bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
English Handwriting Analysis using Digital Pens
Authors: Hirabayashi Rumi  , Draffan E.A.  , Newman Russell
Published: February 2025

Previous studies using digital pens to analyse handwriting have tended to deal with whole pages of writing or individual characters that are captured within single frames or boxes. English cursive script does not lend itself to this type of analysis. Words and individual letters vary enormously; adult handwriting has a personal style that is not easily captured by single letter or word recognition. This paper illustrates how handwriting data captured from 46 university students (22 students with dyslexia; 24 students with no known difficulties) using digital pens was successfully interpreted using newly developed software. The system has a database that holds the xml data collected from each digital pen. This data not only consists of the times for each stroke but also the pauses plus the visual pattern of each person's cursive handwriting. The latter can be broken up into script fragments for tagging and analysis. The ability to capture handwriting in this way has the potential to offer teachers a method for evaluating not only the speed of students' handwriting, but also to gather the pauses between words and characters. This paper illustrates how the system has shown that a group of dyslexic students not only had slower handwriting speeds but also longer pauses when copying, writing from memory and during creative writing.
Bank4Elder: Innovative Banking Interfaces Adapted to Older People Needs and Capabilities
Authors: Campos-Soriano N.  , Blasco-López C.  , Laparra-Hernández J.  , Poveda-Puente R.  , Barberà-Guillem R.  , García A.  , Soriano C.  , Sancho M.
Published: February 2025

Older persons turn directly to the branch for accessing to banking services because they feel safer and they have problems when they interact with bank interfaces. These interfaces are not adapted to older people needs and capabilities. Bank4Elder project aims to develop innovative web and Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) interfaces involving older persons along all the design and development process. The results showed high levels of satisfaction of older persons with the new interfaces, which combine age-friendly and aesthetic characteristics. Moreover, designers and developers have become aware of the older persons profiles and their real needs.
User Experience and Feedback of an Assistive Technology Construction Set
Authors: Thaller David  , Ossmann Roland  , Nussbaum Gerhard  , Parker Stefan  , Pühretmair Franz
Published: February 2025

The open-source AsTeRICS system brings rapid prototyping together with Assistive Technologies (AT) and therefore revolutionizes the development process of AT systems. In several publications the technical baseline of the hardware and software components and the possibilities of the AsTeRICS system have been presented and discussed. Over the last 6 months prototype 2.0 has been tested by users in Austria, Poland and Spain and two setups for long-term users were installed to get quantitative measures about the systems quality. In the user trials different scenarios were tested like mouse-replacement, gaming and environmental control. 75 % of the users stated that they liked the models that were adapted and tailored to their individual needs and that these AT systems work better for them than any system they are using at the moment.
Electronic Mobility Aid Devices for Deafblind Persons: Outcome Assessment
Authors: Vincent Claude  , Routhier François  , Martel Valérie  , Mottard Marie-Ève  , Dumont Frédéric  , Côté Lise  , Cloutier Danielle
Published: February 2025

Given the lack of studies using standardized and objective measures on the effect of electronic systems that helps obstacle detection or orientation, the purpose of this article is to present a single-subject's case study of 4 users aged between 50 and 70 years old followed in a deafblindness program in a rehabilitation center. The Canadian measure of occupational performance suggests that the performance and the satisfaction are higher following the use of the Miniguide and the Breeze, two commercial electronic mobility aid devices, in four types of occupations (functional mobility, active leisure, community role, and socialization). The training was completed in 4 to 10 sessions (5 to 14 hours in total). The Québec User Evaluation of Satisfaction with Assistive Technology reveals high satisfaction except for one participant regarding 4 of 8 items. Finally, a follow-up interview three months after training was done to evaluate the used features, the frequency of utilization, problems, safety and the impact on functional independence.
Ambulatory Activity-based Feedback for Improving Daily Physical Activity Patterns in Patients with the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Authors: Evering Richard M.H.  , Vollenbroek-Hutten Miriam M.R.
Published: February 2025

To study the compliance with a physical activity monitoring and feedback intervention, as implemented for balancing daily physical activity in patients with the chronic fatigue syndrome. The intervention was implemented into an existing rehabilitation program for treatment of chronic fatigue syndrome. Feedback was provided at home with a personal digital assistant during four consecutive feedback periods. Compliance with the feedback system was around 90% during each of the four feedback periods. Fifteen patients (50%) complied with all four feedback periods. The fifteen compliers changed their physical activity level significantly into the direction of the goal, especially in the morning and afternoon. Changes in physical activity were seen instantaneously from the first feedback day on. Patients were able to change their daily physical activity into the direction of the goal. The compliance with all four feedback periods was low and might be related to the instantaneous effect of the feedback.
A Cost Benefit Study of Welfare Technology in Practice: Supervision with Web Camera as a Complement to Physical Visits
Authors: Dahlberg Raymond
Published: February 2025

