Product features and task effects on experienced richness, control and engagement in voicemail browsing

A recent focus is on creating engaging user experiences with digital products and services such as voicemail. This study aims to design towards increased levels of engagement in voicemail browsing by using the ‘Richness, Control and Engagement’ (RC & E) framework. This framework explains the levels of engagement in terms of the levels of richness and control that are shaped by the features of a product and the user’s expertise. A product was developed that utilized gestures and sound to access digital voicemail contents. An experiment was conducted in which 28 participants interacted with the product while varying (1) the number of features of the user interface, (2) the amount of voicemail content and (3) the type of task. Results showed that the levels of engagement could be predicted according to the levels of richness and control experienced when a task-term was added to the framework. Implications of the refined RC & E framework for interaction design practice are discussed.     

Tool-supported enhancement of diagnosis in model-driven verification

We show on a case study from an autonomous aerospace context how to apply a game-based model-checking approach as a powerful technique for the verification, diagnosis, and adaptation of system behaviors based on temporal properties. This work is part of our contribution within the SHADOWS project, where we provide a number of enabling technologies for model-driven self-healing. We propose here to use GEAR, a game-based model checker, as a user-friendly tool that can offer automatic proofs of critical properties of such systems. Although it is a model checker for the full modal μ-calculus, it also supports derived, more user-oriented logics. With GEAR, designers and engineers can interactively investigate automatically generated winning strategies for the games, by this way exploring the connection between the property, the system, and the proof. This work has been partially supported by the European Union Specific Targeted Research Project SHADOWS (IST-2006-35157), exploring a Self-Healing Approach to Designing cOmplex softWare Systems. The project’s web page is at . This article is an extended version of Renner et al. [18] presented at ISoLA 2007, Poitiers, December 2007.     

The anti-reflective algebra: structural and computational analysis with application to image deblurring and denoising

Anti-reflective (AR) boundary conditions (BC) have been introduced recently in connection with fast deblurring algorithms, both in the case of signals and images. Here we extend such BCs to d dimensions (d ≥ 1) and we study in detail the algebra induced by the AR-BCs, with strongly symmetric point spread functions (PSF), both from a structural and computational point of view. The use of the re-blurring idea and the computational features of the AR-algebra allow us to apply Tikhonov-like techniques within O(n ^d log(n)) arithmetic operations, where n ^d is the number of pixels of the reconstructed object. Extensive numerical experimentation concerning 2D images and strongly symmetric PSFs confirms the effectiveness of our proposal.      

Cubic polynomial patches through geodesics

We consider patches that contain any given 3D polynomial curve as a pregeodesic (i.e. geodesic up to reparametrization). A curve is a pregeodesic if and only if its rectifying plane coincides with the tangent plane to the surface, we use this fact to construct ruled cubic patches through pregeodesics and bicubic patches through pairs of pregeodesics. We also discuss the G¹ connection of (1,k) patches with abutting pregeodesics.     

Effect of treatment with 13-cis-retinoic acid and ara-C on the hematopoietic stem cells of patients with myelodysplastic syndromes

PURPOSE: To assess the "in vivo" effect of 13-cis-retinoic acid and low dose Ara-C in MDS as well as to establish "in vitro" advantage of retinoid dose-related growth pattern on bone marrow cultures as defined by culture timing and CFU-GM proliferative response. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We evaluated 28 patients diagnosed of MDS according to FAB classification, of whom 4 cases had RA, 8 cases SRA, 14 cases RAEB and 2 cases RAEB-T. Patients who had RA and SRA were treated with oral 13-cis-retinoic acid at doses of 20-40 mg daily for 4 months and those cases with RAEB and RAEB-T had subcutaneous Ara-C at doses of 3 mg/m2 twice a day for 21 days. The "in vivo" and "in vitro" effect of retinoic acid on the haemopoietic differentiation was evaluated by the growth CFU-GM in semisolid cell culture methods. RESULTS: Increasing in vitro concentrations of 13-cis retinoic acid did not enhance the growth of myelodysplastic progenitors. Nevertheless, our study did not find any beneficial therapeutic effect of retinoic compounds in MDS patients. In this study, low-dose Ara-C (3 mg/m2) showed similar effects when compared with higher doses reported by others. Furthermore, in terms of CFU-GM proliferation the concentration of colonies before and after treatment were fairly similar in all but two patients. CONCLUSIONS: The results drawn from our study demonstrated that there is no beneficial advantage of 13-cis-retinoic acid as a differentiation inducing agent on myelodysplastic patients. In contrast, lower doses of Ara-C showed similar effects on haemopoiesis of MDS patients than standard doses of 10-20 mg/m2 but with less side effects.     

