Статті в журналах з теми "Visualisation compacte"

This paper offers an analytical framework for a critical review of augmented reality visualisations in the domain of participatory spatial design in general and Participatory Architecture in particular. By offering this framework the paper aims to respond to the concern in published discourse that augmented reality visualisations are insufficient on their own to accomplish participation’s ultimate objective of social inclusion. To derive this framework the paper turns to augmented reality itself, that is, the realm of locative media practice as a whole. Illustrative examples have been reviewed to identify an overarching commonality of purpose, namely proactive spatial intervention for social inclusion. This common underpinning concept has been labelled as Locative Media Interventionism, or LMI. Finally, this compact framework has been used to evaluate augmented reality applications in participatory spatial design. A cursory evaluation of micro as well as macro scale examples indicates that the usage of this visualisation technology has yet to undergo the process of maturation that locative media in general has undergone. It has yet to evolve out from being a mere novelty to becoming a politically charged platform for delivering social inclusion

The increasing availability of textual corpora and data fetched from social networks is fuelling a huge production of works based on the model proposed by psychologist Robert Plutchik, often referred simply as the “Plutchik Wheel”. Related researches range from annotation tasks description to emotions detection tools. Visualisation of such emotions is traditionally carried out using the most popular layouts, as bar plots or tables, which are however sub-optimal. The classic representation of the Plutchik’s wheel follows the principles of proximity and opposition between pairs of emotions: spatial proximity in this model is also a semantic proximity, as adjacent emotions elicit a complex emotion (a primary dyad) when triggered together; spatial opposition is a semantic opposition as well, as positive emotions are opposite to negative emotions. The most common layouts fail to preserve both features, not to mention the need of visually allowing comparisons between different corpora in a blink of an eye, that is hard with basic design solutions. We introduce PyPlutchik the Pyplutchik package is available as a Github repository (http://github.com/alfonsosemeraro/pyplutchik) or through the installation commands pip or conda. For any enquiry about usage or installation feel free to contact the corresponding author, a Python module specifically designed for the visualisation of Plutchik’s emotions in texts or in corpora. PyPlutchik draws the Plutchik’s flower with each emotion petal sized after how much that emotion is detected or annotated in the corpus, also representing three degrees of intensity for each of them. Notably, PyPlutchik allows users to display also primary, secondary, tertiary and opposite dyads in a compact, intuitive way. We substantiate our claim that PyPlutchik outperforms other classic visualisations when displaying Plutchik emotions and we showcase a few examples that display our module’s most compelling features.

Abstract Technological advances are contributing to the search for highly efficient energy designs, and increasing interest in compact heat exchangers. Indeed, small channel diameters determine large heat transfer coefficients and condition a significant heat transfer area about the overall volume of the heat exchanger, as well as a smaller amount of refrigerant flowing in the system. Nevertheless, the operating stability and energy efficiency of compact heat exchangers are influenced by two-phase flow structures, which depend on thermal flow parameters. Knowledge of the structures formed during the condensation process is therefore essential for optimising the operation of refrigeration and air-conditioning equipment. This article presents the results from experimental studies of the HFE7100 refrigerant, from the hydrofluorocarbon group, condensation process in mini-channels with hydraulic diameters dh = 2.0 mm, 1.2 mm, 0.8 mm and 0.5 mm. Thermal flow characteristics were determined, and the forming structures of two-phase flow were recorded. The results of visualisation were subjected to morphological image analysis, based on a special algorithm written in MATLAB software. The algorithm makes it possible to determine the void fraction, which is necessary for calculating the vapour quality, as well as the area of vapour bubbles and their number, directionality and length along the x- and y-axes.

La nanophotonique a un rôle à jouer pour compacter, alléger et améliorer les systèmes optiques pour les applications de mobilité. Elle offre des solutions non accessibles à l’optique réfractive du fait de son caractère modulaire et de sa compatibilité avec les technologies planaires. En retour, de nouvelles problématiques scientifiques et technologiques lui sont posées, dont nous présentons ici quelques exemples : fonctionnalisation plasmonique d’écrans transparents, émetteur cohérent planaire vectorisé par des plasmons, adressage matriciel de pixels submicroniques.

The arrival of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) has enhanced the progress of computer visualisation from many fields. However, most of the CNNs are rely on GPUs (graphics processing units) that could needthe large computations and it requires more cost to develop the setup. Therefore, most of the manufacturers haven’t used the CNNs to inspect the defective items in theirfield. The researcher has developed a compact CNN-based model that not only achieves high performance on tiny defect inspection but can be run on low- frequency CPUs (central processing units) in this paper. This experiments indicate CNNs can be compact and hardware-friendly for future applications in the automated surface inspect (ASI)in the selected manufacturing field.

Multi-dimensional representation of urban settings has received a great deal of attention among urban planners, policy makers, and urban scholars. This is due to the fact that cities grow vertically and new urbanism strategies encourage higher density and compact city development. Advancements in computer technology and multi-dimensional geospatial data integration, analysis and visualisation play a pivotal role in supporting urban planning and design. However, due to the complexity of the models and technical requirements of the multi-dimensional city models, planners are yet to fully exploit such technologies in their activities. This paper proposes a workflow to support non-experts in using three-dimensional city modelling tools to carry out planning control amendments and assess their implications. The paper focuses on using a parametric three-dimensional (3D) city model to enable planners to measure the physical (e.g., building height, shadow, setback) and functional (e.g., mix of land uses) impacts of new planning controls. The workflow is then implemented in an inner suburb of Metropolitan Melbourne, where urban intensification strategies require the planners to carry out radical changes in regulations. This study demonstrates the power of the proposed 3D visualisation tool for urban planners at taking two-dimensional (2D) Geographic Information System (GIS) procedural modelling to construct a 3D model.

In injection moulding or in extrusion, plastication is the step during which polymer pellets are melted by the means of mechanical dissipation provided by a rotating screw and by thermal conduction coming from a heated metallic barrel. This step is crucial for melt thermal homogeneity, charge dispersion and fibre length preservation. Although there have been a large number of theoretical and experimental studies of plastication during the past decades, mostly on extrusion and mostly using the screw extraction technique, extremely few of them have dealt with trying to visualise plastication, let alone measuring the plastication profile in real-time. As a matter of fact, designing such an equipment is an arduous task. We designed an industry-sized metallic barrel, featuring 3 optical glass windows, each window possessing 3 plane faces itself to allow for visualisation and record by synchronised cameras and lightening by lasers. The laser can be used in a laser induced fluorescence or in a particle imaging velocity measurement framework. The images recorded can be further analysed by digital image processing. Preliminary results confirm the plastication theory and show a compacted solid bed and a melt pool side by side. The total plastication length is a direct function of screw rotation frequency as it is obvious from results on the melt pool width, which increases when the screw rotation frequency decreases. However, some evidence of solid bed breakage has been recorded, whereby the solid bed does not diminish continuously along the screw but is fractured in the compression zone These experimental findings are compared to predictions by a one-dimensional model of plastication

Powder metallurgy (PM) lacks a clear method to analyse the combined carbon content based on metallography visualisation, and this article describes the creation of such a method for powder materials. Different methods are used to analyse combined carbon within metallurgical samples, and the hardness of components within the automotive industry is related to this question. The main aim of this paper is to determine if optical microscopy provides a reliable means to assess the combined carbon content. For checking these items, the Optical Microscope will be used, density, hardness of sinter material, and particle size laser analysis of powder for creating the observed compact, and SEM microscope. This investigation provides standardised rules that can be implemented within any material laboratory. The analysis of powder particle size, hardness test, density check, and the investigation of the structure of powder element are presented.

