Nightingallery: theatrical framing and orchestration in participatory performance

The Nightingallery project encouraged participants to converse, sing, and perform with a musically responsive animatronic bird, playfully interacting with the character while members of the public could look on and observe. We used Nightingallery to frame an HCI investigation into how people would engage with one another when confronted with unfamiliar technologies in conspicuously public, social spaces. Structuring performances as improvisational street theatre, we styled our method of exhibiting the bird character. We cast ourselves in supporting roles as carnival barkers and minders of the bird, presenting him as if he were a fantastical creature in a fairground sideshow display, allowing him the agency to shape and maintain dialogues with participants, and positioning him as the focal character upon which the encounter was centred. We explored how the anthropomorphic nature of the bird itself, along with the cultural connotations associated with the carnival/sideshow tradition helped signpost and entice participants through the trajectory of their encounters with the exhibit. Situating ourselves as secondary characters within the narrative defining the performance/use context, our methods of mediation, observation, and evaluation were integrated into the performance frame. In this paper, we explore recent HCI theories in mixed reality performance to reflect upon how genre-based cultural connotations can be used to frame trajectories of experience, and how manipulation of roles and agency in participatory performance can facilitate HCI investigation of social encounters with playful technologies.     

Rejewski’s equations: Solving for the entry permutation

In 1932, Marian Rejewski, who was a young mathematician working at the Polish Cipher Bureau, brilliantly recovered the internal wiring of the military Enigma. His initial efforts were unsuccessful because he assumed that the entry permutation was the same as in the commercial machine. Luckily he tried the identity permutation as an alternative and that proved to be correct. This note describes how Rejewski’s equations may be used to deduce the entry permutation without any guesswork, a technique that was later rediscovered by Alan Turing and by Lieutenant Andrew Gleason.     

Macro- and microscale variables regulate stent haemodynamics,fibrin deposition and thrombomodulin expression

Drug eluting stents are associated with late stent thrombosis (LST), delayed healing and prolonged exposure of stent struts to blood flow. Using macroscale disturbed and undisturbed fluid flow waveforms, we numerically and experimentally determined the effects of microscale model strut geometries upon the generation of prothrombotic conditions that are mediated by flow perturbations. Rectangular cross-sectional stent strut geometries of varying heights and corresponding streamlined versions were studied in the presence of disturbed and undisturbed bulk fluid flow. Numerical simulations and particle flow visualization experiments demonstrated that the interaction of bulk fluid flow and stent struts regulated the generation, size and dynamics of the peristrut flow recirculation zones. In the absence of endothelial cells, deposition of thrombin-generated fibrin occurred primarily in the recirculation zones. When endothelium was present, peristrut expression of anticoagulant thrombomodulin (TM) was dependent on strut height and geometry. Thinner and streamlined strut geometries reduced peristrut flow recirculation zones decreasing prothrombotic fibrin deposition and increasing endothelial anticoagulant TM expression. The studies define physical and functional consequences of macro- and microscale variables that relate to thrombogenicity associated with the most current stent designs, and particularly to LST.     

e卡在手 质保无忧——美富特隔热膜电子质保系统2.0版正式上线

正鱼龙混杂、以次充好、真假难辨……一个个令人生畏的标签,对于隔热膜行业从业者来说,却已是司空见惯。如何在这样的环境中更好地保护消费者的切身利益,也便成为了有担当的企业、品牌日常工作的重要组成部分。MAXFFOTEC美富特2.0版电子质保系统的上线,在为消费者及MAXFFOTEC富美特代理商、经销商带来更好的权益保护的同时,也提升了品牌形象。     

Alignment of muscle precursor cells on the vertical edges of thick carbon nanotube films

The development of scaffolds and templates is an essential aspect of tissue engineering. We show that thick (> 0.5 mm) vertically aligned carbon nanotube films, made by chemical vapour deposition, can be used as biocompatible substrates for the directional alignment of mouse muscle cells where the cells grow on the exposed sides of the films. Ultra high resolution scanning electron microscopy reveals that the films themselves consist mostly of small diameter (10 nm) multi-wall carbon nanotubes of wavy morphology with some single wall carbon nanotubes. Our findings show that for this alignment to occur the nanotubes must be in pristine condition. Mechanical wiping of the films to create directional alignment is detrimental to directional bioactivity. Larger areas for study have been formed from a composite of multiply stacked narrow strips of nanotubes wipe-transferred onto elastomer supports. These composite substrates appear to show a useful degree of alignment of the cells.     

Development of a Comprehensive Oxide Scale Failure Diagram

This paper describes a new approach towards the development of a comprehensive oxide scale failure diagram (OSFD) that delineates the mechanical limits of scales for the different types of failure mechanisms. While former diagrams of a similar type were based on relating the critical strain to scale failure to oxide scale thickness, the new approach replaces scale thickness with a comprehensive operational parameter ω_o that summarizes in a multi-level treatment all contributing factors, e.g. physical defect size, interface roughness, scale thickness, Young’s modulus, fracture toughness, etc., that influence failure strain. While this approach should ideally be based on a comprehensive treatment of ω_o using fully implemented coding, further considerations based on the identification of “low-impact” and “high-impact” parameters lead to a simplified OSFD where only the physical defect size is needed. This simplified approach can be used to assess the strain tolerance of oxide scales in industrial operation once the particular diagram has been established from laboratory data.     

中材汽车携手STEEDA 共创中国皮卡文化——STEEDA福特正式登陆中国

正8月19日,中国中材进出口有限公司、中材供应链管理有限公司与STEEDA公司在北京举行新闻发布会,宣布正式引进STEEDA福特皮卡新车型"黑隼",这也是此款车型首次正式登陆中国市场。与此同时,国内领先的汽车越野俱乐部兄弟连也将与中材汽车紧密合作,基于追求品质与责任的共同诉求,利用各自品牌优势和影响力,强强联手,为皮卡和汽车越野运动爱好者提供完善的会员服务,耀世开启STEEDA福特皮卡在中国的"高性能"时代。     

Australian project time‐cost analysis: Statistical analysis of intertemporal trends

In statistical analysis of intertemporal movements in time–cost relationships via the Bromilow model it is shown that for Ng et al.’s (2001) Australian data, the K value is not significantly different from unity. This is utilized to develop a new and simpler ratio measure of the time–cost relationship, which has the advantage of being obtainable for each project. A scatter plot and a statistical analysis of the project ratios indicate significant yearly fluctuations but no underlying trend. Assuming similar characteristics of the data from previous studies, equivalent average ratios are estimated and plotted, confirming Ng et al.’s visual appearance of a possible downward trend. However, the statistical analysis is inconclusive on the issue, there being insufficient data (six points) for a full analysis.     

A multi-objective model for seasonal personnel reassignment

The focus of this research was the development of a model to address the problem of reassigning summer construction workers to winter snow and ice removal teams in an efficient and cost-effective manner. The model is a multi-objective integer program that can generate the complete and precise trade-off curve between the objectives of minimizing total distance that the reassigned workforce must travel from their respective homes to one of many site locations, and minimizing the maximum distance that any one worker must travel. System constraints include demand requirements for workers at each site and the limited availability of state-owned vehicles that may be issued to workers assigned to remote sites. Details of the model structure and solution procedure are presented together with the results of an actual application.