The demographic development implies that the number of older persons with care needs is increasing while it will be more difficult to recruit staff to the elderly care. In the gap arising there is a belief that welfare technology can play an important role saving time for tasks that demands human hands. The welfare technology used in this study showed that the cost could be reduced for the municipality and benefits the users. Supervision with a web camera showed to be a good complement to physical visits. Users, significant others and the staff were all positive in terms of satisfaction, sleeping quality and safety aspects.
Exploring the Acceptance of a Monitoring-based Telecare Service
Authors: Conci Mario  , Leonardi Chiara
Published: February 2025

This study aims at defining and evaluating new monitoring-based services where telecare and smart home approaches are combined to support the well-being of the aging population. The evaluation was carried out by means of envisioning scenarios discussed with older adults and telecare operators. The basic assumption of the envisaged service was to increase the efficiency of the actual telecare service by providing the telecare operators with a detailed profile of the telecare users built on the automatic collection of data in their home. Results of the evaluation showed that such a system would be appreciated by telecare operators, but acceptance considerations should be taken into account in order to meet also the older adults' consensus. We finally discuss specific factors that can be implemented in order to improve the quality of traditional telecare services respecting both older adults' domestic environment and telecare operators' work practices.
User Centered Design in Practice – Developing Software with/ for People with Cognitive and Intellectual Disabilities
Authors: Schaten Michael  , Lexis Monique  , Roentgen Uta  , Bühler Christian  , de Witte Luc
Published: February 2025

This paper describes a formative evaluation conducted during the Knoffit software project with people with intellectual and cognitive impairments. Within the project, a User Centered Design is not only used as research method but it is also connected to be the project's central aim: People with intellectual and cognitive disabilities as the main future users of the software are included in the project as testers for evaluating the currently available software prototype. Based on their feedback on the prototype the software will be re-designed and again tested iteratively. In addition to the evaluation description the paper presents gained results.
Attachment to Assistive Technology: A New Conceptualisation
Authors: Collins Emily C.  , Millings Abigail  , Prescott Tony J.
Published: February 2025

How people use assistive technologies depends on how they relate to them. As technologies such as assistive robots are developed—that have a physical presence, some autonomy, and the ability to adapt and communicate—the relationships that people have with them will become more complex and may take on some of the characteristics of the social relationships that we have with each other. In this paper, we compare the relationships that people form with assistive devices to the bonds we develop with people, pets, and objects. Building on conceptual frameworks provided by social psychology we aim to develop a taxonomy that can provide a consistent framework with which to describe and analyse human-other relationships, hopefully leading to improved design of assistive technologies.
Turning off or Turning on?: Two Different Ways to Use a Baby Seal Shaped Robot Paro in Occupational Therapy for Patients with Dementia
Authors: Inoue Kaoru  , Nakamura Mio  , Sakuma Naomi  , Okada Maiko
Published: February 2025

The objective of this research is to see the difference between the effect of a stuffed animal and that of an animal shaped robot in occupational therapy. PARO, a baby seal shaped robot, is a sophisticated robot. It responds to users' actions and even remembers particular interactions. Thus, this robot is certainly different from a stuffed animal, yet unlike an alive pet (whose behaviors can be unpredictable), its responses are programmed and controlled. PARO is “inanimate” but interactive like a pet and not passive like a stuffed animal. Our team wanted to see how patients with dementia would react to PARO in comparison to a stuffed animal and what the difference (if there is any) may imply. We concluded that the effectiveness of robot therapy is different from occupational therapy with “inanimate objects,” such as stuffed animals. Robot therapy can encourage patients with dementia to be more self-directive.
Smart Defence vs. Smart Civil Security
Authors: Vejseli Urim
Published: February 2025

Mr. Urim VEJSELI started his presentation emphasizing the case study for Macedonia and specifically the Center for Crisis Management. Mr. Vejseli gave brief retrospective on the work done in the past and on the past regional cooperation and joint actions. He expressed the need of increased cooperation and explained the cooperation between Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo which he coordinates. On the end he emphasized the recommendations on the future actions in the regional cooperation.
Measures to Counter the Threat of WMD Terrorism
Authors: Kibaroğlu Mustafa
Published: February 2025

The use of WMD by terrorists is only a matter of time. Use of WMD by terrorists would be a great victory for their cause so they have an incentive to continue to address the issues of obtaining and employing these weapons. Only by continuation of international efforts already started can we counter this type of attack by terrorists.
High Performance Sequence Mining Using Pairwise Statistical Significance
Authors: Zhang Yuhong  , Chen Feng
Published: February 2025

