After the storm: considerations for information visualization

“Study of a Numerically Modeled Severe Storm” is a well known animation within the scientific visualization community. The visualization is among the best of its genre, featuring full storyboarding, well chosen representations, high quality rendering, and professional narration. We recently revisited the thunderstorm to consider what we would do differently if we were to make that video again. We wanted to demonstrate several principles of effective information presentation, drawing from the fields of graphic design and visual perception. Our purpose was not to find fault with bad visualization. Rather, we wanted to study how to make a good thing better. The original video was produced using the modeling, animation, and rendering capabilities of Wavefront's Advanced Visualizer. To facilitate comparison, we did most of the current work with the same software. However, many points discussed here apply to interactive visualization tools as well. The original visualization and our revised version are both based on data generated by a simulation run on a Cray supercomputer at NCSA. The simulation models the genesis and lifetime of a severe storm by solving a set of time dependent equations over a collection of regularly spaced grid points in a three dimensional rectangular space     

Tuning fidelity of acoustooptically controlled external-cavitysemiconductor lasers

External cavity semiconductor lasers in extended- and ring-cavity configurations were tuned with chirp-compensating pairs of acoustooptic filters. Nanometer-size tuning gaps observed by previous workers were eliminated. The tuning range was approximately 80 nm for the extended cavity and at least 55 nm for the ring cavity. The root-mean-square tuning error was 0.036 nm for the extended cavity and 0.018 nm for the ring cavity. The output could be swept up to 35 mm in as little as 10 msec, limited by the radio-frequency generator. Transmittance measurements made on spare acoustooptic filters using the extended-cavity laser as a swept source were in good agreement with quasi-static measurements made using a grating-tuned laser     

The Danish Twin Apartment Study – Part II: Mathematical modeling of the relative strength of sources of indoor air pollution

Abstract This study deals with the modeling of air pollution in apartments from laboratory measurements of source strengths, using formaldehyde and Total Volatile Organic Compounds (TVOCs) as model pollutants. The sources in two test apartments were grouped into two: building-related sources and occupant-related sources. The measured source strengths and ventilation rates were used for the prediction of concentrations expected in the apartments. These predictions were compared to measurements in the apartment over 12 months. The conclusions were that the model predictions based on emission rates measured in the laboratory can be used to predict the long-term concentration of the two model pollutants in the apartments. Considering the measured differences in ventilation between the apartments, an occupant emission rate of between 0.2 and 0.3 mg/h/kg body weight could be estimated. Based on previous suggested limits of acceptable exposures of humans to VOCs, an acceptable average emission rate of VOCs from building materials in general was estimated to be about 30 (μ/m²/h. The modeling showed that during the first 200 days, building materials dominated the emissions. After this, sources relating to the occupants dominated. On average about half of the VOC pollution originated from the building materials.     

Generalized impedance control of robot for assembly tasks requiringcompliant manipulation

To perform assembly tasks requiring compliant manipulation, the robot must follow a motion trajectory and exert an appropriate force profile while making compliant contact with a dynamic environment. For this purpose, a generalized impedance in the task space consisting of a second-order function relating the motion errors and interaction force errors is introduced such that the contact force can be commanded and controlled. With generalized impedance control, the robot can behave with a desired dynamic characteristic when it interacts with the environment. To ensure the success of the assembly, a strategy during task planning which takes into consideration the interrelation between motion and force trajectories as well as contact compliance is introduced. The generalized impedance control method is applied to the prismatic joint of a selective compliance assembly robot arm (SCARA) robot for inserting a printed circuit board (PCB) into an edge connector socket. Depending on the progress of the parts joining operation, various amount of interaction forces are generated which have to be accommodated. It is demonstrated that an assembly strategy which consists of a sequence of carefully planned target impedance can enable the task to be executed in a desirable manner. The effectiveness of this approach is illustrated through experiments by comparing the results with those obtained using a well-established position control scheme as well as the original impedance control method     

Theory of soliton stability in asynchronous modelocking

A new type of fiber laser modelocking is examined where a phase modulator is driven asynchronously with respect to a harmonic of the roundtrip cavity frequency. An asynchronous drive is able to produce high repetition rate (>1 GHz) soliton pulses that are shorter than the classic, active modelocking pulse width limit. It is shown that with a proper choice of fiber parameters, noise cleanup and soliton pulse shaping can be obtained using filtering and asynchronous phase modulation. Limits of asynchronous detuning are derived and a comparison with the parameters ranges for synchronous phase modulation is also presented     

THE ANALYSIS OF THE SEPARATED LAYERS ALGORITHM BY DOMAIN DECOMPOSITION METHOD

From the principle of of the Domain Decomposition Method (DDM), we analyse the 2nd-order linear elliptic partial differential problems and link the Separated-Layers Algorithm (SLA) with DDM. The mathematical properties of SLA and numerical example are presented to obtain satisfactory computation results. For general linear differential ones, also are the structure of SLA and its characteristics discussed.     

Efficient dynamic synchronous machine simulation with harmonics

Within this paper, an efficient procedure for the dynamic simulation of faulted synchronous machines operating in the presence of harmonics is presented. The algorithm employs steady-state frequency domain techniques for simulation of the transmission system sequence networks and time domain methods for synchronous machines represented in the odq frame of reference. The procedure affords greater accuracy than conventional fault analysis techniques based strictly on steady-state methods, yet requires far less computational time than full system dynamic simulations such as those using the EMTP