Agents.jl: a performant and feature-full agent-based modeling software of minimal code complexity

Agent-based modeling is a simulation method in which autonomous agents interact with their environment and one another, given a predefined set of rules. It is an integral method for modeling and simulating complex systems, such as socio-economic problems. Since agent-based models are not described by simple and concise mathematical equations, the code that generates them is typically complicated, large, and slow. Here we present Agents.jl, a Julia-based software that provides an ABM analysis platform with minimal code complexity. We compare our software with some of the most popular ABM software in other programming languages. We find that Agents.jl is not only the most performant but also the least complicated software, providing the same (and sometimes more) features as the competitors with less input required from the user. Agents.jl also integrates excellently with the entire Julia ecosystem, including interactive applications, differential equations, parameter optimization, and so on. This removes any “extensions library” requirement from Agents.jl, which is paramount in many other tools.

Measure the impressions of users of smart applications for performing Umrah, prayers, and visits in the Grand Mosque and the Prophet's Mosque: Field Study: قياس انطباع مستخدمي التطبيقات الذكية الخاصة بأداء العمرة، والصلوات، والزيارة في المسجد الحرام والمسجد النبوي: دراسة ميدانية

The study aimed to measure the impressions of users of smart applications for performing Umrah, prayers, and visits in the Grand Mosque and the Prophet's Mosque. In order to achieve the objectives of the study, the descriptive and analytical approach was used, and the study sample consisted of (412) users of smart applications, and a questionnaire was designed to measure the users ’impression consisting of four main axes, the results showed: The axis (the benefit of users of smart applications in (Creating spacing) and limiting the spread of Corona disease (Covid-19) to a degree (strongly agree), in second place (the impression of users of smart applications for performing Umrah, prayers, and visits in the Grand Mosque and the Prophet's Mosque) with a degree (strongly agree), in the third place came the axis (the extent to which users of special smart applications benefit (by their performance) Umrah, prayers, and visits in the Grand Mosque and the Prophet's Mosque) with a degree (strongly agree), in the last place (Challenges of using smart applications for performing Umrah, prayers, and visiting in the Grand Mosque and the Prophet's Mosque), with a degree of (neutral). The study recommended the need to educate visitors and pilgrims about the importance and how to use the Smart applications for Umrah, pilgrimage and prayers, and the necessity to continuously develop applications based on user feedback and the results of studies to achieve the best service for visitors, and work to integrate all these applications into one application to facilitate its use, and the need for the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah to pay attention to supervising the content provided through the available interactive applications.

A General Framework for Visualization of Sound Collections in Musical Interfaces

While audio data play an increasingly central role in computer-based music production, interaction with large sound collections in most available music creation and production environments is very often still limited to scrolling long lists of file names. This paper describes a general framework for devising interactive applications based on the content-based visualization of sound collections. The proposed framework allows for a modular combination of different techniques for sound segmentation, analysis, and dimensionality reduction, using the reduced feature space for interactive applications. We analyze several prototypes presented in the literature and describe their limitations. We propose a more general framework that can be used flexibly to devise music creation interfaces. The proposed approach includes several novel contributions with respect to previously used pipelines, such as using unsupervised feature learning, content-based sound icons, and control of the output space layout. We present an implementation of the framework using the SuperCollider computer music language, and three example prototypes demonstrating its use for data-driven music interfaces. Our results demonstrate the potential of unsupervised machine learning and visualization for creative applications in computer music.

Computer control in human-machine interaction systems by hand movements

Computers have become popular in recent years. The forms of human-computer interaction are increasingly diverse. In many cases, controlling the computer is not only through the mouse and keyboard, but humans must control the computer through body language and representation. For some people with physical disabilities, controlling the computer through hand movements is essential to help them interact with the computer. The field of simulation also needs these interactive applications. This paper studies a solution to build a hand tracking and gesture recognition system that allows cursor movement and corresponding actions with mouse and keyboard. The research team confirms that the system works stably, accurately and can control the computer instead of a conventional mouse and keyboard through the implementation and evaluation.

Global Illumination on a Mobile Phone: Scalable Real-time Global Illumination using Sparse Radiance Probes

<p>Real-time global illumination that scales from low to high-end hardware is important for interactive applications so they can reach wider audiences. To do this, the real-time lighting algorithm used needs to have varying performance characteristics. Sparse Radiance Probes (SRP) is a recent real-time global illumination algorithm that runs in under 5 ms per frame on a high-end Nvidia Titan X GPU. Its low per-frame timings suggest it could scale to low-end devices, but no prior work provides complete implementation details and evaluates its performance across devices with varying performance characteristics to prove this. Therefore, this thesis aims to fill this gap and determine if SRP is scalable across low to high-end devices. SRP is implemented with adjustable scaling parameters, and its performance is compared across three test devices. A low-end iPhone 7, a mid-range AMD Radeon 560 graphics card, and a high-end AMD RX Vega 56 graphics card. The implementation in this thesis ran above 60 FPS for simple scenes on the iPhone 7, and with a reasonable reduction in quality, it ran just above 30 FPS on more complex scenes like Crytek Sponza. These results show that SRP can scale to low-end devices. While the implementation in this thesis runs in real time, there are implementation optimisations that would make SRP run even faster across all the test devices without reducing quality.</p>

Global Illumination on a Mobile Phone: Scalable Real-time Global Illumination using Sparse Radiance Probes

<p>Real-time global illumination that scales from low to high-end hardware is important for interactive applications so they can reach wider audiences. To do this, the real-time lighting algorithm used needs to have varying performance characteristics. Sparse Radiance Probes (SRP) is a recent real-time global illumination algorithm that runs in under 5 ms per frame on a high-end Nvidia Titan X GPU. Its low per-frame timings suggest it could scale to low-end devices, but no prior work provides complete implementation details and evaluates its performance across devices with varying performance characteristics to prove this. Therefore, this thesis aims to fill this gap and determine if SRP is scalable across low to high-end devices. SRP is implemented with adjustable scaling parameters, and its performance is compared across three test devices. A low-end iPhone 7, a mid-range AMD Radeon 560 graphics card, and a high-end AMD RX Vega 56 graphics card. The implementation in this thesis ran above 60 FPS for simple scenes on the iPhone 7, and with a reasonable reduction in quality, it ran just above 30 FPS on more complex scenes like Crytek Sponza. These results show that SRP can scale to low-end devices. While the implementation in this thesis runs in real time, there are implementation optimisations that would make SRP run even faster across all the test devices without reducing quality.</p>

Ghosts of the Horseshoe to Ward One

Ghosts of the Horseshoe and Ward One are critical interactive applications that offer two distinct yet complementary examples for how questions such as the ones just posed might be addressed on-site and in real-time. In what follows, we offer an account of each application and its context. Subsequently, we provide a theoretically informed discussion of how these projects elicit “empathic awareness” and, by extension, inspire a sense of responsibility for a past that remains unacknowledged – one that has ensured the existence and expansion of the physical campus of the University of South Carolina– Columbia.