In this paper, we present a new framework for the use of Virtual Reality (VR) in engineering design for configuration applications. Traditional VR systems support the visual exploration of a design solution but do not assist the user in exploring alternative solutions based on domain knowledge. Extending previous work in the area of Intelligent Virtual Environment, we propose an intelligent con...

This paper discusses an architecture for spatially distributed storage of contextual configuration information in ubiquitous computing environments. Based on the assumption that we want to integrate arbitrary mobile clients in ubiquitous computing environments, we derive the requirements for the spatial distribution of data, transparent access to context aware configuration data, and separation...

The present study investigated haptic spatial configuration learning in deaf individuals, hearing sign language interpreters and hearing controls. In three trials, participants had to match ten shapes haptically to the cut-outs in a board as fast as possible. Deaf and hearing sign language users outperformed the hearing controls. A similar difference was observed for a rotated version of the bo...

The Fourier relation between the longitudinal degree of coherence and the radial intensity distribution of a light source can be demonstrated by two configurations of a low spatial-coherence interferometer. We propose a general configuration, which includes the two known types as special cases of the general design. Moreover, by adjusting the distance between the light source and the main lens ...

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is a human pathogen that causes acute hepatitis. When an HEV capsid protein containing a 52-amino-acid deletion at the C terminus and a 111-amino-acid deletion at the N terminus is expressed in insect cells, the recombinant HEV capsid protein can self-assemble into a T=1 virus-like particle (VLP) that retains the antigenicity of the native HEV virion. In this study, we u...

The Visual Thesaurus (VT) is a novel query approach that overcomes the lack of starting example image and provides a panel of visual patches summarizing all the regions of the database. The user composes his query by arranging these patches according to his mental image. The retrieved images are displayed with respect to their photometric descriptors and their spatial configuration. This paper ...

The detailed conformational features and dynamics of the naturally occurring deoxyribotrinucleoside diphosphates d-TpTpT and d-TpTpC have been investigated at 20 degrees C and 80 degrees C in aqueous solution by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The observed NMR parameters indicate that the conformational properties of the trimers are very similar to those of the constituent dimers and m...

Semantic scene classification is a challenging problem in computer vision. Special-purpose semantic object and material (e.g., sky and grass) detectors help, but are faulty in practice. In this paper, we propose a generative model of outdoor scenes based on spatial configurations of objects in the scene. Because the number of semantically-meaningful regions (for classification purposes) in the ...