Configuring the Ubiquitous Home

Abstract. This paper presents the development of a lightweight component model that allows user to manage the introduction and arrangement of new interactive services and devices in the home. Interaction techniques developed through userparticipation enable household members – rather than designers – to configure an

Supporting the design of network-spanning applications

In this case study, we describe our use of ECT, a tool intended to simplify the design and development of network-spanning applications. We have used ECT throughout the course of a two-year collaboration, which has involved individuals with expertise in a variety of fields, including interaction design and computer systems engineering. We describe our experiences with this tool, with a particular focus on its emerging role in helping us to structure our collaboration. We conclude by presenting lessons that we have learned, and by suggesting future directions for the development of tools to support the design of network-spanning applications

Threshold devices: looking out from the home

Threshold devices present information gathered from the home’s surroundings to give new views on the domestic situation. We built two prototypes of different threshold devices and studied them in field trials with participant households. The Local Barometer displays online text and images related to the home’s locality depending on the local wind conditions to give an impression of the sociocultural surroundings. The Plane Tracker tracks aircraft passing overhead and imagines their flights onscreen to resource an understanding of the home’s global links. Our studies indicated that the experiences they provided were compelling, that participants could and did interpret the devices in various ways, that their form designs were appropriate for domestic environments, that using ready- made information contributed to the richness of the experiences, and that situating the information they provided with respect to the home and its locality was important for the ways people engaged with them

Combining System Introspection with User-Provided Description to Support Configuration and Understanding of Pervasive systems

Pervasive computing systems such as smart spaces typically combine multiple embedded and/or mobile sensing, computing and interaction devices. A variety of distributed computing approaches are used to integrate these devices to support coordinated applications. This paper describes how simple user descriptions of (primarily) physical aspects of such a system can be combined with information from system introspection to make the system and its log recordings more understandable to potential users, as well as supporting easier configuration and monitoring, and allowing the expression of certain kinds of system behaviour that are otherwise hard to achieve

Intense ultra-broadband down-conversion from randomly poled nonlinear crystals

Randomly poled nonlinear crystals are shown to be able to emit intense ultra-broadband photon-pair fields with properties comparable to those coming from chirped periodically-poled crystals. Their intensities scale linearly with the number of domains. Also photon pairs extending over intervals with durations comparable to one optical cycle can be generated in these crystals.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Time-to-response toxicity analysis as a method for drug susceptibility assessment in salmon lice

The salmon louse Lepeophtheirus salmonis (Krøyer, 1837) is an ectoparasite causing infections ofwild and farmed Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) in the Northern hemisphere.While L. salmonis control at commercial mariculture sites increasingly employs non-medicinal approaches, such as cage designs reducing infection rates and biological control through cleaner fish, anti-parasitic drugs are still a requirement for effective fish health care. With only a limited range of salmon delousing agents available, all of which have been in use for more than a decade, drug resistance formation has been reported for different products. Successful resistance management requires reliable susceptibility assessment, which is usually achieved through L. salmonis bioassays. These tests involve the exposure of parasites to different drug concentrations and require significant numbers of suitable L. salmonis stages. The present study reports an alternative bioassay that is based on time-to-response toxicity analyses and can be carried outwith limited parasite numbers. The assay determines the median effective time (ET50), i.e., the time required until impaired swimming and/or attachment behaviour becomes apparent in 50% of parasites, by conducting repeated examinations of test animals starting at the timepointwhere exposure to a set drug concentration commences. This experimental approach further allows the estimation of the apparent drug susceptibility of individual L. salmonis by determining their time to response, which may prove useful in experiments designed to elucidate associations between genetic factors and the drug susceptibility phenotype of parasites. Three laboratory strains of L. salmonis differing in susceptibility to emamectin benzoate were characterised using standard 24 h bioassays and time-to-response toxicity assays. While both the median effective concentration (EC50) and the ET50 showed variability between experimental repeats, both types of bioassay consistently discriminated susceptible and drug-resistant L. salmonis laboratory strains. Statement of relevance: Infections by sea lice cause significant costs to the global salmon farming industry, which have been estimated to exceed €300 million per year worldwide. Control of sea lice still relies to a significant extent on chemical delousing; however, chemical control is threatened by resistance formation. Resistance can be combated by rotation between different drugs and strategic implementation of non-medicinal strategies. However, resistance management requires reliable and feasible methods of susceptibility assessment. The present study is a technical note introducing a novel approach to susceptibility assessments in sea lice. The method can be applied in susceptibility assessments on farms,where it offers the advantage of a reduced requirement of parasites for testing. In addition, the novel method allows deriving the times of parasite require to showa response after drug treatment has started, thus providing a variable characterizing the drug susceptibility phenotype of individual parasites. Accordingly, the bioassay approach presented here will be useful for studies aiming at unravelling the genetic determinants of drug resistance

A CX3CRI Reporter hESC Line Facilitates Integrative Analysis of In-Vitro-Derived Microglia and Improved Microglia Identity upon Neuron-Glia Co-culture

Multiple protocols have been published for generation of iMGLs from hESCs/iPSCs. To date, there are no guides to assist researchers to determine the most appropriate methodology for microglial studies. To establish a framework to facilitate future microglial studies, we first performed a comparative transcriptional analysis between iMGLs derived using three published datasets, which allowed us to establish the baseline protocol that is most representative of bona fide human microglia. Secondly, using CRISPR to tag the classic microglial marker CX3CR1 with nanoluciferase and tdTomato, we generated and functionally validated a reporter ESC line. Finally, using this cell line, we demonstrated that co-culture of iMGL precursors with human glia and neurons enhanced transcriptional resemblance of iMGLs to ex vivo microglia. Together, our comprehensive molecular analysis and reporter cell line are a useful resource for neurobiologists seeking to use iMGLs for disease modeling and drug screening studies.Peer reviewe

The error of our ways: the experience of self-reported position in a location-based game

We present a study of people’s use of positional information as part of a collaborative location-based game. The game exploits self-reported positioning in which mobile players manually reveal their positions to remote players by manipulating electronic maps. Analysis of players’ movements, position reports and communications, drawing on video data, system logs and player feedback, highlights some of the ways in which humans generate, communicate and interpret position reports. It appears that remote participants are largely untroubled by the relatively high positional error associated with self reports. Our analysis suggests that this may because mobile players declare themselves to be in plausible locations such as at common landmarks, ahead of themselves on their current trajectory (stating their intent) or behind themselves (confirming previously visited locations). These observations raise new requirements for the future development of automated positioning systems and also suggest that selfreported positioning may be a useful fallback when automated systems are unavailable or too unreliable

Local Barometer (Overview)

Threshold devices present information gathered from the home’s surroundings to give new views on the domestic situation. The Local Barometer displays online text and images related to the home’s locality depending on the local wind conditions to give an impression of the sociocultural surroundings