Posted: May 12th, 2008, 6:33pm CEST
Mobile access is the gating technology required to make information available at any place and at any time. Its application domains range from inspection, maintenance, manufacturing, and navigation to on-the-move collaboration, position sensing, and real-time speech recognition and language translation. In the course of developing wearable systems to support these applications, we have identified or refined several conceptual frameworks regarding personal computing.
At the core of these ideas is the notion that wearable computers should seek to merge the user’s information space with his or her workspace. Information tools such as wearable computers must blend seamlessly with existing work environments, providing as little distraction as possible. This requirement often leads researchers to investigate replacements for the traditional console interfaces such as a keyboard or mouse, which generally require a fixed physical relationship between the user and the device. Identifying effective interaction modalities for wearable computers and accurately modeling user tasks in the supporting software are among the most significant challenges faced by wearable system designers. Because wearable computers represent a new paradigm in computing, there is no consensus on the mechanical/software human–computer interface or the capabilities of these systems.
In offices, computers have become a primary tool, allowing workers to access the information they need to perform their jobs. Accessing information is more difficult for mobile users, however. With current computer interfaces, the user must focus both physically and mentally on the computing device instead of the environments. In a mobile environment, such interfaces may interfere with the user’s primary task. Yet many mobile tasks could benefit from computer support. Distractions are even more of a problem when they occur in mobile environments than in desktop environments because the user is often preoccupied with walking, driving, or other real-world interactions. The focus of this lecture is the design of wearable computers that augment, instead of interfere with, the user’s tasks.
Posted: May 12th, 2008, 10:19am CEST
This lecture provides an introduction to Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), a technology enabling automatic identification of objects at a distance without requiring line-of-sight. Electronic tagging can be divided into technologies that have a power source (active tags), and those that are powered by the tag interrogation signal (passive tags); the focus here is on passive tags. An overview of the principles of the technology divides passive tags into devices that use either near field or far field coupling to communicate with a tag reader. The strengths and weaknesses of the approaches are considered, along with the standards that have been put in place by ISO and EPCGlobal to promote interoperability and the ubiquitous adoption of the technology. A section of the lecture has been dedicated to the principles of reading co-located tags, as this represents a significant challenge for a technology that may one day be able to automatically identify all of the items in your shopping cart in a just few seconds. In fact, RFID applications are already quite extensive and this lecture classifies the primary uses. Some variants of modern RFID can also be integrated with sensors enabling the technology to be extended to measure parameters in the local environment, such as temperature & pressure. The uses and applications of RFID sensors are further described and classified. Later we examine important lessons surrounding the deployment of RFID for the Wal-Mart and the Metro AG store experiences, along with deployments in some more exploratory settings. Extensions of RFID that make use of read/write memory integrated with the tag are also discussed, in particular looking at novel near term opportunities. Privacy and social implications surrounding the use of RFID inspire recurring debates whenever there is discussion of large scale deployment; we examine the pros and cons of the issues and approaches for mitigating the problems. Finally, the remaining challenges of RFID are considered and we look to the future possibilities for the technology.
Posted: May 12th, 2008, 7:22am CEST
School Library Journal : "Complementary approaches to an important era in European history. The topically organized Almanac offers an ample overview describing the social, political, scientific, and religious environment that led to the Renaissance and Reformation...The Saaris' Renaissance will be a top choice for student researchers, particularly those in need of primary-source materials."
-- School Library Journal (Febraury 2003)
VOYA : "The text is well written and precise in all volumes. Vocabulary is well defined, either by parentheses in the body of the article or by accompanying glossaries. Sidebars provide additional information and biographical material that supplement the text. Suggestions are given for research projects and activities, and dated Web sites are listed for further information. An affordable, quality reference for school and public libraries as a resource for reports and projects, this set provides a vivid, sometimes chilling glimpse of the people who actually lived in this brilliant and turbulent historical period."
-- VOYA (June 2003)
Booklist : "The editors of Renaissance and Reformation have strived toward and succeeded in making a time of long ago more accessible to today's middle- and junior-high-school students...School and public libraries will find that this resource provides good information on its topic."
-- Booklist (December 2002)
This resource brings the events of the Renaissance and Reformation to life for today's students.
Renaissance and Reformation: Almanac provides extensive background information and includes exploration of both the Italian and Northern Renaissance, the Protestant, Catholic, and Counter Reformations, and much more. (20030601)
Profiles fifty people who played a significant role during the Renaissance and Reformation periods in Europe, including John Calvin, Peter Paul Rubens, Catherine de Medici, and Johannes Kepler.