With the amount of sequence data deluge as a result of next generation sequencing, there comes the need to leverage the large-scale biological sequence data. Therefore, the role of high performance computational methods for mining interesting information solely from these sequence data becomes increasingly important. Almost every research issue in bioinformatics counts on the inter-relationship between sequences, structure and function. Although pairwise statistical significance (PSS) has been found to be capable of accurately mining related sequences (homologs), its estimation is both computationally and data intensive. To prevent it from being a performance bottleneck, high performance computation (HPC) approaches are used for accelerating the computation. In this chapter, we first present the algorithm of pairwise statistical significance estimation, then highlight the use of such HPC approaches for its acceleration employing multi-core CPU and many-core GPU, both of which enable significant performance improvement for pairwise statistical significance estimation (PSSE).
Automatic Checking of Forging Press Tool Wear Through 3D Inspection
Authors: Chacon Carlos A.  , Plata G. Arturo  , Meneses Jaime  , Mendoza Carolina  , V-Niño Ely Dannier
Published: February 2025

A three-dimensional topographic reconstruction system of the forge pattern surfaces through laser triangulation has been purposely designed and evaluated. With this work, the results of the topographic study of the forge pattern subjected to ion implantation and/or coated with Ti/TiN layer are being presented. Further, the system permits not only to monitor carefully the wear's performance of the pattern but also find the localization of the points at its highest efforts arising from the forge process as well as any defects caused by the variation of the treatment the piece have been exposed to.
Eddy Current Measurements of Electrical Conductivity in Specimens of Zircaloy-4 with Different Hydrogen Concentrations
Authors: Fava Javier  , Müller Sebastian  , Lanzani Liliana  , Ruch Marta
Published: February 2025

The electrical conductivities of ad-hoc specimens of Zircaloy-4 (Zry-4) with hydrogen contents between 5.9 and 2019 wt ppm were measured by eddy current (EC) and by van der Pauw's method. The EC evaluation was made by a non-conventional, non-comparative procedure, which gives the conductivity values through fittings of the theoretical and measured probe impedances for each specimen. Specially designed planar bobbin coil was used. The electromagnetic EC problem was solved in the test conditions. The EC conductivity measurements were made on both major faces of the specimens, i.e. the one with the oxide layer and the ground-off oxide-free face. The van der Pauw's measurements were made on the oxide-free face only. The measured electrical conductivities can be grouped in three bands corresponding to low, medium and high hydrogen contents. In all cases, the total range of conductivity variation for the studied specimens was about 2.5% of the largest value. The conductivity resolution of the procedure was about 0.8%.
Magnetic Field Sensor Utilizing Fiber Bragg Grating
Authors: Pacheco Clara J.  , Bruno Antonio C.
Published: February 2025

In this study, the feasibility of using magnetostrictive sensors for measuring magnetic fields was explored. The sensors were fabricated using optical fibers containing Bragg gratings attached to a magnetostrictive material in bulk or in the form of particulate composites. The responses under effects of uniform and gradient magnetic field were analyzed. They have shown a strong anisotropy regarding the shape of the magnetostrictive material when it is in bulk form in comparison to when it was made of the particulate composites.
Specification of Periscope Tuning Framework Plugins
Authors: Mijaković Robert  , Pimenta Soto Antonio  , Comprés Ureña Isaías A.  , Gerndt Michael  , Sikora Anna  , César Eduardo
Published: February 2025

Performance analysis and tuning are important steps during the development of parallel software. There are performance analysis tools that help developers understand application performance. However, these tools do not give any recommendations on how to tune the code to obtain an optimized version. This paper proposes a methodology for automated analysis and tuning based on experimental space searches. The European research project AutoTune will extend Periscope, an automatic online and distributed performance analysis tool developed by Technische Universität München, with automatic online tuning plugins. Each plugin provides knowledge for performance or energy efficiency tuning. The resulting Periscope Tuning Framework (PTF) is able to tune serial and parallel codes for homogeneous and heterogeneous target hardware. The output of the framework are tuning recommendations that can be integrated into the production version of the code. The research results of AutoTune will be integrated into a commercial development environment of a European software vendor and validated with real-world applications.
SFC-based Communication Metadata Encoding for Adaptive Mesh Refinement
Authors: Schreiber Martin  , Weinzierl Tobias  , Bungartz Hans-Joachim
Published: February 2025

The present paper studies two adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) codes whose grids rely on recursive subdivison in combination with space-filling curves (SFCs). A non-overlapping domain decomposition based upon these SFCs yields several well-known advantageous properties with respect to communication demands, balancing, and partition connectivity. However, the administration of the meta data, i.e. to track which partitions exchange data in which cardinality, is non-trivial due to the SFC's fractal meandering and the dynamic adaptivity. We introduce an analysed tree grammar for the meta data that restricts it without loss of information hierarchically along the subdivision tree and applies run length encoding. Hence, its meta data memory footprint is very small, and it can be computed and maintained on-the-fly even for permanently changing grids. It facilitates a fork-join pattern for shared data parallelism. And it facilitates replicated data parallelism tackling latency and bandwidth constraints respectively due to communication in the background and reduces memory requirements by avoiding adjacency information stored per element. We demonstrate this at hands of shared and distributed parallelized domain decompositions.
Graph Repartitioning with both Dynamic Load and Dynamic Processor Allocation
Authors: Vuchener Clément  , Esnard Aurélien
Published: February 2025

