Interactive Animation

Nel corso dei lavori del secondo Convegno ITP (Italian Teacher Programme) del CERN presso il Liceo Scientifico “Enrico Fermi” di Padova (22-23 febbraio 2025), in particolare durante le poster sessions e i gruppi tematici di discussione dedicati ad aspetti particolari della didattica della Fisica, dei suoi fondamenti e della sua storia nella scuola secondaria di secondo grado, è emersa una criticità condivisa dalla maggior parte dei partecipanti. La scansione dei “programmi” scolastici e l’organizzazione dell’insegnamento della fisica nei nostri licei e istituti tecnici comporta due limiti tra loro complementari, dovuti non solo a croniche carenze strutturali che investono le attività di laboratorio, ma anche a un resistenze culturali all’innovazione metodologica da parte di molti docenti della disciplina: da un lato infatti le esperienze laboratoriali tendono a ridursi a un momento di “conferma” sul piano pratico e operativo dei contenuti teorici precedentemente introdotti e affrontati a lezione, secondo modalità tipicamente “frontali” e “trasmissive”; dall’altro risulta molto complicato trattare in modo sufficientemente accessibile, ma al tempo stesso rigoroso e approfondito, argomenti di fisica contemporanea come la relatività ristretta o la meccanica quantistica, per di più al quinto anno e in orario curricolare, senza ricorrere ad ore aggiuntive extra-curricolari legate a progetti dedicati e/o ad ore di potenziamento. 
Eppure viviamo immersi in un mondo quotidianamente dominato dall’impiego di tecnologie quantistiche e relativistiche, a cominciare da quelle che caratterizzano qualsiasi nostro dispositivo elettronico e dalle correzioni che devono essere costantemente apportate perché i nostri sistemi GPS funzionino. Il loro impatto in ogni aspetto delle nostre vite è diventato così pervasivo che ormai la consapevolezza di tutto ciò, delle sue implicazioni tecno-scientifiche e delle sue ricadute socio-economiche, etico-politiche, persino antropologico-culturali, ha assunto i tratti di una competenza chiave complessa in ambito sia STEM che umanistico, oltre che di cittadinanza attiva.
La scuola secondaria di secondo grado italiana, specialmente negli indirizzi tecnici e liceali, con particolare riferimento al triennio dei licei scientifici, non può più permettersi di considerare argomenti come la relatività (almeno quella ristretta) e la meccanica quantistica, nei loro nuclei concettuali fondamentali, come un “complemento” per sommi capi (spesso superficiale e frettoloso) a un “programma” di fisica che potrebbe benissimo fermarsi all’elettromagnetismo classico e all’incompatibilità fra trasformazioni di Lorentz e principio di relatività galileiana, magari con l’alibi didattico di una loro intrinseca e insormontabile difficoltà, che li renderebbe poco adatti ad essere affrontati “sul serio” in un istituto di istruzione superiore, incluso un liceo scientifico.
Il risultato finale di questo atteggiamento è che i nostri studenti, giunti al termine del secondo ciclo di istruzione, se arrivano ad affrontare in classe la fisica del Novecento lo fanno in maniera troppo “divulgativa”, aneddotica, quasi a titolo di curiosità e di chiosa finale al loro percorso didattico in fisica, senza un’autentica comprensione dei nodi problematici, dei paradossi, ma anche delle potenzialità dischiuse dalla “Seconda Rivoluzione Scientifica” del XX secolo e delle loro possibili ricadute su ogni aspetto della knowledge society odierna.
Nel mio intervento vorrei portare un punto di vista opposto, corroborato da ricerche e sperimentazioni che si sono rivelate efficaci in ambito didattico e che sono state oggetto di discussione nei giorni del Convegno ITP CERN di Padova, a cui ho partecipato da uditore in quanto docente liceale di filosofia e storia con un background accademico in storia epistemologica, filosofia e fondamenti della fisica. Si possono insegnare la meccanica quantistica e la relatività ristretta (fatta salva l’eventualità di accennare ai concetti essenziali della relatività generale) in modo significativo già a partire dal quarto anno di liceo, specialmente allo scientifico? Si possono fornire allo scopo le basi matematiche strettamente indispensabili al loro apprendimento nello stesso periodo? Con quale taglio è preferibile affrontare questi argomenti? Uno rigorosamente fisico-matematico (ma che rischia di essere di livello universitario avanzato) oppure uno che integri anche un approccio storico-epistemologico alla loro genesi ed evoluzione? In ogni caso, quale ruolo deve essere attribuito ad eventuali esperienze di laboratorio? Si possono condurre “veri” esperiementi di fisica dei quanti o di relatività ristretta a scuola, che non siano puramente dimostrativi ma che coinvolgano in prima persona lo studente e ne metta alla prova le conoscenze, abilità e competenze STEM, oltre a quelle trasversali di cooperazione e comunicazione in gruppo?
