Shifting interpretations of interiors and buildings: the impact of colour

The ability of a designer – for example, interior designer, architect, landscape architect, etc. – to design for a particular target group (user and/or clients) is potentially enhanced through more targeted studies relating colour in situ. The study outlined in this paper involved participant responses to five achromatic scenes of different built environments prior to viewing the same scenes in colour. Importantly, in this study the participants, who were young designers, came to realise that colour potentially holds the power to impact on the identity of an architectural form, an interior space and/or particular elements such as doorways, furniture settings, etc., as well as influence atmosphere. Prior to discussing the study, a selection of other research, which links colour to meaning and emotions, introduces how people understand and/or feel in relation to colour. For example, yellow is said to be connected to happiness; or red evokes feelings of anger. Secondly, the need for spatial designers to understand colour in context is raised. An overview of the study is then provided. It was found that the impact of colour includes a shift in perception of aspects such as its atmosphere and youthfulness. Through studio/class discussions it was also noted the predicted age of the place, the function, and in association, the potential users when colour was added (or deleted) were often challenged.

Graphcut-based interactive segmentation using colour and depth cues

Segmentation of novel or dynamic objects in a scene, often referred to as background sub- traction or foreground segmentation, is critical for robust high level computer vision applica- tions such as object tracking, object classifca- tion and recognition. However, automatic real- time segmentation for robotics still poses chal- lenges including global illumination changes, shadows, inter-re ections, colour similarity of foreground to background, and cluttered back- grounds. This paper introduces depth cues provided by structure from motion (SFM) for interactive segmentation to alleviate some of these challenges. In this paper, two prevailing interactive segmentation algorithms are com- pared; Lazysnapping [Li et al., 2004] and Grab- cut [Rother et al., 2004], both based on graph- cut optimisation [Boykov and Jolly, 2001]. The algorithms are extended to include depth cues rather than colour only as in the original pa- pers. Results show interactive segmentation based on colour and depth cues enhances the performance of segmentation with a lower er- ror with respect to ground truth.

Urban identity and colour : the case of Tirana, Albania

When an artist is put in charge of a city, he will use the town as his canvas. Edi Rama became Mayor of Tirana in 2000 and since them has undertaken an unusual and colourful renewal program for the Albania capital.

The evidence-based development of an intervention to address the information needs of adults newly diagnosed with primary brain tumours and their carers

Adults diagnosed with primary brain tumours often experience physical, cognitive and neuropsychiatric impairments and decline in quality of life. Although disease and treatment-related information is commonly provided to cancer patients and carers, newly diagnosed brain tumour patients and their carers report unmet information needs. Few interventions have been designed or proven to address these information needs. Accordingly, a three-study research program, that incorporated both qualitative and quantitative research methods, was designed to: 1) identify and select an intervention to improve the provision of information, and meet the needs of patients with a brain tumour; 2) use an evidence-based approach to establish the content, language and format for the intervention; and 3) assess the acceptability of the intervention, and the feasibility of evaluation, with newly diagnosed brain tumour patients. Study 1: Structured concept mapping techniques were undertaken with 30 health professionals, who identified strategies or items for improving care, and rated each of 42 items for importance, feasibility, and the extent to which such care was provided. Participants also provided data to interpret the relationship between items, which were translated into ‘maps’ of relationships between information and other aspects of health care using multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis. Results were discussed by participants in small groups and individual interviews to understand the ratings, and facilitators and barriers to implementation. A care coordinator was rated as the most important strategy by health professionals. Two items directly related to information provision were also seen as highly important: "information to enable the patient or carer to ask questions" and "for doctors to encourage patients to ask questions". Qualitative analyses revealed that information provision was individualised, depending on patients’ information needs and preferences, demographic variables and distress, the characteristics of health professionals who provide information, the relationship between the individual patient and health professional, and influenced by the fragmented nature of the health care system. Based on quantitative and qualitative findings, a brain tumour specific question prompt list (QPL) was chosen for development and feasibility testing. A QPL consists of a list of questions that patients and carers may want to ask their doctors. It is designed to encourage the asking of questions in the medical consultation, allowing patients to control the content, and amount of information provided by health professionals. Study 2: The initial structure and content of the brain tumour specific QPL developed was based upon thematic analyses of 1) patient materials for brain tumour patients, 2) QPLs designed for other patient populations, and 3) clinical practice guidelines for the psychosocial care of glioma patients. An iterative process of review and refinement of content was undertaken via telephone interviews with a convenience sample of 18 patients and/or carers. Successive drafts of QPLs were sent to patients and carers and changes made until no new topics or suggestions arose in four successive interviews (saturation). Once QPL content was established, readability analyses and redrafting were conducted to achieve a sixth-grade reading level. The draft QPL was also reviewed by eight health professionals, and shortened and modified based on their feedback. Professional design of the QPL was conducted and sent to patients and carers for further review. The final QPL contained questions in seven colour-coded sections: 1) diagnosis; 2) prognosis; 3) symptoms and problems; 4) treatment; 5) support; 6) after treatment finishes; and 7) the health professional team. Study 3: A feasibility study was conducted to determine the acceptability of the QPL and the appropriateness of methods, to inform a potential future randomised trial to evaluate its effectiveness. A pre-test post-test design was used with a nonrandomised control group. The control group was provided with ‘standard information’, the intervention group with ‘standard information’ plus the QPL. The primary outcome measure was acceptability of the QPL to participants. Twenty patients from four hospitals were recruited a median of 1 month (range 0-46 months) after diagnosis, and 17 completed baseline and follow-up interviews. Six participants would have preferred to receive the information booklet (standard information or QPL) at a different time, most commonly at diagnosis. Seven participants reported on the acceptability of the QPL: all said that the QPL was helpful, and that it contained questions that were useful to them; six said it made it easier to ask questions. Compared with control group participants’ ratings of ‘standard information’, QPL group participants’ views of the QPL were more positive; the QPL had been read more times, was less likely to be reported as ‘overwhelming’ to read, and was more likely to prompt participants to ask questions of their health professionals. The results from the three studies of this research program add to the body of literature on information provision for brain tumour patients. Together, these studies suggest that a QPL may be appropriate for the neuro-oncology setting and acceptable to patients. The QPL aims to assist patients to express their information needs, enabling health professionals to better provide the type and amount of information that patients need to prepare for treatment and the future. This may help health professionals meet the challenge of giving patients sufficient information, without providing ‘too much’ or ‘unnecessary’ information, or taking away hope. Future studies with rigorous designs are now needed to determine the effectiveness of the QPL.