Dynamic load balancing is an important step conditioning the performance of parallel programs, like adaptive mesh refinement codes. If the global workload varies drastically over time (such that memory is exceeded), it can be relevant to adjust the number of processors while maintaining the load balanced. We propose two different solutions, that extend classic graph repartitioning approaches to accept a variable number of processors: one based on biased partitioning method and one based on a diffusive method. We call this problem: the M×N graph repartitioning problem. Finally, an experimental study on real-life graphs validates our algorithms against state-of-the-art methods.
Fast Uniform Grid Construction on GPGPUs Using Atomic Operations
Authors: Barbieri Davide  , Cardellini Valeria  , Filippone Salvatore
Published: February 2025

Domain decomposition based on spatial locality is a classical data-parallel problem whose solution may improve by orders of magnitude when implemented on a GPU. Among the data structures involved in domain decomposition, uniform grids are widely used to speed up simulations in a number of fields, including computational physics and graphics. In this work, we present two commonly used approaches to generate uniform grids on GPUs and propose a new single-pass method that has several advantages over the previous ones. We also present some performance results of our CUDA implementation of a broad-phase collision detection algorithm for particles simulation, comparing the different methods. In some tests our method achieves a speedup of 2 compared to the fastest known method supporting a fixed maximum number of elements per cell, and a speedup of 7 compared with the fastest method without such a constraint.
Extreme Data Science at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing (NERSC) Center
Authors: Dosanjh Sudip  , Canon Shane  , Deslippe Jack  , Fagnan Kjiersten  , Gerber Richard  , Gerhardt Lisa  , Hick Jason  , Jacobsen Douglas  , Skinner David  , Wright Nicholas J.
Published: February 2025

Extreme data science is becoming increasingly important at NERSC. Many Petabytes of data are transferred from experimental facilities to NERSC every year. Applications of importance include high energy physics, genomics and climate. Computing and storage systems are being deployed to enable the analysis of these large scientific data sets. This paper discusses recent scientific breakthroughs enabled by extreme data science and future science and technology trends related to data.
Atomic computing – a different perspective on massively parallel problems
Authors: Brown Andrew  , Mills Rob  , Reeve Jeff  , Dugan Kier  , Furber Steve
Published: February 2025

As the size of parallel computing systems inexorably increases, the proportion of resource consumption (design effort, operating power, communication and calculation latency) absorbed by ‘non-computing’ tasks (communication and housekeeping) increases disproportionally. The SpiNNaker (Spiking neural net architecture) engine [1,2] sidesteps many of these issues with a novel architectural model: it is an isotropic ‘mesh’ of (ARM9) cores, connected via a hardware communication network. The topology allows uniform scalability up to a hard limit of just over a million cores, and the communications network – hardware handling packets of 72 bits – achieves a bisection bandwidth of 5 billion packets/s. The state of the machine is maintained in over 8TB of 32-bit memory, physically distributed throughout the system. There is no central processing ‘overseer’ or synchronised clock. This paper discusses opportunities and challenges in applying the SpiNNaker architecture, within neural simulation and beyond.
Accelerating SeisSol by Generating Vectorized Code for Sparse Matrix Operators
Authors: Breuer Alexander  , Heinecke Alexander  , Bader Michael  , Pelties Christian
Published: February 2025

SeisSol is a software package for the simulation of seismic wave phenomena on unstructured grids, based on the discontinuous Galerkin method combined with ADER time discretization. A recent study shows that the intra-element performance of SeisSol is critical for its overall performance. Most of the element matrices are sparse operators implemented employing a standard sparse matrix storage scheme. Since their sparsity patterns are known a-priori we follow a different approach in this work. Here, we execute an enriched offline and initialization phase which is used to generate hardware-aware code, featuring optimal vectorization and removing indirect memory accesses by eliminating the index arrays and hard-wiring them into the code. Due to these optimizations we are able to run intra-element sparse matrix operations at up to 50% of achievable peak performance of an Intel Sandy Bridge core which results in speeding up SeisSol by a factor of more than 2.1 compared to the original implementation.
Testing and Implementing Some New Algorithms Using the FFTW Library on Massively Parallel Supercomputers
Authors: Guarrasi Massimiliano  , Li Ning  , Frigio Sandro  , Emerson Andrew  , Erbacci Giovanni
Published: February 2025

