Nomadic Speech-Based Text Entry: A Decision Model Strategy for Improved Speech to Text Processing

Speech text entry can be problematic during ideal dictation conditions, but difficulties are magnified when external conditions deteriorate. Motion during speech is an extraordinary condition that might have detrimental effects on automatic speech recognition. This research examined speech text entry while mobile. Speech enrollment profiles were created by participants in both a seated and walking environment. Dictation tasks were also completed in both the seated and walking conditions. Although results from an earlier study suggested that completing the enrollment process under more challenging conditions may lead to improved recognition accuracy under both challenging and less challenging conditions, the current study provided contradictory results. A detailed review of error rates confirmed that some participants minimized errors by enrolling under more challenging conditions while others benefited by enrolling under less challenging conditions. Still others minimized errors when different enrollment models were used under the opposing condition. Leveraging these insights, we developed a decision model to minimize recognition error rates regardless of the conditions experienced while completing dictation tasks. When applying the model to existing data, error rates were reduced significantly but additional research is necessary to effectively validate the proposed solution.     

Disquiet in the plasma

The metaphor of plasma is taken up to present and discuss movement and engagement by participants in mixed reality installation arts. Two works involving full body video portraits exhibited through large plasma screens in a variety of public settings are covered. Machinic mediations of video realism are considered in terms of embodied interaction in which viewer-participants contribute to the ‘disquiet’ of gendered figuring. Processural, proximal and personal aspects of responsive engagement are discussed. This is extended to performativity that may lead us to critical reflection of our own actions and responses in mixed reality arts.     

Innovative potential of 3D software applications in fashion and textile design

Advanced cloth simulation plug-in tools are increasingly being used by designers in movies, television, advertising and computer games, to take the strain out of creating and simulating realistic cloth effects for dressing virtual characters. This paper describes experiments into designing textiles and clothing using 3D graphics software and a digital cloth dynamics plug-in, which are an integral part of PhD research in progress. The methods used in testing the 3D software and the cloth dynamics plug-in illustrate the experiences of a designer/learner. The results identify designer/learner needs and expectations for the further educational development of the research and use of cloth simulation tools in textiles/fashion design in the near future.     

Digital creativity and transdisciplinarity at postgraduate level: the design and implementation of a transdisciplinary masters programme and its implications for creative practice

This article investigates how transdisciplinary approaches to curriculum design on a taught masters programme in creative technologies enhance digital creativity in students. Drawing on the experience of developing and running the Masters in Creative Technologies (MA/MSc) at the Institute of Creative Technologies at De Montfort University, Leicester, we explore a number of areas relating to transdisciplinary teaching and learning in higher education, including: how digital technologies enable students to work in a transdisciplinary manner; how working creatively with technology enables transdisciplinary modes of working; and the ways in which transdisciplinarity, enabled by digital technologies, has affected the creative practice of learners. The article discusses how the programme has developed a climate for creativity, and outlines how the knowledge and skills gained during a creative technologies-related transdisciplinary programme meet the needs of a changing workplace.     

The pataphysics of creativity: developing a tool for creative search

We introduce the idea of a new kind of web search tool that uses the literary and philosophical idea of pataphysics as a conceptual framework in order to return creative results. Pataphysics, the science of exceptions and imaginary solutions, can be directly linked to creativity and is therefore very suitable to guide the transformation from relevant into creative search results. To enable pataphysical algorithms within our system we propose the need for a new type of system architecture. We discuss a component-based software architecture that would allow the flexible integration of the new algorithms at any stage or location and the need for an index suitable to handle patadata, data which have been transformed pataphysically. This tool aims to generate surprising, novel and provocative search results rather than relevant ones, in order to inspire a more creative interaction that has applications in both creative work and learning contexts.     

Spatial and functional relationships between air conduits and blood capillaries in the pulmonary gas exchange tissue of adult and developing chickens

The documented data regarding the three-dimensional structure of the air capillaries (ACs), the ultimate sites of gas exchange in the avian lung is contradictory. Further, the mode of gas exchange, described as cross-current has not been clearly elucidated. We studied the temporal and spatial arrangement of the terminal air conduits of the chicken lung and their relationship with the blood capillaries (BCs) in embryos as well as the definitive architecture in adults. Several visualization techniques that included corrosion casting, light microscopy as well as scanning and transmission electron microscopy were used. Two to six infundibulae extend from each atrium and give rise to numerous ACs that spread centrifugally. Majority of the ACs are tubular structures that give off branches, which anastomose with their neighboring cognates. Some ACs have globular shapes and a few are blind-ending tapering tubes. During inauguration, the luminal aspects of the ACs are characterized by numerous microvillus-like microplicae, which are formed during the complex processes of cell attenuation and canalization of the ACs. The parabronchial exchange BCs, initially inaugurated as disorganized meshworks, are reoriented via pillar formation to lie predominantly orthogonal to the long axes of the ACs. The remodeling of the retiform meshworks by intussusceptive angiogenesis essentially accomplishes a cross-current system at the gas exchange interface in the adults, where BCs form ring-like patterns around the ACs, thus establishing a cross-current system. Our findings clarify the mode of gas exchange in the parabronchial mantle and illuminate the basis for the functional efficiency of the avian lung.     

