Thinking across Frames – Temporally Extended Consciousness and the Animation Timeline

This article explores ways in which animation production technologies (including pre-cinema, film, and digital tools) have evolved as a system that abstracts time, primarily through its spatialization. This abstraction necessitates certain assumptions about the nature of time, including its linearity and directionality. Animation technologies have evolved so as to support various modes of temporally extended consciousness; an animator’s craft thinks and works through time. Embedded within digital production technologies, the animator is faced with a new philosophical instrument: the animation timeline. The main timeline utility in most animation software adopts a linear, mechanical model of time with the individual frame as the base unit. However, digital animation timeline can also complicate the spatialized temporal dimension, as the timeline is also embedded within animated objects in motion paths and other interface elements . As animated objects always exist through time, not merely within individual frames, the animation software tools for working with time both confine and unlock opportunities for working with time.

Perancangan Antarmuka Berdasarkan Evaluasi Usabilitas Penggunaan Aplikasi KlikDokter Untuk Pralansia dan Lansia

The situation and condition of the spread of Covid-19 in Indonesia have forced everyone to reduce the intensity of going out of the house, including activities related to the need for health services. Therefore, a solution is needed so that people can meet their health needs without leaving the house. Taking into account that the elderly as the community group that is most vulnerable to contracting the virus and has the highest mortality rate, it can be said that the elderly is the group of people who most need online health services. Along with the growing penetration of internet usage and the increasing number of smartphone ownership in Indonesia, m-health is the right choice to help people access health services online via smartphones. KlikDokter is an example of m-health or a mobile-based application that provides various online health services. However, it was found that there were complaints that the KlikDokter application was too complicated and difficult for the elderly to use. From this problem, a usability test was finally carried out on the KlikDokter application interface, to identify what interface elements in the KlikDokter application were difficult for elderly users. The research respondents were divided into two groups with 16 and 17 people respectively. The first group is the elderly group aged >60 years. And the second group is the pre-elderly group with ages between 45 to 59 years. A pre-elderly group is a comparison group (control group). This test is carried out by measuring several aspects of usability, namely effectiveness, efficiency, user satisfaction, error, and cognitive load.

Data Entry Form Designing Tools and Software Usability in DHIS2

The advent of configurable software has shifted the implementation of software solutions from total reliance on software developers to towards increased participation of end-users. End-users are now able to create software solutions without the need for writing code but through configuration and customisation. Despite the increasing use of configurable software challenges on designing the software platform architecture, process of testing and usability exists in configurable software. The research aimed at evaluating how available interface elements influence usability in DHIS2. Empirical data was collected by studying the design of custom data collection forms for routine health data collection with two groups of users. 80% and 90% were recorded as completion rates of the designed task and overall efficiency of 86.23% and 89.94% was achieved between the two groups. Lack of relevant editing features, increased distance between related objects, lack of conformity to Keep It Simple, Stupid (KISS) and minimalistic design principle were found to be the major challenges affecting the usability.

Modelling the nucleation and propagation of cracks at twin boundaries

Fracture arising from cracks nucleating and propagating along twin boundaries is commonly observed in metals that exhibit twinning as a plastic deformation mechanism. This phenomenon affects the failure of macroscopic mechanical components, but it is not fully understood. We present simulations in which a continuum model for discrete twins and a cohesive zone model are coupled to aid the understanding of fracture at twin boundaries. The interaction between different twin systems is modelled using a local term that depends on the continuum twin variables. Simulations reveal that the resolved shear stress necessary for an incident twin to propagate through a barrier twin can be up to eight times the resolved shear stress for twin nucleation. Interface elements are used at the interfaces between all bulk elements to simulate arbitrary intragranular cracks. An algorithm to detect twin interfaces is developed and their strength has been calibrated to give good agreement with the experimentally observed fracture path. The elasto-plastic deformation induced by discrete twins is modelled using the crystal plasticity finite element method and the stress induced by twin tips is captured. The tensile stress caused by the tip of an incident twin on a barrier twin is sufficient to nucleate a crack. A typical staircase fracture path, with cracks propagating along the twin interfaces, is reproduced only if the strength of the twin interfaces is decreased to about one-third of the strength of the bulk material. This model can be used to help understand fracture caused by the activation of multiple twin systems in different materials.