The aim of this paper is to provide a strategy for overcoming the limits of codes employing the FFTW library by implementing a more powerful parallel domain decomposition algorithm and by refining the auto-tuning mechanism that is already implemented in this library. In the first part of this paper we identify some of the major performance bottlenecks present in the current FFTW implementation, in particular the auto-tuning mechanism provided in FFTW. To do this we have tested for the first time on a Blue Gene/Q system a 2D Parallel Domain Decomposition algorithm provided by the 2DECOMP&FFT library. We found that on massively parallel supercomputers such as Blue Gene/Q clusters the performance of this new algorithm is significantly higher. To demonstrate the benefits of the algorithm in a real application we included the library in a CFD code, BlowupNS, where we found a marked improvement in parallel scalability.
Improving Communication Performance of Sparse Linear Algebra for an Atomistic Simulation Application
Authors: Pousa Christiane  , Hutter Jürg  , Vandevondele Joost
Published: February 2025

The design of modern parallel machines leads to powerful machines, but with complex architectures and hierarchical topologies. As a result, communication overheads associated with hardware asymmetry and interconnection network increase. In order to achieve scalable performances on these machines, it is essential to reduce communication costs on parallel applications such as CP2K. From computational chemistry domain, CP2K is a real-world parallel application that performs atomistic and molecular simulations. A linear-scaling density functional theory implementation based on an efficient sparse linear algebra kernel allows CP2K to simulate a million of atoms. Since this kernel is communication bound, the hardware asymmetry and interconnection network of current machines leads to a slowdown on CP2K performance for large number of processes. In this paper, we introduce a heuristic based process mapping to reduce the communication costs. It takes into account the machine topology and the sparse linear algebra kernel communication pattern to map processes over the machine. Results show that our process mapping provides on average a performance improvement of 50% when compared with the default implementation of CP2K.
GPI2 for GPUs: A PGAS framework for efficient communication in hybrid clusters
Authors: Oden Lena
Published: February 2025

Due to their high parallelism graphics processing units (GPUs) and GPU-based clusters have gained popularity in high-performance computing. However, data transfer in GPU-based clusters remains a challenging problem, due to the disjoint memory of GPU and host. New technologies, such as GPUDirect RDMA, improve data transfer among multiple GPUs, but they require many manual interventions from programmers to reach optimal performance.
A fault tolerant implementation of Multi-Level Monte Carlo methods
Authors: Pauli Stefan  , Kohler Manuel  , Arbenz Peter
Published: February 2025

The theory behind fault tolerant multi-level Monte Carlo (FT-MLMC) methods was recently developed and tested. These tests were made without a real fault tolerant implementation. We implemented an MPI-parallelized fault tolerant MLMC version of an existing parallel MLMC code (ALSVID-UQ). It is based on the User Level Failure Mitigation, a fault tolerant extension of MPI. We confirm our FT-MLMC theory by means of simulations of the two-dimensional stochastic Euler equations of gas dynamics.
ParaFPGA 2013: Harnessing Programs, Power and Performance in Parallel FPGA applications
Authors: D'Hollander Erik H.  , Stroobandt Dirk  , Touhafi Abdellah
Published: February 2025

Future computing systems will require dedicated accelerators to achieve high-performance. The mini-symposium ParaFPGA explores parallel computing with FPGAs as an interesting avenue to reduce the gap between the architecture and the application. Topics discussed are the power of functional and dataflow languages, the performance of high-level synthesis tools, the automatic creation of hardware multi-cores using C-slow retiming, dynamic power management to control the energy consumption, real-time reconfiguration of streaming image processing filters and memory optimized event image segmentation.
An Efficient Thread Mapping Strategy for Multiprogramming on Manycore Processors
Authors: Tousimojarad Ashkan  , Vanderbauwhede Wim
Published: February 2025

The emergence of multicore and manycore processors is set to change the parallel computing world. Applications are shifting towards increased parallelism in order to utilise these architectures efficiently. This leads to a situation where every application creates its desirable number of threads, based on its parallel nature and the system resources allowance. Task scheduling in such a multithreaded multiprogramming environment is a significant challenge. In task scheduling, not only the order of the execution, but also the mapping of threads to the execution resources is of a great importance. In this paper we state and discuss some fundamental rules based on results obtained from selected applications of the BOTS benchmarks on the 64-core TILEPro64 processor. We demonstrate how previously efficient mapping policies such as those of the SMP Linux scheduler become inefficient when the number of threads and cores grows. We propose a novel, low-overhead technique, a heuristic based on the amount of time spent by each CPU doing some useful work, to fairly distribute the workloads amongst the cores in a multiprogramming environment. Our novel approach could be implemented as a pragma similar to those in the new task-based OpenMP versions, or can be incorporated as a distributed thread mapping mechanism in future manycore programming frameworks. We show that our thread mapping scheme can outperform the native GNU/Linux thread scheduler in both single-programming and multiprogramming environments.
Divide and Conquer Parallelization of Finite Element Method Assembly
Authors: Thébault Loïc  , Petit Eric  , Tchiboukdjian Marc  , Dinh Quang  , Jalby William
Published: February 2025

