Toward emotional interactive videogames for children with autism spectrum disorder

Universal Access in the Information Society - Technology and videogames have been proven as motivating tools for working attention and complex communication skills, especially in children with...     

A computational approach to characterize formation of a passivation layer in lithium metal anodes

Li metal anode is the “Holy Grail” material of advanced Lithium-ion-batteries (LIBs). However, it is plagued by uncontrollable dendrite growth resulting in poor cycling efficiency and short-circuiting of batteries. This has spurred a plethora of research to understand the underlying mechanism of dendrite formation. While experimental studies suggest that there are complex physical and chemical interactions between heterogeneous solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI) and dendrite growth, most of the studies do not reveal the mechanisms triggering these interactions. To deal with this knowledge gap, we propose a multiscale modeling framework which couples kinetic Monte Carlo and Molecular Dynamics simulations. Specifically, the model has been developed to account for (a) heterogeneous SEI, (b) dendrite-SEI interactions, and (c) effect of electrolyte on Li electrodeposition and potential dendrite formation. This allows the proposed computational model to be extended to various electrolytes and SEI species and generate results consistent with previous experimental studies.     

Influence of the corrosion products of copper on its atmospheric corrosion kinetics in tropical climate

In the present paper, the identification of the corrosion product phases formed on copper under different atmospheres of Cuban tropical climate is reported. Cuprite (Cu₂O), paratacamite (Cu₂Cl(OH)₃), posnjakite (Cu₄SO₄(OH)₆ · 2H₂O) and brochantite (Cu₄SO₄(OH)₆) were the main phases identified by X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR).Copper corrosion products are known to have a protective effect against corrosion. However, a different behaviour was obtained under sheltered coastal conditions. This can be due to the corrosion products morphology and degree of crystallisation, rather than their phase composition. A higher time of wetness and the accumulation of pollutants not washed away from the metal surface can also play an important role.     

A finite volume–finite difference method with a stiff ordinary differential equation solver for advection–diffusion–reaction equation

A model for atmospheric pollutant transport is proposed considering an advection–diffusion–reaction equation. A splitting method is used to decouple the advection, diffusion and reaction parts. A scheme based on finite volume, finite difference and backward differentiation formula is used for solving an atmospheric transport-chemistry problem.     

Understanding student participation in undergraduate course communities: A case study

Participation is the cornerstone of any community. Promoting, understanding and properly managing it allows not only keeping the community sustainable, but also providing personalized services to its members and managers. This article presents a case study in which student participation in a course community was motivated using two different extrinsic mechanisms, and mediated by a software platform. The results were compared with a baseline community of the same course, in which participation was not motivated by external means. The analysis of these results indicates that managing a partially virtual course community requires the introduction of monitoring services, community managers and extrinsic mechanisms to motivate participation. These findings allow community managers to improve their capability for promoting participation and keeping the community sustainable. The findings also raise several implications that should be considered in the design of software supporting this kind of community, when managing the participation of its members.     

Structural design using multi-objective metaheuristics. Comparative study and application to a real-world problem

Many structural design problems in the field of civil engineering are naturally multi-criteria, i.e., they have several conflicting objectives that have to be optimized simultaneously. An example is when we aim to reduce the weight of a structure while enhancing its robustness. There is no a single solution to these types of problems, but rather a set of designs representing trade-offs among the conflicting objectives. This paper focuses on the application of multi-objective metaheuristics to solve two variants of a real-world structural design problem. The goal is to compare a representative set of state-of-the-art multi-objective metaheuristic algorithms aiming to provide civil engineers with hints as to what optimization techniques to use when facing similar problems as those selected in the study presented in this paper. Accordingly, our study reveals that MOCell, a cellular genetic algorithm, provides the best overall performance, while NSGA-II, the de facto standard multi-objective metaheuristic technique, also demonstrates a competitive behavior.     

Signage Versus Environmental Affordances: Is the Explicit Information Strong Enough to Guide Human Behavior During a Wayfinding Task?

This study aims to explore how people behave when they have to find a location within a complex building and are confronted with situations where directional signage (i.e., explicit information) is in opposition to environmental affordances that naturally direct users towards a specific path, creating a situation with conflicting information (e.g., a brighter corridor vs. a darker corridor but with a directional sign indicating to follow the darker one). A virtual reality–based methodology was used and a between‐subject design was considered. Thus, participants were given the tasks of finding three publicly accessible central points in a virtual hotel and confronted with a two forced‐choice task of local scenes in which environmental variables (i.e., corridor width and brightness) and signage varied systematically, in two experimental conditions (i.e., neutral and signage). For the signage condition, signs were inserted to explicitly point in the opposite direction than that implicitly suggested by the environmental affordances, creating situations with conflicting information. Results indicate that environmental variables were able to direct people indoors acting as environmental affordances. Users preferred to follow the wider and brighter paths. However, when directional signage pointed in the opposite direction of the paths preferred by the participants, most of them complied with signage.