Computer Science

Dragonfly: An Ecological Approach to Digital Architectural Design

by Michael J. Braund

Published in ACADIA 2011: Integration Through Computation, ed. by J.M. Taron, V. Parlac, B. Kolarevic and J.S. Johnson, pp.178-186. Stroughton, WI: The Printing House, 2011.

(Co-authored with Daniel Hambleton)

In his keynote address delivered to The American Society for Esthetics in 1976, James J. Gibson wrote, “Architecture... more In his keynote address delivered to The American Society for Esthetics in 1976, James J. Gibson wrote, “Architecture and design do not have a satisfactory theoretical basis.” He then asked, “Can an ecological approach to the psychology of perception and behavior provide it?” (1976, p. 413) We believe that it can, at least in part. In this paper, we expand upon Gibson’s insights into the nature of perceptual experience by applying the concept of “affordances” to the design of architectural objects in general, and to the domain of digital architectural design in particular. On our account, the affordance-concept supplies a useful theoretical basis for conceptualizing the relationship between environments and occupants with respect to the form and behavioral meaning of geometrically constructed layouts.

Donald Norman (1988) first introduced affordances to interaction design theorists, as a conceptual tool for predicting how agents will interact with a given product. The extensive body of literature that has since emerged, from human-computer-interaction studies (Ackerman, 1996; Conn, 1995; Moran, 1997; Norman, 1999) to architectural theory and practice (Koutamanis, 2006; Maier and Fadel, 2009), has followed Norman’s lead in defining affordances, somewhat amorphously, as whichever action-related properties of objects are sufficient to elicit the intended forms of behavioral interaction between the agent and object. However, while this is correct, it is only half the story. It leaves unexplained how human perceivers detect and “pair down” on the potentially vast range of possible affordances (at a given time), to select the ones that will be relevant to the coordination and guidance of the targeted actions. Call this the “selectivity problem,” a proper treatment of which is missing from the literature. This is no small matter. If the theory of affordances is to be useful to architects and designers, if it is to have explanatory and predictive power over how perceivers will interact with their surroundings, then some account of the cognitive procedure by which affordances are selected for the deployment of specific behaviors is necessary. Otherwise, it is unclear what the theory hopes to predict or explain.

To this end, we maintain that the couching of affordances in a framework of human intentionality is not only consistent with Gibson’s theoretical views (i.e., the action-oriented definition of the concept of affordances not only suggests an intentional perspective), indeed, such a perspective is necessary if we are to succeed in implementing the affordance-concept into an architectural design context in a way that addresses the selectivity problem. This is one of the goals of “Dragonfly,” a first attempt at implementing the affordance-based control of perceptually guided-action into a digital design simulation. Dragonfly enables human interaction with geometry by encoding the basic principles of ecological psychology (including a rudimentary form of intentionality) into an interactive CAD environment. New vistas for future research and interdisciplinary approaches to design are then discussed, with a special emphasis on their applicability to architecture.

CHURCH NEWS: NEW UNITY MOVEMENT STEPS PROPOSED

by Daniel Keeran MSW

by Daniel Keeran, MSW (distrbute freely without charge)

Against the unity prayer of Jesus in the gospel of John chapter 17, divisions within Christianity have been common... more Against the unity prayer of Jesus in the gospel of John chapter 17, divisions within Christianity have been common from the beginning. New steps for unity are outlined that provide grass-roots opportunities in local churches and communities.

Fundamental to the new unity movement are principles and a change in paradigm that give a fresh approach to the ancient problem of divisions among people who identify themselves as followers of Jesus.

Two Interesting Limit Problems

by Cody Johnson

Complexity and Information: Measuring Emergence, Self-organization, and Homeostasis at Multiple Scales

by Nelson Fernández

Co-authored with Carlos Gershenson. Submitted to Complexity.

Concepts used in the scientific study of complex systems have become so widespread that their use and abuse has led to... more Concepts used in the scientific study of complex systems have become so widespread that their use and abuse has led to ambiguity and confusion in their meaning. In this paper we use information theory to provide abstract and concise measures of complexity, emergence, self-organization, and homeostasis. The purpose is to clarify the meaning of these concepts with the aid of the proposed formal measures. In a simplified version of the measures (focussing on the information produced by a system), emergence becomes the opposite of self-organization, while complexity represents their balance. We use computational experiments on random Boolean networks and elementary cellular automata to illustrate our measures at multiple scales.