In the present series of cases, 8 laparoscopic cryptorchidectomies and 4 laparoscopic ovariectomies were carried out in sedated standing horses. Sedation involved a lesser anaesthesiological risk than does general anaesthesia. As compared to laparotomic exposure, the minimally invasive laparoscopic intervention provided better visualisation, shorter operative time and faster recovery. The blood vessels supplying the testes and ovaries and the suspensory ligaments of the organs were sealed and cut with EnSeal®, an adaptive bipolar electrosurgical blood vessel- and tissue-sealing device. The clinical use of the blood vessel- and tissue-sealing device proved to be successful in all cases. Gradual separation of the intact tissue from the treated, compacted, dehydrated and homogenised tissue areas and occlusion of the lumen of blood vessels treated with the device could be observed in all histological sections. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on the use of EnSeal® for laparoscopic cryptorchidectomy and ovariectomy in horses.

Heat exchanger network (HEN) retrofit is a vital task in the process design to improve energy savings. Various types of heat exchangers such as shell and tube, double-pipe, compact plate, and spiral tube have their working temperature ranges and costs. Selecting suitable types of heat exchangers according to their temperature ranges and costs is a crucial aspect of industrial implementation. However, considering the type of heat exchangers in the HEN retrofit process is rarely seen in previous publications. This issue can be solved by the proposed Shifted Retrofit Thermodynamic Grid Diagram with the Shifted Temperature Range of Heat Exchangers (SRTGD-STR). The temperature ranges of six widely used heat exchanger types are coupled in the grid diagram. This diagram enables the visualisation of identifying the potential retrofit plan of HEN with heat-exchanger type selection. The retrofit design aims to minimise utility cost and capital cost. An illustrative example and a case study are presented to show the effectiveness of the method.

Abstract. Despite the advancements in Planning Support Systems (PSS), Geographical Information Systems (GIS), and multi-dimensional building and city modelling, we found that they are not within the factual urban planning and design practice and often do not generate expected knowledge and wisdom. In addition, there is limited application of computational generated data and visualisation in the current statutory and strategic planning processes. For example, the planning and design rules and guidelines for a compact city development need to be examined and communicated to the professionals and the community to ensure that they are fit for purpose and address the users requirements. However, the planning rules are communicated through texts and diagrams, which are very difficult to understand and there is a risk of misinterpretation, uncertainty, and dissatisfaction in urban development processes. This research leverages the emerging technologies such as Digital Twin to develop a scenario-based PSS to consider the planning controls protecting the public’s interest while optimising economic and spatial yield.

Abstract Miniaturised MEMS-based Fabry-Pérot interferometer (FPI) spectral sensors allow the design of compact spectrometers in the near infrared (NIR) range. These small-size instruments can be used for quality control of alimentation products, sorting of plastics and fabrics in respect to the material composition or defining genuineness of goods. This article describes design details and achieved results in development of an inexpensive user friendly hand-held NIR spectrometer incorporating a MEMS-FPI sensor with the spectral range of 1550–1850 nm. Implemented electronic circuitry as well as the optical configuration of the device are discussed, used electronic components and the background for the choice of the light source are presented. Furthermore, the associated software for device operation and data visualisation is described. Achieved technical parameters of the device are discussed and illustrated by examples of acquired spectra. Shared experience in operating a MEMS-FPI sensor could be especially useful for designers targeting low-cost instruments for use by general public.

Time intervals are conventionally represented as linear segments in a one-dimensional space. An alternative representation of time intervals is the triangular model (TM), which represents time intervals as points in a two-dimensional space. In this paper, the use of TM in visualising and analysing time intervals is investigated. Not only does this model offer a compact visualisation of the distribution of intervals, it also supports an innovative temporal query mechanism that relies on geometries in the two-dimensional space. This query mechanism has the potential to simplify queries that are difficult to specify using traditional linear temporal query devices. Moreover, a software prototype that implements TM in a geographical information system (GIS) is introduced. This prototype has been applied in a real scenario to analyse time intervals that were detected by a Bluetooth tracking system. This application shows that TM has the potential to support a traditional GIS to analyse interval-based geographical data.

Abstract This study presents the experimental monitoring of heat transfer performance of metal foams in transient state. Micro gas turbines require a compact recuperator with high effectiveness to achieve higher thermal efficiency. Porous media such as metal and ceramic foams are characterised by high surface-to-volume ratio. They are known to increase heat transfer and potentially can be incorporated in recuperators. Their structure is ideal for thermal management of compact and lightweight applications. The idea is to combine excellent thermal properties of metal foams with turbine gases heat fluxes exploitation, in order to elevate the temperature of a different working fluid such as water or compressed air before it enters the combustor. A novel facility was designed and developed for monitoring heat transfer mechanisms that occur in metal foams. A copper cylinder is filled with metal foam which is heated in transient state by a sudden switch from cold to hot water flow whereas a cold stream cools the device in a crossflow configuration. The study demonstrates a method based on computerisation of true-colour analysis of digital images for surface temperature visualisation using thermochromic liquid crystals (TLC). Results of temperature as well as local and mean heat transfer coefficient were obtained showing that the hot flow inside the foam was more dominant in heat transfer than the cold flow in the empty channel. The method is promising for the evaluation of transient phenomena in a tube that is filled with porous media.

This paper examines the spatial visualization of the relationships amongst three factors viz., standardization related activities, intellectual property related activities and R&D activities. The inverse of the correlation coefficients between each pair among the three factors is used to measure the distances graphically. This is expressed by a ‘triangle-shaped model.’ For the electric machinery industry in Japan, these three factors form more compact triangles when compared with all industries in Japan. The difference in the shape of the triangles reflects the closeness among the three factors, especially in terms of standardization in these industries. This methodology is expected to be useful for establishing robust and comprehensive technology management systems for corporate R&D activities. Such technology management systems can allow for the protection of proprietary R&D information and promote information gathering during standardization activities.

Abstract. Geospatial data acquisition of terrains produces huge, noisy and scattered point clouds. An efficient use of the acquired data requires structured and compact data representations. Working directly in a point cloud is often not appealing. To face this challenge, approximation with tensor product B-spline surfaces is attractive. It reduces the point cloud description to relatively few coefficients compared to the volume of the original point cloud. However, this representation lacks the ability to adapt the resolution of the shape to local variations in the point cloud. The result is frequently that noise is approximated and that surfaces have unwanted oscillations.Locally Refined (LR) B-spline surfaces were introduced to face this challenge and provide a tool for approximating Geographic Information System point clouds. In our LR B-spline based approximation algorithm, iterative least-squares approximation is combined with a Multilevel B-spline Approximation to reduce memory consumption. We apply the approach to data sets from coastal regions in Norway and the Netherlands, and compare the obtained approximation with a raster method. We further highlight the potential of LR B-spline volumes for spatio-temporal visualisation of deformation patterns.

The ice caps of Nordaustlandet, Svalbard, represent one of the largest glaciated areas outside of Antarctica and Greenland. They demonstrate a variety of different flow regimes within a comparatively compact area. We report on the first interferometrically derived elevation models and velocity visualisations of Austfonna. This initial investigation had three purposes: to determine whether the coherence and velocity characteristics of the region permitted interferometric survey; to determine the accuracy of derived elevations; and to assess the possibility of investigating time-variant flow of the more dynamic ice bodies using differential interferometry. A trio of coherent synthetic aperture radar images from ERS-1 ’s First Ice Phase was identified. The images were combined to separate the topographic and velocity components of the resultant interferograms. The topographic phase difference was used to produce a digital elevation model of Austfonna. Its accuracy relative to radio-echo-sounding derived tie-points is 8 m and its resolution 40 m. We also present synoptic views of the velocity field of three of Austfonna’s drainage basins, and comment on the extraction of useful velocity information.