La risposta che vorrei provare a fornire a queste domande, tutt’altro che banali, è affermativa.
Sì, “si può fare”, a patto però di rovesciare la prospettiva: partire da esperimenti a carattere immersivo, operativo e coinvolgente intorno a pochi ma indispensabili concetti chiave, disponendo già del formalismo matematico essenziale per comprenderli e padroneggiarli in modo sufficientemente consapevole (ma senza indulgere in tecnicismi non necessari), per poi da questi e dalla discussione dei loro risultati ampliare lo sguardo e risalire a una loro rielaborazione teorica, che tenga conto anche della loro dimensione storica, epistemologica ed euristica. Questo approccio, che richiede certamente di “anticipare” al quarto anno la trattazione dell’elettromagnetismo classico rispetto alla termodinamica e in diretta continuità con la meccanica newtoniana, così come di introdurre una serie di strumenti matematici abitualmente previsti per il quinto anno (limiti, derivate, integrali e studio di funzioni, oltre al calcolo delle matrici e alle trasformazioni nel piano cartesiano), avrebbe peraltro il vantaggio di convergere in un’ottica interdisciplinare nell’ultimo anno con i “programmi” di storia e di filosofia dedicati al Novecento.
Nel corso della mia presentazione illustrerò alcuni esempi di esperimenti cruciali nella storia della fisica come lo studio della radiazione di corpo nero e dell’effetto fotoelettrico, l’esperimento della doppia fenditura o l’esperimento di Michelson-Morley sull’esistenza dell’etere luminifero che, se opportunamente semplificati, realizzati a partire da componenti commerciali reperibili sul mercato  a costi relativamente contenuti e adattati a un contesto scolastico, permettono di attivare un percorso didattico circolare che procede dall’esperienza di laboratorio (in cui protagonisti-ricercatori sono gli stessi allievi, adeguatamente preparati e guidati dal docente) alla messa a fuoco e concettualizzazione dei nodi teorici fondamentali della meccanica quantistica e della relatività (speciale) attraverso una ricostruzione storico-epistemologica dello stesso esperimento e del dibattito scientifico che si è sviluppato intorno ad esso, per poi tornare ai risultati dell’esperienza e alle loro implicazioni, anche rispetto agli sviluppi attuali e alle loro applicazioni tecnologiche (come gli sviluppi odierni dell’interferometria ottica per la rilevazione delle onde gravitazionali).
Per quanto riguarda in particolare la didattica laboratoriale dei concetti essenziali della fisica dei quanti nella scuola secondaria di secondo grado, durante i lavori del Convegno ITP CERN 2025 a Padova è stata presentata la possibilità di riprodurre in versione semplificata e adattata alle esigenze didattiche (con strumentazioni già brevettate e commercializzate ad un costo tutto sommato accessibile per le scuole mediante fondi PNRR e PON-FSE) gli esperimenti di Aspect, Clauser e Zeilinger sulla violazione delle disuguaglianze di Bell e il carattere non-locale della meccanica quantistica (entanglement): una teoria intrinsecamente probabilistica e non completabile classicamente in senso locale ricorrendo a “variabili nascoste”, che apre, tra la molte altre, alla possibilità del quantum computing e della crittografia quantistica.
Proprio la versione didattica dell’apparato sperimentale in questione, discussa a Padova e già introdotta tra il 2024 e il 2025 al Liceo Martin Luther King di Genova (per la prima volta in un liceo italiano e nella città ospite del Congresso SISFA), permette non solo di far scoprire direttamente agli studenti “sul campo” (dopo un periodo di training dedicato) le proprietà caratteristiche degli stati sovrapposti, dell’entanglement e della decoerenza in meccanica quantistica da un punto di vista teorico e storico-epistemologico (dibattito Bohr-Einstein sull’interpretazione del formalismo quantomeccanico ed esperimento EPR), ma anche di fare collegamenti significativi con la nozione di q-bit e con la possibilità di utilizzare l’apparato di Aspect-Clauser-Zeilinger come generatore di numeri genuinamente casuali, dunque di chiavi crittografiche autenticamente sicure perché immuni dai pattern periodici o semi-periodici tipici dei generatori algoritmici digitali.

