Distributed multimedia quality: the user perspective

Distributed multimedia supports a symbiotic infotainment duality, i.e. the ability to transfer information to the user, yet also provide the user with a level of satisfaction. As multimedia is ultimately produced for the education and / or enjoyment of viewers, the user’s-perspective concerning the presentation quality is surely of equal importance as objective Quality of Service (QoS) technical parameters, to defining distributed multimedia quality. In order to extensively measure the user-perspective of multimedia video quality, we introduce an extended model of distributed multimedia quality that segregates quality into three discrete levels: the network-level, the media-level and content-level, using two distinct quality perspectives: the user-perspective and the technical-perspective. Since experimental questionnaires do not provide continuous monitoring of user attention, eye tracking was used in our study in order to provide a better understanding of the role that the human element plays in the reception, analysis and synthesis of multimedia data. Results showed that video content adaptation, results in disparity in user video eye-paths when: i) no single / obvious point of focus exists; or ii) when the point of attention changes dramatically. Accordingly, appropriate technical- and user-perspective parameter adaptation is implemented, for all quality abstractions of our model, i.e. network-level (via simulated delay and jitter), media-level (via a technical- and user-perspective manipulated region-of-interest attentive display) and content-level (via display-type and video clip-type). Our work has shown that user perception of distributed multimedia quality cannot be achieved by means of purely technical-perspective QoS parameter adaptation.

How level and type of deafness affects user perception of multimedia video clips

Our research investigates the impact that hearing has on the perception of digital video clips, with and without captions, by discussing how hearing loss, captions and deafness type affects user QoP (Quality of Perception). QoP encompasses not only a user's satisfaction with the quality of a multimedia presentation, but also their ability to analyse, synthesise and assimilate informational content of multimedia . Results show that hearing has a significant effect on participants’ ability to assimilate information, independent of video type and use of captions. It is shown that captions do not necessarily provide deaf users with a ‘greater level of information’ from video, but cause a change in user QoP, depending on deafness type, which provides a ‘greater level of context of the video’. It is also shown that post-lingual mild and moderately deaf participants predict less accurately their level of information assimilation than post-lingual profoundly deaf participants, despite residual hearing. A positive correlation was identified between level of enjoyment (LOE) and self-predicted level of information assimilation (PIA), independent of hearing level or hearing type. When this is considered in a QoP quality framework, it puts into question how the user perceives certain factors, such as ‘informative’ and ‘quality’.

Viscous coupling of shear-free turbulence across nearly flat fluid interfaces

The interactions between shear-free turbulence in two regions (denoted as + and − on either side of a nearly flat horizontal interface are shown here to be controlled by several mechanisms, which depend on the magnitudes of the ratios of the densities, ρ+/ρ−, and kinematic viscosities of the fluids, μ+/μ−, and the root mean square (r.m.s.) velocities of the turbulence, u0+/u0−, above and below the interface. This study focuses on gas–liquid interfaces so that ρ+/ρ− ≪ 1 and also on where turbulence is generated either above or below the interface so that u0+/u0− is either very large or very small. It is assumed that vertical buoyancy forces across the interface are much larger than internal forces so that the interface is nearly flat, and coupling between turbulence on either side of the interface is determined by viscous stresses. A formal linearized rapid-distortion analysis with viscous effects is developed by extending the previous study by Hunt & Graham (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 84, 1978, pp. 209–235) of shear-free turbulence near rigid plane boundaries. The physical processes accounted for in our model include both the blocking effect of the interface on normal components of the turbulence and the viscous coupling of the horizontal field across thin interfacial viscous boundary layers. The horizontal divergence in the perturbation velocity field in the viscous layer drives weak inviscid irrotational velocity fluctuations outside the viscous boundary layers in a mechanism analogous to Ekman pumping. The analysis shows the following. (i) The blocking effects are similar to those near rigid boundaries on each side of the interface, but through the action of the thin viscous layers above and below the interface, the horizontal and vertical velocity components differ from those near a rigid surface and are correlated or anti-correlated respectively. (ii) Because of the growth of the viscous layers on either side of the interface, the ratio uI/u0, where uI is the r.m.s. of the interfacial velocity fluctuations and u0 the r.m.s. of the homogeneous turbulence far from the interface, does not vary with time. If the turbulence is driven in the lower layer with ρ+/ρ− ≪ 1 and u0+/u0− ≪ 1, then uI/u0− ~ 1 when Re (=u0−L−/ν−) ≫ 1 and R = (ρ−/ρ+)(v−/v+)1/2 ≫ 1. If the turbulence is driven in the upper layer with ρ+/ρ− ≪ 1 and u0+/u0− ≫ 1, then uI/u0+ ~ 1/(1 + R). (iii) Nonlinear effects become significant over periods greater than Lagrangian time scales. When turbulence is generated in the lower layer, and the Reynolds number is high enough, motions in the upper viscous layer are turbulent. The horizontal vorticity tends to decrease, and the vertical vorticity of the eddies dominates their asymptotic structure. When turbulence is generated in the upper layer, and the Reynolds number is less than about 106–107, the fluctuations in the viscous layer do not become turbulent. Nonlinear processes at the interface increase the ratio uI/u0+ for sheared or shear-free turbulence in the gas above its linear value of uI/u0+ ~ 1/(1 + R) to (ρ+/ρ−)1/2 ~ 1/30 for air–water interfaces. This estimate agrees with the direct numerical simulation results from Lombardi, De Angelis & Bannerjee (Phys. Fluids, vol. 8, no. 6, 1996, pp. 1643–1665). Because the linear viscous–inertial coupling mechanism is still significant, the eddy motions on either side of the interface have a similar horizontal structure, although their vertical structure differs.