The ice caps of Nordaustlandet, Svalbard, represent one of the largest glaciated areas outside of Antarctica and Greenland. They demonstrate a variety of different flow regimes within a comparatively compact area. We report on the first interferometrically derived elevation models and velocity visualisations of Austfonna. This initial investigation had three purposes: to determine whether the coherence and velocity characteristics of the region permitted interferometric survey; to determine the accuracy of derived elevations; and to assess the possibility of investigating time-variant flow of the more dynamic ice bodies using differential interferometry. A trio of coherent synthetic aperture radar images from ERS-1 ’s First Ice Phase was identified. The images were combined to separate the topographic and velocity components of the resultant interferograms. The topographic phase difference was used to produce a digital elevation model of Austfonna. Its accuracy relative to radio-echo-sounding derived tie-points is 8 m and its resolution 40 m. We also present synoptic views of the velocity field of three of Austfonna’s drainage basins, and comment on the extraction of useful velocity information.

Urgency of the research. Programmable logic controller are devices for controlling of various systems also in industry. If controlled device is complicated, it is problem to debug application, because of risk of its damage. For this purpose is better to use hardware training stand for testing of your designed application. Target setting. Training stand is as compact small device which is easy to move to another place. Also it allows to connect other hardware device for testing. Logical state hardware simulator is also designed for simulation of logic system with any user inputs with buttons or switches and also witch coloured lights for visualisation of output state.Actual scientific researches and issues analysis. Training set allows to make simulation of control system with real parts before its practical use with expensive controlled system, where any mistake can cause a huge economist loses, but errors occurred during the simulation on training set only make warning and shows the weak place on design. Uninvestigated parts of general matters defining. The questions of the networked structure of programmable logic controller structures are uninvestigated, so the next research will be focused to this. The research objective. The main goal is to create a compact device for training future application developers with a programmable logic controller, but it is also usable for developers from practice, who need to debug the program before installing it into real operation. The statement of basic materials. Existing training sets are large and expensive devices that are not easy to carry and cannot be expanded. Working with such devices is quite complicated. The designed training stand is a flexible and easily portable device. Conclusions. Main contribution is that students will gain practical experiences and skills that are essential for PLC programmers. This device supports also own creativity of students, because it allows to modify hardware composition. It uses the DIN rail system similar as in real installation cabinet. The stand also includes the human-machine interface for training of practical using of these devices.

Abstract Cosmic rays continuously bombard Earth’s atmosphere triggering cascades of secondary particles. Many constituents progress to reach the surface and capturing these events can intrigue and awe young curious minds, opening them to the amazing world of physics. Cloud chambers are an established method of revealing the subatomic world; frequently used by universities to introduce cosmic rays to visitors and prospective students, they provide a fascinating real-time display of the ‘ghostly’ particles showering upon those viewing. Using the Cherenkov radiation detection technique, we have developed a novel, compact, Extensive Air Shower (EAS) particle tracking method that enhances the cloud chamber visualisation of cosmic ray interactions towards a digital audience. Once digital, live event interaction can be streamed to multiple display devices presenting an immediate illustration of the event that showered in that location. Our instrument hardware is built around Cherenkov-optimised silicon photomultiplier sensors. Each single detection unit monitors particle event rate and tracks incident angle by measuring Cherenkov intensity. By operating multiple detection units in one location, we can record time correlated air shower events to monitor and collate information on the primary cosmic rays. We introduce first results, illustrating instrument response and EAS rate variations, compiled from the initial running period of our development instruments. We present intensity spectra, compare with simulation, and describe the instrument response due to sensor location, Cherenkov intensity, mean muon energy and detector acceptance angle. With further development towards low-cost readout electronics, we aim to build a networked array of trackers, located around the campus, to expand data gathering ability and scientific potential.

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> New urban strategies encourage compact city and higher density urban development due to unprecedented city growth and rapid urbanisation. This has led to greater attention to multi-dimensional representation, modelling and analytics of urban settings among urban planners, decision makers, and researchers. Nowadays, urban planning and urban design practitioners and scholars leverage the advancements in computer technology and multi-dimensional visualisation in examining the development scenarios from physical, environmental, social, and economic aspects. However, many urban planners still rely on two-dimensional (2D) land information and urban designers use three-dimensional (3D) graphic-based engines to asses a proposed building or assess the impact of changing development regulations. This limits the decision makers from a holistic approach through integrating the urban systems with other application domains such as transport, environmental, and disaster management to ensure the liveability of cities. This paper describes the design, and development of a multi-dimensional and spatially enabled platform to support liveability planning in Singapore. A Quantitative Urban Environment Simulation Tool (QUEST), developed in Singapore, leveraged 3D mapping data captured under the Singapore Land Authority’s (SLA) 3D National Topographic Mapping project. SLA's 3D data including Building Information Model (BIM), CityGML, and other geospatial data (building footprints and land use) were processed and adapted as a service for a series of urban analytics. The paper concludes that the prerequisites for any urban environmental simulation system to be integrated with other application domains are 3D mapping data and a digital urban model, which must be spatially accurate and based on open data standards.</p>

Studies of Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) properties, such as duration and spectral hardness, have found evidence for additional classes, beyond the short/hard and long/soft prototypes, using model-dependent methods. In this paper, a model-independent approach was used to analyse the gamma-ray light curves of large samples of GRBs detected by BATSE, Swift/BAT and Fermi/GBM. All the features were extracted from the GRB time profiles in four energy bands using the Stationary Wavelet Transform and Principal Component Analysis. t-distributed Stochastic Neighbourhood Embedding (t-SNE) visualisation of the features revealed two distinct groups of Swift/BAT bursts using the T100 interval with 64 ms resolution data. When the same analysis was applied to 4 ms resolution data, two groups were seen to emerge within the first second (T1) post-trigger. These two groups primarily consisted of short/hard (Group 1) and long/soft (Group 2) bursts, and were 95% consistent with the groups identified using the T100 64 ms resolution data. Kilonova candidates, arising from compact object mergers, were found to belong to Group 1, while those events with associated supernovae fell into Group 2. Differences in cumulative counts between the two groups in the first second, and in the minimum variability timescale, identifiable only with the 4 ms resolution data, may account for this result. Short GRBs have particular significance for multi-messenger science as a distinctive EM signature of a binary merger, which may be discovered by its gravitational wave emissions. Incorporating the T1 interval into classification algorithms may support the rapid classification of GRBs, allowing for an improved prioritisation of targets for follow-up observations.

The shortwave infrared spectral region (SWIR: 1-3 mm) is particularly powerful for health and environmental monitoring, enabling greater penetration depth and improved resolution in comparison to visible light. However, conventional SWIR sensors are limited by complex die transfer and bonding processing. This presentation will discuss the advances made in organic infrared detectors to overcome the issues in conventional SWIR detectors. The organic devices show photo-response spanning from the visible to 1.7 micron, using a new generation of semiconducting polymers that are processed by solution processing techniques and allow simple direct deposition. We will discuss the recent progress in identifying avenues that will improve sensor detector, such as understanding the origin of efficiency losses and materials optimization. Several demonstrations will show the various potential applications of organic infrared imagers, particularly for an up-conversion structure that combine photo-sensing and display in a compact structure without the need for pixilation. The imaging active area of 2 cm2 enabled concurrent recording of blood vessel location and blood flow pulses. In addition to visualisation of infrared radiation, we are also developing the integration of redox polymers into supercapacitor structures to serve as energy supplies for wireless electronics. A new Faradaic electrode material comprised of a narrow bandgap donor−acceptor conjugated enhanced charge delocalization and thus improved stability dramatically. The supercapacitors were patterned by electrodeposition and showed a high areal power density of 227 mW/cm2, enabling rapid charging and high power output. The capacitance retention was 84% after 11,000 full redox cycles, offering the critical benefit of long cycle life. This work demonstrated the application of a new class of stable redox-active materials suitable to meet the energy storage needs for short-range wireless electronics.