Relying solely on domain decomposition and distributed memory parallelism can limit the performance on current supercomputers. At scale, a larger number of smaller domains can lead to an increased communication volume and to load balancing issues. Moreover, the decreasing memory per core is not compatible with the memory overhead of a finer domain decomposition. A popular alternative is to use shared memory parallelism in addition to the domain decomposition. In the context of Finite Element Method, FEM, one of the challenging steps to parallelize in shared memory is the matrix assembly. In this paper, we propose and evaluate a Divide and Conquer, D&C, algorithm to efficiently parallelize the FEM assembly. We compare this hybrid approach using D&C to the pure domain decomposition and to a state-of-the-art hybrid approach using mesh coloring. Our target application is an industrial fluid dynamics code, developed by Dassault Aviation and parallelized with MPI domain decomposition. The original Fortran code has been modified with minimum intrusion. Our D&C approach uses task parallelism with Intel Cilk+. Preliminary results show a good data locality and a 14% performance improvement on a 12 cores 2 sockets Westmere-EP node.
A Generic Prototype to Benchmark Algorithms and Data Structures for Hierarchical Hybrid Grids
Authors: Kuckuk Sebastian  , Gmeiner Björn  , Köstler Harald  , Rüde Ulrich
Published: February 2025

Many problems in computational science and engineering require the numerical solution of partial differential equations and thus the solution of large, sparse linear systems of equations. Multigrid is known to be one of the most efficient methods for this purpose, and therefore many software packages exist that are also able to run on large HPC clusters. However, the concrete multigrid algorithm and its implementation highly depends on the underlying problem and hardware. Therefore, changes in the code or many different variants are necessary to cover all relevant cases. We try to generalize the data structures and multigrid components required to solve elliptic PDEs on Hierarchical Hybrid Grids (HHG) that are a compromise between structured and unstructured grids. Out goal is the automatic generation of the HHG data structures for arbitrary primitives. As a first step, we implemented a generic 2D prototype including a multigrid solver for the two-dimensional Poisson problem. We show that the multigrid algorithm is highly scalable up to more than 450,000 cores.
Deep Packet Inspection on Commodity Hardware using FastFlow
Authors: Danelutto M.  , Deri L.  , De Sensi D.  , Torquati M.
Published: February 2025

The analysis of packet payload is mandatory for network security and traffic monitoring applications. The computational cost of this activity pushed the industry towards hardware-assisted deep packet inspection (DPI) that have the disadvantage of being more expensive and less flexible.
Bilinear Markovian Processes of Search for Stationary and Moving Objects
Authors: Pardalos Panos M.  , Yatsenko Vitaliy A.  , Fenn Michael B.  , Chikrii Arkadii A.
Published: February 2025

The cell model for the search of moving objects under conflict condition is advanced as demonstrated herein. The necessary conditions for the probability of detection in a finite time are derived. The various episodes of search, based on corresponding number with groups of controlled objects as participants, are analyzed in a unified scheme. The mathematical techniques for the creation of information technologies concerning the search of moving objects in condition of imperfect information is developed.
Inclusive Design For Assistive Technology
Authors: Herriott Richard  , Cook Sharon
Published: February 2025

This paper compares the processes and methods of nine cases of assistive technology design (AT) with the predominant model of Inclusive Design (ID).There is a comparison of both process and methods. Design for AT requires a special focus on user-requirements during product development, and as such ID methodology is relevant to AT design. Research in AT design has both drawn from and added to the ID knowledge base. However, mainstream ID operates under different conditions from AT, where the scale of projects is smaller. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with nine designers of assistive technology. This provided raw data on the processes and methods used in a range of products including a children's wheelchair, a wash-basin system, a wheeled walking frame and breathing apparatus. It was found that design for AT has some overlap with design for mainstream ID, but there are important differences of emphasis, in particular: a) that user investigations must draw on stakeholders other than users (carers and medical professionals) when gathering user requirements and conducting verification testing, b) requirements gathering and definition is under-emphasised and c) prototyping becomes a more important element of the design process.
The potential of a home modification strategy – a universal design approach to existing housing
Authors: Carnemolla Phillippa  , Bridge Catherine
Published: February 2025

The significance of home modifications for ageing populations extends beyond the physical modification of an existing home. This paper discusses the potential for home modifications to impact the process of ageing well. Home modifications apply Universal Design Principles in the targeted and restricted setting of an existing home environment. There is evidence to suggest that home modifications operate on dual levels - addressing broader societal concerns about accessible housing and care demand, while concurrently addressing the individual needs of older people who want to age well in their own home. This paper refers to preliminary findings of an ongoing research project investigating the value of home modifications. It uses a mixed method approach (AQoL utility scoring and thematic analysis) to analyse survey responses from home modification recipients (n=89). Preliminary findings reveal an increase in utility scores following home modifications, this increase in health related quality of life is further supported by the thematic analysis. These results are discussed in terms of the dual role that home modifications play in responding to individual needs and broader society and reinforce that home modifications play a variety of roles in supporting ageing well at home that extend beyond the physical environment. In conclusion, the research supports and contributes to developing evidence that home modifications have the potential to support the changing social needs of Australia's ageing populations in ageing well by impacting health related quality of life and improving feelings of independence, and safety/confidence.
Universal Design and Accessibility: Towards Sustainable Built Environment in Malaysia
Authors: Rahim Asiah Abdul  , Zen Ismawi  , Samad Nur Amirah Abd.  , Rahim Che Raiskandar Che
Published: February 2025