Combined analytical solution of overland flow and sediment transport

With reference to the kinematic wave theory coupled with the hypothesis of constant linear velocity for the rating curve, rising limb analytical solutions have been calculated for overland flow, over an Hortonian-infiltrating surface, and sediment discharge. These analytical solutions are certainly easier to use than the numerical integration of the basic equations and they may be used to obtain an initial evaluation of the parameters of more complex models generally devised for complicated cases.Notation a exponent of the Horton law [T^–1] - b exponent of the rill erosion equation - B inter-rill erosion coefficient [ML^–m–2T ^m–1] - c sediment concentration [ML^–3] - c _o reference sediment concentration [ML^–3] - E _I inter-rill erosion [ML^–2T^–1] - E _R rill erosion [ML^–2T^–1] - f _c final infiltration rate of the soil [LT^–1] - f _o initial infiltration rate of the soil [LT^–1] - h flow depth [L] - h _o reference flow depth [L] - i infiltration rate [LT^–1] - k rill erosion coefficient [ML^–1–b T^–1] - K integration constant - L() Laplace transformation - m exponent of the inter-rill erosion equation - n Manning's coefficient [L^–1/3T] - p rainfall intensity [LT^–1] - q water discharge per unit width [L²T^–1] - q _s sediment discharge per unit width [ML^–1T^–1] - t time [T] - t _p ponding time [T] - x distance along the flow direction [L] Greek Letters coefficient of the stage-discharge equation [L^2–T^–1] - exponent of the stage-discharge equation - rill erosion coefficient [L^–1]     

Bioinspired Intervertebral Disc with Multidirectional Stiffness Prepared via Multimaterial Additive Manufacturing

Degenerative disc disease (DDD) has become a significant public health issue worldwide. This can result in loss of spinal function affecting patient health and quality of life. Artificial total disc replacement (A-TDR) is an effective approach for treating symptomatic DDD that compensates for lost functionality and helps patients perform daily activities. However, because current A-TDR devices lack the unique structure and material characteristics of natural intervertebral discs (IVDs), they fail to replicate the multidirectional stiffness needed to match physiological motions and characterize anisotropic behavior. It is still unclear how the multidirectional stiffness of the disc is affected by structural parameters and material characteristics. Herein, a bioinspired intervertebral disc (BIVD-L) based on a representative human lumbar segment is developed. The proposed BIVD-L reproduces the multidirectional stiffness needed for the most common physiological kinematic behaviors. The results demonstrate that the multidirectional stiffness of the BIVD-L can be regulated by structural and material parameters. The results of this research deepen knowledge of the biomechanical behavior of the human lumbar disc and may provide new inspirations for the design and fabrication of A-TDR devices for both engineering and functional applications.     

Recent Advances on High-Speed and Holographic Two-Photon Direct Laser Writing

Two-Photon Lithography, thanks to its very high sub-diffraction resolution, has become the lithographic technique par excellence in applications requiring small feature sizes and complex 3D pattering. Despite this, the fabrication times required for extended structures remain much longer than those of other competing techniques (UV mask lithography, nanoimprinting, etc.). Its low throughput prevents its wide adoption in industrial applications. To increase it, over the years different solutions have been proposed, although their usage is difficult to generalize and may be limited depending on the specific application. A promising strategy to further increase the throughput of Two-Photon Lithography, opening a concrete window for its adoption in industry, lies in its combination with holography approaches: in this way it is possible to generate dozens of foci from a single laser beam, thus parallelizing the fabrication of periodic structures, or to engineer the intensity distribution on the writing plane in a complex way, obtaining 3D microstructures with a single exposure. Here, the fundamental concepts behind high-speed Two-Photon Lithography and its combination with holography are discussed, and the literary production of recent years that exploits such techniques is reviewed, and contextualized according to the topic covered.     

FreesoundVR: soundscape composition in virtual reality using online sound repositories

Virtual Reality - The intersection between sound and music computing and Virtual Reality (VR) has grown significantly over the past decades, amounting to an established area of research today....     

Robust linear quadratic regulator applied to an inverted pendulum

The natural instability of an inverted pendulum and its dynamics richness, in terms of nonlinearity, provide a nice apparatus to reproduce behaviors of analogous systems. In this way, it is useful to perform benchmark tests for new control approaches developed. In this paper, we address the main inverted pendulum problems: pendulum stabilization, tracking, and catching swing-up control. We show how robust recursive, control and filtering, techniques improve the system performance. They are developed to solve stochastic problems based on deterministic approaches, in order to decrease the worst influence of uncertainties. Experimental results of the proposed robust approach provide robust stability and performance despite parametric uncertainties, disturbances, and noise effects.