Colour coding the fridge to reduce food waste

This paper introduces the first iteration of a study aimed at grouping similar food types together in a refrigerator to increase the awareness of available foods for consumers in a domestic environment. The goals of the project are twofold: i) Raise the awareness of available foods for all members of a household; ii) Reduce the amount of expired food waste in the household. The project implemented a paper-based colour scheme in refrigerators in households, assigning colours to particular food types (e.g. green to fruit and vegetables, red to meat, etc.). The findings show that the colour coding raised participants’ awareness of available food items in the fridge, particularly for those participants who were not directly involved in the shopping and initial storage of each food item. The findings also indicate that such awareness led to a reduction in expiration of food and thus general food waste in the household. These preliminary findings suggest that raising awareness of food availability through categorisation and efficient communication of this information may lead to a reduction in food waste in domestic environments.

Colour and Camp Bring Shakespeare’s As You Like It to Life

As You Like It By Shakespeare. La Boite Theatre Company, Brisbane, February 24. DURING the past three years, La Boite Theatre Company has started each season with a modern adaptation of a Shakespearean favourite. This time, director David Bertold's choice is not a tragedy but As You Like It, a comedy about love's twists and turns in which a strong female figure, Rosalind, takes the leading role...

Engine performance characteristics for biodiesels of different degrees of saturation and carbon chain lengths

This experimental study examines the effect on performance and emission outputs of a compression ignition engine operating on biodiesels of varying carbon chain length and the degree of unsaturation. A well-instrumented, heavy-duty, multi-cylinder, common-rail, turbo-charged diesel engine was used to ensure that the results contribute in a realistic way to the ongoing debate about the impact of biofuels. Comparative measurements are reported for engine performance as well as the emissions of NOx, particle number and size distribution, and the concentration of the reactive oxygen species (which provide a measure of the toxicity of emitted particles). It is shown that the biodiesels used in this study produce lower mean effective pressure, somewhat proportionally with their lower calorific values; however, the molecular structure has been shown to have little impact on the performance of the engine. The peak in-cylinder pressure is lower for the biodiesels that produce a smaller number of emitted particles, compared to fossil diesel, but the concentration of the reactive oxygen species is significantly higher because of oxygen in the fuels. The differences in the physicochemical properties amongst the biofuels and the fossil diesel significantly affect the engine combustion and emission characteristics. Saturated short chain length fatty acid methyl esters are found to enhance combustion efficiency, reduce NOx and particle number concentration, but results in high levels of fuel consumption.

Automatic object segmentation of unstructured scenes using colour and depth maps

This study presents a segmentation pipeline that fuses colour and depth information to automatically separate objects of interest in video sequences captured from a quadcopter. Many approaches assume that cameras are static with known position, a condition which cannot be preserved in most outdoor robotic applications. In this study, the authors compute depth information and camera positions from a monocular video sequence using structure from motion and use this information as an additional cue to colour for accurate segmentation. The authors model the problem similarly to standard segmentation routines as a Markov random field and perform the segmentation using graph cuts optimisation. Manual intervention is minimised and is only required to determine pixel seeds in the first frame which are then automatically reprojected into the remaining frames of the sequence. The authors also describe an automated method to adjust the relative weights for colour and depth according to their discriminative properties in each frame. Experimental results are presented for two video sequences captured using a quadcopter. The quality of the segmentation is compared to a ground truth and other state-of-the-art methods with consistently accurate results.

Automated marine mammal detection from aerial imagery

This paper presents two algorithms to automate the detection of marine species in aerial imagery. An algorithm from an initial pilot study is presented in which morphology operations and colour analysis formed the basis of its working principle. A second approach is presented in which saturation channel and histogram-based shape profiling were used. We report on performance for both algorithms using datasets collected from an unmanned aerial system at an altitude of 1000 ft. Early results have demonstrated recall values of 48.57% and 51.4%, and precision values of 4.01% and 4.97%.

