Using mobile media creation to structure museum interpretation with professional vision

Mobile technology plays an increasing role in museum and cultural heritage contexts. In most cases, these tools support the relatively passive consumption of expert interpretations, or the unguided generation of content by users. This paper explores the potential for technologies to help museum visitors, encountering unfamiliar objects, to engage with them as a skilled professional interpreter would, through structured mobile experiences that focus on creating multimedia content. We explore this concept in the area of artefact interpretation and specifically how to enact a structured process of interpretation, as would commonly be taught in courses dedicated to the analytical diagnostics of visual evidence, such as Classical Archaeology or Art History. We discuss two field trials of prototype systems through which the structured creation of multimedia forms a basis for learning to interpret historical artefacts conducted in contexts of both formal and informal learning. By describing, implementing, and evaluating this approach, we contribute understanding of a new way to conceptualise active engagement in museum contexts, through the effective use of scaffolding and user generation of multimedia. We identify issues around the properties and flexibilities of multiple media for this purpose, links between provision for procedural and factual learning, and the value of media creation-based structures in improving the skills and confidence to interpret.     

Fast and accurate NURBS fitting for reverse engineering

Fast and accurate fitting of non-uniform rational B-spline (NURBS) curves and surfaces through large sets of measured data is an important problem in applications such as reverse engineering and geometric modelling. This paper presents a method for realising significant improvements in the computational efficiency of this task. The basic idea is that the sparsity structures of the relevant matrices that are specific to the problem of NURBS fitting can be precisely defined and that full exploitation of these structures leads to significant savings in both computational and storage requirements. These savings allow for a large number of control points to be used in order to define the surface and consequently to improve the accuracy of shape representation. The achieved computational complexity is linear in both the number of measured points and the number of control points while the storage requirements of the algorithm are linear with the number of control points only. The complexity analysis, as well as the analysis of actual running times is presented. The results demonstrate that, using this approach, highly complex shapes may be modelled accurately with a single NURBS surface.     

Analysis of the Zienkiewicz–Zhu a-posteriori error estimator in the finite element method

An a-posteriori error estimator for finite element analysis proposed by Zienkiewicz and Zhu is analysed and shown to be effective and convergent. In addition we analyse wider classes of estimators of which the Zienkiewicz–Zhu estimator is a special case. It is shown that some of these estimators will be asymptotically exact. Numerical evidence is presented supporting the analysis.     

h andh-p version error estimation and adaptive procedures from theory to practice

In this paper we introduce techniques that allow us to define a posteriori error estimators via well-known recovery techniques. These allow us to construct a posteriori error estimators for relatively general problems. Further, we introduce new adaptive procedures that make use of these estimators and, in particular, describe anh-p procedure that is simple to implement and that, as numerical experiments have shown, attains an accelerated rate of convergence expected from theh-p version.     

The effect of different enzymes on the quality of high-fibre enriched brewer’s spent grain breads

The brewing industry produces large quantities of waste co-products. There is increasing pressure to ensure total utilisation of such products to address economic and environmental concerns. Brewer’s spent grain (BSG) the main by-product of the brewing industry is rich in dietary fibre and has a strong potential to be recycled. The overall objective of this study was to incorporate BSG into wheat flour breads together with a range of different enzymes (Maxlife 85, Lipopan Extra, Pentopan Mono BG and Celluclast) and evaluate the bread quality. A number of nutritional and textural properties of the finished product were studied. The incorporation of BSG significantly (P < 0.0001) improved the dietary fibre but the major difficulty encounted was to achieve a good structure and high loaf volume. Increasing the level of dietary fibre significantly (P < 0.001) increased dough development time, dough stability and crumb firmness but decreased the degree of softening and loaf volume. It was found that addition of Lipopan Extra (LE), Pentopan Mono (PE) and a mixture of Pentopan Mono and Celluclast (PCE) enzymes improved the texture, loaf volume and shelf life while Maxlife 85 enzyme (ME) was not significantly different from control samples (wheat flour breads containing 0%, 10%, 20% and 30% BSG). Image analysis of the bread structure obtained from the C-cell analyzer showed that the most significantly (P < 0.001) open network was obtained using LE, followed by PE and PCE.     

Structures at elevated temperatures: How long will they last?

In principle, questions about the behaviour of high-temperature structures can be answered by analysis in conjunction with material creep properties. However, because of the wide range of geometries in use, simplified methods have been developed which avoid lengthy computations yet isolate the important factors controlling component behaviour. This paper describes one approach which is to define a reference stress such that the component life is equal to the life of a simple specimen tested at the reference stress. A substantial body of work has shown that the reference stress can often be established quite simply even for complex components containing cracks. The approach then provides a simple framework for assessing structures which operate at high temperatures.     

Defect assessment procedures at high temperature

Within Nuclear Electric PLC, a comprehensive assessment procedure for the high-temperature response of structures is being produced. The procedure is referred to as R5 and is written as a series of step-by-step instructions in a number of volumes. This paper considers in detail those parts of R5 which address the behaviour of defects. The defect assessment procedures may be applied to defects found in service, postulated defects, or defects formed during operation as a result of creep-fatigue loading. In the last case, a method is described for deducing from endurance data the number of cycles to initiate a crack of a specified size. Under steady loading, the creep crack tip parameter C* is used to assess crack growth. Under cyclic loading, the creep crack growth during dwell periods is still governed by C* but crack growth due to cyclic excursions must also be included. This cyclic crack growth is described by an effective stress intensity factor range. A feature of the R5 defect assessment procedures is that they are based on simplified methods and approximate reference stress methods are described which enable C* in a component to be evaluated. It is shown by comparison with theoretical calculations and experimental data that reliable estimates of C* and the associated crack growth are obtained provided realistic creep strain rate data are used in the reference stress approximation.     

The estimation of J in three-point-bend specimens with a crack in a mismatched weld

The J integral is estimated by using an equivalent stress-strain relationship approach for three-point-bend specimens containing a weld with mismatched mechanical properties. Elastic-plastic finite element analyses are performed to verify the use of this approach. The results show that satisfactory precision can be obtained provided a suitable limit load solution is used. A limit load solution suggested by Burstow is suitable for over-matching situations and a solution due to Joch et al. for under-matching ones.