Considering user attitude and behaviour in persuasive systems design: the 3D-RAB model

As in any technology systems, analysis and design issues are among the fundamental challenges in persuasive technology. Currently, the Persuasive Systems Development (PSD) framework is considered to be the most comprehensive framework for designing and evaluation of persuasive systems. However, the framework is limited in terms of providing detailed information which can lead to selection of appropriate techniques depending on the variable nature of users or use over time. In light of this, we propose a model which is intended for analysing and implementing behavioural change in persuasive technology called the 3D-RAB model. The 3D-RAB model represents the three dimensional relationships between attitude towards behaviour, attitude towards change or maintaining a change, and current behaviour, and distinguishes variable levels in a user’s cognitive state. As such it provides a framework which could be used to select appropriate techniques for persuasive technology.

Nuclear fuel cycles: interfaces with the environment

The waste materials generated in the nuclear fuel cycle are very varied,ranging from the tailings arising from mining and processing uranium ore, depleted uranium in a range of chemical forms, to a range of process wastes of differing activities and properties. Indeed, the wastes generated are intimately linked to the options selected in operating the nuclear fuel cycle, most obviously to the management of spent fuel. An open fuel cycle implies the disposal of highly radioactive spent fuel, whereas a closed fuel cycle generates a complex array of waste streams. On the other hand, a closed fuel cycle offers options for waste management, for example reduction in highly active waste volume, decreased radiotoxicity, and removal of fissile material. Many technological options have been proposed or explored, and each brings its own particular mix of wastes and environmental challenges.

File Transfer Protocol

The discourse surrounding the virtual has moved away from the utopian thinking accompanying the rise of the Internet in the 1990s. The Cyber-gurus of the last decades promised a technotopia removed from materiality and the confines of the flesh and the built environment, a liberation from old institutions and power structures. But since then, the virtual has grown into a distinct yet related sphere of cultural and political production that both parallels and occasionally flows over into the old world of material objects. The strict dichotomy of matter and digital purity has been replaced more recently with a more complex model where both the world of stuff and the world of knowledge support, resist and at the same time contain each other. Online social networks amplify and extend existing ones; other cultural interfaces like youtube have not replaced the communal experience of watching moving images in a semi-public space (the cinema) or the semi-private space (the family living room). Rather the experience of viewing is very much about sharing and communicating, offering interpretations and comments. Many of the web’s strongest entities (Amazon, eBay, Gumtree etc.) sit exactly at this juncture of applying tools taken from the knowledge management industry to organize the chaos of the material world along (post-)Fordist rationality. Since the early 1990s there have been many artistic and curatorial attempts to use the Internet as a platform of producing and exhibiting art, but a lot of these were reluctant to let go of the fantasy of digital freedom. Storage Room collapses the binary opposition of real and virtual space by using online data storage as a conduit for IRL art production. The artworks here will not be available for viewing online in a 'screen' environment but only as part of a downloadable package with the intention that the exhibition could be displayed (in a physical space) by any interested party and realised as ambitiously or minimally as the downloader wishes, based on their means. The artists will therefore also supply a set of instructions for the physical installation of the work alongside the digital files. In response to this curatorial initiative, File Transfer Protocol invites seven UK based artists to produce digital art for a physical environment, addressing the intersection between the virtual and the material. The files range from sound, video, digital prints and net art, blueprints for an action to take place, something to be made, a conceptual text piece, etc. About the works and artists: Polly Fibre is the pseudonym of London-based artist Christine Ellison. Ellison creates live music using domestic devices such as sewing machines, irons and slide projectors. Her costumes and stage sets propose a physical manifestation of the virtual space that is created inside software like Photoshop. For this exhibition, Polly Fibre invites the audience to create a musical composition using a pair of amplified scissors and a turntable. http://www.pollyfibre.com John Russell, a founding member of 1990s art group Bank, is an artist, curator and writer who explores in his work the contemporary political conditions of the work of art. In his digital print, Russell collages together visual representations of abstract philosophical ideas and transforms them into a post apocalyptic landscape that is complex and banal at the same time. www.john-russell.org The work of Bristol based artist Jem Nobel opens up a dialogue between the contemporary and the legacy of 20th century conceptual art around questions of collectivism and participation, authorship and individualism. His print SPACE concretizes the representation of the most common piece of Unicode: the vacant space between words. In this way, the gap itself turns from invisible cipher to sign. www.jemnoble.com Annabel Frearson is rewriting Mary Shelley's Frankenstein using all and only the words from the original text. Frankenstein 2, or the Monster of Main Stream, is read in parts by different performers, embodying the psychotic character of the protagonist, a mongrel hybrid of used language. www.annabelfrearson.com Darren Banks uses fragments of effect laden Holywood films to create an impossible space. The fictitious parts don't add up to a convincing material reality, leaving the viewer with a failed amalgamation of simulations of sophisticated technologies. www.darrenbanks.co.uk FIELDCLUB is collaboration between artist Paul Chaney and researcher Kenna Hernly. Chaney and Hernly developed together a project that critically examines various proposals for the management of sustainable ecological systems. Their FIELDMACHINE invites the public to design an ideal agricultural field. By playing with different types of crops that are found in the south west of England, it is possible for the user, for example, to create a balanced, but protein poor, diet or to simply decide to 'get rid' of half the population. The meeting point of the Platonic field and it physical consequences, generates a geometric abstraction that investigates the relationship between modernist utopianism and contemporary actuality. www.fieldclub.co.uk Pil and Galia Kollectiv, who have also curated the exhibition are London-based artists and run the xero, kline & coma gallery. Here they present a dialogue between two computers. The conversation opens with a simple text book problem in business studies. But gradually the language, mimicking the application of game theory in the business sector, becomes more abstract. The two interlocutors become adversaries trapped forever in a competition without winners. www.kollectiv.co.uk

