Transformative CAD based industrial robot program generation

Industrial robots are widely used in various processes of surface manufacturing, such as spray painting, spray forming, rapid tooling, spray coating, and polishing. Robot programming for these applications is still time consuming and costly. Typical teaching methods are not cost effective and efficient. There are many off-line programming methods developed to reduce the robot programming effort. However, these methods suffer many practical issues, such as cable/hose tangling, robot configuration, collision, and reachability. To solve these problems, this paper discusses a new method to generate robot programs. Since industrial robots have been used in production for decades, there are many robot programs for different parts generated by the robot programmers. These robot programs, which contain not only the robot paths, but also the programmers' knowledge and process parameters, can be transformed to generate new robot programs for similar parts. In this paper, a transformative robot program generation method is developed based on the existing ones in the database. Experiments were performed to validate the developed methodology. The results are very promising in reducing the programming efforts in surface manufacturing.     

一种管道爬行器的PLC改造设计

管道爬行器通常采用单片机控制的电路组成，其稳定性和可靠性差；采用PLC控制的爬行器，具有结构简化、可靠性高、稳定性强、爬行能力（距离、坡度）强、使用方便等优点，与以前的管道爬行器相比，具有明显优势。     

计算机系统变革性研究的4个问题

进入21世纪,计算机科学与技术领域正在面临一次深刻的变革,计算机系统子领域也不例外.指出这次变革的一个主要特征是从"人机共生"跃变到"人机物社会".这个跃变也为计算机系统的研究提出了4个带有基础性的挑战:1)重新审视计算和计算机系统概念,以及刻画新型负载和使用模式;2)研究新型的计算机系统度量;3)让计算机系统直接支持网络;4)发现和利用涌现现象.基于中国科学院计算技术研究所织女星网格小组和国际同行的研究工作,讨论了这4个问题,并指出这些问题还没有答案,这提供了很多研究机会.     

Designing infrastructures for creative engagement

Abstract

As museums extend their scope beyond traditional exhibition spaces and into everyday practices and institutions, it is necessary to develop suitable conceptualisations of how technology can be understood and designed. To this end, I propose the concept of infrastructures, as both social and material, as a useful frame for discussing important challenges and opportunities in terms of designing for audience engagement. I further argue that when designing infrastructures, an important challenge is to develop the social aspects of infrastructures in terms of creating, maintaining and developing relationships between organisations and communities. I argue that this is as much an object of design as technical interactive systems and discuss the relational work undertaken in this activity. The ideas of infrastructure and relational work is illustrated through a case describing the design of a system for cultural heritage engagement for Danevirke museum covering issues relating to the Danish minority in northern Germany.     

Sustaining complementor engagement in digital platform ecosystems: Antecedents,behaviours and engagement trajectories

Digital platform ecosystems increasingly dominate the enterprise software domain, and the persistence of platforms depends on the sustained engagement of complementors. However, there is a limited understanding of its antecedents, complementors' evaluation of antecedents and the manifestations and dynamic changes of complementors' engagement. Therefore, we investigate complementors' engagement within platform ecosystems over time. We draw on actor and stakeholder engagement from service research to conceptualise complementor engagement (CE) and create an integrated empirical understanding of CE and its dynamics in digital platform ecosystems. Our embedded case study builds on 30 interviews with complementors in Anubis and Osiris enterprise software platform ecosystems. Inductive data analysis reveals five CE antecedents: platform resources and rules, platform value proposition, platform agents, customer needs and other complementors' value propositions. The antecedents are associated with three CE behaviours: generating, networking and synchronising. Further analysis of CE over time resulted in 26 different sequences representing stable and changing engagement trajectories, the latter comprising selective, growing and abating engagement as subcategories. We show how complementors' evaluations of antecedents lead to behaviour changes, providing a novel perspective on the dynamics underlying CE. Finally, we link complementors' evaluation outcomes to their (dis)satisfaction, contributing to the discussion on what drives and impedes CE. The findings implicate the debate on dynamic platform governance and inform platform owners about using cooperative and competitive approaches in the short and long term.     