Posted: May 12th, 2008, 6:43am CEST
Generations of practitioners have turned to this reference for the most recent advances in therapeutic care - including medical and surgical therapies, preventive medicine, adolescent gynecology, and behavioral issues. Now, CURRENT PEDIATRIC THERAPY is more of a bargain than ever before! The 18th Edition includes access to a web site for convenient consultation wherever and whenever you need this guidance most!
- Features the work of hundreds of today's leading experts in the field.
- Presents practical, practice-enhancing tools including pre-diagnosis management information for the initial treatment and relief of symptoms · emergency care guidelines for acute care of the pediatric patient · and treatment boxes for quick reference.
- Offers access to www.currentpediatrictherapy.com where you'll find the complete contents online, fully searchable · the text's entire collection of illustrations, downloadable into PowerPoint® for presentations · and more.
- Adds sections on Dentistry, Orthopedic Surgery, Ophthalmology, and Behavioral Science.
- Includes a new first section on Presenting Problems.
Univ. of Alabama, Birmingham. State-of-the-art in the practice of pediatrics. Contributions from a diverse group of disciplines, such as: general, cardiac, and orthopedic surgeons; neurosurgeons; urologists; dentists; and ophthalmologists. Contributors focus on approaches to management based on their personal experience and expertise. Previous edition: c1996.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. About the Author
Fredric D. Burg, MD, FAAP, Executive Director / Associate Dean's Office, UAB School of Medicine, Huntsville Campus, Huntsville, AL; Julie R. Ingelfinger, Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Division of Pediatric Nephrology, Massachusetts General Hospital for Children; Deputy Editor, New England Journal of Medicine, Boston, MA; Richard A. Polin, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons; Director, Division of Neonatology, Children's Hospital of New York, New York, NY; and Anne A. Gershon, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, Division of Infectious Diseases, Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, NY
Posted: May 12th, 2008, 6:37am CEST
Whether as a daydream or a spoken desire, nearly all of us have entertained the notion of reinventing ourselves. Feeling unfulfilled, burned out, or just plain unhappy with what we’re doing, we long to make that leap into the unknown. But we also hold on, white-knuckled, to the years of time and effort we’ve invested in our current profession.
Through engrossing stories—from a literature professor turned stockbroker to an investment banker turned novelist—Ibarra reveals a set of guidelines that all successful reinventions share. She explores specific ways that hopeful career changers of any background can:
- Explore possible selves
- Craft and execute “identity experiments”
- Create “small wins” that keep momentum going
- Survive the rocky period between career identities
- Connect with role models and mentors who can ease the transition
- Make time for reflection—without missing out on windows of opportunity
- Arrange new events into a coherent story of who we are becoming
About the Author
Herminia Ibarra is Professor of Organizational Behavior of INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France.
Posted: May 12th, 2008, 6:19am CEST
As Internet traffic continues to grow exponentially, there is a great need to build Internet protocol (IP) routers with high-speed and high-capacity packet networking capabilities. The first book to explore this subject, Packet Forwarding Technologies explains in depth packet forwarding concepts and implementation technologies. It covers the data structures, algorithms, and architectures used to implement high-speed routers.
Following an introduction to the architecture of IP routers, the author discusses how IP address lookup is one of the major bottlenecks in high-performance routers. He describes the characteristics of a routing table and addresses the difficulty of the longest-matching prefix search. The remainder of the book deals with fast IP address lookup. Coverage includes the various available architectures, data structures, and algorithms based on software and hardware as well as detailed discussions on state-of-the-art innovations.
With many illustrations, tables, and simulations, this practical guide to packet forwarding technologies facilitates understanding of IP routers and the latest router designs.
Posted: May 12th, 2008, 6:18am CEST
Light field is one of the most representative image-based rendering techniques that generate novel virtual views from images instead of 3D models. The light field capture and rendering process can be considered as a procedure of sampling the light rays in the space and interpolating those in novel views. As a result, light field can be studied as a high-dimensional signal sampling problem, which has attracted a lot of research interest and become a convergence point between computer graphics and signal processing, and even computer vision. This lecture focuses on answering two questions regarding light field sampling, namely how many images are needed for a light field, and if such number is limited, where we should capture them. The book can be divided into three parts. First, we give a complete analysis on uniform sampling of IBR data. By introducing the surface plenoptic function, we are able to analyze the Fourier spectrum of non-Lambertian and occluded scenes. Given the spectrum, we also apply the generalized sampling theorem on the IBR data, which results in better rendering quality than rectangular sampling for complex scenes. Such uniform sampling analysis provides general guidelines on how the images in IBR should be taken. For instance, it shows that non-Lambertian and occluded scenes often require a higher sampling rate. Next, we describe a very general sampling framework named freeform sampling. Freeform sampling handles three kinds of problems: sample reduction, minimum sampling rate to meet an error requirement, and minimization of reconstruction error given a fixed number of samples. When the to-be-reconstructed function values are unknown, freeform sampling becomes active sampling. Algorithms of active sampling are developed for light field and show better results than the traditional uniform sampling approach. Third, we present a self-reconfigurable camera array that we developed, which features a very efficient algorithm for real-time rendering and the ability of automatically reconfiguring the cameras to improve the rendering quality. Both are based on active sampling. Our camera array is able to render dynamic scenes interactively at high quality. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first camera array that can reconfigure the camera positions automatically.
