Data Souvenirs: Environmental psychology and reflective design

The physical form of technology and its relationship to the surrounding environment is an important factor in design; we argue that this is especially true in the design of reflective technology. We suggest environmental psychology theory as a tool for understanding this relationship and use it to propose design guidelines for tangible reflective technologies. As an example, we apply these guidelines to the design of domestic technology, inspiring the creation of Data Souvenirs, a set of hardware sketches we have built that combine technology with the physical form of books. Additionally, we reflect on our own design process, discussing how the combination of environmental psychology theory and hardware design sketches can motivate novel tangible designs.     

Space design

Space stations, Moon bases and Mars bases are artificial habitats intended to support human life in extreme conditions. Their purpose is to pursue human progress and to gain knowledge and experience of the environment surrounding our planet. This research focuses on visual investigation in order to improve interface design in space habitat interiors. The subject of this article is why the visual interface (as created through color, light, and artistic and natural visual inputs) is to be considered as fundamental for user reliability in isolated space habitats. The aim is to improve the quality of living conditions in today’s International Space Station (ISS) and in future long-term missions to Mars but also in more immediate prospects such as Space tourism. Taking into account experiences from an internship in Thales Alenia Space, ESA Space Habitat Workshops and PhD studies on Space Habitability, the authors’ purpose is to enhance the development of concepts and projects on spacecraft visual interface with an ergonomic approach. The main topics in this paper are the following: (1) Visual needs in Space habitat interiors. (2) Sight modification in Space environment. (3) Design: Project Requirements for Outer Space. (4) Moon Base Design.     

Space extreme design

This paper is an introduction to the following five articles, that have been conceived together as one chapter on habitability consideration for outer space habitations. Those contributions are made from authors in different fields, cultures and countries working with the Extreme-Design.eu research group. Projects, theories and requirements are referred to the context of outer space habitats, where for the love of knowledge, human beings are living under extreme condition. The group purpose is to apply holistic approach (using both scientific and humanity discipines) towards space habitat design to support human cultural experience and improve technical reliability. Space Anthropology, Space Design, Space Art and Space Psychology are the established disciplines here considered to have a bearing on astronaut reliability. With multidisciplinary contributions, natural design philosophy- and human-centred design, these papers aim of collecting a range of solutions and innovative ideas on how to increase habitability in space.     

Space art: aesthetics design as psychological support

The purpose of this article is to explore the possibilities of art and design in the context of space development. The focus is the effects of arts on feelings, how to enjoy arts as a creator (Ono expressed together with “Art for psychological support”, the paper presented at European Space Agency (ESA), Tools for psychological support during exploration missions to Mars and Moon, Noordwijk, The Netherlands, 2007), supporting the idea of Joseph Beuys that “every human being is an artist” (Art into society, society into art. First published in English in Caroline Tisdall, ICA, London, p 48, 1973). Expression with arts is helpful to find our real selves. When humans create arts, their inner feelings will appear. Art therapy works in this way (Ono in Expressive arts therapy—drawing, clay, music, drama, and dance, Seishinshobo, Japan, 2005). Artistic expressions effect positively the human well-being. This work hypotheses that also in outer space artistic expression will be able to improve astronauts’ quality of life. The topics approached in this article are: (1) Space Art; (2) Psychology and Space Art; (3) Lunar Zen Garden Habitat; (4) Astronaut′s Art.     

Mixed elements in the optimal design of plates

The theory of design sensitivity analysis of structures, based on mixed finite element models, is developed for static, dynamic and stability constraints. The theory is applied to the optimal design of plates with minimum weight, subject to displacement, stress, natural frequencies and buckling stresses constraints. The finite element model is based on an eight node mixed isoparametric quadratic plate element, whose degrees of freedom are the transversal displacement and three moments per node. The corresponding nonlinear programming problem is solved using the commercially available ADS (Automated Design Synthesis) program. The sensitivities are calculated by analytical, semi-analytical and finite difference techniques. The advantages and disadvantages of mixed elements in design optimization of plates are discussed with reference to applications.     