Audial engagement: Effects of game sound on learner engagement in digital game-based learning environments

Learner engagement has been considered to be an important factor for successful learning in multimedia learning environments, which include digital game-based learning (DGBL). Nonetheless, there have been few empirical studies and very little consensus on what elements critically affect learners’ engagement in a DGBL environment. Audial and visual stimuli are often the only means to communicate learning materials to the learners because of the virtual environment found in DGBLs. This means that learners’ engagement in DGBL will need to occur via audial or visual stimuli – sans other specialty devices to immerse players in virtual reality (such as Occulus Rifts and Virtusphere). Yet, very few researchers have directly measured the effect of sensory stimuli on learners’ engagement during (game-based) learning. This study examined the effects of non-player characters’ (NPC) voiceovers on play-learners’ engagement in DGBL through a role-playing game (RPG). A randomized control-group post-test only design was used to collect data from 74 participants. Data analysis revealed that the participants who played the game with voiceovers were more engaged than participants who played without voiceovers. The results of this study will guide practitioners to identify more effective ways of adopting, developing, and modifying digital games for educational purposes.     

The figure and ground of engagement

Engagement is important to the success of applications, systems and artefacts as diverse as robotics, pedagogy, games, interactive installations, and virtual reality applications. Yet engagement has proved to be remarkably difficult to define as it can take many forms, so many that it is difficult to isolate what these different instantiations have in common. Instead of pursuing an empirical perspective, the human side of engagement, namely, involvement is considered from a broadly Heideggerian perspective. As Heidegger has a deserved reputation for philosophical obscurity, all of the concepts adopted from his work are mapped onto the more familiar languages and vocabularies of psychology, human–computer interaction and cognitive science. It is argued that technology is engaging and our response to it is to be involved (with it). This resulting involvement–engagement dyad is thus an explicitly holistic account recognising roles for affordance, purpose, identity, affect and embodiment.     

Factors for Fractional CIO engagement success

As small- to medium-sized enterprises struggle with IT management, an increasing number appoint Fractional CIOs, i.e., CIOs that work part-time for multiple organizations simultaneously. We use Q-methodology to empirically evaluate the relative importance of factors for Fractional CIO engagement success and find that trust, top management team support, and the Fractional CIO's integrity are most important. Further, we identify three groups of Fractional CIOs: Strategic IT Advisors, Full-ownership CIOs, and Change Agents. Our results guide organizations when hiring and working with Fractional CIOs and provide the basis for further research on Fractional CIO archetypes.     

Simulation framework for small scale engagement

Developing future weapons systems has become increasingly complicated and costly. The armed forces of major nations use modeling and simulation techniques for new weapons systems from the conceptual stage to design, production, deployment and training stages to shorten the development cycle and guarantee their effectiveness. Failure in the development cycle carries too much loss in time and money. Therefore, computer-based modeling and simulation techniques are applied from the conceptual stage to gauge the efficacy of new weapons systems. The objective of this study is to develop a modeling and simulation methodology for small scale engagement using the DEVS formalism. The entities required for modeling and simulation are divided into three categories: combat, logical, and environmental entities. Combat entities represent the military hardware or combatants; logical entities represent the judgment and decision entities for the interaction between various entities; and environmental entities emulate the constituents of real combat environment. The combat entities are further modeled into Shell and Core Parts to maximize their reusability under various combat scenarios. The proposed framework is verified using a one-on-one combat engagement simulation (written in C++) between two submarines.     

Facebook and political engagement: A study of online political group membership and offline political engagement

In what ways do online groups help to foster political engagement among citizens? We employ a multi-method design incorporating content analysis of online political group pages and original survey research of university undergraduates (n = 455) to assess the relationship between online political group membership and political engagement—measured through political knowledge and political participation surrounding the 2008 election. We find that participation in online political groups is strongly correlated with offline political participation, as a potential function of engaging members online. However, we fail to confirm that there is a corresponding positive relationship between participation in online political groups and political knowledge, likely due to low quality online group discussion.     

Degrees of engagement in interactive workspaces

This paper presents a new perspective of the impact of collaboration technology on the degrees of engagement and specific interaction zones in interactive workspaces. The study is at the intersection of the design of physical work spaces, i.e., bricks, rich electronic content such as video, audio, sketching, CAD, i.e., bits, and new ways people behave in communicative events, i.e., interaction. The study presents: (1) an innovative multi-modal collaboration technology, called RECALL (patented by Stanford University), that supports the seamless, real-time capture of concept generation during project brainstorming and project review sessions, (2) the deployment of RECALL in an interactive workspace that supports real project review sessions, called FISHBOWL, and (3) the observations of the impact of RECALL and the interactive workspace on degrees of engagement and interaction zones as it is deployed in the specific FISHBOWL sessions.     