Posted: May 12th, 2008, 6:14am CEST
Sponsored by the International Association of Facilitators, The IAF Handbook of Group Facilitation offers the need-to-know basics in the field brought together by fifty leading practitioners and scholars. This indispensable resource includes successful strategies and methods, foundations, and resources for anyone who works with groups.
The IAF Handbook of Group Facilitation provides an overview of the field for new and aspiring practitioners and a reliable reference for experienced group facilitators, including chapters on
- Creating positive ongoing client relationships
- Building trust and improving communications
- Facilitating group brainstorming sessions
- Drawing out the best in people
- Developing a collaborative environment
- Designing and facilitating dialogue
- Managing conflicting agendas
- Working with multicultural groups
- Using improvisation
- Understanding virtual meetings
- Facilitating team start-up
- Assessing group decision processes
- Building expertise in facilitation
- Reviewing core facilitation competencies
- Modeling positive professional attitudes
This wide-ranging collection also features a CD-ROM with the complete collection of articles published in the first five issues of Group Facilitation: A Research and Applications Journal.
About the Author
Sandy Schuman is president of Executive Decision Services LLC, a consulting firm in Albany, New York, specializing in strategic decision making, collaborative problem solving, consensus building, public involvement, and information management. He is also a research associate at the Center for Policy Research, University at Albany, SUNY. Schuman is the author of numerous articles and book chapters and speaks widely at conferences on facilitation, decision making, conflict resolution, and collaborative systems. He moderates the Electronic Discussion on Group Facilitation and is the editor of Group Facilitation: A Research and Applications Journal.
Posted: May 12th, 2008, 5:06am CEST
Have a Google Maps mashup that you’d like to expose to millions of users on maps.google.com? New to the mapping craze, but have an idea for a killer map–based application? Want to learn how to create GeoRSS and KML feeds with your geotagged content, exposing your customer to new ways of exploring and navigating your content?
Google Maps Mashups with Google Mapplets
- Is the first book to cover Google’s new Mapplet technology
- Shows you how to create Google Maps–based applications and publish to maps.google.com
- Provides a single–source resource and practical guide to Mapplets and mashups
- Teaches you how to mash up Mapplets using location–specific data
- Includes examples of real–world applications
What you’ll learn
Readers will be taken through the process of building a mashup of multiple data sources and APIs, using Tourfilter’s concert and event data to map concerts and venue information happening nearby. Creating GeoRSS and KML files will also be covered, showing readers how to publish their content with geographic metadata and encouraging their users to interact with their data in new and interesting ways.
Who is this book for?
This book is aimed at developers, designers, and technologists looking to explore Google’s new Mapplet technology. The book will be a great resource for those just getting into Map–based applications and mashups, as well as for seasoned Maps developers looking to reach an extended audience with their mashups on maps.google.com.
Readers of the book should be familiar with JavaScript, basic HTML and CSS, PHP, and some SQL.
About the Author
Michael Young is a Technologist in the Research & Development group of The New York Times Company. He is currently focused on building new digital media products and services, primarily in the mobile space.
Michael won the award for “Best Hack” at the Yahoo! BBC Hack Day 2007 (with colleague Nick Bilton) for their project Shifd.com. He has also created numerous Google Maps mashups, including the AP News + Google Maps mashup, http://81nassau.com.
He has a degree in computer science and mathematics from Lewis and Clark College (Portland, OR). Michael currently lives in New York City with his wife, Kim.
Posted: May 11th, 2008, 5:15pm CEST
This book is about objective image quality assessment—where the aim is to provide computational models that can automatically predict perceptual image quality. The early years of the 21st century have witnessed a tremendous growth in the use of digital images as a means for representing and communicating information. A considerable percentage of this literature is devoted to methods for improving the appearance of images, or for maintaining the appearance of images that are processed. Nevertheless, the quality of digital images, processed or otherwise, is rarely perfect. Images are subject to distortions during acquisition, compression, transmission, processing, and reproduction. To maintain, control, and enhance the quality of images, it is important for image acquisition, management, communication, and processing systems to be able to identify and quantify image quality degradations. The goals of this book are as follows; a) to introduce the fundamentals of image quality assessment, and to explain the relevant engineering problems, b) to give a broad treatment of the current state-of-the-art in image quality assessment, by describing leading algorithms that address these engineering problems, and c) to provide new directions for future research, by introducing recent models and paradigms that significantly differ from those used in the past. The book is written to be accessible to university students curious about the state-of-the-art of image quality assessment, expert industrial R&D engineers seeking to implement image/video quality assessment systems for specific applications, and academic theorists interested in developing new algorithms for image quality assessment or using existing algorithms to design or optimize other image processing applications.
