Visual displays: the highlighting paradox

Office computer users view well over a billion displays in a given year. The savings of only a fraction of a second in the time it takes users to process each display can potentially lead to enormous time and cost savings. In recent research investigators have shown that on average subjects are quicker to find a target option in a highlighted display than in a display without highlighting. Paradoxically, in related research other investigators have shown that subjects are slower to find a target in a highlighted display than in a display without highlighting. In an attempt to resolve this paradox, an additional set of experiments was performed. Results from these experiments suggest that in order to determine whether highlighting will be of benefit, one must know the type of highlighting, the level of highlighting validity, and the probability that subjects attend first to the highlighted options.     

Allocating Independent Tasks to Parallel Processors: An Experimental Study

We study a scheduling or allocation problem with the following characteristics: The goal is to execute a number of unspecified tasks on a parallel machine in any order and as quickly as possible. The tasks are maintained by a central monitor that will hand out batches of a variable number of tasks to requesting processors. A processor works on the batch assigned to it until it has completed all tasks in the batch, at which point it returns to the monitor for another batch. The time needed to execute a task is assumed to be a random variable with known mean and variance, and the execution times of distinct tasks are assumed to be independent. Moreover, each time a processor obtains a new batch from the monitor, it suffers a fixed delay. The challenge is to allocate batches to processors in such a way as to achieve a small expected overall finishing time. We introduce a new allocation strategy, the Bold strategy, and show that it outperforms other strategies suggested in the literature in a number of simulations.     

A kernel language for programmed rewriting of (hyper)graphs

The paper presents a formalism for rewriting (hyper)graphs in a controlled manner. This formalism is essentially a simple programming language with productions, that is rewriting rules, playing the role of basic instructions. Programs in this language are built from productions by means of rather standard constructors, including a parallel composition. They may contain parameters to point to specific elements of graphs to which they are supposed to be applied. Programs are intended to describe how to transform a graph and a valuation of parameters in this graph in order to reach a resulting graph and a resulting valuation of parameters.     

A scalable interest-oriented peer-to-peer pub/sub network

There has been a big challenge in structured peer-to-peer overlay network research area. Generally, a structured overlay network involves nodes evenly or based on their resource availabilities, and gathers nodes?? resources to achieve some bigger tasks. The challenge here is to gather resources based on nodes?? interests, and only interested nodes are involved in a certain task. Toward this challenge, we propose a new scheme to a peer-to-peer publish/subscribe network. Publish/subscribe represents a new paradigm for distributed content delivery. It provides an alternative to address-based communication due to its ability to decouple communication between the source and the destination. We propose a Bloom filter based mapping scheme to map IDs to nodes?? interests in addition to new interest proximity metric to forward events and to build nodes?? routing tables. We also propose a new approach called ??shared interest approach?? for network discovery. To evaluate the algorithms proposed in this work, we conducted simulations in both static and dynamic settings, and found a low false positive rate. We also discuss about a well-known application called Twitter, and show how our scheme would work in a real environment.     

Dynamic task allocation for multi-robot search and retrieval tasks

Many application domains require search and retrieval, which is also known in the robotic domain as foraging. For example, in a search and rescue domain, a disaster area needs to be explored and transportation of survivors to a safe area needs to be arranged. Performing such a search and retrieval task by more than one robot increases performance if they are able to distribute their workload efficiently and evenly. In this work, we study the Multi-Robot Task Allocation (MRTA) problem in the search and retrieval domain, where a team of robots is required to cooperatively search for targets of interest in an environment and also retrieve them back to a home base. In comparison with typical foraging tasks, we look at a more general search and retrieval task in which the targets are distinguished with various types, and task allocation also requires taking into account temporal constraints on the team goal. As usual, robots have no prior knowledge about the location of targets in the environment but in addition they need to deliver targets to the home base in a specific order according to their types, which significantly increases the complexity of a foraging problem. We first use a graph-based model to analyse the search and retrieval problem and the dynamics of exploration and retrieval within a cooperative team. We then proceed to present an extended auction-based approach, as well as a prediction approach. The essential difference between these two approaches is that the task allocation and execution procedures in the auction approach are running in parallel, whereas a robot in the prediction approach only needs to choose a task to perform when it has no thing to do. The auction approach uses a winner determination mechanism to allocate tasks to each robot, whereas the robots in the prediction approach implicitly coordinate their activities by team reasoning that leads to consensuses about task allocation. We use the Blocks World for Teams (BW4T) simulator to evaluate the two approaches in our experimental study.     

Motion of a rigid cylinder between parallel plates in stokes flow : Part 1: Motion in a quiescent fluid and sedimentation

A general numerical scheme for solution of two-dimensional Stokes equations in a multiconnected domain of arbitrary shape [1, 2] is applied to the motion of a rigid circular cylinder between plane parallel boundaries. Numerically generated boundary-conforming coordinates are used to transform the flow domain into a domain with rectilinear boundaries. The transformed Stokes equations in vorticity-stream function form are then solved on a uniform grid using an iterative algorithm. In Part I coefficients of the resistance matrix representing the forces and torque on the cylinder due to its translational motion parallel or perpendicular to the boundaries or due to rotation about its axis are calculated. The solutions are obtained for a wide range of particle radii and positions across the channel. It is found that the force on a particle translating parallel to the boundaries without rotation exhibits a minimum at a position between the channel centerline and the wall and a local maximum on the centerline.