Why-Oriented End-User Debugging of Naive Bayes Text Classification

by Todd Kulesza

Published in ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems, Vol. 1, No. 1, October 2011.

Machine learning techniques are increasingly used in intelligent assistants, that is, software targeted at and... more Machine learning techniques are increasingly used in intelligent assistants, that is, software targeted at and continuously adapting to assist end users with email, shopping, and other tasks. Examples include desktop SPAM filters, recommender systems, and handwriting recognition. Fixing such intelligent assistants when they learn incorrect behavior, however, has received only limited attention. To directly support end-user “debugging” of assistant behaviors learned via statistical machine learning, we present a Why-oriented approach which allows users to ask questions about how the assistant made its predictions, provides answers to these “why” questions, and allows users to interactively change these answers to debug the assistant’s current and future predictions. To understand the strengths and weaknesses of this approach, we then conducted an exploratory study to investigate barriers that participants could encounter when debugging an intelligent assistant using our approach, and the information those participants requested to overcome these barriers. To help ensure the inclusiveness of our approach, we also explored how gender differences played a role in understanding barriers and information needs. We then used these results to consider opportunities for Why-oriented approaches to address user barriers and information needs.

The Short-Term Effects of Real-Time Virtual Reality Feedback on Motor Learning in Dance

by Daniel Eaves

Morphological Variation in the Dusky Fruit Bat, Penthetor lucasi

by M.T. Abdullah, PhD

Dusky fruit bats morphology Dusky fruit bats morphology

Biogeography of fruit bats in Southeast Asia. Les S. Hall, Gordon G. Grigg, Craig Moritz, Besar Ketol, Isa Sait, Wahab Marni and M.T. Abdullah.

by M.T. Abdullah, PhD

Should read Abdullah (2003).

We studied on the biogeography and diversity of fruit bats in Southeast Asia, from Borneo to Asian Mainland.The... more We studied on the biogeography and diversity of fruit bats in Southeast Asia, from Borneo to Asian Mainland.The patterns of distribution of distribution, diversity and abundance are related to ecological and biogeographical factors and possible past Pleistocene events.

Les S. Hall, Gordon G. Grigg, Craig Moritz, Besar Ketol, Isa Sait, Wahab Marni and M.T. Abdullah. 2004. Sarawak Museum Journal 81: 191-284.

Phylogenetic Analysis of the Malaysian Rhinolopus and Hipposideros using mtDNA cytochrome b gene. PJTAS 34(2):281-294.

by M.T. Abdullah, PhD

Read Abdullah (2003)

The phylogenetic relationships among 10 species of Rhinolophus and 10 species of Hipposideros from Borneo and... more The phylogenetic relationships among 10 species of Rhinolophus and 10 species of Hipposideros from Borneo and Peninsular Malaysia were successfully inferred from the partial mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) cytochrome (cyt) b sequences. Of the 413 nucleotide positions examined, there were 171 positions (41.4%), of which 164 positions (95.9%) were parsimoniously informative. The phylogenetic trees reconstruction using neighbour-joining (NJ), unweighted maximum parsimony (MP) and maximum likelihood (ML) methods suggest the monophyletic clustering of these families. The interspecific relationships within Rhinolophidae were completely resolved, while those within Hipposideridae were not fully resolved, as supported by the low bootstrap values. Overall, the phylogenetic analysis using partial mtDNA cyt b gene was useful to discriminate these complicated taxa and successfully revealed the misidentification of several specimens before due to their similar morphologies.