A model of online reading engagement: Linking engagement,navigation, and performance in digital reading

A model of online reading engagement is outlined. This model proposes that online reading engagement predicts dedication in digital reading. Dedication in digital reading according to the model is reflected in task-adaptive navigation, and task-adaptive navigation predicts digital reading performance over and above print reading skill. Information engagement is assumed to positively predict task-adaptive navigation, while social engagement is assumed to negatively predict task-adaptive navigation. These hypotheses were tested using OECD PISA 2009 Digital Reading Assessment data from 17 countries and economies (N = 29,395). Individual task responses served as the primary unit of analysis. Linear mixed models were used to predict navigation behavior from the interaction of information and social online reading engagement with navigation demands. High information engagement was associated with more task-adaptive navigation behavior, as shown by significant positive interactions between information engagement and tasks’ navigation demands. In contrast, high social engagement was associated with less adaptive navigation behavior, as shown by negative interactions between social engagement and navigation demands. Generalized linear mixed models were used to predict task performance by the interaction of navigation demands and navigation behavior. Adaptive navigation behavior predicted digital reading task performance, as shown by significant interactions between navigation behavior and navigation demands. These results are in support of the proposed model of online reading engagement.     

Hybrid optimal control of dry clutch engagement

Lately, with the increasing use of automated manual transmissions (AMT) the engagement control of the dry clutch becomes more important. The engagement control plays a crucial role, since different and conflicting objectives have to be satisfied: preservation of driver comfort, fast engagement and small friction losses. In this paper two optimal control strategies for clutch engagement, based on hybrid control principles, are compared. For developing a useful clutch control scheme, the driveline is modelled as a piecewise linear system. The first control strategy is widely known as explicit MPC. However, it seems that it is not suitable (yet) for this type of problem. The second strategy is a piecewise LQ controller, based on piecewise quadratic Lyapunov functions. Simulation results obtained with both strategies are presented and discussed.     

Interface design and engagement with older people

The current paper examines the design process that led to an unusually successful interactive tutorial for older people. The paper describes the issues that make designing for older people different. These include differences between the designer and the target population and the difficulty that older people have in interacting with low-fidelity prototypes. Ways of altering the design process to address these issues and to obtain useful design contributions from older participants are described.     

Mutual engagement and collocation with shared representations

In this paper we explore the use of shared representations to support creative activities, focussing on collaborative music making. We examine the effect that user interface features of shared representations have on mutual engagement and show that providing shared awareness mechanisms increases mutual engagement. In particular, we show through an empirical study of 78 participants that providing cues to identity and shared pointers increases mutual engagement between participants, but together these features can overwhelm users. We also demonstrate that support for free-form annotation and spatial interaction with shared representations mediates interaction and helps participants to manage their collaborative activity effectively. In this paper we develop several measures mutual engagement and demonstrate their use to assess the design of shared representations. A key contribution of this paper is the development of a measure of collocation of participant interaction which indicates mutual engagement. The findings of the study have implications beyond the domain of collaborative music making and we outline some design guidelines for mutually engaging shared representations.     

Effectiveness of gamification in the engagement of students

This research aims to evaluate the effectiveness of gamification platforms as a strategy for the engagement of students from the 8th year of elementary school in Brazil. We chose two badging platforms – ClassDojo and ClassBadges – to be evaluated based on 7 different criteria. The main objectives were to generate involvement among individual and particular situations, increasing the interest, engagement and efficiency while performing a specific task. We observed the behavior of 61 students from an elementary public school in Brazil as part of our field research. Data were collected using observation, semi-structured interviews and questionnaires. Quantitative data were statistically analyzed using a multivariate technique known as cluster analysis. The results allowed us to classify students in 4 distinct groups and showed that students who received more rewards from the teacher got significantly better average performances.     

Business engagement on Twitter: a path analysis

Social media services, such as Twitter, enable commercial businesses to participate actively in online word-of-mouth communication. In this project, we examined the potential influences of business engagement in online word-of-mouth communication on the level of consumers’ engagement and investigated the trajectories of a business’ online word-of-mouth message diffusion in the Twitter community. We used path analysis to examine 164,478 tweets from 96,725 individual Twitter users with regards to nine brands during a 5-week study period. We operationalized business engagement as the amount of online word-of-mouth messages from brand and the number of consumers the brand follows. We operationalized consumers’ engagement as the number of online word-of-mouth messages from consumers both connecting to the brand and having no connection with the brand as well as the number of consumers following the brand. We concluded that the business engagement on Twitter relates directly to consumers’ engagement with online word-of-mouth communication. In addition, retweeting, as an explicit way to show consumers’ response to business engagement, indicates that the influence only reaches consumers with a second-degree relationship to the brand and that the life cycle of a tweet is generally 1.5 to 4 hours at most. Our research has critical implications in terms of advancing the understanding of the business’s role in the online word-of-mouth communication and bringing insight to the analytics of social networks and online word-of-mouth message diffusion patterns.