Structure, magnetism and colour in simple bis­(phosphine)nickel(II) dihalide complexes : an experimental and theoretical investigation

The complex [1,2-bis­(di-tert-butyl­phosphan­yl)ethane-[kappa]2P,P']di­iodido­nickel(II), [NiI2(C18H40P2] or (dtbpe-[kappa]2P)NiI2, [dtbpe is 1,2-bis­(di-tert-butyl­phosphan­yl)ethane], is bright blue-green in the solid state and in solution, but, contrary to the structure predicted for a blue or green nickel(II) bis­(phos­phine) complex, it is found to be close to square planar in the solid state. The solution structure is deduced to be similar, because the optical spectra measured in solution and in the solid state contain similar absorptions. In solution at room temperature, no 31P{1H} NMR resonance is observed, but the very small solid-state magnetic moment at temperatures down to 4 K indicates that the weak paramagnetism of this nickel(II) complex can be ascribed to temperature independent paramagnetism, and that the complex has no unpaired electrons. The red [1,2-bis­(di-tert-butyl­phosphan­yl)ethane-[kappa]2P,P']di­chlorido­nickel(II), [NiCl2(C18H40P2] or (dtbpe-[kappa]2P)NiCl2, is very close to square planar and very weakly paramagnetic in the solid state and in solution, while the maroon [1,2-bis­(di-tert-butyl­phosphan­yl)ethane-[kappa]2P,P']di­bromido­nickel(II), [NiBr2(C18H40P2] or (dtbpe-[kappa]2P)NiBr2, is isostructural with the diiodide in the solid state, and displays paramagnetism inter­mediate between that of the dichloride and the diiodide in the solid state and in solution. Density functional calculations demonstrate that distortion from an ideal square plane for these complexes occurs on a flat potential energy surface. The calculations reproduce the observed structures and colours, and explain the trends observed for these and similar complexes. Although theoretical investigation identified magnetic-dipole-allowed excitations that are characteristic for temperature-independent paramagnetism (TIP), theory predicts the mol­ecules to be diamagnetic.

False-colour spectrograms of long duration acoustic recordings

Acoustic recordings of the environment are an important aid to ecologists monitoring biodiversity and environmental health. However, rapid advances in recording technology, storage and computing make it possible to accumulate thousands of hours of recordings, of which, ecologists can only listen to a small fraction. The big-data challenge is to visualize the content of long-duration audio recordings on multiple scales, from hours, days, months to years. The visualization should facilitate navigation and yield ecologically meaningful information. Our approach is to extract (at one minute resolution) acoustic indices which reflect content of ecological interest. An acoustic index is a statistic that summarizes some aspect of the distribution of acoustic energy in a recording. We combine indices to produce false-colour images that reveal acoustic content and facilitate navigation through recordings that are months or even years in duration.

Mixed venous oxygen saturation monitoring revisited : thoughts for critical care nursing practice

Background Less invasive methods of determining cardiac output are now readily available. Using indicator dilution technique, for example has made it easier to continuously measure cardiac output because it uses the existing intra-arterial line. Therefore gone is the need for a pulmonary artery floatation catheter and with it the ability to measure left atrial and left ventricular work indices as well the ability to monitor and measure a mixed venous saturation (SvO2). Purpose The aim of this paper is to put forward the notion that SvO2 provides valuable information about oxygen consumption and venous reserve; important measures in the critically ill to ensure oxygen supply meets cellular demand. In an attempt to portray this, a simplified example of the septic patient is offered to highlight the changing pathophysiological sequelae of the inflammatory process and its importance for monitoring SvO2. Relevance to clinical practice SvO2 monitoring, it could be argued, provides the gold standard for assessing arterial and venous oxygen indices in the critically ill. For the bedside ICU nurse the plethora of information inherent in SvO2 monitoring could provide them with important data that will assist in averting potential problems with oxygen delivery and consumption. However, it has been suggested that central venous saturation (ScvO2) might be an attractive alternative to SvO2 because of its less invasiveness and ease of obtaining a sample for analysis. There are problems with this approach and these are to do with where the catheter tip is sited and the nature of the venous admixture at this site. Studies have shown that ScvO2 is less accurate than SvO2 and should not be used as a sole guiding variable for decision-making. These studies have demonstrated that there is an unacceptably wide range in variance between ScvO2 and SvO2 and this is dependent on the presenting disease, in some cases SvO2 will be significantly lower than ScvO2. Conclusion Whilst newer technologies have been developed to continuously measure cardiac output, SvO2 monitoring is still an important adjunct to clinical decision-making in the ICU. Given the information that it provides, seeking alternatives such as ScvO2 or blood samples obtained from femorally placed central venous lines, can unnecessarily lead to inappropriate treatment being given or withheld. Instead when using ScvO2, trending of this variable should provide clinical determinates that are useable for the bedside ICU nurse, remembering that in most conditions SvO2 will be approximately 16% lower.