Keywords: Cytochrome b, Hipposideros, mitochondrial DNA, phylogenetics, Rhinolophus

Preliminary Morphometric Analysis of Aethalops aequalis. 2012

by M.T. Abdullah, PhD

Read Vijaya et al. (2012)

Aethalops aequalis was previously recorded as a subspecies of A. alecto in Borneo. They are difficult to distinguish... more Aethalops aequalis was previously recorded as a subspecies of A. alecto in Borneo. They are difficult to distinguish by external morphology as Malaysian Aethalops species are similar in size. The objective of this study was to characterize the morphological differences within the Malaysian A. aequalis populations based upon the evaluation of seven selected populations in Borneo. To this end, 11 skull and 11 dental characters were examined and analyzed using SPSS software. Six of these characters were found to be polymorphic across populations, with CM1 being the strongest character in most of the extracted functions followed by IM1, both of which are dental characters that relate to the lower jaw length. Character CM1 was generally shorter in most of the Southwest Sarawak populations compared to the Northeast Sarawak and Sabah populations. Aethalops aequalis from Sabah and Sarawak possessed a single skull morphotype and mountain isolation is, or has not yet been a sufficient barrier to lead to morphological divergence. The body and skull sizes were not affected by altitude or elevations, with A. aequalis possessing a single morphotype in Malaysian Borneo. In conclusion, little morphological variation was detected within and among the different geographical populations of A. aequalis in Sabah and Sarawak. The few differences found are likely to have arisen via natural selection driven adaptation to the new environment.

Morphometrical Variations of Malaysian Hipposideros Species. 2012

by M.T. Abdullah, PhD

Read Vijaya et al (2012)

A study on the morphometrical variations among four Malaysian Hipposideros species was conducted using voucher... more A study on the morphometrical variations among four Malaysian Hipposideros species was conducted using voucher specimens deposited in Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) Zoological Museum and the Department of Widlife and National Park (DWNP) Kuala Lumpur. Twenty two individuals from four species of Hipposideros ater, H. bicolor, H. cineraceus and H. dyacorum were morphologically measured, in which a total of 27 linear parameters of body, skull and dentals of each were appropriately recorded. The statistical data were later subjected to discriminant function analysis (DFA) and canonical variate analysis (CVA) using SPSS version 15.0 and unweighted pair-group method average (UPGMA) cluster analysis using Minitab version 14.4. The highest character loadings observed in Function l, Function 2 and Function 3 were the forearm length (FA), the third digit second phalanx length (D3P2L) and the palatal length (PL) with standardised canonical discriminant function coefficient values of 21.910, 5.770 and 5.095, respectively. These three characters were identified as the best diagnostic features for discriminating these closely related species of Hipposideros. Hence, this morphometric approach could be a promising tool as an alternative to the molecular
DNA analysis for identification of Chiroptera species.

A Predictive Model to Differentiate the Fruit Bats Cynopterus brachyotis and C. cf. brachyotis Forest (Chiroptera: Pteropodidae) from Malaysia Using Multivariate Analysis. 2012

by M.T. Abdullah, PhD

Read also Abdullah (2003)

Field discrimination of Cynopterus brachyotis and C. cf. brachyotis Forest (as designated by Francis 2008) in southern... more Field discrimination of Cynopterus brachyotis and C. cf. brachyotis Forest (as designated by Francis 2008) in southern Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia, and Borneo is problematic. These 2 forms are sympatric in this region but are confined to different habitat types: C. brachyotis inhabits open habitats, orchards, and agricultural areas, while C. cf. brachyotis Forest is confined to primary and old secondary forests. In this study, we attempted to develop prediction models to identify both C. brachyotis and C. cf. brachyotis Forest in this region based on multivariate statistics. Two predictive models were generated using a canonical discriminant function, and it was found that 5 characters can be used to accurately identify museum vouchers of C. brachyotis and C. cf. brachyotis Forest. Four characters are needed for field identification of these 2 forms of Cynopterus in southern Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia, and Borneo. A review of the current taxonomy and classification indicated that there is a need to describe the 6 existing forms of the C. brachyotis complex in the Indo-Malayan region. This will aid conservationists, field ecologists, and taxonomists in taxonomic- and conservation-related decisions about this species complex.

