User Satisfaction with Tablet PC Features

Previous studies of tablet personal computers have concentrated on their use in education and healthcare. The current study focused instead on personal usage, investigating how satisfied users are with their own tablets after having used them in their daily lives. The objective was to identify the major features for tablets and to investigate how form factors affect the preference of functions by performing a comparison of iPad1 and Galaxy Tab. Also, gender and ethnicity were analyzed to determine whether they influence satisfaction with the devices. For e‐mail and web browsing functions, users’ ratings showed more satisfaction with the iPad1 since it has a larger display; for the e‐book reader function, users indicated higher satisfaction with the Galaxy Tab. Male users evaluated their devices by the function itself, whereas female users were mainly concerned with aesthetic aspects. Koreans indicated that they were less satisfied with their tablets than were other ethnic groups.     

天津文化中心景观和生态水系统设计

天津文化中心作为天津未来的标志性区域,将以＂文化、人本、生态＂为主题,采取＂一湖、一轴、三区＂的规划结构,打造集文化展示与传播、休闲娱乐、商业购物于一体的城市名片。天津文化中心是一处展示如何转换和开发城市中心高密度区域并保护它免受洪水侵袭的实际案例。这是一种在中国所运用的城市设计的创新方案。雨水管理的精致设计,优美的水体景观,舒适的休闲环境,多功用的城市空间,人性化的公园设施、交通组织,所有这些细节共同营造了天津城市之中供人们游览和探索的好去处。     

Similarity between the spiral arms of Galaxy M51 image and the interface curve of Yin-Yang balance in the Ancient Tai-Chi diagram

The particle paths of the Lagrangian flow field between two cylinders simulate well the spiral arms of Galaxy M51 image [1] and the interface curve of the Yin-Yang balance in the ancient Tai-Chi diagram [2]. The particle paths of the Lagrangian flow field involve four parameters. The normalization of the system of equations significantly simplifies the formulation of the flow process and reduces the original four parameters to only one parameter. Furthermore it provides the similarity between the formulation of the spiral arms of Galaxy M51 and that of the interface curve of the Yin-Yang balance in the ancient Tai-Chi diagram. Dedicated to Professor Dr. Jürgen Zierep, University of Karlsruhe, Germany, for his 80^th birthday in January 2009     

信息荟萃

发改委确定建材业三大发展重点;63种不合格建材退出北京;安徽推广新型墙材有新规;国际水泥峰会将于4月初召开;新一代陶瓷纤维制品……     

Performance-Orientated Design Precursors and Potentials

Performance-oriented design is not without precedent. In the past, architecture responded with great sophistication and beauty to the need to preserve local resources and provide diverse and suitable conditions for human habitation. In the current context of escalating environmental and ecological changes, learning from precedents and developing their potential is becoming increasingly important. However, many architects refuse to look back in fear of returning to an imagined medieval condition, preferring instead to invest in the technologies that lie at the core of the environmental change and spatial and social division, which we may no longer be able to afford. In response to these circumstances, Michael Hensel examines the potential of past approaches to passive environmental modulation as a reworked spatial paradigm for design that interrelates material, spatial and environmental dynamics with dynamic patterns of habitation. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

大陆漂移方向的讨论

从全球范围看，岛屿几乎全在大陆块的东海岸，南极凸出，北极凹进；北半球陆地多，南半球海洋多，这应该是大陆长期向西向北纬６２°漂移运动的结果．利用ｕ场概念，讨论了大陆向西漂移的原因；并推知，大陆向北纬６０°运动是太阳在银道的近心点，及地球北极与银北极成６２°角等因素促成的     

A hybrid occlusion free object tracking method using particle filter and modified galaxy based search meta-heuristic algorithm

An important problem in tracking methods is how to manage the changes in object appearance, such as illumination changes, partial/full occlusion, scale, and pose variation during the tracking process. In this paper, we propose an occlusion free object tracking method together with a simple adaptive appearance model. The proposed appearance model which is updated at the end of each time step includes three components: the first component consists of a fixed template of target object, the second component shows rapid changes in object appearance, and the third one maintains slow changes generated along the object path. The proposed tracking method not only can detect occlusion and handle it, but also it is robust against changes in the object appearance model. It is based on particle filter which is a robust technique in tracking and handles non-linear and non-Gaussian problems. We have also employed a meta-heuristic approach that is called Modified Galaxy based Search Algorithm (MGbSA), to reinforce finding the optimum state in the particle filter state space. The proposed method was applied to some benchmark videos and its results were satisfactory and better than results of related works.     

Galaxy Magnets achieved the net profit of 34.02 million yuan in the first six months of 2014

正Galaxy Magnet announced its financial results for the first half of 2014 on August 14.For the first six months ended on 30 June 2014,Galaxy Magnet achieved operation income of RMB 182.3 million,up8.40% over the same period of 2013,and the net profit attributable to the shareholders of the listed company of 34.02 million yuan,increasing 35.49% over the same period of last year.Stable performance increase was led by development of new customers and application market of magnets.     

Common motifs in scientific workflows: An empirical analysis

Workflow technology continues to play an important role as a means for specifying and enacting computational experiments in modern science. Reusing and re-purposing workflows allow scientists to do new experiments faster, since the workflows capture useful expertise from others. As workflow libraries grow, scientists face the challenge of finding workflows appropriate for their task, understanding what each workflow does, and reusing relevant portions of a given workflow. We believe that workflows would be easier to understand and reuse if high-level views (abstractions) of their activities were available in workflow libraries. As a first step towards obtaining these abstractions, we report in this paper on the results of a manual analysis performed over a set of real-world scientific workflows from Taverna, Wings, Galaxy and Vistrails. Our analysis has resulted in a set of scientific workflow motifs that outline (i) the kinds of data-intensive activities that are observed in workflows (Data-Operation motifs), and (ii) the different manners in which activities are implemented within workflows (Workflow-Oriented motifs). These motifs are helpful to identify the functionality of the steps in a given workflow, to develop best practices for workflow design, and to develop approaches for automated generation of workflow abstractions.     

星系分组算法的并行设计与优化:SGI系统与分布式集群对比

Halo-based Galaxy Group Finder (HGGF) 是一种有效的星系分组算法,它根据星系的空间位置、红移、质量等多种属性将星系分组,从而为星系组的形成与演化研究提供重要依据。但是,算法当前的OpenMP实现版本仅能利用单节点提供的资源,在大规模星系分组问题上的应用受到限制。一种优化思路是采用多机并行,使其可以利用更多资源来解决更大规模的星系分组问题,并缩短执行时间。因此,有必要对算法重新进行设计与实现。实现此目标的一大挑战是程序中存在大量半随机性远端内存访问,其在多机并行环境下会对性能造成重大影响。为克服这一难题,设计中提出了邻接星系链表思想,并采用Unified Parallel C (UPC)进行程序实现。对于核代码部分,使用4,8,16节点时,可分别取得2.25,2.78,5.07倍的加速比;同时,对单个节点的内存需求也显著减少。OpenMP版本在SGI UV 2000上的实验结果显示,受限于程序的访存特性与机器体系架构的特点,类似HGGF算法这种具有随机数据访问特征的程序,很难有效利用NUMA结构的共享内存系统中提供的大规模线程与内存资源来直接取得高加速比。在分布式内存集群上采用两级并行设计,以更好地利用局部性原理,可能是更好的解决方案。