There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

The science and technology of ultracapacitors are reviewed for a number of electrode materials, including carbon, mixed metal oxides, and conducting polymers. More work has been done using microporous carbons than with the other materials and most of the commercially available devices use carbon electrodes and an organic electrolytes. The energy density of these devices is 3¯5 Wh/kg with a power density of 300¯500 W/kg for high efficiency (90¯95%) charge/discharges. Projections of future developments using carbon indicate that energy densities of 10 Wh/kg or higher are likely with power densities of 1¯2 kW/kg. A key problem in the fabrication of these advanced devices is the bonding of the thin electrodes to a current collector such the contact resistance is less than 0.1 cm2. Special attention is given in the paper to comparing the power density characteristics of ultracapacitors and batteries. The comparisons should be made at the same charge/discharge efficiency.

Ultracapacitors: Why, How, and Where is the Technology

What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy

A system for utilizing metadata created either at a central location for shared use by connected users, or at each individual user's location, to enhance user's enjoyment of available broadcast programming content. A variety of mechanisms are employed for automatically and manually identifying and designating programming segments, associating descriptive metadata which the identified segments, distributing the metadata for use at client locations, and using the supplied metadata to selectively record and playback desired programming.

Audio and video program recording, editing and playback systems using metadata

Data Reduction And Error Analysis For The Physical Sciences

A system is described in which a media browser ( 101 ), operating as a software application on a user terminal or preferably a server for a number of users, provides a user with a single user interface that facilitates browsing and searching different metadata collections over the Internet ( 102 ). A metadata server ( 212 ) is associated with each of the metadata collections. When the metadata server ( 212 ) receives a request from the media browser ( 101 ), the metadata server ( 212 ) interprets the request and replies with a description that satisfies the request and according to a predetermined scheme. The description contains at least one link which represents a return link which represents a return request to the metadata server ( 212 ). Specifically disclosed are methods ( 2000 ) for recording user location preferences at a service and using one or more lists of such preferences to focus searching responses to statistically desirable material. Monitoring the validity of a bookmarked location is also described.

Method for facilitating access to multimedia content

Access to heterogeneous data sources may be obtained by interactively determining transformations for use in mapping at least one source data component from at least one data source to a target data component. Selection of at least one the source data component is detected. A corresponding list of representative data examples is generated for each selected source data component. A resulting list of representative data examples is compiled for the target data component from the lists of representative data examples of the selected source data components, the resulting list of data examples being representative of the target data component. A modification of an example is identified from the resulting list of examples representative of the target data component, the example being modified as a single textual entity. At least one transformation is determined, by inferring from the modified example, to be applied to at least one source data component.

Methods for interactively defining transforms and for generating queries by manipulating existing query data

A method of establishing at least one variable of a new view of data, is disclosed where the variable is obtained from at least one data source (150-153). The method identifies at least one display type (1202, FIG. 15, 17 18), each display type having at least one corresponding template of data to be used by the new view of data. The template includes a plurality of data component slots (1250-1254) related according to the semantics of the identified display type. One or more data components to be included in the view of data are then identified, each identified data component being associated (1222) with a slot in the template. A list of recommendations is then formed for one or more unspecified data components of the new view of data, the recommendations being based on the semantics of the display type and the identified data components. Finally at least one data component from the list of recommendations is identified as a variable for said new view of data. Also disclosed is a method of learning unknown relationships among data components across a plurality of heterogeneous data sources, and a method for recommending relevant data components for view creation across a plurality of heterogeneous data sources.

Method of using recommendations to visually create new views of data across heterogeneous sources

NMR diffusion measurements to characterise membrane transport and solute binding

Methods, programs (120) and apparatus (100) are disclosed for accessing and heterogenous data sources (150-153) and presenting information obtained therefrom. Specifically, the data sources may have hierarchical data, which may be presented by identifying a context data node from the data, the context data node having one or more descendent data nodes. At least one data pattern is determined in the descendent data nodes. At least one display type is assigned to the current context data node on the basis of the at least one data pattern. Thereafter, the method presents at least a subset of the descendent data nodes according to one of the assigned display types. Also disclosed is a method of browsing an hierarchically-represented data source. A user operation is interpreted to identify a context data node from the data source, the context data node having one or more descendent data nodes. At least one data pattern in the descendent data nodes is then determined and at least one display type is assigned to the current context data node on the basis of the at least one data pattern. A subset of the descendent data nodes is then presented according to one of the assigned display types, the subset including at least one hyperlink (3401,3402) having as its target a descendant data node of the current context data node. A further user operation is then interpreted to select the at least one hyperlink, the selection resulting in the current context data node being replaced with the data node corresponding to the target of the selected hyperlink. These steps may be repeated until no further hyperlinks to descendent data nodes are included in the subset. Other methods associated with access and presentation are also disclosed.

Alison Lennon

Papers

Method for facilitating access to multimedia content

Methods for interactively defining transforms and for generating queries by manipulating existing query data

Method of using recommendations to visually create new views of data across heterogeneous sources

NMR diffusion measurements to characterise membrane transport and solute binding

Method for presenting hierarchical data