Pursuing genius loci: interaction design and natural places

Human computer interaction (HCI) has little explored everyday life and enriching experiences in rural, wilderness and other predominantly “natural” places despite their socioeconomic importance. Beyond simply addressing the challenge arising from applying an urban perspective to designing technologies for use in natural places, we wish to provoke integration of the natural and computational worlds. To stimulate design that both draws upon and affords such integration, we propose seven themes we have distilled from the literature and supplement these with our own research observations. Bodies Imagine and Remember recognizes the inseparability of meanings and corporeal experience of natural places for design. Indexicality and Habitus refers to the need for design to be sensitive to the processes by which natural features become intelligible in our actions and communication. Values and Story-spaces observes the way representations and infrastructures, infused with particular values, become dominant. Identity and Belonging, suggests the need to reconcile designs with couplings between physical settings, processes of community and personal identity. Rhythm and Dynamism considers links between people’s daily routines, nature’s events and patterns and spatial and social issues pertinent to design and in Revealing and Receding we suggest that design must simultaneously fade into the background and provoke seeing natural places differently. Fragility, Liability and Spirituality refers to technological opportunities to support positive relations within ecosystems and recognizing the limits of technological control.     

The design of natural interaction

This paper addresses the problem of the relationship between humans and technology-enhanced spaces and physical objects (later defined as artifacts). The class of cases here analyzed includes interactive digital signage, information kiosks, home media centers and interactive spaces whose purpose is the communication of a meaning. In this domain, complex interfaces are not needed, as common people interaction with information, content and media is in most cases extremely simple. The topic of specialized interfaces for expert users is not addressed here; the focus is on interfaces for the general public, whose main purpose is the basic fruition of digital information, although such information can be large and complex in its organization. This paper is centered on the need of conceiving computer sensing and information presentation as different aspects of the same interaction design problem, instead of separate research entities.

Space frame simulated for structural design

This paper presents a unique, cost-saving analysis procedure for a complex space frame structure subjected to earthquake and wind loadings. It is simplification by simulation of the structural model for a multi-story, unsymmetrical, reinforced concrete building subject to substantial lateral loads. The concept combined two computer analysis procedures and reduced the time and cost incurred in the overall analysis. From the building's Y-shaped plan, multi-story rigid frames were selected to resist motion transverse to the plane of each wing of the Y-shaped configuration. These so-called cross-frames, by means of the first analysis program, provided the properties of transverse resistance needed to simplify the three-dimensional behavior for analysis by the second program. Significant savings in calender time and costs were realized by the simulation, which is described in detail in this paper.     

Optimum design with lagrangian finite elements: Design of an electromagnet

An electromagnet with constant interpolar field is designed by the techniques of optimal control discretized with Lagrangian triangular finite elements of degree 1.     

Sculpturic design of structures using finite elements

A new philosphy of optimal structural design called ‘sculpturic design’ is introduced in this paper. A companion methodology is presented through which an optimal design is achieved using a systematic procedure. To illustrate this concept and methodology several examples are treated, and by using the finite-element method, certain structures which may be termed ‘sculpturic structures’ are obtained.     

Shaping user input: a strategy for natural language dialogue design

Traditional approaches to natural language dialogue interface design have adopted ordinary human-human conversation as the model for online human-computer interaction. The attempt to deal with all the subtleties of natural dialogues, such as topic focus, coherence, ellipsis, pronominal reference, etc. has resulted in prototype systems that are enormously complex and computationally expensive.

In a series of experiments^†, we explored ways of minimizing the processing burden of a dialogue system by channeling user input towards a more tractable, though still natural, form of Englishlanguage questions. Through linking a pair of terminals, we presented subjects with two different dialogue styles as a framework for online help in the domain of word-processing. The first dialogue style involved ordinary conversational format. The second style involved a simulation of an automated dialogue system, including apparent processing restrictions and ‘system process messages’ to inform the subject of the steps taken by the system during query analysis. In both cases human tutors played the role of the help system. After each dialogue session, subjects were interviewed to determine their assessments of the naturalness and usability of the dialogue interface.

We found that user input became more tractable to parsing and query analysis as the dialogue style became more formalized, yet the subjective assessment of naturalness and usability remained fairly constant. This suggests that techniques for channeling user input in a dialogue system may be effectively employed to reduce processing demands without compromising the benefits of a natural language interface. Theoretically, this data lends support to the hypothesis that unrestricted human-human conversation is not the most appropriate model for the design of human-computer dialogue interfaces.     