This paper addresses visualization issues of the Terrestrial Planet Finder Mission . The goal of this mission is to search for chemical signatures of life in distant solar systems using five satellites flying in formation to simulate a large telescope. To design and visually verify such a delicate mission one has to analyze and interact with many different 3D spacecraft trajectories, which is often difficult in 2D. We employ a novel trajectory design approach using invariant manifold theory, which is best understood and utilized in an immersive setting. The visualization also addresses multi-scale issues related to the vast differences in distance, velocity, and time at different phases of the mission. Additionally, the parameterization and coordinate frames used for numerical simulations may not be suitable for direct visualization. Relative motion presents a more serious problem where the patterns of the trajectories can only be viewed in particular rotating frames. Some of these problems are greatly relieved by using interactive, animated stereo 3D visualization in a semi-immersive environment such as a Responsive Workbench. Others were solved using standard techniques such as a stratify approach with multiple windows to address the multiscale issues, re-parameterizations of trajectories and associated 2D manifolds and relative motion of the camera to "evoke" the desired patterns.

This paper addresses visualization issues of the Terrestrial Planet Finder Mission . The goal of this mission is to search for chemical signatures of life in distant solar systems using five satellites flying in formation to simulate a large telescope. To design and visually verify such a delicate mission one has to analyze and interact with many different 3D spacecraft trajectories, which is often difficult in 2D. We employ a novel trajectory design approach using invariant manifold theory, which is best understood and utilized in an immersive setting. The visualization also addresses multi-scale issues related to the vast differences in distance, velocity, and time at different phases of the mission. Additionally, the parameterization and coordinate frames used for numerical simulations may not be suitable for direct visualization. Relative motion presents a more serious problem where the patterns of the trajectories can only be viewed in particular rotating frames. Some of these problems are greatly relieved by using interactive, animated stereo 3D visualization in a semi-immersive environment such as a Responsive Workbench. Others were solved using standard techniques such as a stratify approach with multiple windows to address the multiscale issues, re-parameterizations of trajectories and associated 2D manifolds and relative motion of the camera to "evoke" the desired patterns.

This research study takes a closer look at how approaches from machine learning can be implemented into the production of animated characters. Because of recent advancements in machine learning algorithms and the availability of enormous datasets, these techniques open up novel opportunities for the rapid and accurate generation of animated characters. This research looks at some of the most important and useful uses of machine learning, such as data-driven character design, motion capture and animation, style transfer and augmentation, procedural generation, and modelling of character behaviour. In this study, the emphasis is placed on how machine learning algorithms and human artists collaborate to shape and improve the content that is generated. Ethical concerns, such as the presence of biases in training data and the risks associated with automating creative processes, are another topic of discussion. The findings highlight both the potential and the challenges involved in employing methods of machine learning when designing characters and animation.

