Evaluating Visualisations in Voting Advice Applications

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Bastiaan Bruinsma

AbstractWhile the design of voting advice applications (VAAs) is witnessing an increasing amount of attention, one aspect has until now been overlooked: its visualisations. This is remarkable, as it are those visualisations that communicate to the user the advice of the VAA. Therefore, this article aims to provide a first look at which visualisations VAAs adopt, why they adopt them, and how users comprehend them. For this, I will look at how design choices, specifically those on matching, influence the type of visualisation VAAs not only do but also have to, use. Second, I will report the results of a small-scale experiment that looked if all users comprehend similar visualisations in the same way. Here, I find that this is often not the case and that the interpretations of the users often differ. These first results suggest that VAA visualisations are wrongly underappreciated and demand closer attention of VAA designers.

2020 ◽  
pp. 140-148
Author(s):  
Md. Kumail Naqvi ◽  
Mrinal Anthwal ◽  
Ravindra Kumar

Biogas is the product of anaerobic vitiation of biodegradable matter. This paper focuses on the need of alternative and green sources of energy at a household level and how biogas produced from the everyday organic waste has the potential and possibility to replace LPG cylinders at houses, shops etc. and empower us to step towards an eco-friendly future. The purpose this small-scale experiment has been to find the perfect input matter that is easy to acquire and which produces the maximum amount of gas from minimum input and within small period of waste retention. Four different types of input waste material containing different quantities of cow dung and kitchen food waste were studied through individual experimental setups. Waste was mixed and kept at room temperature and the pH and total solid concentration of the samples were recorded on regular intervals. From the experiment it was found that the optimum yield of biogas at a small scale, based on the parameters such as retention period, pH and total solid con-centration can be obtained by the use of food waste form households and kitchens. The exact composition has been discussed in this paper. The energy generated by the small-scale generator has also been compared to that of an LPG cylinder and an LPG replacement model has also been presented.


Author(s):  
Marco A. P. Rosas ◽  
Ana Paula F. Souza ◽  
Marcos V. Rodrigues ◽  
Danilo Machado L. da Silva

In this paper the behavior and the relationship between hydrostatic collapse pressure and diametrically opposed radial compressive force for pipelines were analyzed. This study presents an introduction of a research work aimed to assess the pipeline collapse pressure based on the radial collapse force. Initially the hydrostatic collapse pressure is analyzed, for pipes with different diameter to wall thickness ratio (D/t) and ovalities, using classical assessment (DNV method) and numerical models (FE). Then, the compressive radial force is also analyzed using numerical models validated by a small-scale ring specimen test. After that, the relationship between hydrostatic collapse pressure and compressive radial force is discussed. These first results show that the radial force is a quadratic function of the collapse pressure.


2019 ◽  
pp. 34-36
Author(s):  
Ilya Alexandrovich Khapugin

The influence of mineral fertilizers on seed productivity and quality of obtained seeds of lemon balm (Melissa officinalis L.) was studied in the field small-scale experiment under conditions of unstable moistening of the Mordovia Republic. As a result, it was found that seed productivity varied depending on weather conditions and the types of fertilizers introduced. It was shown that the maximum productivity of Melissa officinalis plants was on the variant with the use of phosphorus-potassium fertilizers at a dose of P60K90 (71.2±78.5 g/m2 in 2017 and 48.8±4.3 g/m2 in 2018), while it exceeded the control variant by 74-91 %. The total germination of seeds of Melissa officinalis practically did not change over the years, and was in the range of 37-39 %. Separation of seeds according to the degree of aging allowed to increase germination 11.4-13.3 %.  


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 256-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maximilian S. T. Wanner

Many suggestions have been made on what motivates countries to expand their measures for disaster risk reduction (DRR), including the frequency and severity of natural hazards, accountability mechanisms, and governance capacity. Despite the fact that theoretical arguments have been developed and evidence collected from small-scale case studies, few studies have attempted to explain the substantial variation in the adoption of DRR measures across countries. This study combines available data on DRR measures, natural hazard events, governance, and socioeconomic characteristics to provide a systematic assessment of the changes that have occurred in the state of DRR at the national level. In line with theoretical explanations, there are indeed associations between several measures of frequency and severity and the development of DRR status. Additionally, voice and accountability mechanisms, as well as development aid, might facilitate positive change. Although these first results of a global comparative study on change in DRR have to be taken cautiously, it is a step forward to understanding the drivers of change at the national level.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Schleiss