Evaluation of User Reactions and Verification of the Authenticity of the User’s Identity during a Long Web Survey

Web surveys are very popular in the Internet space. Web surveys are widely incorporated for gathering customer opinion about Internet services, for sociological and psychological research, and as part of the knowledge testing systems in electronic learning. When conducting web surveys, one of the issues to consider is the respondents’ authenticity throughout the entire survey process. We took 20,000 responses to an online questionnaire as experimental data. The survey took about 45 min on average. We did not take into account the given answers; we only considered the response time to the first question on each page of the survey interface, that is, only the users’ reaction time was taken into account. Data analysis showed that respondents get used to the interface elements and want to finish a long survey as soon as possible, which leads to quicker reactions. Based on the data, we built two neural network models that identify the records in which the respondent’s authenticity was violated or the respondent acted as a random clicker. The amount of data allows us to conclude that the identified dependencies are widely applicable.

Collaborative Software Visualization in Co-located Environments

<p>Most software visualization systems and tools are designed from a single-user perspective and are bound to the desktop and IDEs. These design decisions do not allow users to analyse software collaboratively or to easily interact and navigate visualizations within a co-located environment at the same time. This thesis presents an exploratory study of collaborative software visualization using multi-touch tables in a co-located environment. The thesis contributes a richer understanding of how pairs of developers make use of shared visualizations on large multi-touch tables to gain insight into the design of software systems. We designed a collaborative software visualization application, called Source-Vis, that contained a suite of 13 visualization techniques adapted for multi-touch interaction. We built two large multi-touch tables (28 and 48 inches) following existing hardware designs, to explore and evaluate SourceVis. We then conducted both qualitative and quantitative user studies, culminating in a study of 44 professional software developers working in pairs. We found that pairs preferred joint group work, used a variety of coupling styles, and made many transitions between coupling and arrangement styles. For collaborative group work we recommend designing for joint group work over parallel individual work, supporting a flexible variety of coupling styles, and supporting fluid transitions between coupling and arrangement styles. We found that the preferred style for joint group work was closely coupled and arranged side by side. We found some global functionally was not easily accessible. We found some of the user interactions and visual interface elements were not designed consistently. For the design of collaborative software visualizations we recommend designing visualizations for closely coupled arrangements with rotation features, providing functionality in the appropriate locality, and providing consistent user interactions and visual interface design. We found sometimes visualization windows overlapped each other and text was hard to read in windows. We found when pairs were performing joint group work the size of the table was appropriate but not for parallel individual. We found that because the table could not differentiate between different simultaneous users that some pair interactions were limited. For the design of multi-touch tables we recommend providing a high resolution workspace, providing appropriate table space, and differentiating between simultaneous user interactions.</p>

