This paper introduces an optimization approach for generating grid layouts from large data collections such that they are amenable to level‐of‐detail presentation and exploration. Classic (flat) grid ...layouts visually do not scale to large collections, yielding overwhelming numbers of tiny member representations. The proposed local search‐based progressive optimization scheme generates hierarchical grids: leaves correspond to one grid cell and represent one member, while inner nodes cover a quadratic range of cells and convey an aggregate of contained members. The scheme is solely based on pairwise distances and jointly optimizes for homogeneity within inner nodes and across grid neighbors. The generated grids allow to present and flexibly explore the whole data collection with arbitrary local granularity. Diverse use cases featuring large data collections exemplify the application: stock market predictions from a Black‐Scholes model, channel structures in soil from Markov chain Monte Carlo, and image collections with feature vectors from neural network classification models. The paper presents feedback by a domain scientist, compares against previous approaches, and demonstrates visual and computational scalability to a million members, surpassing classic grid layout techniques by orders of magnitude.
We present our approach for the dense visualization and temporal exploration of moving and deforming shapes from scientific experiments and simulations. Our image space representation is created by ...convolving a noise texture along shape contours (akin to LIC). Beyond indicating spatial structure via luminosity, we additionally use colour to depict time or classes of shapes via automatically customized maps. This representation summarizes temporal evolution, and provides the basis for interactive user navigation in the spatial and temporal domain in combination with traditional renderings. Our efficient implementation supports the quick and progressive generation of our representation in parallel as well as adaptive temporal splits to reduce overlap. We discuss and demonstrate the utility of our approach using 2D and 3D scalar fields from experiments and simulations.
Graphical : We present our approach for the dense visualization and temporal exploration of moving and deforming shapes from scientific experiments and simulations. Our image space representation is created by convolving a noise texture along shape contours (akin to LIC). Beyond indicating spatial structure via luminosity, we additionally use colour to depict time or classes of shapes via automatically customized maps. This representation summarizes temporal evolution, and provides the basis for interactive user navigation in the spatial and temporal domain in combination with traditional renderings. Our efficient implementation supports the quick and progressive generation of our representation in parallel as well as adaptive temporal splits to reduce overlap.
Curiously, economists, whose discipline has much to do with human well-being, have shied away from factoring the study of happiness into their work. Happiness, they might say, is an ''unscientific'' ...concept. This is the first book to establish empirically the link between happiness and economics--and between happiness and democracy. Two respected economists, Bruno S. Frey and Alois Stutzer, integrate insights and findings from psychology, where attempts to measure quality of life are well-documented, as well as from sociology and political science. They demonstrate how micro- and macro-economic conditions in the form of income, unemployment, and inflation affect happiness. The research is centered on Switzerland, whose varying degrees of direct democracy from one canton to another, all within a single economy, allow for political effects to be isolated from economic effects.
Not surprisingly, the authors confirm that unemployment and inflation nurture unhappiness. Their most striking revelation, however, is that the more developed the democratic institutions and the degree of local autonomy, the more satisfied people are with their lives. While such factors as rising income increase personal happiness only minimally, institutions that facilitate more individual involvement in politics (such as referendums) have a substantial effect. For countries such as the United States, where disillusionment with politics seems to be on the rise, such findings are especially significant. By applying econometrics to a real-world issue of general concern and yielding surprising results, Happiness and Economics promises to spark healthy debate over a wide range of the social sciences.
In a 26-year soil warming experiment in a mid-latitude hardwood forest, we documented changes in soil carbon cycling to investigate the potential consequences for the climate system. We found that ...soil warming results in a four-phase pattern of soil organic matter decay and carbon dioxide fluxes to the atmosphere, with phases of substantial soil carbon loss alternating with phases of no detectable loss. Several factors combine to affect the timing, magnitude, and thermal acclimation of soil carbon loss. These include depletion of microbially accessible carbon pools, reductions in microbial biomass, a shift in microbial carbon use efficiency, and changes in microbial community composition. Our results support projections of a long-term, self-reinforcing carbon feedback from mid-latitude forests to the climate system as the world warms.
