Unreliable numbers: error and harm induced by bad design can be reduced by better design

Number entry is a ubiquitous activity and is often performed in safety- and mission-critical procedures, such as healthcare, science, finance, aviation and in many other areas. We show that Monte Carlo methods can quickly and easily compare the reliability of different number entry systems. A surprising finding is that many common, widely used systems are defective, and induce unnecessary human error. We show that Monte Carlo methods enable designers to explore the implications of normal and unexpected operator behaviour, and to design systems to be more resilient to use error. We demonstrate novel designs with improved resilience, implying that the common problems identified and the errors they induce are avoidable.     

Achieving Rich and Active Alkaline Hydrogen Evolution Heterostructures via Interface Engineering on 2D 1T‐MoS2 Quantum Sheets

Large‐scale production of hydrogen from water‐alkali electrolyzers is impeded by the sluggish kinetics of hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) electrocatalysts. The hybridization of an acid‐active HER catalyst with a cocatalyst at the nanoscale helps boost HER kinetics in alkaline media. Here, it is demonstrated that 1T–MoS₂ nanosheet edges (instead of basal planes) decorated by metal hydroxides form highly active ${\text{edge}}_{{\text{1T‐MoS}}_{\text{2}}}$/ ${\text{edge}}_{\text{Ni}{(\text{OH})}_{\text{2}}}$ heterostructures, which significantly enhance HER performance in alkaline media. Featured with rich ${\text{edge}}_{{\text{1T‐MoS}}_{\text{2}}}$/ ${\text{edge}}_{\text{Ni}{(\text{OH})}_{\text{2}}}$ sites, the fabricated 1T–MoS₂ QS/Ni(OH)₂ hybrid (quantum sized 1T–MoS₂ sheets decorated with Ni(OH)₂ via interface engineering) only requires overpotentials of 57 and 112 mV to drive HER current densities of 10 and 100 mA cm^?2, respectively, and has a low Tafel slope of 30 mV dec^?1 in 1 m KOH. So far, this is the best performance for MoS₂‐based electrocatalysts and the 1T–MoS₂ QS/Ni(OH)₂ hybrid is among the best‐performing non‐Pt alkaline HER electrocatalysts known. The HER process is durable for 100 h at current densities up to 500 mA cm^?2. This work not only provides an active, cost‐effective, and robust alkaline HER electrocatalyst, but also demonstrates a design strategy for preparing high‐performance catalysts based on edge‐rich 2D quantum sheets for other catalytic reactions.     

Low complexity quantum private queries protocol

Private information retrieval(PIR) is an important privacy protection issue of secure multi-party computation, but the PIR protocols based on classical cryptography are vulnerable because of new technologies,such as quantum computing and cloud computing. The quantum private queries(QPQ) protocols available, however, has a high complexity and is inefficient in the face of large database. This paper, based on the QKD technology which is mature now, proposes a novel QPQ protocol utilizing the key dilution and auxiliary parameter. Only N quits are required to be sent in the quantum channel to generate the raw key, then the straight k bits in the raw key are added bitwise to dilute the raw key, and a final key is consequently obtained to encrypt the database. By flexible adjusting of auxiliary parameters θ and k, privacy is secured and the query success ratio is improved. Feasibility and performance analyses indicate that the protocol has a high success ratio in first-trial query and is easy to implement, and that the communication complexity of O(N) is achieved.     

Reality-based interaction affecting mental workload in virtual reality mental arithmetic training

ABSTRACT

The concept of digital game-based learning (DGBL) evolves rapidly together with technological enhancements of virtual reality (VR) and smart phones. However, the mental workload (MWL) that VR-training applications demand and motivational qualities originating from user experience (UX) should be identified in order to create effective and enjoyable training/learning challenges that fit with individual users’ capabilities. This study examined the effects of reality-based interaction (RBI) and VR on measures of student motivation and MWL, in a mental arithmetic game for secondary school pupils. In a randomised controlled trial with sixty school children, a mental arithmetic game was tested with three different interaction and two different presentation methods – VR RBI, VR head-mounted-display tapping and tablet flick-gesture. Results found a significant effect of RBI on MWL but no differences in enjoyment of training were found between VR-experience and tablet training-experience. In fact, adding the gaming-context to the mental arithmetic task created an enjoyable, motivating experience regardless of presentation or interaction-style.     

