Usability evaluations versus usability testing: when and why?

Usability evaluation and usability testing are defined and distinguished, and the role of expert evaluation in defining audience groups, constructing usage scenarios, and performing task breakdowns is pointed out. Usability evaluation is viewed as comparable to the work of an expert editor, and the background that a usability specialist should have is described. Other methods besides testing that can supplement expert evaluation are briefly discussed     

Intel嵌入式应用架构

InteI嵌入式市场发展战略 英特尔(Intel)公司是PC、服务器和笔记本电脑市场上桌面处理器和芯片组的领先供应商。除了上述市场以外,英特尔还积极将业务扩展到包括嵌入式应用和电信市场在内的其它市场领域。英特尔公司不断致力于在桌面市场上推动新的业界标准(如PCI Express标准等)的发展,从而使桌面系统平台的性能不断提高。除此之外,英特尔公司还积极促进许多嵌入式应用新标准的制定工作,此类标准包括Advanced-TCA外形规范、PCI Express高级交换规范、EmbeddedATX外形规范、Service Availability(服务可用性)规范等。 英特尔公司致力于在下列垂直市场中满足不同嵌入式客户的性能需求     

Usability measures for software components

The last decade marked the first real attempt to turn software development into engineering through the concepts of Component-Based Software Development (CBSD) and Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components, with the goal of creating high-quality parts that could be joined together to form a functioning system. One of the most critical processes in CBSD is the selection of the software components (from either in-house or external repositories) that fulfill some architectural and user-defined requirements. However, there is currently a lack of quality models and metrics that can help evaluate the quality characteristics of software components during this selection process. This paper presents a set of measures to assess the Usability of software components, and describes the method followed to obtain and validate them.     

Intel重组征新程

2004年在全球经济强劲复苏,业界收入全面增长的大好形势下,Intel却穿行在波涛汹涌的大海里.公司发生了一系列的问题:它召回了一些有问题的芯片组,放弃了4GHz Pentium处理器,撤出了LCoS显示芯片,同时,AMD在64位微处理器方面抢了先行,并曾一度超越Intel,称王NOR闪存领域.据此,很可能有人会说,世界最大的芯片制造商这条旗舰正在下沉.     

SMARTWheels: development and testing of a system formeasuring manual wheelchair propulsion dynamics

The purpose of this project was to develop a system for dynamically sensing pushrim propulsion forces and torques and to collect kinetic data with the device. A system was developed to detect the forces and torques applied to the wheelchair pushrim, record, store, and process the measured data, and display the kinetic information for analysis. Ten adults, including four male wheelchair users, three ambulatory men, and three ambulatory women, pushed a wheelchair with the SMART^Wheel on a dynamometer while their kinematics were videotaped. The kinetic data collected with the authors' wheel were correlated with stick figure representations of digitized kinematic data obtained through video analysis. The close agreement between the kinetic results and the kinematic results provided a temporal validation of the ability of the wheel to detect forces and torques applied to the wheelchair pushrim. The recorded forces and torques were in agreement with previously reported magnitudes     

英特尔手机闪存解决方案

一、手机市场概述 手机可以分为4种类型:普通机、品牌机、主流机和智能型,如表1所示。普通机成本低廉,仅仅提供基本的蜂窝通话功能,以提高电池的寿命。品牌机尺寸小巧。主流手机提供更多领先的性能,如上网浏览功能等。智能型手机则将个人数字助理(PDA)的功能与手机的功能合二为一,能够提供更多面向数据处理的应用。从这四类手机中可以很明显地看出手机的未来发展趋势,目前的手机上网浏览功能将会成为未来手机的基本配置。     

Usability engineering as a part of the software design process

To ensure software quality, European and American institutions have followed different approaches: while the European-based ISO standard prescribes a software development process, the American maturity model rates the currently used development process. In central Europe, the V-model has achieved some popularity. However, it is not compatible with the maturity model approach — it covers only two thirds of the lowest maturity level. Both approaches can be enhanced with usability engineering methods. There is a wide range of tools for different purposes which can be fit in various stages of the process.     

The interface processor for the Intel VLSI 432 32-bit computer

The Intel 43203 interface processor is designed to link conventional I/O subsystems and Intel's new 32-bit computer system, the iAPX432. The interface processor is an excellent example of how high density VLSI technology can be combined with innovative circuits to create highly functional systems on a single chip. This paper describes the function of the interface processor and some of the details of its implementation.     