空间站:迈向太空的人类探索

本文综述了空间站的创始与发展现状,并展望未来的发展前景.首先,介绍空间站的基本概念和重要意义.然后,回顾过去半个多世纪前苏联/俄罗斯和美国间的太空竞争,并阐述了苏联/俄罗斯、美国及多国家各个空间站的发展历史.同时,着重回顾了我国载人飞船和空间站的发展规划和建设历程.最后,展望了空间站未来发展,并提出了我国空间站建设过程中要遵循的特点和思路.     

Space partitioning in engineering design via metamodel acceptance score distribution

Metamodels for simulators are used to reduce computational costs in engineering system design. In general, metamodels have different fit accuracy levels over different regions in the design variables space, especially for highly nonlinear responses over wide spaces. A metamodeling strategy should place less emphasis on sub regions in the design variables space requiring relatively less complex metamodels. In this paper, we present a graphically based methodology that can be used to partition the space for piecewise metamodel building. The method is based on analyzing an initial global metamodel for acceptability in terms of prediction accuracy over the whole space; then generating acceptance score distribution (ASD) plots. Visual inspection of the ASD plots is used as a guidance to partition the design variables space, leading to a metamodel with fair prediction accuracy on a piece-by-piece basis, not just globally on average. The proposed methodology is general and can be applied to various metamodel types. It is tested on a number of problems, including some of the most highly nonlinear test problems used in the literature.

Situating natural language understanding within experience-based design

Building useful systems with an ability to understand "real" natural language input has long been an elusive goal for Artificial Intelligence. Well-known problems such as ambiguity, indirectness, and incompleteness of natural language inputs have thwarted efforts to build natural language interfaces to intelligent systems. In this article, we report on our work on a model of understanding natural language design specifications of physical devices such as simple electrical circuits. Our system, called KA, solves the classical problems of ambiguity, incompleteness and indirectness by exploiting the knowledge and problem-solving processes in the situation of designing simple physical devices. In addition, KA acquires its knowledge structures (apart from a basic ontology of devices) from the results of its problem-solving processes. Thus, KA can be bootstrapped to understand design specifications and user feedback about new devices using the knowledge structures it acquired from similar devices designed previously.In this paper, we report on three investigations in the KA project. Our first investigation demonstrates that KA can resolve ambiguities in design specifications as well as infer unarticulated requirements using the ontology, the knowledge structures, and the problem-solving processes provided by its design situation. The second investigation shows that KA's problem-solving capabilities help ascertain the relevance of indirect design specifications, and identify unspecified relations between detailed requirements. The third investigation demonstrates the extensibility of KA's theory of natural language understanding by showing that KA can interpret user feedback as well as design requirements. Our results demonstrate that situating language understanding in problem solving, such as device design in KA, provides effective solutions to unresolved problems in natural language processing.     

Rule inferencing and object-orientation for boundary elements mesh design

In this paper, object orientation and rule inferencing are used to automate the design of boundary element meshes. The work is part of an effort to develop an object-oriented integrated environment for the damage tolerance design of aircraft stiffened panels and other parts such as fuselage lap-joints. An inference domain class library has been developed. Inference domain objects are used to create symbolic representations for the structural configuration and for production rules that describe the mesh design strategy. An objectoriented inference engine is utilized to apply this rule set to the knowledge base where the symbolic representation of the structural configuration is stored. The technique was implemented using the C++ programming language.     

Micromechanical elements for detection of molecules and molecular design

Photolithographic preparation of thin films and stacks of them were combined with anisotropic silicon etching and free standing film technology in order to realize three dimensional micro components for studies in detection and optimization of biomolecules. A polymer based SFM sensor was developed and tested in the measurement of thin film roughness and in the detection of holes in molecular films as well as in the detection of single DNA molecules. This novolever shows surprisingly high mechanical stability and provides high resolution SFM images of sensible molecules. Experimental arrangements of miniaturized chemical parallel processing for combinatorial and evolutionary synthesis strategies including silicon micro compartment arrays with free standing optical membranes and thin film filters have been proposed and the manufacturing of micro compartment arrays is described.We thank M. Sossna, B. Rau, H. Porwol, I. Menzel, F. Jahn and W. Schubert for technical assistance. The Inst. of Semiconductor Physics Frankfurt/O is acknowledged for CVD-deposition of membrane films. The work on SFM-sensors was supported by the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. The work on micro compartment arrays was supported by the BMBF (No 0310713)