Collaborative Software Visualization in Co-located Environments

<p>Most software visualization systems and tools are designed from a single-user perspective and are bound to the desktop and IDEs. These design decisions do not allow users to analyse software collaboratively or to easily interact and navigate visualizations within a co-located environment at the same time. This thesis presents an exploratory study of collaborative software visualization using multi-touch tables in a co-located environment. The thesis contributes a richer understanding of how pairs of developers make use of shared visualizations on large multi-touch tables to gain insight into the design of software systems. We designed a collaborative software visualization application, called Source-Vis, that contained a suite of 13 visualization techniques adapted for multi-touch interaction. We built two large multi-touch tables (28 and 48 inches) following existing hardware designs, to explore and evaluate SourceVis. We then conducted both qualitative and quantitative user studies, culminating in a study of 44 professional software developers working in pairs. We found that pairs preferred joint group work, used a variety of coupling styles, and made many transitions between coupling and arrangement styles. For collaborative group work we recommend designing for joint group work over parallel individual work, supporting a flexible variety of coupling styles, and supporting fluid transitions between coupling and arrangement styles. We found that the preferred style for joint group work was closely coupled and arranged side by side. We found some global functionally was not easily accessible. We found some of the user interactions and visual interface elements were not designed consistently. For the design of collaborative software visualizations we recommend designing visualizations for closely coupled arrangements with rotation features, providing functionality in the appropriate locality, and providing consistent user interactions and visual interface design. We found sometimes visualization windows overlapped each other and text was hard to read in windows. We found when pairs were performing joint group work the size of the table was appropriate but not for parallel individual. We found that because the table could not differentiate between different simultaneous users that some pair interactions were limited. For the design of multi-touch tables we recommend providing a high resolution workspace, providing appropriate table space, and differentiating between simultaneous user interactions.</p>

Design and Control of a Battery Charger/Discharger Based on the Flyback Topology

Devices connected to microgrids require safe conditions during their connection, disconnection and operation. The required safety is achieved through the design and control of the converters that interface elements with the microgrid. Therefore, the design of both power and control stages of a battery charger/discharger based on a flyback is proposed in this paper. First, the structure of a battery charger/discharger is proposed, including the battery, the flyback, the DC bus, and the control scheme. Then, three models to represent the battery charger/discharger are developed in this work; a switched model, an averaged model, and a steady-state model, which are used to obtain the static and dynamic behavior of the system, and also to obtain the design equations. Based on those models, a sliding-mode controller is designed, which includes the adaptive calculation of one parameter. Subsequently, a procedure to select the flyback HFT, the output capacitor, and the Kv parameter based on operation requirements of the battery charger/discharger is presented in detail. Five tests developed in PSIM demonstrate the global stability of the system, the correct design of the circuit and controller parameters, the satisfactory regulation of the bus voltage, and the correct operation of the system for charge, discharge and stand-by conditions. Furthermore, a contrast with a classical PI structure confirms the performance of the proposed sliding-mode controller.

Culturally-Relevant Persuasive Technology

<p>Persuasive technology (PT) has been defined by B. J. Fogg as "any interactive computing system designed to change peoples attitudes or behaviors". The kinds of attitudes people hold, and the behaviours they exhibit, are influenced by culture, so cultural beliefs play a large role in persuasion. The cross-cultural psychology literature has demonstrated the power of culture on attitude change. To date, however, there has been limited persuasive technology research outside of countries characterised as having individualist culture, where individualism describes cultures in which society members have a primarily individual identity. Little research has explicitly investigated the relationship between persuasive technology and culture. In this thesis, we investigated the hypothesis that persuasive technology is more effective when it reflects the culture of its intended target audience. Firstly, we established a set of effective, culturally-relevant persuasive technology strategies, almost all of which are targeted at use in tools for collectivist audiences. The strategies are based on a combination of findings from the cross-cultural psychology literature focused on the dimensions of individualism and collectivism, an analysis of existing PT strategies, and qualitative insights. Secondly, we developed a culturally-relevant PT prototype based on several of our strategies, in the form of two versions of a game titled Smoke? about smoking cessation. One version of Smoke? was designed to be more persuasive for a NZ European player audience, while the other was designed to be more persuasive for a Maori player audience. We conducted focus groups with potential players, the insights of which guided how we applied several of our culturally-relevant PT strategies in the design of the two game versions. Finally, we evaluated both game versions on individualist, and collectivist test players, using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The results of our evaluation support our hypothesis. Not only did both sets of players engage with, and use the culturally-relevant interface elements of the game designed for their culture, they also demonstrated that the culturally-relevant game versions had increased their anti-smoking beliefs.</p>