Semi-Automated SVG Programming via Direct Manipulation

Direct manipulation interfaces provide intuitive and interactive features to a broad range of users, but they often exhibit two limitations: the built-in features cannot possibly cover all use cases, and the internal representation of the content is not readily exposed. We believe that if direct manipulation interfaces were to (a) use general-purpose programs as the representation format, and (b) expose those programs to the user, then experts could customize these systems in powerful new ways and non-experts could enjoy some of the benefits of programmable systems. In recent work, we presented a prototype SVG editor called Sketch-n-Sketch that offered a step towards this vision. In that system, the user wrote a program in a general-purpose lambda-calculus to generate a graphic design and could then directly manipulate the output to indirectly change design parameters (i.e. constant literals) in the program in real-time during the manipulation. Unfortunately, the burden of programming the desired relationships rested entirely on the user. In this paper, we design and implement new features for Sketch-n-Sketch that assist in the programming process itself. Like typical direct manipulation systems, our extended Sketch-n-Sketch now provides GUI-based tools for drawing shapes, relating shapes to each other, and grouping shapes together. Unlike typical systems, however, each tool carries out the user's intention by transforming their general-purpose program. This novel, semi-automated programming workflow allows the user to rapidly create high-level, reusable abstractions in the program while at the same time retaining direct manipulation capabilities. In future work, our approach may be extended with more graphic design features or realized for other application domains.Comment: In 29th ACM User Interface Software and Technology Symposium (UIST 2016

Detonation interaction with an interface

Detonation interaction with an interface was investigated, where the interface separated a combustible from an oxidizing or inert mixture. The ethylene-oxygen combustible mixture had a fuel-rich composition to promote secondary combustion with the oxidizer in the turbulent mixing zone (TMZ) that resulted from the interaction. Sharp interfaces were created by using a nitro-cellulose membrane to separate the two mixtures. The membrane was mounted on a wood frame and inserted in the experimental test section at a 45° angle to the bulk flow direction. The membrane was destroyed by the detonation wave. The interaction resulted in a transmitted and reflected wave at a node point similar to regular shock refraction. A detonation refraction analysis was carried out to compare with the measured shock angles. It was observed that the measured angle is consistently lower than the predicted value. An uncertainty analysis revealed possible explanations for this systematic variation pointing to factors such as the incident wave curvature and the role of the nitro-cellulose diaphragm. Analysis of the TMZ and Mach stem formed from the reflection of the transmitted shock wave off the solid boundary were carried out and found to justify the size and strength of these features as a function of the test gas composition. The role of secondary combustion in the TMZ was also investigated and found to have a small influence on the wave structure

Feasibility study of high performance hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells Final technical report

Engineering analysis for evaluating moving bed and mediator hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell conceptual design

Greater response variability in adolescents is associated with increased white matter development.

Adolescence is a period of learning, exploration, and continuous adaptation to fluctuating environments. Response variability during adolescence is an important, understudied, and developmentally appropriate behavior. The purpose of this study was to identify the association between performance on a dynamic risky decision making task and white matter microstructure in a sample of 48 adolescents (14-16 years). Individuals with the greatest response variability on the task obtained the widest range of experience with potential outcomes to risky choice. When compared with their more behaviorally consistent peers, adolescents with greater response variability rated real-world examples of risk taking behaviors as less risky via self-report. Tract-Based Spatial Statistics (TBSS) were used to examine fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD). Greater FA in long-range, late-maturing tracts was associated with higher response variability. Greater FA and lower MD were associated with lower riskiness ratings of real-world risky behaviors. Results suggest that response variability and lower perceived risk attitudes of real-world risk are supported by neural maturation in adolescents