Changing building user attitude and organisational policy towards sustainable resource use in healthcare

Health care provision is significantly impacted by the ability of the health providers to engineer a viable healthcare space to support care stakeholders needs. In this paper we discuss and propose use of organisational semiotics as a set of methods to link stakeholders to systems, which allows us to capture clinician activity, information transfer, and building use; which in tern allows us to define the value of specific systems in the care environment to specific stakeholders and the dependence between systems in a care space. We suggest use of a semantically enhanced building information model (BIM) to support the linking of clinician activity to the physical resource objects and space; and facilitate the capture of quantifiable data, over time, concerning resource use by key stakeholders. Finally we argue for the inclusion of appropriate stakeholder feedback and persuasive mechanism, to incentivise building user behaviour to support organisational level sustainability policy.

Quantifying user perception of foodstuffs using THz spectrometry

We discuss the potential of using THz spectrometry for the direct observation of phase transitions in foodstuffs, with the aim of quantifying consumer perception. Experimental results from phase transitions using a continuous wave dispersive Fourier transform spectrometer and a cyclotron enhanced liquid helium cooled bolometric detector are reported.

Knowledge Interfaces and Practices of Negotiation: Cases from a Women's Group in Bolivia and an Oil Refinery in Wales

This chapter examines encounters between international institutions that frame their objectives through a global policy language, and people whose lives are the focus for change heralded by these institutions. It explores how a global policy language, which seeks consensus and equality, can be at odds with local understandings, conflict and intentions.

A framework for the forensic analysis of user interaction with social media

The increasing use of social media, applications or platforms that allow users to interact online, ensures that this environment will provide a useful source of evidence for the forensics examiner. Current tools for the examination of digital evidence find this data problematic as they are not designed for the collection and analysis of online data. Therefore, this paper presents a framework for the forensic analysis of user interaction with social media. In particular, it presents an inter-disciplinary approach for the quantitative analysis of user engagement to identify relational and temporal dimensions of evidence relevant to an investigation. This framework enables the analysis of large data sets from which a (much smaller) group of individuals of interest can be identified. In this way, it may be used to support the identification of individuals who might be ‘instigators’ of a criminal event orchestrated via social media, or a means of potentially identifying those who might be involved in the ‘peaks’ of activity. In order to demonstrate the applicability of the framework, this paper applies it to a case study of actors posting to a social media Web site.

Haptic interfaces: the live and the recorded body in Beckett's Eh Joe on stage and screen

Beckett’s sparse and minimalist pieces have continuously addressed the nature and characteristics of the media for which they were written. What does it mean when a work written specifically for television is transposed to the stage, as film director Atom Egoyan did in his 2006 version of Beckett’s Eh Joe? This article will focus on the implications of such a transposition and discuss how Egoyan’s version reveals the haptic interface present in the original piece, between body and technology, between the flesh and “spirit made light” of the electronic broadcast.