Abstract. Spatial downscaling of rainfall fields is a challenging mathematical problem for which many different types of methods have been proposed. One popular solution consists in redistributing rainfall amounts over smaller and smaller scales by means of a discrete multiplicative random cascade (DMRC). This works well for slowly varying, homogeneous rainfall fields but often fails in the presence of intermittency (i.e., large amounts of zero rainfall values). The most common workaround in this case is to use two separate cascade models, one for the occurrence and another for the intensity. In this paper, a new and simpler approach based on the notion of equal-volume areas (EVAs) is proposed. Unlike classical cascades where rainfall amounts are redistributed over grid cells of equal size, the EVA cascade splits grid cells into areas of different sizes, each of them containing exactly half of the original amount of water. The relative areas of the sub-grid cells are determined by drawing random values from a logit-normal cascade generator model with scale and intensity dependent standard deviation. The process ends when the amount of water in each sub-grid cell is smaller than a fixed bucket capacity, at which point the output of the cascade can be re-sampled over a regular Cartesian mesh. The present paper describes the implementation of the EVA cascade model and gives some first results for 100 selected events in the Netherlands. Performance is assessed by comparing the outputs of the EVA model to bilinear interpolation and to a classical DMRC model based on fixed grid cell sizes. Results show that on average, the EVA cascade outperforms the classical method, producing fields with more realistic distributions, small-scale extremes and spatial structures. Improvements are mostly credited to the higher robustness of the EVA model to the presence of intermittency and to the lower variance of its generator. However, improvements are not systematic and both approaches have their advantages and weaknesses. For example, while the classical cascade tends to overestimate small-scale extremes and variability, the EVA model tends to produce fields that are slightly too smooth and blocky compared with observations.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sônia Palha

Interactive Virtual Math (IVM) is a visualization tool to support secondary school students’ learning of graphs by dynamic events. In the prototype version students construct a graph and try to improve it themselves and with the feedback of the tool. In a small-scale experiment, which involved four classes at secondary and tertiary education and their mathematics teachers we investigated how the students used the tool in the classroom. In this study we focus on the students learning experience and the results are expected to provide knowledge and directions for further development of the tool. The corpus data consists of self-reported questionnaires and lessons observations. One main finding is that students, at different school levels, find the tool useful to construct or improve graphical representations and it can help to get a better understanding of the subject. The tool features that helped students most were the self-construction of the graphs and to get feedback about their own graph at the end. Other findings are that the students can work independently with the tool and we know more about the tool features that are attractive or need to be improved.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (22) ◽  
pp. 7776
Author(s):  
Andrzej Urbaniec ◽  
Anna Łaba-Biel ◽  
Anna Kwietniak ◽  
Imoleayo Fashagba

The Upper Cretaceous complex in the central part of the Carpathian Foreland (southern Poland) is relatively poorly recognized and described. Its formations can be classified as unconventional reservoir due to poor reservoir properties as well as a low recovery factor. The main aim of the article is to expand knowledge with conclusions resulting from the analysis of the latest seismic data with the application of seismic sequence stratigraphy. Moreover, the seismic attributes analysis was utilized. The depositional architecture recognition based on both chronostratigraphic horizons and Wheeler diagram interpretations was of paramount importance. A further result was the possibility of using the chronostratigraphic image for tectonostratigraphic interpretation. Two distinguished tectonostratigraphic units corresponding to megasequences were recognized. A tectonic setting of the analyzed interval is associated with global processes noticed by other authors in other parts of the central European Late Cretaceous basin, but also locally accompanied by evidence of small-scale tectonics. This study fills the gap on the issue of paleogeography in the Late Cretaceous sedimentary basin of the Carpathian Foreland. It presents the first results of detailed reconstruction of the basin paleogeography and an attempt to determine the impact of both eustatic and tectonic factors on sedimentation processes.


2018 ◽  
Vol 251 ◽  
pp. 04038 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michal Baca ◽  
Jaroslaw Rybak

Presented laboratory testing program of tubular steel piles is a part of a bigger research program which contained static load tests in full scale and numerical simulations of conducted research. The main goal of the research is to compare static load tests with different working conditions of a shaft. The presented small scale model tests are the last part of the research. The paper contains the testing methodology description and first results of model pile axial loading. The static load tests in a small laboratory scale were conducted in a container filled with uniformly compacted medium sand (MSa). The first results of the investigation are presented in this paper, with the comparison of two pile capacities obtained for different roughness of the pile shaft (skin friction). The results are presented as load-displacement curves obtained by means of the Brinch-Hansen 80% method.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document