The Environment as an Argument

Context-awareness as defined in the setting of Ubiquitous Computing [3] is all about expressing the dependency of a specific computation upon some implicit piece of information. The manipulation and expression of such dependencies may thus be neatly encapsulated in a language where computations are first-class values. Perhaps surprisingly however, context-aware programming has not been explored in a functional setting, where first-class computations and higher-order functions are commonplace. In this paper we present an embedded domain-specific language (EDSL) for constructing context-aware applications in the functional programming language Haskell. © 2012 Springer-Verlag

End-User support for information architecture analysis in interactive web applications

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23768-3_71Proceedings of 13th IFIP TC 13 International Conference, Lisbon, Portugal, September 5-9, 2011, Part IVInformation Architects analyze conceptual models and descriptions concerning non-functional requirements that will be later on used by Analysts and Software Engineers to design software artifacts. However, this flow of information is sometimes difficult to automate due to conceptual knowledge differences in the information processed by each expert. To facilitate this flow, in this paper we propose a CASE tool called InterArch. Our tool bridges the gap between both professionals, and it automatically generates UML diagrams for Analysts from the conceptual diagrams created by the Information Architect.The work reported in this paper is being supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology, project ID: TIN2008-02081/TIN, the Madrid Research Council, project ID: S2009/TIC-1650 and, together with the UAM, project ID: CCG10-UAM/TIC-5772

Determining postural stability

A method for determining postural stability of a person can include acquiring a plurality of pressure data points over a period of time from at least one pressure sensor. The method can also include the step of identifying a postural state for each pressure data point to generate a plurality of postural states. The method can include the step of determining a postural state of the person at a point in time based on at least the plurality of postural states

Expansion of pinched hypersurfaces of the Euclidean and hyperbolic space by high powers of curvature

We prove convergence results for expanding curvature flows in the Euclidean and hyperbolic space. The flow speeds have the form $F^{-p}$, where $p>1$ and $F$ is a positive, strictly monotone and 1-homogeneous curvature function. In particular this class includes the mean curvature $F=H$. We prove that a certain initial pinching condition is preserved and the properly rescaled hypersurfaces converge smoothly to the unit sphere. We show that an example due to Andrews-McCoy-Zheng can be used to construct strictly convex initial hypersurfaces, for which the inverse mean curvature flow to the power $p>1$ loses convexity, justifying the necessity to impose a certain pinching condition on the initial hypersurface.Comment: 18 pages. We included an example for the loss of convexity and pinching. In the third version we dropped the concavity assumption on F. Comments are welcom

Characterization of gravity current formation for the use in detonation refraction experiments

Detonation propagation through an interface is being studied at Caltech. In these experiments, the interface shape is determined by the gravity currents. This report presents an experimental study of the formation and the development of these gravity currents by an analog system in a water channel using water and salt water to simulate the density differences in detonation experiments. The major parameters such as the Reynolds number and the density difference were matched in both experiments to be able to compare the gravity current in the water channel and the gravity current in the Galcit detonation tube. In the present study, the gravity current was generated by the removal of a plate, and was visualized by adding food dye. The results confirm previous studies; Keulegan demonstrated in 1957 that the velocity of the gravity current is a function of the square root of the density difference. The interface is affect by the retracting of the plate which creates the wake effects. The Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities on the upstream side of the gravity current create the visualized mixing zones. Finally, this study revealed how the gravity current interface into the Galcit detonation tube should develop and where the mixing zones should occur

Magpie: towards a semantic web browser

Web browsing involves two tasks: finding the right web page and then making sense of its content. So far, research has focused on supporting the task of finding web resources through ‘standard’ information retrieval mechanisms, or semantics-enhanced search. Much less attention has been paid to the second problem. In this paper we describe Magpie, a tool which supports the interpretation of web pages. Magpie offers complementary knowledge sources, which a reader can call upon to quickly gain access to any background knowledge relevant to a web resource. Magpie automatically associates an ontologybased semantic layer to web resources, allowing relevant services to be invoked within a standard web browser. Hence, Magpie may be seen as a step towards a semantic web browser. The functionality of Magpie is illustrated using examples of how it has been integrated with our lab’s web resources