The T (Brachyury) deletion in mouse is responsible for defective primitive streak and notochord morphogenesis, leading to a failure of the axis to elongate properly posterior to the forelimb bud. T/T embryonic stem (ES) cells colonise wild-type embryos, but in chimeras at 10.5 days post coitum (dpc) onwards they are found predominantly in the distal tail, while trunk paraxial and lateral mesoderm are deficient in T/T cells (Wilson, V., Rashbass, P. and Beddington, R. S. P. (1992) Development 117, 1321–1331). To determine the origin of this abnormal tissue distribution, we have isolated T/T and control T/+ ES cell clones which express lacZ constitutively using a gene trap strategy. Visualisation of T/T cell distribution in chimeric embryos throughout gastrulation up to 10.5 dpc shows that a progressive buildup of T/T cells in the primitive streak during gastrulation leads to their incorporation into the tailbud. These observations make it likely that one role of the T gene product is to act during gastrulation to alter cell surface (probably adhesion) properties as cells pass through the primitive streak. As the chimeric tail elongates at 10.5 dpc, abnormal morphology in the most distal portion becomes apparent. Comparison of T expression in the developing tailbud with the sites of accumulation of T/T cells in chimeras shows that T/T cells collect in sites where T would normally be expressed. T expression becomes internalised in the tailbud following posterior neuropore closure while, in abnormal chimeric tails, T/T cells remain on the surface of the distal tail. We conclude that prevention of posterior neuropore closure by the wedge of T/T cells remaining in the primitive streak after gastrulation is one source of the abnormal tail phenotypes observed. Accumulation of T/T cells in the node and anterior streak during gastrulation results in the preferential incorporation of T/T cells into the ventral portion of the neural tube and axial mesoderm. The latter forms compact blocks which are often fused with the ventral neural tube, reminiscent of the notochordal defects seen in intact mutants. Such fusions may be attributed to cell-autonomous changes in cell adhesion, possibly related to those observed at earlier stages in the primitive streak.

The article presents the results of biological tissue imaging with a tunable broadband LED illuminator with adjustable color and correlated color temperature of white light characterized by high color rendering indices. Color imaging of tissue is the basis for diagnostic procedures in various disease states. For this reason, it is essential to optimize the illumination so that differences in tissue color are highlighted not only by improved color fidelity but also by high color contrast. Full Text: PDF References M.H. Tran, B. Fei, "Compact and ultracompact spectral imagers: technology and applications in biomedical imaging", J Biomed Opt 28, 4 (2023). CrossRef E.J.M. Baltussen, E.N.D. Kok, S.G.J. Brouwer de Koning, "Hyperspectral imaging for tissue classification, a way toward smart laparoscopic colorectal surgery", J Biomed Opt 24, 1 (2019). CrossRef N.T. Clancy, G. Jones, L. Maier-Hein, D.S. Elson, and D. Stoyanov, "Surgical spectral imaging", Med Image Anal 63, 101699 (2020). CrossRef R. Zhang, Z. Guo, Y. Chen, "A Deep Learning-Aided Remote Spectrally Tunable LED Light Source Integrated System", IEEE Trans Instrum Meas 72, 1 (2023). CrossRef P. Liu, H. Wang, Y. Zhang, "Investigation of self-adaptive LED surgical lighting based on entropy contrast enhancing method", Opt Commun 319, 133 (2014). CrossRef J. Shen, S. Chang, H. Wang, Z. Zheng, Light. "Optimising the illumination spectrum for enhancing tissue visualisation", Res. Technol. 51, 99 (2019). CrossRef K. Kameyama, T. Ohbayashi, K. Uehara, A. Koga, Y. Hata, "The Influence of Illumination Color on the Subjective Visual Recognition of Biological Specimens", Yonago Acta Med 63, 266 (2020). CrossRef H. Wang, R.H. Cuijpers, M. R. Luo, I. Heynderickx, and Z. Zheng, "Optimal illumination for local contrast enhancement based on the human visual system", J Biomed Opt 20, 015005 (2015). CrossRef J. Mundinger, K. Houser, "Adjustable correlated colour temperature for surgical lighting", Light. Res. Technol. 51, 280 (2019). CrossRef M.A. Ilișanu, F. Moldoveanu, A. Moldoveanu, "Multispectral Imaging for Skin Diseases Assessment—State of the Art and Perspectives", Sensor 23, 3888 (2023). CrossRef K.L. Hanlon, G. Wei, L. Correa-Selm, and J.M. Grichnik, "Dermoscopy and skin imaging light sources: a comparison and review of spectral power distribution and color consistency", J Biomed Opt 27, 080902 (2022). CrossRef O.V. Mamontov, A.V. Shcherbinin, R.V. Romashko, "Intraoperative Imaging of Cortical Blood Flow by Camera-Based Photoplethysmography at Green Light", Appl Sci 10, 6192 (2020). CrossRef F.J. Burgos-Fernández, T. Alterini, F. Diaz-Douton, L. Gonzales, C. Mateo, C. Mestre, J. Pujol, M.Vilaseca, "Reflectance evaluation of eye fundus structures with a visible and near-infrared multispectral camera", Biomed Opt Express 13, 3504 (2022). CrossRef D. Kapsokalyvas, N. Bruscino, "Spectral morphological analysis of skin lesions with a polarization multispectral dermoscope", Opt Express 21, 4826 (2013). CrossRef J. Yang, H. Xu, F. Zhang, Z. Wang, P. Xu, "Enhancing local color contrast by optimizing multichannel LED light sources", Opt. Eng. 57, 1 (2018). CrossRef N. Posner, A. Stefanidi, J. Hanhart, Biomed. Eng. Res. (2020). DirectLink U.J. Blaszczak, L. Gryko, A. Zajac, "Tunable white light source for medical applications", Proc. SPIE, 10445 (2017), CrossRef L. Gryko, U. J. Blaszczak, A.S. Zajac, "Colorimetric characterization of the tunable LED-based light source at the output of the homogenizing rod", Proc SPIE, 1080811 (2018). CrossRef U.J. Błaszczak, Ł. Gryko, A.S. Zając, "Characterization of multi-emitter tuneable led source for endoscopic applications", Metrol. Meas. Syst. 26, 153 (2019). CrossRef U.J. Błaszczak, M. Gilewski, Ł. Gryko, A.S. Zając, "Badanie wpływu sposobu zasilania na wybrane parametry optyczne zestawu diod elektroluminescencyjnych", Przeglad Elektrotechniczny 92, 150 (2016). CrossRef

Abstract Studying gene family evolution strongly benefits from insightful visualisations. However, the ever-growing number of sequenced genomes is leading to increasingly larger gene families, which challenges existing gene tree visualisations. Indeed, most of them present users with a dilemma: display complete but intractable gene trees, or collapse subtrees, thereby hiding their children's information. Here, we introduce Matreex, a new dynamic tool to scale-up the visualisation of gene families. Matreex’s key idea is to use “phylogenetic” profiles, which are dense representations of gene repertoires, to minimise the information loss when collapsing subtrees. We illustrate Matreex’s usefulness with three biological applications. First, we demonstrate on the MutS family the power of combining gene trees and phylogenetic profiles to delve into precise evolutionary analyses of large multi-copy gene families. Secondly, by displaying 22 intraflagellar transport gene families across 622 species cumulating 5’500 representatives, we show how Matreex can be used to automate large-scale analyses of gene presence-absence. Notably, we report for the first time the complete loss of intraflagellar transport in the myxozoan Thelohanellus kitauei. Finally, using the textbook example of visual opsins, we show Matreex’s potential to create easily interpretable figures for teaching and outreach. Matreex is available from the Python Package Index (pip install matreex) with the source code and documentation available at https://github.com/DessimozLab/matreex.

