We present results from a study examining how the physical layout of a project room and task affect the cognitive maps acquired of a connected virtual environment during mixed-presence collaboration. Results indicate that a combination of physical layout and task impacts cognitive maps of the virtual space. Participants did not form a strong model of how different physical work regions were situated relative to each other in the virtual world when the tasks performed in each region differed. Egocentric perspectives of multiple displays enforced by different furniture arrangements encouraged cognitive maps of the virtual world that reflected these perspectives, when the displays were used for the same task. These influences competed or coincided with document-based, audiovisual and interface cues, influencing collaboration. We consider the implications of our findings on WYSIWIS mappings between real and virtual for mixed-presence collaboration.

Sketching is a vital process in scientific research and procedural learning. In educational contexts, sketching helps students visualize abstract concepts and facilitates communication with their instructors as well as with other students. Inspired by a problem-based learning science class in which students use papers and pens to collaboratively sketch diagrams and equations for given problems, we aim to provide a digital tabletop platform for collaborative learning and customization. Current tabletop systems are unaffordable to be widely adopted in the classroom and are unable to identify multiple pens. We propose a pen-based tabletop system that utilizes a low-cost high-frame-rate infrared camera and HTML5 web canvas programming, making it cheaper and easier to customize for specific uses.

In this paper we present Responsive Objects, Surfaces, and Spaces (ROSS) API, a tangible toolkit that allows designers and developers to easily build applications for heterogeneous network devices. We describe the unique nested structure of the ROSS framework that enables cross-platform and device development and demonstrate its capabilities using several prototype applications.

Pictures at an Exhibition is a physical/digital puppetry piece that uses tangible interface puppets to modify a virtual scene projected at the back of the stage in real-time. The piece merges traditional puppeteering practices with tangible interaction technologies and virtual environments to create a novel performance for the live stage. This paper describes the design and development of piece, as well as our lessons learned from this process and from on-stage performances of Pictures at an Exhibition in a puppetry theatre.

In this paper, we will introduce the ROSS framework, an integrated application development toolkit that extends across different tangible platforms such as multi-user interactive tabletop displays, full-body interaction spaces, RFID-tagged objects and smartphones with multiple sensors. We will discuss how the structure of the ROSS framework is designed to accommodate a broad range of tangible platform configurations and illustrate its use on several prototype applications for digital media content interaction within education and entertainment contexts.

Pictures at an Exhibition is a physical/digital puppetry piece that uses tangible interface puppets to modify a virtual scene projected at the back of the stage in real-time. Telling the story of a heist in an art gallery, the actions of the puppets are digitally reflected in abstract changes to an artwork in the scene. The piece merges traditional puppeteering practices with tangible interaction technologies and virtual environments to create a novel performance for the live stage.

We review the creative activity in the software development process of the ROSS (Responsive Objects, Surfaces, and Spaces) API. The ROSS API is a tangible toolkit that allows designers and developers to easily build applications for many different tangible platforms while still accommodating the continued evolution of the underlying sensing technologies. This paper describes the ROSS API specification, identifies its originality and relevance to creativity, discusses the challenges of the API development process, and summarizes the lessons learned.

We report on an ethnographic study of the work practice and discovery process in a systems biology lab, and outline a tabletop visualization that was developed based on this study, in collaboration with the researchers. The feedback from the researchers on the current prototype is presented, and ongoing revisions are outlined. We conclude with some of the challenges involved in developing such tangible visualizations for discovery.

Young children often feel anxious when visiting the doctors. This paper presents mediPuppet, an interactive companion with an exploratory procedure map designed to help children feel more relaxed and comfortable during their medical procedure. The ultimate goal of this study is to transform an intimidating stressful situation into a joyful exploring game for children during hospital visits.

We reflect on our experiences using an experimental platform for rapidly prototyping physical control configurations for multiplayer games. We describe how the architecture permits novel forms of collaborative play through the combination and configuration of basic tangible/physical building blocks, the deep integration between physical and virtual objects, and flexibility in how physical and virtual spaces are mapped onto each other. We also identify three important limitations of the architecture that became apparent through our prototyping efforts.

We introduce TwinSpace, a flexible software infrastructure for combining interactive workspaces and collaborative virtual worlds. Its design is grounded in the need to support deep connectivity and flexible mappings between virtual and real spaces to effectively support collaboration. This is achieved through a robust connectivity layer linking heterogeneous collections of physical and virtual devices and services, and a centralized service to manage and control mappings between physical and virtual. In this paper we motivate and present the architecture of TwinSpace, discuss our experiences and lessons learned in building a generic framework for collaborative cross-reality, and illustrate the architecture using two implemented examples that highlight its flexibility and range, and its support for rapid prototyping.