The resistance matrix is utilized to calculate translational and angular velocities of a free particle settling under gravity in a vertical channel. It is found that the translational velocity has a maximum at some lateral position and a minimum on the centerline; the particle angular velocity is opposite in sign to that of a particle rolling along the nearer channel wall except when the gap between the particle and the wall is very small. These results are compared with existing analytical solutions for a small cylindrical particle situated on the channel centerline, and with solutions of related 3-D problems for a spherical particle in a circular tube and in a place channel. It is shown that the behavior of cylindrical and spherical particles in a channel in many cases is qualitatively different. This is attributed to different flow patterns in these two cases. The motion of a spherical particle in a circular tube has qualitative and quantitative features similar to those for a cylindrical particle in a plane channel.     

Development of a scale for fantasy state in digital games

Digital games appear to motivate players intrinsically. Of various game features, fantasy in particularly plays a crucial role in enhancing motivation and is a key factor in immersion in gameplay. As with its inherent value, fantasy also plays a vital role in distinguishing digital games itself from other media. Despite its significance, fantasy has received little attention, and this concept is still ambiguous to define with any certainty. This study thus aims to create a framework to explore a dimension of fantasy and to develop a scale to measure a state of fantasy in digital games. As a result, four factors were extracted, which were ‘identification’, ‘imagination’, ‘analogy’, and ‘satisfaction’, to account for fantasy state in digital gameplay. Based on these factors, a fantasy scale in digital games (FSDGs) included 16 items was developed.     

Distributed multi-source streaming models in peer-to-peer overlay networks

A multimedia contents are distributed to peer computers (peers) and a contents peer which holds contents can provide other peers with the contents in peer-to-peer (P2P) overlay networks. Here, contents peers are mainly realized in less-reliable and low-performance personal computers. Multimedia streaming is more significant than downloading ways in multimedia applications from security and economical reasons. We discuss distributed multi-source streaming models to support peers with reliable and scalable multimedia streaming service. Here, a collection of multiple contents peers in parallel transmit packets of a multimedia content to a leaf peer to realize the reliability and scalability. Each of the contents peers send different packets from the other contents peers at slower rate. Even if not only some number of peers stop by fault and are degraded in performance but also some number of packets are lost and delayed in networks, a leaf peer has to receive every data of a content at the required rate. We discuss how to replicate data of a multimedia content by creating a parity packet for some number of packets and to allocate packets to each contents peer so that a leaf peer can deliver a packet without waiting for preceding packets from other contents peers in presence of the faults. Next, multiple contents peers are required to be synchronized to send packets to a leaf-peer so that the leaf-peer can receive every data of a content at the required rate. We discuss a pair of gossip-based flooding-based protocols, directed acyclic graph (DAG)-based coordination protocol (DCoP) and tree-based (TCoP) coordination protocol to synchronize multiple contents peers to send in parallel send to a leaf peer. First, some number of contents peers are selected and start transmitting packets to a leaf peer. Then, each of the selected peers selects some number of peers. Here, a peer can be selected by multiple peers in DCoP but by at most one peer in TCoP. Finally, every contents peer transmits packets to the leaf peer at the allocated rate. We evaluate the coordination protocols DCoP and TCoP in terms of how long it takes and how many messages are transmitted to synchronize multiple contents peers.     

Wearable vibrotactile systems for virtual contact and information display

This paper presents a development history of a wearable, scalable vibrotactile stimulus delivery system. This history has followed a path from desktop-based, fully wired systems, through hybrid approaches consisting of a wireless connection from the host computer to a body-worn control box and wires to each tactor, to a completely wireless system employing Bluetooth technology to connect directly from the host to each individual tactor unit. Applications for such a system include delivering vibrotactile contact cues to users of virtual environments, providing directional cues in order to increase situational awareness in both real and virtual environments, and for general information display in wearable contexts. Through empirical study, we show that even a simple configuration, such as eight tactors arrayed around the torso, can be effective in increasing situational awareness in a building-clearing task, compared to users who perform the same task without the added cues.     

A preliminary study on learning effect in a contact positioning task in a virtual environment

How the human central nervous system adjusts sensorimotor coordination to haptic stimuli is a major topic in several fields including robotics. There are studies focusing on contact positioning tasks such as catching a ball or a volley in tennis, where position control of a human hand is required only at the moment of contact for successful completion of the tasks. A previous study dealt with a task of catching a ball in a virtual environment, and reported an interesting observation of the learning process in the relationship between operational performance and energy consumption of an operator; however, the operational condition given to the operators in the previous study seemed to be relatively simple. The interest in this paper is similar to that of the previous study; however, this paper considers application of a slightly more complex operational condition to a task of catching a ball. For corresponding to increase of difficulty in operation in the task, two movements of a paddle for catching a ball are given to operators, and difference between the movements is observed. Although the final goal of the study in this paper is similar to that in the previous study, this paper considers how learning effect can be observed in operational performance by comparing the performance of novice operators with that of experienced operators. The comparison shows differences in the performances between the operators from three analytic aspects. This paper also considers how many operations are required for novice operators to exhibit the learning effect in operational performance.