Abstract Real-time, three-dimensional (3D) visualisation technology can be used at construction sites to improve the quality of work. A 3D view of the landscape under work can be compared to a target 3D model of the landscape to conveniently show needed excavation tasks to a human excavator operator or to show the progress of an autonomous excavator. The purpose of this study was to demonstrate surface visualisation from measurements taken with a pulsed time-of-flight (TOF) 2D profilometer on-board a semiautonomous excavator. The semiautomatic excavator was implemented by recording the feedback script parameters from the work performed on the excavator by a human driver. 3D visualisation maps based on the triangle mesh technique were generated from the 3D point cloud using measurements of the trenches dug by a human and an autonomous excavator. The accuracy of the 3D maps was evaluated by comparing them to a high-resolution commercial 3D scanner. An analysis of the results shows that the 2D profilometer attached to the excavator can achieve almost the same 3D results as a high-quality on-site static commercial 3D scanner, whilst more easily providing an unobstructed view of the trench during operation (a 3D scanner placed next to a deep trench might not have a full view of the trench). The main technical advantages of our 2D profilometer are its compact size, measurement speed, lack of moving parts, robustness, low-cost technology that enables visualisations from a unique viewpoint on the boom of the excavator, and readiness for real-time control of the excavator’s system. This research is expected to encourage the efficiency of the digging process in the future, as well as to provide a remarkable view of trench work using an excavator as a moving platform to facilitate data visualisation. Graphical abstract

Multivariate hierarchical data has an important role in many applications. To find the best visualisation that best fits a concrete data is crucial to explore and understand the relationships between the data. This paper proposes a categorisation – Elongated and Compact – of hierarchical data based on the inner shapes of the hierarchies, that is the connectivity degree of the internal nodes, the number of nodes, etc, that can be applied to any hierarchical data. Based on this taxonomy, we explore implicit and explicit layouts – Tree, Circle Packing, Force and Radial – to provide users with a complete view of the data. We hypothesise that Tree and Circle Packing fit with Elongated structures, and Force and Radial fit with Compact ones. In addition, we cluster multivariate features to embed them in the hierarchical layouts. Especially, we propose two different glyphs – one-by-one and all-in-one, and we bet for the one-by-one glyphs as the most suitable for showing the distribution of several features along with the hierarchical structures. To validate our hypotheses, we conducted a user study with 35 participants using a hate speech annotated corpus. This corpus comes from 4359 comments posted in online Spanish newspapers. The results indicated that users preferred the Tree layout over the other three layouts (Circle, Force, Radial) with both types of structures (EC and CC). However, when we focused the analysis only on Radial and Force layouts, both of them scored significantly higher with Compact than with Elongated data. Moreover, participants scored the one-by-one glyph higher than the all-in-one glyph, but the difference was not significant.

AbstractThe E. coli membrane protein ZipA, binds to the tubulin homologue FtsZ, in the early stage of cell division. We isolated ZipA in a Styrene Maleic Acid lipid particle (SMALP) preserving its position and integrity with native E. coli membrane lipids. Direct binding of ZipA to FtsZ is demonstrated, including FtsZ fibre bundles decorated with ZipA. Using Cryo-Electron Microscopy, small-angle X-ray and neutron scattering, we determine the encapsulated-ZipA structure in isolation, and in complex with FtsZ to a resolution of 1.6 nm. Three regions can be identified from the structure which correspond to, SMALP encapsulated membrane and ZipA transmembrane helix, a separate short compact tether, and ZipA globular head which binds FtsZ. The complex extends 12 nm from the membrane in a compact structure, supported by mesoscale modelling techniques, measuring the movement and stiffness of the regions within ZipA provides molecular scale analysis and visualisation of the early divisome.

The Ragnarok project is an experimental computer science project within the field of software development environments. Taking current problems in software engineering as starting point, a small set of hypotheses are proposed, outlining plausible solutions for problems concerning the management of the development process and its associated data, and outlining how these solutions can be supported directly in a development environment. These hypotheses are all deeply rooted in the viewpoint that the logical software architecture forms a natural and powerful framework for handling essential aspects of the development process. <br /> <br /> The main contributions presented in the thesis have evolved from work with two of the hypotheses: These address the problems of management of evolution, and overview, comprehension and navigation respectively. <br /> <br /> The first main contribution is the Architectural Software Configuration Management Model: A software configuration management model where the abstractions and hierarchy of the logical aspect of software architecture forms the basis for version control and configuration management. The second main contribution is the Geographic Space Architecture Visualisation Model: A visualisation model where entities in a software architecture are organised geographically in a two-dimensional plane, their visual appearance determined by processing a subset of the data in the entities, and interaction with the project's underlying data performed by direct manipulation of the landscape entities. <br /> <br /> A major effort has been invested in the design, development and deployment of a prototype software development environment, Ragnarok, that implements the core of these models. The Ragnarok prototype has been used in three, small- to medium-sized, real development projects for nearly three years. <br /> <br /> The main results from the three case studies are the following: The architectural software configuration management model is a natural and viable model for configuration management, at least for small- to medium-sized systems. The model's main assets are that it minimises the gap between the concepts used in the development domain and configuration domain; and its emphasis on bound configurations ensures traceability and reproducibility of configurations and architectural changes. The geographic space architecture visualisation model is a viable model for visualising the logical aspect of an architecture. The model's main assets are enhanced navigational abilities as the focus is shifted from name-based to location-based search which allows humans' fine spatial memory to be exploited; and strengthened overview as the architecture is visible and readily accessible in a compact form.

Compact settlements take advantage of economies of scale by sustaining a system of high-quality socio-economic services at close proximities. Urban density with a balanced mix of uses also benefits walking and cycling as mobility modes that provide sufficient access to urban amenities, especially when combined with effective public transport. Indeed, walking and cycling can decrease the use of cars for short-distance trips. From this perspective, urban density can help to reduce pollution, optimise energy consumption and decrease infrastructural expenditures while contributing to more attractive urban environments. These ideas have induced a new wave of time geography planning concepts, such as the ‘10-minute city’, to enhance urban sustainability. For these concepts to move beyond visionary narratives, they must be expressed in specific empirical frameworks. Thus, the current research focuses on accessibility to grocery shops, as an essential urban service, in the Stavanger metropolitan area (Norway) using 10 minutes isochrones for walking and cycling. The study integrates open data, GIS network analyses, statistical regressions and bivariate representations of the results. The research estimates the level of serviceability by quantifying the number of shops that are accessible for each location and interrelates this estimation with spatial and population densities. The paper also presents a method to detect spatial inequalities by visualising over/under-serviced areas. This visualisation can become a tool to support strategies to rebalance such imbalances. Moreover, this study offers a practical approach towards the ‘10-minute city’ concept, as it can be adjusted to different isochrones at different spatial scales. In general, this approach can serve both to analyse existing contexts and to model strategies to support sustainability policies, such as urban densification and the promotion of environmental-friendly transport.