BACKGROUND:How do clinicians determine the acceptable level of recovery of quality of life (QoL) after a burn? Many use the Burn Specific Health Scale (BSHS). The aim of this study was to examine normative values of the BSHS-Brief (BSHS-B) questionnaire in the general population. METHODS:Two random samples of the non-burned public were taken. Each individual completed either the physical or the generic questions adapted from the BSHS-B questionnaire. RESULTS:Of the 124 subjects who completed the physical questions, > 73% rated themselves 36/36. Group mean (SD) = 34.8 (2.9), median (IQR) = 36 (35-36), range 16-36. Advancing age was associated with reduced physical capability (p = 0.016). In contrast, 7.6% of the 105 subjects who answered the generic questions recorded a full score (84/84). Group mean (SD) = 71.3 (13.8), median (IQR) = 76 (66-80), range 10-84. CONCLUSION:The study showed the non-burned population do not respond with full scores to all questions in the BSHS-B. The result was more notable in the non-physical questions related to the psychological and environmental factors. The data presented prompts clinicians to collect and define acceptable recovery of quality of life after a burn as measured by the BSHS-B for their local burn population.

In this paper, we introduce approaches to navigating and manipulating objects in a Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE) that engage tangible objects and an interactive table interface. We also identify three design concerns that are common to physical-virtual connectivity for interaction with CVE systems. At last, we propose solutions to these issues within the context of CVEs.

In this paper, I propose that visualization should escape the traditional constraint of the screen and embrace the physical environment to realize more tangible interactions for manipulating digital information.

This article presents Tangible Optical Chess, a tangible version of Optical Chess, a strategy game implemented on an interactive tabletop display. We discuss the design and implementation of both systems and report our evaluation game play sessions and our observations during the open house demonstration events at our research center.

Many research efforts today explore how digitally augmented tables enable face-to-face interaction with digital content and applications. Yet the design of digital tables is still largely driven by the constraints and requirements of the underlying sensing technologies. In order to move digital tables into our real-world physical spaces, researchers need to work closely with architects and industrial designers in order to engage the knowledge and skills from a long history of physical design and fabrication in the creation of tabletop systems. This paper presents Architales, an interactive story table for gallery exhibition, developed as an experiment in physical/digital co-design. We describe the creation of the interactive table, tangible storytelling system, and story content, which evolved together in a closely unified design process, drawing on the skills from computing, media, design and architecture. We also describe lessons learned about the interdisciplinary design process and the creation of physical/digital artworks.

Introduction Computationally-enhanced tabletops featuring tangible objects for participant interaction hold promise for the creation of new forms of media, including documentaries and stories constructed by individuals or small groups in distributed or face-to-face settings. Many computer-aided storytelling systems feature either algorithms to arrange story elements automatically or story structures to guide authors in presenting their tales. In contrast, the KinoPuzzle system affords a high degree of freedom for authors in constructing tabletop experiences and for participants in exploring multi-viewpoint narratives. This format for story-telling combines the representational depth and flexibility of the digital database with the expressive power of the collage surface, offering advantages in terms of openended dialogic juxtapositions and the collaborative exploration of reality-based material. The inspiration for the KinoPuzzle system comes from the fields of social and ethnographic documentary-making and conceptual lenses from ethnography and ethnomethodology. The values embedded in these approaches to recording life are reflected in the code, data structures (or lack therefore), and visual strategies of the system. The primary goal of the system is to enable authors and readers flexibility to explore, interpret, and reinterpret multiple viewpoints within differing contexts. Our adoption of the collage tradition for organizing the display and interaction of visual and tangible content provides an open-ended framework for the composition and manipulation of viewpoints and stories. Collage as a spatial representational form may be better-suited to the presenting the conflicting “actualities” that are the subject of contemporary documentaries than narratives presented in sequence based on traditional story structures in the Aristotelian tradition.

This paper presents Tangible Tracking Table, an interactive tabletop display, and Optical Chess, a strategy game. We discuss the design and implementation of both systems and report our evaluation game play sessions with young adults, with a special focus on how the Tangible Tracking Table enhances interaction over a point-and-click interface.

Co-combustion of chicken litter with coal was performed in a laboratory-scale fluidized bed combustor to investigate the effect of chicken litter addition on the partitioning behavior of mercury. Gaseous total and elemental mercury concentrations in the flue gas were measured online, and ash was analyzed for particle-bound mercury along with other elemental and surface properties. The mercury mass balance was between 85 and 105%. The experimental results show that co-combustion of chicken litter decreases the amount of elemental and total mercury in the gas phase. Mercury content in fly ash increases with an increasing chicken litter share.

Ustilago maydis establishes a biotrophic relationship with its host plant, i.e. plant cells stay alive despite massive fungal growth in infected tissue. The genome sequence has revealed that U. maydis is poorly equipped with plant cell wall degrading enzymes and uses novel secreted protein effectors as crucial determinants for biotrophic development. Many of these effector genes are clustered and differentially regulated during plant colonization. In this review, we analyze the secretome of U. maydis by differentiating between secreted enzymes, likely structural proteins of the fungal cell wall (excluding GPI-anchored proteins) as well as likely effectors with either apoplastic or cytoplasmic function. This classification is based on the presence of functional domains, general domain structure and cysteine pattern. In addition, we discuss possible functions of selected protein classes with a special focus on disease development.