisation,
susceptibility and field-derivatives of the susceptibility in the Ising model
on the quasiperiodic Penrose lattice. The series are computed to order 20 and
estimates of the critical exponents alpha, beta and gamma are obtained from
Pade approximants.Comment: 16 pages, REVTeX, 26 postscript figure
Kinetic and Mechanistic Study of Glucose Isomerization Using Homogeneous Organic Brønsted Base Catalysts in Water
The isomerization of glucose to fructose represents a key intermediate step in the conversion of cellulosic biomass to fuels and renewable platform chemicals, namely, 5-hydroxymethyl furfural (HMF), 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA), and levulinic acid (LA). Although both Lewis acids and Brønsted bases catalyze this reaction, the base-catalyzed pathway received significantly less attention due to its lower selectivity to fructose and the poor yields achieved (\u3c10%). However, we recently demonstrated that homogeneous organic Brønsted bases present a similar performance (∼31% yield) as Sn-containing beta zeolite, a reference catalyst for this reaction. Herein, we report on the first extensive kinetic and mechanistic study on the organic Brønsted base-catalyzed isomerization of glucose to fructose. Specifically, we combine kinetic experiments performed over a broad range of conditions (temperature: 80–120 °C; pH 9.5–11.5; reactant: glucose, fructose) with isotopic studies and in situ 1H NMR spectroscopy. Pathways leading to isomerization and degradation of the monosaccharides have been identified through careful experimentation and comparison with previously published data. Kinetic isotope effect experiments were carried out with labeled glucose to validate the rate-limiting step. The ex situ characterization of the reaction products was confirmed using in situ 1H NMR studies. It is shown that unimolecular (thermal) and bimolecular (alkaline) degradation of fructose can be minimized independently by carefully controlling the reaction conditions. Fructose was produced with 32% yield and 64% selectivity within 7 min
Distances on Lozenge Tilings
International audienceIn this paper, a structural property of the set of lozenge tilings of a 2n-gon is highlighted. We introduce a simple combinatorial value called Hamming-distance, which is a lower bound for the flipdistance (i.e. the number of necessary local transformations involving three lozenges) between two given tilings. It is here proven that, for n5, We show that there is some deficient pairs of tilings for which the flip connection needs more flips than the combinatorial lower bound indicates
Mobilités nouvelles et insécurités dans les sociétés nomades Fulbé (peules): étude de plusieurs pays en Afrique Centrale de l'ouest (Niger-Nigeria)
ASC – Publicaties niet-programma gebonde
New mobilities and insecurities in Fulbe nomadic societies: a multi-country study in west-central Africa (Niger-Nigeria)
ASC – Publicaties niet-programma gebonde
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