Résumé Notre article développe une analyse des méthodes et stratégies de représentation visuelle de la stratification de couches temporelles dans deux disciplines qui visent la datation de phénomènes et d’objets : l’astrophysique et l’archéologie. Cette analyse vise à un inventaire des différents statuts des images mis en jeu par ces deux disciplines dans le but commun de représenter la stratification temporelle. Il s’agit en effet de montrer comment ce même objectif peut impliquer des techniques et des résultats iconographiques très différents dans les deux cas et de voir comment ces différentes solutions peuvent être comparables. Plus spécifiquement, l’analyse sémiotique porte sur la comparaison entre les images produites en astrophysique par l’analyse spectrale (du domaine radio au domaine gamma) et les images produites dans le domaine de l’archéologie, à savoir les images des stratifications des sols et des installations enfouies obtenues à travers des méthodes non invasives, telles la prospection aérienne et les prospections géophysiques. On part de l’hypothèse que les méthodes de fabrication d’images de ces disciplines sont comparables parce que toutes deux relèvent de visualisations qui reconstruisent les données en laboratoire (imagerie), mais on étudie aussi les différents niveaux d’« allographisation » (Nelson Goodman) de ces données requis par les deux disciplines (très élevé dans le cas de l’astrophysique, moins élevé dans le cas de l’archéologie) en faisant l’hypothèse que ces niveaux d’allographisation sont liés et justifiés par des sous-objectifs concernant la représentation de la succession temporelle. En effet, les images en archéologie ont pour but de mettre en évidence les différentes couches temporelles du passé cachées à notre perception directe, tandis que les images en astrophysique visent à construire une mosaïque temporelle du passé, du présent et du futur des astres. La visée principale de l’analyse des corpus consiste enfin à comprendre comment les images incarnent les différents sous-objectifs des deux disciplines : compacter ce qui est diffusé dans l’univers dans un cas, exfolier ce qui est stratifié dans le sous-sol dans l’autre.