An overview about the present status of the facilities, awareness and research related to Universal Design in Malaysia since its independence in 1957. For the last 10 years, Malaysia has shown exponential growth in every aspect, and Malaysia government has given numerous supports towards attending the needs of disadvantaged groups including women, children, single parents, elderly and Persons with Disabilities (PwDs). Many standards, regulations, code of practice and guidelines have been developed to have good accessibility, connectivity, usability and seamlessness in built environment. Recently, various groups, including professionals in the building industry have implemented universal design and accessibility in their projects and development. The methodology applied includes table research, observation and access audit at several case studies of public buildings in Putrajaya. KAED Universal Design Unit (KUDU) of International Islamic University Malaysia was formed with the intention to promote the application of universal design in the built environment and product design, as well as to disseminate research findings through international conferences, symposiums, workshops and product competitions. Universal Design is offered as a subject in IIUM Architecture programme, to instil graduates in understanding of the concept of ‘barrier free’, ‘design for all’, ‘inclusive design’ and ‘universal design’ and their application.
Usefulness in architecture accessibility, inclusion and usability as spatial sensory experiences
Authors: Andersson Jonas E.
Published: February 2025

The modern ageing process implies an improved fit between the human being and architecture. It has to be harmonized with both qualitative and quantitative requirements in order to create a space that is accessible, inclusive and usable for everyone, regardless of cognitive or physical disabilities. This study focuses on a continuing education course at the Royal Institute of Technology, KTH, which aimed at expanding teaching on accessibility, inclusion and usability. The course attracted eight professionals, seven women and one man. Two were trained architects, while the others had clerical professions. During seven five sessions, including study visits, lectures, and literature seminars the concept of ‘experienced space’ was addressed in order to assess ‘usefulness in architecture.’ Four examples of built environment highlighted spatial elements that promoted accessibility, inclusiveness, sustainability and usability of the building. The literature included three works, on universal design, on wayfinding, and a fictional work, in which spatial thinking is part of the plot. Seven out of eight participants fulfilled an essay or an oral presentation on the mentioned aspects. This study suggests that accessibility, usability and inclusion are spatial constituents that need to be activated on a personal level by the individual designer.
A Case Study for Universal Design in the Internet of Things
Authors: Schulz Trenton  , Fuglerud Kristin Skeide  , Arfwedson Henrik  , Busch Marc
Published: February 2025

The user-centered design process helps ensure the requirements of the users are met throughout the development of a product or service. Universal design is an approach that makes sure that the needs of people with disabilities are incorporated. While many have suggested combining user-centered design and universal design, we demonstrate how it can be done in the development of prototypes and mobile apps for the Internet of Things. Applying the user-centered and universal design process allowed us to identify complex issues with user interaction that would not have been found only using accessibility guidelines. We recommend focusing on technical accessibility, performing user evaluations with persons with disabilities, and having an accessibility champion for advocating universal design issues throughout a project.
Simulation of pulsed eddy current testing via surrogate models
Authors: Miorelli Roberto  , Dubois Anthony  , Bilicz Sándor  , Theodoulidis Theodoros  , Reboud Christophe
Published: February 2025

Typical Pulsed Eddy Current Testing (PECT) signals, resulting from the inspection of canonical structures affected by flaw(s), consist in magnetic field variations above the conductor or in coil impedance change, both as functions of time. Calculation of specimen response to Time-Dependent (TD) excitation signals can be obtained through an inverse Fourier transform (FT) of Time-Harmonic (TH) simulated signals, weighted by the FT of the excitation signal. In this paper, an efficient strategy for simulation of PECT signals is introduced. Two adaptive algorithms, guaranteeing the accuracy of the calculations without any intervention of the user, are used to interpolate the spectral response from a database of simulated signals in harmonic regime. Then PECT simulations can be carried out quickly for many TD excitation signals. The performance of this approach is compared with standard manual choices of frequencies proposed in the literature.
Advances of THz NDE
Authors: Lopato Przemyslaw  , Chady Tomasz
Published: February 2025

Advances in high frequency electronics, photonics and materials science as well as variety of possible applications enabled rapid development of terahertz technology in last decade. Research on reliable sources and detectors of electromagnetic waves in the terahertz range allows their application in various fields of science and technology ranging from medicine and biotechnology to pharmaceutical, chemical and material sciences. In this paper selected applications in nondestructive testing are shown, especially glass and basalt fiber-reinforced composites inspection as well as terahertz tomography.
Nondestructive Evaluation of Eccentricity of ITER In-Vessel Coils Based on Eddy Current Testing
Authors: Li Yong  , Zhao Hongda  , Chen Zhenmao  , Cai Wenlu  , Liu Xiangbiao
Published: February 2025

