Technologies such as smart meters and electricity feedback are becoming an increasingly compelling focus for HCI researchers in light of rising power prices and peak demand. We argue, however, that a pre-occupation with the goal of demand management has limited the scope of design for these technologies. In this paper we present our work-in-progress investigating the potential value of socially...

In this paper we propose a new kind of rules inside the regions of a P system. We have called them covering rules due to the fact that, if selected, they can manage all the objects of the region in an exhaustive manner (i.e., they cover all the objects of the region). First, we propose the formal definition of the rules and different ways of using them. This will introduce a second degree of no...

This position paper describes work that needs to be done to integrate features of security, fault tolerance, and real-time computing into object-oriented technology to produce Òdependable objects.Ó This dependable technology can be applied in the areas of database; middleware, including object-request brokers; and object-based design and analysis methodologies. The accomplishments to date of va...

This paper introduces an interaction pattern approach to "engineer" motivation. Its goal is to provide concrete ideas (in the form of patterns) on how to design software that motivates its users to stay on a task. The paper presents an example of a motivating pattern, the Task Status Display (TSD), and its empirical validation. Preliminary results support its motivational effect, thereby lendin...

The problem of digital preservation is one of the most challenging research problems faced by the community of digital libraries today, receiving growing interest by researchers and practitioners alike. One of the major gaps in the related research is the lack of a general agreement on a formal model to describe the problem or on a formal description of the required properties of a good solutio...

In product design, designers often generate a large number of concepts in the form of sketches and drawings to develop and communicate their ideas. Concrete concepts typically evolve through a progressive refinement of initially coarse and ambiguous ideas. However, a lack of suitable means to visualize the emerging form at these early stages forces the designer to constantly maintain and negoti...

A minimal quantum mechanical model for efficient molecular capture of photon energy is presented. The model is constructed from a bright electronic state which is accessed by a photoinduced transition from the ground state and an acceptor excited state which stores the photoenergy. The model permits rational design of the bright and acceptor electronic states to improve the capture of solar ene...