The role of visual complexity and prototypicality regarding first impression of websites: Working towards understanding aesthetic judgments

This paper experimentally investigates the role of visual complexity (VC) and prototypicality (PT) as design factors of websites, shaping users' first impressions by means of two studies. In the first study, 119 screenshots of real websites varying in VC (low vs. medium vs. high) and PT (low vs. high) were rated on perceived aesthetics. Screenshot presentation time was varied as a between-subject factor (50 ms vs. 500 ms vs. 1000 ms). Results reveal that VC and PT affect participants' aesthetics ratings within the first 50 ms of exposure. In the second study presentation times were shortened to 17, 33 and 50 ms. Results suggest that VC and PT affect aesthetic perception even within 17 ms, though the effect of PT is less pronounced than the one of VC. With increasing presentation time the effect of PT becomes as influential as the VC effect. This supports the reasoning of the information-processing stage model of aesthetic processing (Leder et al., 2004), where VC is processed at an earlier stage than PT. Overall, websites with low VC and high PT were perceived as highly appealing.     

Is LRP2 Involved in Leptin Transport over the Blood-Brain Barrier and Development of Obesity?

The mechanisms underlying the transport of leptin into the brain are still largely unclear. While the leptin receptor has been implicated in the transport process, recent evidence has suggested an additional role of LRP2 (megalin). To evaluate the function of LRP2 for leptin transport across the blood-brain barrier (BBB), we developed a novel leptin-luciferase fusion protein (pLG), which stimulated leptin signaling and was transported in an in vitro BBB model based on porcine endothelial cells. The LRP inhibitor RAP did not affect leptin transport, arguing against a role of LRP2. In line with this, the selective deletion of LRP2 in brain endothelial cells and epithelial cells of the choroid plexus did not influence bodyweight, body composition, food intake, or energy expenditure of mice. These findings suggest that LRP2 at the BBB is not involved in the transport of leptin into the brain, nor in the development of obesity as has previously been described.     

Automating Test Case Selection in Model-Based Software Product Line Development

We address the problem of how to select test cases for products in a controlled model-based software product line development process. CVL, the common variability language, gives a framework for materialisation of product models from a given base model, variability model and resolution model. From such product models, software products can be derived. In practise, test case development for the product line often is independent from the product development. Therefore, the problem arises which test cases can be applied to which products. In particular, the question is whether a test case for one speci c product can be also used for a "similar" product. In this paper, we show how the expected outcome of a test case to a product in a model-based software product line development can be determined. That is, we give a procedure for assigning the outcome of a given test case on an arbitrary member of a software product line. We recall the relevant de nitions for software product line engineering, describe our approach, and demonstrate it with the example of a product line of super-automatic espresso machines.     

Jet bundle formulation of infinite-dimensional port-Hamiltonian systems using differential operators

We consider infinite-dimensional port-Hamiltonian systems described on jet bundles. Based on a power balance relation we introduce the port-Hamiltonian system representation using differential operators regarding the structural mapping, the dissipation mapping and the input mapping. In contrast to the well-known representation on the basis of the underlying Stokes–Dirac structure our approach is not necessarily based on using energy-variables which leads to a different port-Hamiltonian representation of the analyzed partial differential equations. The presented constructions will be specialized to mechanical systems to which class also the presented examples belong.     

Aggregation behaviour of well defined amphiphilic diblock copolymers with poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) and hydrophobic blocks

Series of amphiphilic diblock copolymers with poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) as a hydrophilic block and a hydrophobic block consisting of either polystyrene or poly(tert-butyl methacrylate) were synthesised using RAFT polymerisations. Differential scanning calorimetry showed the chemically different blocks being phase separated in dry polymers. Light scattering and microcalorimetry studies were performed on aqueous solutions to investigate the phase behavior of the diblock copolymers. By carefully transferring the polymers from an organic solvent to water, either micellar particles or large aggregates were obtained depending on the relative lengths of the blocks. Large aggregates collapsed upon heating, whereas collapse occurred slowly within a broad temperature range in the case of micelle like structures. However, microcalorimetrically the collapse of the PNIPAM chains was observed to take place in all samples, suggesting that the shells of the micellar particles are crowded in a way which hinders the compression of the poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) chains.     

Bayesian estimation of Dirichlet mixture model with variational inference

In statistical modeling, parameter estimation is an essential and challengeable task. Estimation of the parameters in the Dirichlet mixture model (DMM) is analytically intractable, due to the integral expressions of the gamma function and its corresponding derivatives. We introduce a Bayesian estimation strategy to estimate the posterior distribution of the parameters in DMM. By assuming the gamma distribution as the prior to each parameter, we approximate both the prior and the posterior distribution of the parameters with a product of several mutually independent gamma distributions. The extended factorized approximation method is applied to introduce a single lower-bound to the variational objective function and an analytically tractable estimation solution is derived. Moreover, there is only one function that is maximized during iterations and, therefore, the convergence of the proposed algorithm is theoretically guaranteed. With synthesized data, the proposed method shows the advantages over the EM-based method and the previously proposed Bayesian estimation method. With two important multimedia signal processing applications, the good performance of the proposed Bayesian estimation method is demonstrated.     

Organic Nanoparticles with Polypropyleneoxide Chains as Support for Metallocene Catalysts: Ethylene Homopolymerization and Ethylene/α-olefin Copolymerization

Summary Novel organic nanoparticles functionalized with nucleophilic polypropyleneoxide (PPO) chains on their surfaces for supporting metallocene catalysts in heterogeneous olefin polymerization are presented. The nanoparticles (60–100 nm) were obtained by miniemulsion polymerization of styrene, divinylbenzene and PPO functionalized styrene. It is demonstrated that Me₂Si(2MeBenzlnd)₂ZrCl₂/MAO supported on these nanoparticles is suitable for the homopolymerization of ethylene, resulting in excellent product morphologies and high activities. lt is shown that by varying the MAO/Zr ratios and Zr concentrations the activities and productivities of the catalysts as well as the qualities of the polyethylene products can be tuned. These new supported catalysts are also suitable for the copolymerization of ethylene with several comonomers (1-hexene, 1-octene, 1-decene or norbornene). As the obtained product properties like crystallinity, melting temperature or bulk density match the results of silica supported systems, these organic nanoparticles can be considered as alternative carriers in comparison to the established inorganic ones.     

Branching-time logics with path relativisation

We define extensions of the full branching-time temporal logic CTL^? in which the path quantifiers are relativised by formal languages of infinite words, and consider its natural fragments obtained by extending the logics CTL and CTL⁺ in the same way. This yields a small and two-dimensional hierarchy of temporal logics parametrised by the class of languages used for the path restriction on one hand, and the use of temporal operators on the other. We motivate the study of such logics through two application scenarios: in abstraction and refinement they offer more precise means for the exclusion of spurious traces; and they may be useful in software synthesis where decidable logics without the finite model property are required. We study the relative expressive power of these logics as well as the complexities of their satisfiability and model-checking problems.