The In-Vessel Coil (IVC) is a critical component of International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), which can be taken as a stratified tubular structure. IVC Eccentricity reducing radiation protection and insulating property may occur during manufacture of IVCs. In this paper, the relationship between IVC eccentricity and Eddy Current Testing (ECT) signals is investigated and analyzed through numerical simulation based on Reduced Vector Potential method (Ar) and experiments. It can be found that experimental results match well with simulation results. Based on the investigation, an efficient ECT method which can be applied to evaluate IVC eccentricity is proposed.
Nondestructive Evaluation of Arterial System Properties Using Electromechanical Analogies and Light Based Diagnostic Methods
Authors: Borik Stefan  , Cap Ivo
Published: February 2025

The article deals with connection of arterial system model based on electromechanical analogy and real photoplethysmographic measurements. The model of arterial system is used for prediction of elastic moduli of arteries. Analysis of photoplethysmographic curve by using its second derivative was used for estimation of elastic moduli of measured subjects.
The Simposium Project: Numerical Modeling of a Carbon on Steel Manufacturing Benchmark Case
Authors: Caire F.  , Granet G.  , Prémel D.  , Rubinacci G.  , Tamburrino A.  , Ventre S.
Published: February 2025

The European project SIMPOSIUM (standing for Simulation Platform for Non Destructive Evaluation of Structures and Materials) aims at developing simulation tools adapted to the needs of industrial partners, regarding non-destructive testing and material characterization techniques. This communication presents the results obtained with two different simulation methods in the case of an eddy current inspection of pieces with complex shapes.
Potential for Augmented Reality in Education: An Overview
Authors: Sheng Bin  , Xia Li  , Li Ping
Published: February 2025

The advances of Augmented Reality (AR) technology make the solving of many difficulties become possible. Decades of development in the Augmented Reality field have shown that this emerging technology has the ability to bring about sweeping improvement in numerous areas, especially in education where the AR technology could see its most meaningful fulfillment in one's development. In this paper, we present a comprehensive survey of AR technologies and applications in education domain. In the end of this paper, we summarize several future directions that the educational AR technology would be heading to. We aim to provide instructors and learners, who are using or plan to use AR as a tool in their educational practice, a useful insight into the state-of-the-art AR developments and applications.
Activity based End-User-Development for Smart Homes: Relevance and Challenges
Authors: Demeure Alexandre  , Caffiau Sybille  , Coutaz Joëlle
Published: February 2025

Ubiquitous computing is now mature enough to unleash the potential of Smart Homes. The obstacle is no more about hardware concerns but lies in how inhabitants can build, configure and control their Smart Home. In this paper, we defend the idea that End-User-Development (EUD), which considers inhabitants as makers rather than mere consumers, is an effective approach for tackling this obstacle. However, to unleash its potential, we argue that considering the Smart Home as a big computer composed a sensors and actuators that can be weaved together is not enough. We propose to use Activity Theory as a structuring framework to guide the design of futures EUD systems. We reflect on the lifecycle of devices and services to discuss challenges that EUD system will have to address in the Smart Home context: installation and maintenance, designation, control, development (including programming and testing), and sharing.
Some Thoughts About the Future of Intelligent Buildings and Smart Transportation
Authors: Liu Peng  , Zhang Shumei
Published: February 2025

With the ever accelerating advances in science and technology, it seems that almost any dream in the science fiction can become true. This paper discusses two topics that are closely related to our daily life; buildings and transportation. Although the paper was inspired by Science-Fiction Prototyping (SFP), rather than using a conventional story based approach I have adopted an essay-style to extrapolate forward my thoughts on current living conditions and trends of technology development, to explore various possibilities for future buildings and transportation For example, I present ideas for an intelligent building concept motivated by the behavior of sunflowers to improve the regulation of natural light and heat absorption in buildings. In addition, I have mused on a possible solution to current traffic congestion problems. The motivation for these ideas is to make our life more convenient and comfortable in the future.
Development of a scalable actuator control system for use in a geotechnical centrifuge
Authors: Patra Shantanu  , Knappett Jonathan  , Brown Michael  , Aldaikh Hesham
Published: February 2025

The paper details the characteristics of a single axis actuator control system, capable of conducting tests via both displacement and load control method. The scalable actuator control system or SACS, was developed at the University of Dundee to match the increasing complexity involved in motion control and load sequences during model tests in the centrifuge. The module has a single PID controller driving a single axis with provision to future expansion, a waveform generator and sequence controller; which are operated within a single intuitive user interface, LABVIEW. The interface allows a seamless switching between automated and manual control, resulting in simultaneous automated control of the actuator in load and/or displacement control.