6801906
Attention-based design of augmented reality interfaces
The objects and surfaces of a task-based environment can be layered with digital interfaces to make them easier and safer to use. Once information can be projected anywhere in the space, it becomes crucial to design the information to make optimal use of users' attention. We have prototyped and evaluated a real-world augmented reality kitchen where user-centered interfaces and displays can be projected anywhere in the space to improve its usability. The augmented environment is designed to support the activities of a variety of people in diverse kitchen environments.This paper presents five intelligent kitchen systems that layer useful interfaces onto the refrigerator, range, cabinets, countertops and sink. The interface design is driven by human factors, especially attention theory and user evaluations. By projecting interfaces where they require the least cognitive load, we hope to improve the performance and confidence of users. The design employs cueing and search principles from attention theory. We present the results of pilot studies and future directions for our work.
16256064
Emotionally reactive television
When is an interface simple? Is it when it is invisible or very obvious, even intrusive? From the time TV was created, watching TV is considered as a static activity. TV audiences have very limited choices to interact with TV, such as turning on/off, increasing/decreasing volume, and traversing among different channels. This paper suggests that TV program should have social responses to people, such as affording and accepting audience's emotional feeling with the growth of technologies. This paper presents HiTV, an Emotionally-Reactive TV system using a digitally augmented soft ball as affect-input interfaces that can amplify TV program's video/audio signals. HiTV transforms the original video and audio into effects that intrigue and fulfill people's emotional expectation.
17677434
A framework for designing intelligent task-oriented augmented reality user interfaces
A task-oriented space can benefit from an augmented reality interface that layers the existing tools and surfaces with useful information to make cooking more easy, safe and efficient. To serve experienced users as well as novices, augmented reality interfaces need to adapt modalities to the user's expertise and allow for multiple ways to perform tasks. We present a framework for designing an intelligent user interface that informs and choreographs multiple tasks in a single space according to a model of tasks and users. A residential kitchen has been outfitted with systems to gather data from tools and surfaces and project multi-modal interfaces back onto the tools and surfaces themselves. Based on user evaluations of this augmented reality kitchen, we propose a system to tailor information modalities based on the spatial and temporal qualities of the task, and the expertise, location and progress of the user. The intelligent augmented reality user interface choreographs multiple tasks in the same space at the same time.
7053531
Attention meter: a vision-based input toolkit for interaction designers
This paper shows how a software toolkit can allow graphic designers to make camera-based interactive environments in a short period of time without experience in user interface design or machine vision. The Attention Meter, a vision-based input toolkit, gives users an analysis of faces found in a given image stream, including facial expression, body motion, and attentive activities. This data is fed to a text file that can be easily understood by humans and programs alike. A four day workshop demonstrated that some Flash-savvy architecture students could construct interactive spaces (e.g. TaiKer-KTV and ScreamMarket) based on body and head motions.
38028125
Lover's cups: drinking interfaces as new communication channels
This paper shows how computer interfaces can enhance common activities and use them as communication method between people. In this paper, the act of drinking is used as an input of remote communication with the support of computer interfaces. We present Lover's Cups which enable people to share the time of drinking with someone they care about in different places. Using a wireless connection, an otherwise ordinary pair of cups becomes a communication device, amplifying the social aspect of drinking behavior.
19284732
Smart sinks: real-world opportunities for context-aware interaction
Can implicit interaction with a computer easily drive useful interface improvements in physical world settings? This paper presents a case study presenting multiple such context-aware interaction improvements in a sink. We have identified opportunities where automated interfaces at the sink have positive consequences for safety, hygiene and ecology. The danger of scalding oneself with hot water is confronted by transforming the water into a graphical user interface and using image understanding to dispense the proper temperature of water. Audio-visual feedback at the sink can motivate users to conserve water. Used in combination with an RFID reader, the sink can serve as an effective means of verifying hand-washing compliance for clean environments. Finally, automatic actuation of the sink's height based on the user and task can prevent burns and ergonomic injuries. This project demonstrates that the integration of digital interaction in a hostile environment can facilitate and improve our daily rituals.