Phylogeny and Phylogeography of insect bat Myotis muricola. 2012

by M.T. Abdullah, PhD

http://scholar.google.com.my/citations?hl=en&user=ylnvJSAAAAAJ

Myotis muricola is a widespread species covering the Malay Archipelago through the West and East of Wallace’s Line.... more Myotis muricola is a widespread species covering the Malay Archipelago through the West and East of Wallace’s Line. The genetic analysis, based on partial cytochrome b gene, shows the high genetic variation within M. muricola. The phylogenetic analysis has indicated that M. muricola in the Malay Archipelago are monophyletic. Members of M. muricola Eastern are grouped together independently of M. muricola Western and both groups are distantly related. On the other hand, M. muricola Western and M. muricola Eastern are distinct species and sister taxa to M. mystacinus. Based on the high genetic distance (26.8% to 38.5%) and the Genetic Species Concept (Baker & Bradley, 2006), it can be concluded that M. muricola Western and M. muricola Eastern should be considered as two distinct species. Furthermore, two subgroups within M. muricola Western, namely Sumatra-Asian and Bornean subgroups, are recognised as distinct subspecies (with genetic distance of 5.1% to 10.8%). The evidence from the molecular data indicated M. muricola Eastern as the ancestor of M. muricola species complex in the Malay Archipelago, which had earlier diverged into the western region during the Pliocene. Meanwhile, the geographical conditions during the Pleistocene had given more chances for fauna to diversify. It was predicted that M. muricola diverged in the western part of the Malay Archipelago during the Pleistocene when the sea level dropped and produced some landbridges among the islands in Sundaland. The hypothetical dispersal routes of M. muricola are related to the ancient Sunda River systems that produced gallery forest corridors for migration and which served as Pleistocene
refuges during the migration.

Phylogeny and Phylogeography of insect bat Myotis muricola (Gray, 1846) (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) from the West and and East of Wallace's Line Inferred from Partial MtDNA Cytochrome b Gene. Sigit Wiantoro, Ibnu Maryanto and M.T. Abdullah. 2012. Pertanika Journal of Tropical Agricultural Science 35(2): 271-292.

Confidentiality of Event Data in Policy-based Monitoring

by Mirko Montanari

published in DSN 2012

Monitoring systems observe important information that could be a valuable resource to malicious users: attackers can... more Monitoring systems observe important information that could be a valuable resource to malicious users: attackers can use the knowledge of topology information, application logs, or configuration data to target attacks and make them hard to detect. The increasing need for correlating information across distributed systems to better detect potential attacks and to meet regulatory requirements can potentially exacerbate the problem if the monitoring is centralized. A single zero-day vulnerability would permit an attacker to access all information.

This paper introduces a novel algorithm for performing policy-based security monitoring. We use policies to distribute information across several hosts, so that any host compromise has limited impact on the confidentiality of the data about the overall system. Experiments show that our solution spreads information uniformly across distributed monitoring hosts and forces attackers to perform multiple actions to acquire important data.

In at the Deep End: An Activity-Led Introduction to First Year Creative Computing

by Christopher Edward Peters

Anderson, E.F., Peters, C.E., Halloran, J., Every, P., Shuttleworth, J., Liarokapis, F., Lane, R. and Richards, M. (2012). In at the Deep End: An Activity-Led Introduction to First Year Creative Computing. To appear in Computer Graphics Forum, Wiley-Blackwell.

Misconceptions about the nature of the computing discipline(s) pose a serious problem to faculties that offer... more Misconceptions about the nature of the computing discipline(s) pose a serious problem to faculties that offer computing degrees, as students enrolling on their programmes come to realise that their expectations are not met by reality. This frequently results in the students’ early disengagement from the subject of their degrees which in turn can lead to excessive ‘wastage’, i.e. reduced retention. In this paper we report on our academic group’s attempts within creative computing degrees at a UK university to counter these problems through the introduction of a six week long project that newly enrolled students embark on at the very beginning of their studies. This group project provides a breadth-first, activity-led introduction to their chosen academic discipline, aiming to increase student engagement while providing a stimulating learning experience with the overall goal to increase retention. Having run in two iterations, we believe that this approach has been successful, with students showing increased interest in their chosen discipline and noticable improvements in retention following the first year of the students’ studies.

A sketch-based system for highway design with user-specified regions of influence

by Christopher Applegate

Authors: C. S. Applegate, S. D. Laycock and A. M. Day. Published in: Computers & Graphics, Volume 36, Issue 6, October 2012, Pages 685-695, ISSN 0097-8493, 10.1016/j.cag.2012.03.033.