IntroductionRegional identity is a constant construction, in which landscape, human activity and cultural imaginary build a narrative of place. For the Tasmanian Midlands, the interactions between history, ecology and agriculture both define place and present problems in how to recognise, communicate and balance these interactions. In this sense, regionality is defined not so much as a relation of margin to centre, but as a specific accretion of environmental and cultural histories. According weight to more-than-human perspectives, a region can be seen as a constellation of plant, animal and human interactions and demands, where creative art and design can make space and give voice to the dynamics of exchange between the landscape and its inhabitants. Consideration of three recent art and design projects based in the Midlands reveal the potential for cross-disciplinary research, embedded in both environment and community, to create distinctive and specific forms of connectivity that articulate a regional identify.The Tasmanian Midlands have been identified as a biodiversity hotspot (Australian Government), with a long history of Aboriginal cultural management disrupted by colonial invasion. Recent archaeological work in the Midlands, including the Kerry Lodge Archaeology and Art Project, has focused on the use of convict labour during the nineteenth century in opening up the Midlands for settler agriculture and transport. Now, the Midlands are placed under increasing pressure by changing agricultural practices such as large-scale irrigation. At the same time as this intensification of agricultural activity, significant progress has been made in protecting, preserving and restoring endemic ecologies. This progress has come through non-government conservation organisations, especially Greening Australia and their program Tasmanian Island Ark, and private landowners placing land under conservation covenants. These pressures and conservation activities give rise to research opportunities in the biological sciences, but also pose challenges in communicating the value of conservation and research outcomes to a wider public. The Species Hotel project, beginning in 2016, engaged with the aims of restoration ecology through speculative design while The Marathon Project, a multi-year curatorial art project based on a single property that contains both conservation and commercially farmed zones.This article questions the role of regionality in these three interconnected projects—Kerry Lodge, Species Hotel, and Marathon—sited in the Tasmanian Midlands: the three projects share a concern with the specificities of the region through engagement with specifics sites and their histories and ecologies, while also acknowledging the forces that shape these sites as far more mobile and global in scope. It also considers the interdisciplinary nature of these projects, in the crossover of art and design with ecological, archaeological and agricultural practices of measuring and intervening in the land, where communication and interpretation may be in tension with functionality. These projects suggest ways of working that connect the ecological and the cultural spheres; importantly, they see rural locations as sites of knowledge production; they test the value of small-scale and ephemeral interventions to explore the place of art and design as intervention within colonised landscape.Regions are also defined by overlapping circles of control, interest, and authority. We test the claim that these projects, which operate through cross-disciplinary collaboration and network with a range of stakeholders and community groups, successfully benefit the region in which they are placed. We are particularly interested in the challenges of working across institutions which both claim and enact connections to the region without being centred there. These projects are initiatives resulting from, or in collaboration with, University of Tasmania, an institution that has taken a recent turn towards explicitly identifying as place-based yet the placement of the Midlands as the gap between campuses risks attenuating the institution’s claim to be of this place. Paul Carter, in his discussion of a regional, site-specific collaboration in Alice Springs, flags how processes of creative place-making—operating through mythopoetic and story-based strategies—requires a concrete rather than imagined community that actively engages a plurality of voices on the ground. We identify similar concerns in these art and design projects and argue that iterative and long-term creative projects enable a deeper grappling with the complexities of shared regional place-making. The Midlands is aptly named: as a region, it is defined by its geographical constraints and relationships to urban centres. Heading south from the northern city of Launceston, travellers on the Midland Highway see scores of farming properties networking continuously for around 175 kilometres south to the outskirts of Brighton, the last major township before the Tasmanian capital city of Hobart. The town of Ross straddles latitude 42 degrees south—a line that has historically divided Tasmania into the divisions of North and South. The region is characterised by extensive agricultural usage and small remnant patches of relatively open dry sclerophyll forest and lowland grassland enabled by its lower attitude and relatively flatter terrain. The Midlands sit between the mountainous central highlands of the Great Western Tiers and the Eastern Tiers, a continuous range of dolerite hills lying south of Ben Lomond that slope coastward to the Tasman Sea. This area stretches far beyond the view of the main highway, reaching east in the Deddington and Fingal valleys. Campbell Town is the primary stopping point for travellers, superseding the bypassed towns, which have faced problems with lowering population and resulting loss of facilities.Image 1: Southern Midland Landscape, Ross, Tasmania, 2018. Image Credit: Patrick Sutczak.Predominantly under private ownership, the Tasmanian Midlands are a contested and fractured landscape existing in a state of ecological tension that has occurred with the dominance of western agriculture. For over 200 years, farmers have continually shaped the land and carved it up into small fragments for different agricultural agendas, and this has resulted in significant endemic species decline (Mitchell et al.). The open vegetation was the product of cultural management of land by Tasmanian Aboriginal communities (Gammage), attractive to settlers during their distribution of land grants prior to the 1830s and a focus for settler violence. As documented cartographically in the Centre for 21st Century Humanities’ Colonial Frontier Massacres in Central and Eastern Australia 1788–1930, the period 1820–1835, and particularly during the Black War, saw the Midlands as central to the violent dispossession of Aboriginal landowners. Clements argues that the culture of violence during this period also reflected the brutalisation that the penal system imposed upon its subjects. The cultivation of agricultural land throughout the Midlands was enabled by the provision of unfree convict labour (Dillon). Many of the properties granted and established during the colonial period have been held in multi-generational family ownership through to the present.Within this patchwork of private ownership, the tension between visibility and privacy of the Midlands pastures and farmlands challenges the capacity for people to understand what role the Midlands plays in the greater Tasmanian ecology. Although half of Tasmania’s land areas are protected as national parks and reserves, the Midlands remains largely unprotected due to private ownership. When measured against Tasmania’s wilderness values and reputation, the dry pasturelands of the Midland region fail to capture an equivalent level of visual and experiential imagination. Jamie Kirkpatrick describes misconceptions of the Midlands when he writes of “[f]latness, dead and dying eucalypts, gorse, brown pastures, salt—environmental devastation […]—these are the common impression of those who first travel between Spring Hill and Launceston on the Midland Highway” (45). However, Kirkpatrick also emphasises the unique intimate and intricate qualities of this landscape, and its underlying resilience. In the face of the loss of paddock trees and remnants to irrigation, change in species due to pasture enrichment and introduction of new plant species, conservation initiatives that not only protect but also restore habitat are vital. The Tasmanian Midlands, then, are pastoral landscapes whose seeming monotonous continuity glosses over the radical changes experienced in the processes of colonisation and intensification of agriculture.Underlying the Present: Archaeology and Landscape in the Kerry Lodge ProjectThe major marker of the Midlands is the highway that bisects it. Running from Hobart to Launceston, the construction of a “great macadamised highway” (Department of Main Roads 10) between 1820–1850, and its ongoing maintenance, was a significant colonial project. The macadam technique, a nineteenth century innovation in road building which involved the laying of small pieces of stone to create a surface that was relatively water and frost resistant, required considerable but unskilled labour. The construction of the bridge at Kerry Lodge, in 1834–35, was simultaneous with significant bridge buildings at other major water crossings on the highway, (Department of Main Roads 16) and, as the first water crossing south of Launceston, was a pinch-point through which travel of prisoners could be monitored and controlled. Following the completion of the bridge, the site was used to house up to 60 male convicts in a road gang undergoing secondary punishment (1835–44) and then in a labour camp and hiring depot until 1847. At the time of the La Trobe report (1847), the buildings were noted as being in bad condition (Brand 142–43). After the station was disbanded, the use of the buildings reverted to the landowners for use in accommodation and agricultural storage.Archaeological research at Kerry Lodge, directed by Eleanor Casella, investigated the spatial and disciplinary structures of smaller probation and hiring depots and the living and working conditions of supervisory staff. Across three seasons (2015, 2016, 2018), the emerging themes of discipline and control and as well as labour were borne out by excavations across the site, focusing on remnants of buildings close to the bridge. This first season also piloted the co-presence of a curatorial art project, which grew across the season to include eleven practitioners in visual art, theatre and poetry, and three exhibition outcomes. As a crucial process for the curatorial art project, creative practitioners spent time on site as participants and observers, which enabled the development of responses that interrogated the research processes of archaeological fieldwork as well as making connections to the wider historical and cultural context of the site. Immersed in the mundane tasks of archaeological fieldwork, the practitioners involved became simultaneously focused on repetitive actions while contemplating the deep time contained within earth. This experience then informed the development of creative works interrogating embodied processes as a language of site.The outcome from the first fieldwork season was earthspoke, an exhibition shown at Sawtooth, an artist-run initiative in Launceston in 2015, and later re-installed in Franklin House, a National Trust property in the southern suburbs of Launceston.Images 2 and 3: earthspoke, 2015, Installation View at Sawtooth ARI (top) and Franklin House (bottom). Image Credits: Melanie de Ruyter.This recontextualisation of the work, from contemporary ARI (artist run initiative) gallery to National Trust property enabled the project to reach different audiences but also raised questions about the emphases that these exhibition contexts placed on the work. Within the white cube space of the contemporary gallery, connections to site became more abstracted while the educational and heritage functions of the National Trust property added further context and unintended connotations to the art works.Image 4: Strata, 2017, Installation View. Image Credit: Karen Hall.The two subsequent exhibitions, Lines of Site (2016) and Strata (2017), continued to test the relationship between site and gallery, through works that rematerialised the absences on site and connected embodied experiences of convict and archaeological labour. The most recent iteration of the project, Strata, part of the Ten Days on the Island art festival in 2017, involved installing works at the site, marking with their presence the traces, fragments and voids that had been reburied when the landscape returned to agricultural use following the excavations. Here, the interpretive function of the works directly addressed the layered histories of the landscape and underscored the scope of the human interventions and changes over time within the pastoral landscape. The interpretative role of the artworks formed part of a wider, multidisciplinary approach to research and communication within the project. University of Manchester archaeology staff and postgraduate students directed the excavations, using volunteers from the Launceston Historical Society. Staff from Launceston’s Queen Victorian Museum and Art Gallery brought their archival and collection-based expertise to the site rather than simply receiving stored finds as a repository, supporting immediate interpretation and contextualisation of objects. In 2018, participation from the University of Tasmania School of Education enabled a larger number of on-site educational activities than afforded by previous open days. These multi-disciplinary and multi-organisational networks, drawn together provisionally in a shared time and place, provided rich opportunities for dialogue. However, the challenges of sustaining these exchanges have meant ongoing collaborations have become more sporadic, reflecting different institutional priorities and competing demands on participants. Even within long-term projects, continued engagement with stakeholders can be a challenge: while enabling an emerging and concrete sense of community, the time span gives greater vulnerability to external pressures. Making Home: Ecological Restoration and Community Engagement in the Species Hotel ProjectImages 5 and 6: Selected Species Hotels, Ross, Tasmania, 2018. Image Credits: Patrick Sutczak. The Species Hotels stand sentinel over a river of saplings, providing shelter for animal communities within close range of a small town. At the township of Ross in the Southern Midlands, work was initiated by restoration ecologists to address the lack of substantial animal shelter