14565413
Performance Modeling of HPC Applications
Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the performance modeling of high performance computing (HPC) applications. Performance models of applications enable HPC system designers and centers to gain insight into the most optimal hardware for their applications, giving them valuable information into the components of hardware that for a certain investment of time/money will give the most benefit for the applications slated to run on the new system. The task of developing accurate performance models for scientific application on such complex systems can be difficult. The chapter briefly review a framework developed that provides an automated means for carrying out performance modeling investigations. The ongoing work to lower the overhead required for obtaining application signatures is discussed, and how one can increased the level-of-detail of convolutions with resulting improvements in modeling accuracy is explained. The chapter discusses how these technology advances enabled performance studies to explain why performance of applications, such as POP (Parallel Ocean Program), NLOM (Navy Layered Ocean Model), and Cobalt60, vary on different machines and quantifies the performance effect of various components of the machines. The chapter concludes by generalizing these results to show how this application's performance would likely improve if the underlying target machines were improved in various dimensions.
36676674
A note on the extended Blasius equation
Abstract In a recent paper, the Blasius equation was extended to a nonlinear equation like a f ‴ + f f ″ = 0 with the prime denoting differentiation with respect to the similarity variable η and a being a constant parameter. The current note will show that the solution of the extended Blasius equation can be obtained from the original Blasius equation solution with a variable transformation technique. The observed phenomena in numerical solutions of previous published work are theoretically analyzed. The equation is also discussed for an arbitrary real parameter or complex parameters. It is further shown that the extended Blasius equation is a special form of the similarity equation of momentum boundary layers over a flat plate with a temperature dependent property.
2177844
Design, performance analysis, and implementation of a super-scalar video-on-demand system
Despite the availability of video-on-demand (VoD) services in a number of cities around the world, large-scale deployment of VoD services in a metropolitan area is still economically impractical. This study presents a novel super-scalar architecture for building very large-scale and efficient VoD systems. The proposed architecture combines the use of static multicast, dynamic multicast, and intelligent client-side caching to vastly reduce server and network resource requirement. Moreover, in sharp contrast to conventional VoD systems where the system cost increases at least linearly with the system scale, the proposed architecture becomes more efficient as the system scales up and can ultimately be scaled up to serve any number of users while still keeping the startup latency short. This paper presents this new architecture, proposes methods to support interactive playback controls without the need for additional server or client resources, and derives an approximate performance model to relate the startup latency with other system parameters. The performance model is validated using simulation and the architecture is evaluated under various system settings. Lastly, a system implementation is presented and benchmarking results obtained to further verify the architecture, the performance model, and the simulation results.
2960775
Mesh saliency
Research over the last decade has built a solid mathematical foundation for representation and analysis of 3D meshes in graphics and geometric modeling. Much of this work however does not explicitly incorporate models of low-level human visual attention. In this paper we introduce the idea of mesh saliency as a measure of regional importance for graphics meshes. Our notion of saliency is inspired by low-level human visual system cues. We define mesh saliency in a scale-dependent manner using a center-surround operator on Gaussian-weighted mean curvatures. We observe that such a definition of mesh saliency is able to capture what most would classify as visually interesting regions on a mesh. The human-perception-inspired importance measure computed by our mesh saliency operator results in more visually pleasing results in processing and viewing of 3D meshes. compared to using a purely geometric measure of shape. such as curvature. We discuss how mesh saliency can be incorporated in graphics applications such as mesh simplification and viewpoint selection and present examples that show visually appealing results from using mesh saliency.
44806973
Cache-Conscious Limited Preemptive Scheduling
In multi-tasking real-time systems, inter-task cache interference due to preemptions degrades schedulability as well as performance. To address this problem, we propose a novel scheduling scheme, called limited preemptive scheduling (LPS), that limits preemptions to execution points with small cache-related preemption costs. Limiting preemptions decreases the cache-related preemption costs of tasks but increases blocking delay of higher priority tasks. The proposed scheme makes an optimal trade-off between these two factors to maximize the schedulability of a given task set while minimizing cache-related preemption delay of tasks. Experimental results show that the LPS scheme improves the maximum schedulable utilization by up to 40\% compared with the traditional fully preemptive scheduling (FPS) scheme. The results also show that up to 20\% of processor time is saved by the LPS scheme due to reduction in the cache-related preemption costs. Finally, the results show that both the improvement of schedulability and the saving of processor time by the LPS scheme increase as the speed gap between the processor and main memory widens.