Paper:
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cag.2012.03.033

Video:
- http://youtu.be/CrFHVncLKos

To create traffic simulations of high visual-fidelity, each component part needs to be designed and modelled in great... more To create traffic simulations of high visual-fidelity, each component part needs to be designed and modelled in great detail. Roads can be created manually, but this can become a time-consuming and laborious process when modelling large-scale networks. Therefore, automated techniques for generating road networks efficiently and effectively, is highly desirable in both urban-planning and entertainment industries. In this paper we present a novel sketch-based tool to semi-automate the design, creation, and visualisation of road networks across both flat and undulating terrains. Our tool is guided by input sketches and a combination of prioritised constraints, including the curvature of roads, their inclination, and the volume of ground that would be displaced during construction. We introduce ‘Influence Regions’ which are user-specified areas of the terrain that influence the path of the roads generated, and are used to attract or repel roads to/from certain obstacles or designated areas, such as forestation, listed buildings, marshland, etc. A user study is conducted to evaluate the usability of the system and the quality of roads generated in a diverse range of scenarios. The results indicate that our system is both user-friendly and able to produce roads that are true to the user's intention.

An Eco-inspired Evolutionary Algorithm Applied to Numerical Optimization

by Rafael Stubs Parpinelli

PRACTICAL COUNSELING SKILLS AND APPROACHES

by Daniel Keeran MSW

By Daniel Keeran, MSW, President, College of Mental Health Counselling

This is a convenient list of practical counseling articles with clickable hypertext to access the full version. Topics... more This is a convenient list of practical counseling articles with clickable hypertext to access the full version. Topics include:

What To Say When Dying,
Working With Anger,
Counseling Depression,
Counseling Domestic Violence,
Healing Childhood Loss of Caring,
Healing Grief,
Healing Sexual Abuse,
Effective Counseling Skills,
Solving Issues in Marriage,
Solving Problems,
Steps To Prevent Suicide,
Steps for Healing Adultery

In at the Deep End: An Activity-Led Introduction to First Year Creative Computing

by Eike Falk Anderson

Eike Falk Anderson, Christopher E. Peters, John Halloran, Peter Every, James Shuttleworth, Fotis Liarokapis, Richard Lane and Michael Richards

to appear in COMPUTER GRAPHICS Forum 2012 (in print)
DOI: 10.1111j.1467-8659.2012.03066.x

Misconceptions about the nature of the computing disciplines pose a serious problem to university faculties that offer... more Misconceptions about the nature of the computing disciplines pose a serious problem to university faculties that offer computing degrees, as students enrolling on their programmes may come to realise that their expectations are not met by reality. This frequently results in the students’ early disengagement from the subject of their degrees which in turn can lead to excessive ‘wastage’, i.e. reduced retention. In this paper we report on our academic group’s attempts within creative computing degrees at a UK university to counter these problems through the introduction of a six week long project that newly enrolled students embark on at the very beginning of their studies. This group project provides a breadth-first, activity-led introduction to their chosen academic discipline, aiming to increase student engagement while providing a stimulating learning experience with the overall goal to increase retention. We present the methods and results of two iterations of these projects in the 2009/2010 and 2010/2011 academic years, and conclude that the approach worked well for these cohorts, with students expressing increased interest in their chosen discipline, in addition to noticeable improvements in retention following the first year of the students’ studies.

Siber Savaşlar

by mehmet cem ates

21. yüzyıl teknolojileri her anlamda dünyanın geleceğine şekil vermeye devam ediyor. Öyle ki teknolojinin ulaştığı nokta artık onun doğrudan bir silah olarak da kullanabileceğini göstermekte.  Aslında temelleri 1947 -1991 yılları döneminde yaşanan Soğuk Savaş döneminde atılan siber savaşlar, son yıllarda teknolojinin giderek zirve yapmasıyla kendinden iyice söz ettirmeye başladı. Başını ABD, Rusya, Çin, İsrail ve İngiltere’nin çektiği ülkeler  savunma ve saldırı timlerini oluşturmanın yanında taşeron hackerlarda kullanmayı ihmal etmiyor. Son olarak İran’ın nükleer santrallerini hedef alan ve kısmen başarılıda olan Stuxnet virüsü bu denli büyük ölçek ve etkide gerçekleşen ilk saldırı. Uzmanlar bu saldırının devlet destekli olmadan gerçekleşmeyeceğini belirtmekteler. Saldırının arkasında kim olduğu ispatlanamasa da Amerika’nın en güçlü şüpheli olduğu kesin.