A scalable architecture for geometric correction of multi-projector display systems

Multi-projector displays allow the realization of large and immersive projection environments by allowing the tiling of projections from multiple projectors. Such tiled displays require real time geometrical warping of the content that is being projected from each projector. This geometrical warping is a computationally intensive operation and is typically applied using high-end graphics processing units (GPUs) that are able to process a defined number of projector channels. Furthermore, this limits the applicability of such multi-projector display systems only to the content that is being generated using desktop based systems. In this paper we propose a platform independent FPGA based scalable hardware architecture for geometric correction of projected content that allows addition of each projector channel at a fractional increase in logic area. The proposed scheme provides real time correction of HD quality video streams and thus enables the use of this technology for embedded and standalone devices.     

Producing fully-lamellar microstructure for wrought beta-gamma TiAl alloys without single α-phase field

Fine-grained fully-lamellar (FL) microstructure is desired for TiAl components to serve as compressor/turbine blades and turbocharger turbine wheels. This study deals with the process and phase transformation to produce FL microstructure for Mo stabilized beta-gamma TiAl alloys without single α-phase field. Unlike the α + γ two-phased TiAl or beta-gamma TiAl with single α-phase field, the wrought multi-phase TiAl–4/6Nb–2Mo–B/Y alloys exhibit special annealing process to obtain FL microstructure. Short-term annealing at temperatures slightly above β-transus is recommended to produce the desired FL microstructure. The related mechanism is to guarantee the sufficient diffusion homogenization of β stabilizers during single β-phase annealing, and further avoid α decomposition by α → γ + β when cooling through α + β + γ phase field. The colony boundary β phase contributes to fine-grained nearly FL microstructure, by retarding the coarsening of the α phase grains.     

Reducing numerical dissipation in smoke simulation

Numerical dissipation acts as artificial viscosity to make smoke viscous. Reducing numerical dissipation is able to recover visual details smeared out by the numerical dissipation. Great efforts have been devoted to suppress the numerical dissipation in smoke simulation in the past few years. In this paper we investigate methods of combating the numerical dissipation. We describe visual consequences of the numerical dissipation and explore sources that introduce the numerical dissipation into course of smoke simulation. Methods are investigated from various aspects including grid variation, high-order advection, sub-grid compensation, invariant conservation, and particle-based improvement, followed by discussion and comparison in terms of visual quality, computational overhead, ease of implementation, adaptivity, and scalability, which leads to their different applicability to various application scenarios.     

Effective Location Based Services with Dynamic Data Management in Mobile Environments

With the proliferation of mobile computing technologies, location based services have been identified as one of the most promising target application. We classify mobile information service domains based on feature characteristics of the information sources and different patterns of mobile information access. By carefully examining the service requirements, we identify the dynamic data management problem that must be addressed for effective location based services in mobile environments. We then devise a general architecture and cost model for servicing both location independent and location dependent data. Based on the architecture and cost model, we propose a set of dynamic data management strategies that employs judicious caching, proactive server pushing and neighborhood replication to reduce service cost and improve response time under changing user mobility and access patterns. Detail behavior analysis helps us in precisely capturing when and how to apply these strategies. Simulation results suggest that different strategies are effective for different types of data in response to different patterns of movement and information access. Shiow-yang Wu is an associate professor of the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering at National Dong Hwa University, Hualien, Taiwan, R.O.C. He received the BS and MS degrees in computer engineering from National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, ROC, and the PhD degree in computer science from the University of Texas at Austin in 1984, 1986, and 1995, respectively. His research interests include data/knowledge bases, mobile computing, distributed processing, intelligence information systems, and electronic commerce. Kun-Ta Wu was born in Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C., in 1976. He received the B.S. degree in computer science from Soochow University, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C., in 1999 and the M.S. degree in computer science and information engineering from National Dong Hwa University, Hualien, Taiwan, R.O.C., in 2001. Currently, he is an Assistant Researcher in the Domestic Division at Science and Technology Information Center, National Science Council, R.O.C., as a member of Information Gathering and Analysis Group of National Information and Communication Security Taskforce. His research interests include mobile computing, wireless network and information security.     

基于击键动力学和口令的双因素用户验证

提出基于击键动力学和口令的一种新的身份验证方法，该方法监视用户在输入口令时的用户击键特征的有关数据，通过采用监视键盘输入时一种新的三键持续时间的击键特征表示，用一种表示用户节奏的相对击键速度的距离衡量方式，在正常样本上建立用户模式，然后用新样本与用户模式的距离匹配情况来验证用户身份的合法性。实验表明该方法简单实用，识别效率高。