Liquid crystal over silicon device characteristics for holographic projection of high-definition television images.

We discuss some fundamental characteristics of a phase-modulating device suitable to holographically project a monochrome video frame with 1280 x 720 resolution. The phase-modulating device is expected to be a liquid crystal over silicon chip with silicon area similar to that of commercial devices. Its basic characteristics, such as number of pixels, bits per pixel, and pixel dimensions, are optimized in terms of image quality and optical efficiency. Estimates of the image quality are made from the noise levels and contrast, while efficiency is calculated by considering the beam apodization, device dead space, diffraction losses, and the sinc envelope.

Mapping forces in 3D elastic assembly of grains

Our understanding of the elasticity and rheology of disordered materials, such as granular piles, foams, emulsions or dense suspensions relies on improving experimental tools to characterize their behaviour at the particle scale. While 2D observations are now routinely carried out in laboratories, 3D measurements remain a challenge. In this paper, we use a simple model system, a packing of soft elastic spheres, to illustrate the capability of X-ray microtomography to characterise the internal structure and local behaviour of granular systems. Image analysis techniques can resolve grain positions, shapes and contact areas; this is used to investigate the material's microstructure and its evolution upon strain. In addition to morphological measurements, we develop a technique to quantify contact forces and estimate the internal stress tensor. As will be illustrated in this paper, this opens the door to a broad array of static and dynamical measurements in 3D disordered systems

Mapping the conceptual design activity of interdisciplinary teams

The conceptual design phase of any project is, by its very nature, a vibrant, creative and dynamic period. It can also be disorganized with much backtracking accompanying the exchange of information between design team members. The transfer of information, ideas and opinion is critical to the development of concepts and as such, rather than being recognized as merely a component of conceptual design activity, it needs to be understood and, ultimately, managed. This paper describes an experimental workshop involving fifteen design professionals in which conceptual design activity was tracked, and subsequently mapped, in order to test and validate a tentative design framework (phase and activity model). The nature of the design progression of the various teams is captured and analyzed, allowing a number of conclusions to be drawn regarding both the iterative nature of this phase of design and how teams of professionals actually design together.

Developing a framework for mapping industrial emergence

The industrial landscape is becoming increasingly complex and dynamic, with innovative technologies stimulating the emergence of new industries and business models. This paper presents a preliminary framework for mapping industrial emergence, based on roadmapping principles, in order to understand the nature and characteristics of such phenomena. The focus at this stage is on historical examples of industrial emergence, with the preliminary framework based on observations from 20 'quick scan' maps, one of which is used to illustrate the framework. The learning from these historical cases, combined with further industrial consultation and literature review, will be used to develop practical methods for strategy and policy application. The paper concludes by summarising key learning points and further work needed to achieve these outcomes. © 2009 PICMET.

Constrained discriminative mapping transforms for unsupervised speaker adaptation

Discriminative mapping transforms (DMTs) is an approach to robustly adding discriminative training to unsupervised linear adaptation transforms. In unsupervised adaptation DMTs are more robust to unreliable transcriptions than directly estimating adaptation transforms in a discriminative fashion. They were previously proposed for use with MLLR transforms with the associated need to explicitly transform the model parameters. In this work the DMT is extended to CMLLR transforms. As these operate in the feature space, it is only necessary to apply a different linear transform at the front-end rather than modifying the model parameters. This is useful for rapidly changing speakers/environments. The performance of DMTs with CMLLR was evaluated on the WSJ 20k task. Experimental results show that DMTs based on constrained linear transforms yield 3% to 6% relative gain over MLE transforms in unsupervised speaker adaptation. © 2011 IEEE.