Design and Implementation of a Toolkit for Usability Testing of Mobile Apps

The usability of mobile applications is critical for their adoption because of the relatively small screen and awkward (sometimes virtual) keyboard, despite the recent advances of smartphones. Traditional laboratory-based usability testing is often tedious, expensive, and does not reflect real use cases. In this paper, we propose a toolkit that embeds into mobile applications the ability to automatically collect user interface (UI) events as the user interacts with the applications. The events are fine-grained and useful for quantified usability analysis. We have implemented the toolkit on Android devices and we evaluated the toolkit with a real deployed Android application by comparing event analysis (state-machine based) with traditional laboratory testing (expert based). The results show that our toolkit is effective at capturing detailed UI events for accurate usability analysis.     

Periodic replacement when minimal repair costs depend on the age and the number of minimal repair for a multi-unit system

A policy of periodic replacement with minimal repair at failure is considered for the multi-unit system which have the specific multivariate distribution. Under such a policy the system is replaced at multiples of some period T while minimal repair is performed at any intervening component failures. The cost of a minimal repair to the component is assumed to be a function of its age and the number of minimal repair. A simple expression is derived for the expected minimal repair cost in an interval in terms of the cost function and the failure rate of the component. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of an optimal replacement interval are exhibited.     

Periodic replacement when minimal repair costs depend on the age and the number of minimal repairs for a multi-unit system

A policy of periodic replacement with minimal repair at failure is considered for a multi-unit system which has a specific multivariate distribution. Under such a policy the system is replaced at multiples of some period T while minimal repair is performed for any intervening component failure. The cost of a minimal repair to the component is assumed to be a function of its age and the number of minimal repairs. A simple expression is derived for the expected minimal repair cost in an interval in terms of the cost function and the failure rate of the component. The necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of an optimal replacement interval are found.     

An algorithm for evaluating all the minimal cuts of a graph

This paper presents an algorithm for evaluating all the minimal cuts of a graph. The algorithm generates the combination of nodes with the help of neighbouring nodes in ascending order. Those combinations which satisfy a given connectivity condition give the minimal cuts of graph. An example illustrates the algorithm.     

基于Intel指令集的H.264编码器优化

首先简要介绍Intel指令集的主要特点,接着重点阐述利用Intel指令集对自行设计开发的H.264编码器进行优化的方法,主要优化模块包括SAD(Sum of Absolute Difference)、整数变换及反变换、SATD(Sum of Absolute Transformed Difference)、亚像素内插等,实验表明,该方法可以较大程度提高编码器编码速度,当QP=24时,对3种不同类型CIF序列的编码帧率平均提高46.67%.     

80系列单片机程序下载方法的研究

在单片机应用系统中，如何将自己的产品技术不被人窃取，这是设计者关注的问题。本文结合８０系列单片机应用系统，研究了程序下载的方法，从而可使设计者的技术得到有效的保护。     

SIP-based IEEE802.21 media independent handover — a BT Intel collaboration

In this paper, we look at various mobility management protocols and handover frameworks in use in BT. We also report on the results from a collaborative proof of concept mixed network prototype for a seamless handover system using Intel’s early implementation of the IEEE802.21 media-independent handover standard. The paper reports the design, implementation and deployment issues/options of a handover mechanism using the Intel framework which includes a connection manager and mixed network IEEE802.21 adaptation layer together with BT’s SIP-based audio/video application in a heterogeneous Wi-Fi, WiMAX and Ethernet network environment.     

Intel Strata系列闪速存储器的特点及应用

Intel公司推出了Strata系列闪速存储器 ,该存储器单片容量大 ,可按字节/字模式或不超过32字节的缓冲模式编程 ,并可实现块擦除过程的挂起和唤醒。在实时数据缓冲系统中有着广泛的应用前景。本文以64M位的28F640J5为例介绍其功能特点 ,并结合AT89C52单片机应用系统给出了具体的应用编程。     

A recursive approach for enumerating minimal cutsets in a network

This paper presents a new recursive labelling algorithm for determining all minimal cutsets in a directed network, using an approach adapted from dynamic programming algorithms for the classical shortest route problem. The algorithm produces all minimal cutsets, and uses comparison logic to eliminate any redundant cutsets. Computational experience shows that: (1) the time per cutset varies linearly with the number of nodes but decreases exponentially with the density of the graph; and (2) whereas the algorithm's performance with regard to `change in the time per cutset vs. the number of nodes' is similar to other algorithms, it appears to exhibit superior performance where the time/cutset is compared to the density of the graph     

Gearshift control for automated manual transmissions

A gearshift control strategy for modern automated manual transmissions (AMTs) with dry clutches is proposed. The controller is designed through a hierarchical approach by discriminating among five different AMT operating phases: engaged, slipping-opening, synchronization, go-to-slipping, and slipping-closing. The control schemes consist of decoupled and cascaded feedback loops based on measurements of engine speed, clutch speed, and throwout bearing position, and on estimation of the transmitted torque. Models of driveline, dry clutch, and controlled actuator are estimated on experimental data of a medium size gasoline car and used to check through simulations the effectiveness of the proposed controller.