Abstract Objective Prior studies to determine the economic consequences of schizophrenia have largely been undertaken in clinical settings with a small number of cases and have been unable to analyze ...effects across different age cohorts. The aim of this study is to investigate the burden of schizophrenia in Germany. Methods Costs, service utilization, and premature mortality attributable to schizophrenia were estimated for the year 2008 using a retrospective matched cohort design. Therefore, 26,977 control subjects as well as 9411 individuals with a confirmed diagnosis of schizophrenia were drawn from a sickness fund claims database. To reduce conditional bias, the non-parametric genetic matching method was employed. Results The final study population comprised 8224 matched pairs. The annual cost attributable to schizophrenia was €11,304 per patient from the payers’ perspective and €20,609 from the societal perspective with substantial variations among age groups: direct medical expenses were highest among patients aged > 65 years, whereas younger individuals (< 25 years) incurred the greatest non-medical costs. The annual burden of schizophrenia from the perspective of German society ranges between €9.63 billion and €13.52 billion. Conclusion There are considerable differences in the distribution of costs and service utilization for schizophrenia. Because schizophrenia is characterized by an early age of onset and a long duration, research efforts should be targeted at particular populations to obtain the most beneficial outcomes, both clinically and economically.
Actors of public interest today have to fear the adverse impact that stems from social media platforms. Any controversial behavior may promptly trigger temporal, but potentially devastating storms of ...emotional and aggressive outrage, so called online firestorms. Popular targets of online firestorms are companies, politicians, celebrities, media, academics and many more. This article introduces social norm theory to understand online aggression in a social-political online setting, challenging the popular assumption that online anonymity is one of the principle factors that promotes aggression. We underpin this social norm view by analyzing a major social media platform concerned with public affairs over a period of three years entailing 532,197 comments on 1,612 online petitions. Results show that in the context of online firestorms, non-anonymous individuals are more aggressive compared to anonymous individuals. This effect is reinforced if selective incentives are present and if aggressors are intrinsically motivated.
Galaxies are believed to evolve through merging, which should lead to some hosting multiple supermassive black holes. There are four known triple black hole systems, with the closest black hole pair ...being 2.4 kiloparsecs apart (the third component in this system is at 3 kiloparsecs), which is far from the gravitational sphere of influence (about 100 parsecs for a black hole with mass one billion times that of the Sun). Previous searches for compact black hole systems concluded that they were rare, with the tightest binary system having a separation of 7 parsecs (ref. 10). Here we report observations of a triple black hole system at redshift z = 0.39, with the closest pair separated by about 140 parsecs and significantly more distant from Earth than any other known binary of comparable orbital separation. The effect of the tight pair is to introduce a rotationally symmetric helical modulation on the structure of the large-scale radio jets, which provides a useful way to search for other tight pairs without needing extremely high resolution observations. As we found this tight pair after searching only six galaxies, we conclude that tight pairs are more common than hitherto believed, which is an important observational constraint for low-frequency gravitational wave experiments.
Many important activities, such as charitable giving, voting, and paying taxes, are difficult to explain by the narrow self-interest hypothesis. This paper tests conditional cooperation in a field ...experiment. The field experiment about charitable giving supports the theory of conditional cooperation: contributions increase, on average, if people know that many others contribute. The effect varies, however, depending on past contribution behavior - those who never contributed do not change their behavior, while people who are indifferent about contributions react most strongly to information about others' behavior. Section I presents the field experiment and the empirical strategy to test the hypotheses, Section II shows the results, and Section III offers concluding remarks.
We conducted a meta-analysis of previously published empirical studies that have examined the effects of nitrogen (N) enrichment on litter decomposition. Our objective was to provide a synthesis of ...existing data that comprehensively and quantitatively evaluates how environmental and experimental factors interact with N additions to influence litter mass loss. Nitrogen enrichment, when averaged across all studies, had no statistically significant effect on litter decay. However, we observed significant effects of fertilization rate, site-specific ambient N-deposition level, and litter quality. Litter decomposition was inhibited by N additions when fertilization rates were 2-20 times the anthropogenic Ndeposition level, when ambient N deposition was 5-10 kg N· ha-1· yr-1, or when litter quality was low (typically high-lignin litters). Decomposition was stimulated at field sites exposed to low ambient N deposition (<5 kg N· ha-1· yr-1) and for high-quality (low-lignin) litters. Fertilizer type, litterbag mesh size, and climate did not influence the litter decay response to N additions.
We examined the effect of chronic soil warming on microbial biomass, functional capacity, and community structure in soil samples collected from the Soil Warming Study located at the Harvard Forest ...Long-term Ecological Research (LTER) site. Twelve years of chronic soil warming at 5
°C above the ambient temperature resulted in a significant reduction in microbial biomass and the utilization of a suite of C substrates which included amino acids, carbohydrates, and carboxylic acids. Heating significantly reduced the abundance of fungal biomarkers. There was also a shift in the mineral soil microbial community towards gram positive bacteria and actinomycetes.
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