belts on a number of major properties in the area. The Tasmania Island Ark is a major Greening Australia restoration ecology initiative, connecting 6000 hectares of habitat across the Midlands. Linking larger forest areas in the Eastern Tiers and Central Highlands as well as isolated patches of remnant native vegetation, the Ark project is vital to the ongoing survival of local plant and animal species under pressure from human interventions and climate change. With fragmentation of bush and native grasslands in the Midland landscape resulting in vast open plains, the ability for animals to adapt to pasturelands without shelter has resulted in significant decline as animals such as the critically endangered Eastern Barred Bandicoot struggle to feed, move, and avoid predators (Cranney). In 2014 mass plantings of native vegetation were undertaken along 16km of the serpentine Macquarie River as part of two habitat corridors designed to bring connectivity back to the region. While the plantings were being established a public art project was conceived that would merge design with practical application to assist animals in the area, and draw community and public attention to the work that was being done in re-establishing native forests. The Species Hotel project, which began in 2016, emerged from a collaboration between Greening Australia and the University of Tasmania’s School of Architecture and Design, the School of Land and Food, the Tasmanian College of the Arts and the ARC Centre for Forest Value, with funding from the Ian Potter Foundation. The initial focus of the project was the development of interventions in the landscape that could address the specific habitat needs of the insect, small mammal, and bird species that are under threat. First-year Architecture students were invited to design a series of structures with the brief that they would act as ‘Species Hotels’, and once created would be installed among the plantings as structures that could be inhabited or act as protection. After installation, the privately-owned land would be reconfigured so to allow public access and observation of the hotels, by residents and visitors alike. Early in the project’s development, a concern was raised during a Ross community communication and consultation event that the surrounding landscape and its vistas would be dramatically altered with the re-introduced forest. While momentary and resolved, a subtle yet obvious tension surfaced that questioned the re-writing of an established community’s visual landscape literacy by non-residents. Compact and picturesque, the architectural, historical and cultural qualities of Ross and its location were not only admired by residents, but established a regional identity. During the six-week intensive project, the community reach was expanded beyond the institution and involved over 100 people including landowners, artists, scientists and school children from the region (Wright), attempting to address and channel the concerns of residents about the changing landscape. The multiple timescales of this iterative project—from intensive moments of collaboration between stakeholders to the more-than-human time of tree growth—open spaces for regional identity to shift as both as place and community. Part of the design brief was the use of fully biodegradable materials: the Species Hotels are not expected to last forever. The actual installation of the Species Hotelson site took longer than planned due to weather conditions, but once on site they were weathering in, showing signs of insect and bird habitation. This animal activity created an opportunity for ongoing engagement. Further activities generated from the initial iteration of Species Hotel were the Species Hotel Day in 2017, held at the Ross Community Hall where presentations by scientists and designers provided feedback to the local community and presented opportunities for further design engagement in the production of ephemeral ‘species seed pies’ placed out in and around Ross. Architecture and Design students have gone on to develop more examples of ‘ecological furniture’ with a current focus on insect housing as well as extrapolating from the installation of the Species Hotels to generate a VR visualisation of the surrounding landscape, game design and participatory movement work that was presented as part of the Junction Arts Festival program in Launceston, 2017. The intersections of technologies and activities amplified the lived in and living qualities of the Species Hotels, not only adding to the connectivity of social and environmental actions on site and beyond, but also making a statement about the shared ownership this project enabled.Working Property: Collaboration and Dialogues in The Marathon Project The potential of iterative projects that engage with environmental concerns amid questions of access, stewardship and dialogue is also demonstrated in The Marathon Project, a collaborative art project that took place between 2015 and 2017. Situated in the Northern Midland region of Deddington alongside the banks of the Nile River the property of Marathon became the focal point for a small group of artists, ecologists and theorists to converge and engage with a pastoral landscape over time that was unfamiliar to many of them. Through a series of weekend camps and day trips, the participants were able to explore and follow their own creative and investigative agendas. The project was conceived by the landowners who share a passion for the history of the area, their land, and ideas of custodianship and ecological responsibility. The intentions of the project initially were to inspire creative work alongside access, engagement and dialogue about land, agriculture and Deddington itself. As a very small town on the Northern Midland fringe, Deddington is located toward the Eastern Tiers at the foothills of the Ben Lomond mountain ranges. Historically, Deddington is best known as the location of renowned 19th century landscape painter John Glover’s residence, Patterdale. After Glover’s death in 1849, the property steadily fell into disrepair and a recent private restoration effort of the home, studio and grounds has seen renewed interest in the cultural significance of the region. With that in mind, and with Marathon a neighbouring property, participants in the project were able to experience the area and research its past and present as a part of a network of working properties, but also encouraging conversation around the region as a contested and documented place of settlement and subsequent violence toward the Aboriginal people. Marathon is a working property, yet also a vital and fragile ecosystem. Marathon consists of 1430 hectares, of which around 300 lowland hectares are currently used for sheep grazing. The paddocks retain their productivity, function and potential to return to native grassland, while thickets of gorse are plentiful, an example of an invasive species difficult to control. The rest of the property comprises eucalypt woodlands and native grasslands that have been protected under a conservation covenant by the landowners since 2003. The Marathon creek and the Nile River mark the boundary between the functional paddocks and the uncultivated hills and are actively managed in the interface between native and introduced species of flora and fauna. This covenant aimed to preserve these landscapes, linking in with a wider pattern of organisations and landowners attempting to address significant ecological degradation and isolation of remnant bushland patches through restoration ecology. Measured against the visibility of Tasmania’s wilderness identity on the national and global stage, many of the ecological concerns affecting the Midlands go largely unnoticed. The Marathon Project was as much a project about visibility and communication as it was about art and landscape. Over the three years and with its 17 participants, The Marathon Project yielded three major exhibitions along with numerous public presentations and research outputs. The length of the project and the autonomy and perspectives of its participants allowed for connections to be formed, conversations initiated, and greater exposure to the productivity and sustainability complexities playing out on rural Midland properties. Like Kerry Lodge, the 2015 first year exhibition took place at Sawtooth ARI. The exhibition was a testing ground for artists, and a platform for audiences, to witness the cross-disciplinary outputs of work inspired by a single sheep grazing farm. The interest generated led to the rethinking of the 2016 exhibition and the need to broaden the scope of what the landowners and participants were trying to achieve. Image 7: Panel Discussion at Open Weekend, 2016. Image Credit: Ron Malor.In November 2016, The Marathon Project hosted an Open Weekend on the property encouraging audiences to visit, meet the artists, the landowners, and other invited guests from a number of restoration, conservation, and rehabilitation organisations. Titled Encounter, the event and accompanying exhibition displayed in the shearing shed, provided an opportunity for a rhizomatic effect with the public which was designed to inform and disseminate historical and contemporary perspectives of land and agriculture, access, ownership, visitation and interpretation. Concluding with a final exhibition in 2017 at the University of Tasmania’s Academy Gallery, The Marathon Project had built enough momentum to shape and inform the practice of its participants, the knowledge and imagination of the public who engaged with it, and make visible the precarity of the cultural and rural Midland identity.Image 8. Installation View of The Marathon Project Exhibition, 2017. Image Credit: Patrick Sutczak.ConclusionThe Marathon Project, Species Hotel and the Kerry Lodge Archaeology and Art Project all demonstrate the potential of site-based projects to articulate and address concerns that arise from the environmental and cultural conditions and histories of a region. Beyond the Midland fence line is a complex environment that needed to be experienced to be understood. Returning creative work to site, and opening up these intensified experiences of place to a public forms a key stage in all these projects. Beyond a commitment to site-specific practice and valuing the affective and didactic potential of on-site installation, these returns grapple with issues of access, visibility and absence that characterise the Midlands. Paul Carter describes his role in the convening of a “concretely self-realising creative community” in an initiative to construct a meeting-place in Alice Springs, a community defined and united in “its capacity to imagine change as a negotiation between past, present and future” (17). Within that regional context, storytelling, as an encounter between histories and cultures, became crucial in assembling a community that could in turn materialise story into place. In these Midlands projects, a looser assembly of participants with shared interests seek to engage with the intersections of plant, human and animal activities that constitute and negotiate the changing environment. The projects enabled moments of connection, of access, and of intervention: always informed by the complexities of belonging within regional locations.These projects also suggest the need to recognise the granularity of regionalism: the need to be attentive to the relations of site to bioregion, of private land to small town to regional centre. The numerous partnerships that allow such interconnect projects to flourish can be seen as a strength of regional areas, where proximity and scale can draw together sets of related institutions, organisations and individuals. However, the tensions and gaps within these projects reveal differing priorities, senses of ownership and even regional belonging. Questions of who will live with these project outcomes, who will access them, and on what terms, reveal inequalities of power. Negotiations of this uneven and uneasy terrain require a more nuanced account of projects that do not rely on the geographical labelling of regions to paper over the complexities and fractures within the social environment.These projects also share a commitment to the intersection of the social and natural environment. They recognise the inextricable entanglement of human and more than human agencies in shaping the landscape, and material consequences of colonialism and agricultural intensification. Through iteration and duration, the projects mobilise processes that are responsive and reflective while being anchored to the materiality of site. Warwick Mules suggests that “regions are a mixture of data and earth, historically made through the accumulation and condensation of material and informational configurations”. Cross-disciplinary exchanges enable all three projects to actively participate in data production, not interpretation or illustration afterwards. Mules’ call for ‘accumulation’ and ‘configuration’ as productive regional modes speaks directly to the practice-led methodologies employed by these projects. The Kerry Lodge and Marathon projects collect, arrange and transform material taken from each site to provisionally construct a regional material language, extended further in the dual presentation of the projects as off-site exhibitions and as interventions returning to site. The Species Hotel project shares that dual identity, where materials are chosen for their ability over time, habitation and decay to become incorporated into the site yet, through other iterations of the project, become digital presences that nonetheless invite an embodied engagement.These projects centre the Midlands as fertile ground for the production of knowledge and experiences that are distinctive and place-based, arising from the unique qualities of this place, its history and its ongoing challenges. Art and design practice enables connectivity to plant, animal and human communities, utilising cross-disciplinary collaborations to bring together further accumulations of the region’s intertwined cultural and ecological landscape.ReferencesAustralian Government Department of the Environment and Energy. Biodiversity Conservation. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2018. 1 Apr. 2019 <http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/conservation>.Brand, Ian. The Convict Probation System: Van Diemen’s Land 1839–1854. Sandy Bay: Blubber Head Press, 1990.Carter, Paul. “Common Patterns: Narratives of ‘Mere Coincidence’ and the Production of Regions.” Creative Communities: Regional Inclusion & the Arts. Eds. Janet McDonald and Robert Mason. Bristol: Intellect, 2015. 13–30.Centre for 21st Century Humanities. Colonial Frontier Massacres in Central and Eastern Australia 1788–1930. 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