牛奶加工过程中的压力监测

雀巢公司位于瑞士柯诺芬根的研发中心开发奶制品。并设计制造工艺。而监测换热器的压力,对于这家研发中心来说具有特殊的挑战性。     

Designing an information search interface for younger and older adults

OBJECTIVE: The present study examined Web-based information retrieval as a function of age for two information organization schemes: hierarchical organization and one organized around tags or keywords. BACKGROUND: Older adults' performance in information retrieval tasks has traditionally been lower compared with younger adults'. The current study examined the degree to which information organization moderated age-related performance differences on an information retrieval task. The theory of fluid and crystallized intelligence may provide insight into different kinds of information architectures that may reduce age-related differences in computer-based information retrieval performance. METHOD: Fifty younger (18-23 years of age) and 50 older (55-76 years of age) participants browsed a Web site for answers to specific questions. Half of the participants browsed the hierarchically organized system (taxonomy), which maintained a one-to-one relationship between menu link and page, whereas the other half browsed the tag-based interface, with a many-to-one relationship between menu and page. This difference was expected to interact with age-related differences in fluid and crystallized intelligence. RESULTS: Age-related differences in information retrieval performance persisted; however, a tag-based retrieval interface reduced age-related differences, as compared with a taxonomical interface. CONCLUSION: Cognitive aging theory can lead to interface interventions that reduce age-related differences in performance with technology. In an information retrieval paradigm, older adults may be able to leverage their increased crystallized intelligence to offset fluid intelligence declines in a computer-based information search task. APPLICATION: More research is necessary, but the results suggest that information retrieval interfaces organized around keywords may reduce age-related differences in performance.     

Evaluating the species energy relationship with the newest measures of ecosystem energy: NDVI versus MODIS primary production

Ecosystem energy has been shown to be a strong correlate with biological diversity at continental scales. Early efforts to characterize this association used the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) to represent ecosystem energy. While this spectral vegetation index covaries with measures of ecosystem energy such as net primary production, the covariation is known to degrade in areas of very low vegetation or in areas of dense forest. Two of the new vegetation products from the MODIS sensor, derived by integrating spectral reflectance, climate data, and land cover, are thought to better approximate primary productivity than NDVI. In this study, we determine if the new MODIS derived measures of primary production, gross primary productivity (GPP) and net primary productivity (NPP) better explain variation in bird richness than historically used NDVI. Moreover, we evaluate if the two productivity measures covary more strongly with bird diversity in those vegetation conditions where limitations of NDVI are well recognized.Biodiversity was represented as native landbird species richness derived from the North American Breeding Bird Survey. Analyses included correlation analyses among predictor variables, and univariate regression analyses between each predictor variable and bird species richness. Analyses were done at two levels: for all BBS routes across natural landscapes in North America; and for routes in 10 vegetation classes stratified by vegetated cover along a gradient from bare ground to herbaceous cover to tree cover. We found that NDVI, GPP and NPP were highly correlated and explained similar variation in bird species richness when analyzed for all samples across North America. However, when samples were stratified by vegetated cover, strength of correlation between NDVI and both productivity measures was low for samples with bare ground and for dense forest. The NDVI also explained substantially less variation in bird species richness than the primary production in areas with more bare ground and in areas of dense forest. We conclude that MODIS productivity measures have higher utility in studies of the relationship of species richness and productivity and that MODIS GPP and NPP improve on NDVI, especially for studies with large variation in vegetated cover and density.     

Viewfinder Alignment

The viewfinder of a digital camera has traditionally been used for one purpose: to display to the user a preview of what is seen through the camera's lens. High quality cameras are now available on devices such as mobile phones and PDAs, which provide a platform where the camera is a programmable device, enabling applications such as online computational photography, computer vision‐based interactive gaming, and augmented reality. For such online applications, the camera viewfinder provides the user's main interaction with the environment. In this paper, we describe an algorithm for aligning successive viewfinder frames. First, an estimate of inter‐frame translation is computed by aligning integral projections of edges in two images. The estimate is then refined to compute a full 2D similarity transformation by aligning point features. Our algorithm is robust to noise, never requires storing more than one viewfinder frame in memory, and runs at 30 frames per second on standard smartphone hardware. We use viewfinder alignment for panorama capture, low‐light photography, and a camera‐based game controller.