The topic of image quality assessment has been around for more than four decades. But the last five years have seen a sudden acceleration in progress and interest in the area. This has corresponded with a rapid rise in interest in digital imaging in general, driven by technological advances and by the ubiquity of digital images and videos on the Internet. Modern Image Quality Assessment has three expressed goals: . Introduce the fundamentals of image quality assessment, and to explain the relevant engineering problems . Provide a broad treatment of the current state-of-the-art in image quality assessment by describing leading algorithms that address engineering problems under different assumptions . Provide new directions for future research, by introducing recent models and paradigms that significantly differ from those used in the past The book is intended for a wide readership. It will be accessible to university students curious about the state-of-the-art of image quality assessment, expert industrial R&D engineers seeking to implement image/video quality assessment systems for specific applications, and academic theorists interested in developing new algorithms for image quality assessment or using existing algorithms to design or optimize other image processing applications.
Posted: May 11th, 2008, 5:11pm CEST
"Playing computer video games can be just what you need to get a job." Could such a statement ever be true? Computer games, software, and networking technologies are often viewed as threats to the social, emotional, and physical well being and development of children. However, such beliefs are often unfounded.
This new collection of research presents a range of research on topics from the impact of ultra-violent video games on children and youth who participate in entertainment violence, to the benefits these technologies have to offer. Video games, computers, and the Internet can provide opportunities for problem solving, creativity, and autonomy, and in particular, carefully constructed software can offer an alternative to traditional classroom learning.
Children's Learning in a Digital World is one of the first books to examine the impact of computers in both formal or school learning environments and informal learning contexts. It presents exciting and challenging new ideas from international scholars on the impact of computers, the Internet, and video games on children's learning, as well as the social and cultural issues that affect technology use.
About the Author
Teena Willoughby is Professor of Child and Youth Studies at Brock University, and Director of their Research Institute for Youth Studies. She is the winner of Brock's Research Award for 2003-5, and of the Book of the Year Award for Shaffer, Wood, & Willoughby; Developmental Psychology: Childhood and Adolescence, First Canadian Edition (2002).
Eileen Wood is Professor in the Department of Psychology, Wilfrid Laurier University. She is winner of the Book of the Year Award for Shaffer, Wood, & Willoughby; Developmental psychology: Childhood and Adolescence, First Canadian Edition (2002) and for The World Of Psychology (Third Canadian Edition).
Posted: May 11th, 2008, 5:09pm CEST
In this book, you'll:
- Learn the Blend 2 and Visual Studio 2008 development environments
- Create designs using Blend 2's unique tools
- Use XAML and C# to add interactivity to your designs
- Publish your Rich Media Applications to the Web using Silverlight
The only real tool available for creating Rich Media Applications, web-based animations, and games has been Flash‚ until now! WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) and Silverlight have opened the door of Rich Media Application development to Microsoft .NET developers. With Microsoft's new Blend 2 and Visual Studio 2008, you can now create compelling Rich Media Applications complete with animations and even 3D! This book shows you how to take full advantage of Blend's new interface, together with and Silverlight's vastly improved designer-developer workflow, guiding you through every step of development from downloading and installing of the development environment through creating finished, functional projects. You'll learn how to create simple drawing applications with the InkCanvas, make tabbed and scrollable interfaces, as well as build fully featured media players, photo galleries, and interactive 3D designs. Each chapter discusses major WPF and Silverlight features, provides a hands-on tutorial, and explains how that feature is implemented in the real world. In the end, you will have a collection of impressive WPF and Silverlight applications that can be added to your portfolio. Whether you're an experienced .NET or web developer, or you're just starting out, this book will provide you with all you need to create Rich Media Applications with Expression Blend 2.
About the Author
Victor Gaudioso is a senior applications engineer for REZN8 Productions, Inc. in Hollywood, CA. Victor was a former Flash/ActionScript Engineer for an advertising agency and worked on sites for large entertainment companies such as Disney, Universal, Mattel and Warner Bros. Victor still writes tutorials and articles on Flash development for actionscript.org where he is a moderator. Currently Victor is developing WPF/Blend and Silverlight applications for clients such as Harra's and Electric Red.