Since 2005, the Italian Universities have promoted initiatives for school-university cooperation in the framework of a national project (PLS) to face the problems of a substantial scientific illiteracy in young people and a worrying decreasing interest in physics emerging from OCSE-PISA data. The project PLS is financed by the Ministry for Education and Universities and coordinates 65 local university projects in mathematics, physics, chemistry and material science. The collaboration of Universities with teachers in the PLS physics section is an important goal realized in different ways. The Italian university Physics Education Research Unit (IPERU), cooperating with national research projects on physics education over the last 15 years, joined in a proposal for PLS consisting of a national pilot II level Master (post Master Degree) on innovations in teaching and learning physics and guidance for in-service teacher development in modern physics and problem solving. The Master (Master IDIFO) is realized through the cooperation of 15 IPERU, led by Udine. The Physics Education Research (PER) is present in the Master IDIFO in various dimensions: the materials used for teacher development are research products, and the activities proposed include research-based school experiments (teaching experiments). The development processes in the context of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is monitored to individualise elements for a model of in-service teacher development in modern physics. In this contribution the characteristics of the Master IDIFO and significant aspects of its realization are discussed, in terms of a community where a fruitful interaction between school teachers and researchers produces a research-based model for

We describe the HUMANOID environment dedicated to human modeling and animation for general multimedia, VR, and CAD applications integrating virtual humans. We present the design of the system and the integration of the various features: generic modeling of a large class of entities with the BODY data structure, realistic skin deformation for body and hands, facial animation, collision detection, integrated motion control and parallelization of computation intensive tasks.

We present Growing Polygons, a novel visualization technique for the graphical representation of causal relations and information flow in a system of interacting processes. Using this method, individual processes are displayed as partitioned polygons with color-coded segments showing dependencies to other processes. The entire visualization is also animated to communicate the dynamic execution of the system to the user. The results from a comparative user study of the method show that the Growing Polygons technique is significantly more efficient than the traditional Hasse diagram visualization for analysis tasks related to deducing information flow in a system for both small and large executions. Furthermore, our findings indicate that the correctness when solving causality tasks is significantly improved using our method. In addition, the subjective ratings of the users rank the method as superior in all regards, including usability, efficiency, and enjoyability.

We present a novel information visualization technique for the graphical representation of causal relations, that is based on the metaphor of color pools spreading over time on a piece of paper. Messages between processes in the system affect the colors of their respective pool, making it possible to quickly see the influences each process has received. This technique, called Growing Squares, has been evaluated in a comparative user study and shown to be significantly faster and more efficient for sparse data sets than the traditional Hasse diagram visualization. Growing Squares were also more efficient for large data sets, but not significantly so. Test subjects clearly favored Growing Squares over old methods, naming the new technique easier, more efficient, and much more enjoyable to use.

Primates are often considered problematic to house in mixed-species exhibits. Here, a successful exhibit for Goeldi's monkeys Callimico goeldii and Pygmy marmosets Callithrix (Cebuella) pygmaea is described. These species are sympatric in nature, although there has been no evidence of interspecific association between wild groups. Both species are arboreal but they diverge in significant ways in their ecological niches. Data were collected to determine the compatibility of these species and to examine how the enclosure space was utilized. Interactions mainly comprised C. goeldii approaching C. pygmaea and the latter reacting submissively. Callimico goeldii and C. pygmaea utilized the enclosure space (height and furnishings) differently from each other but in a similar way to that described for each species in the wild. This factor may contribute to the peaceful co-existence of C. goeldii and C. pygmaea in a mixed-species exhibit at Edinburgh Zoo.

Physical modeling sound synthesis methods are known to be on the one hand potentially interesting in term of sound richness and probability, but on the other hand expansive to develop and compute. This paper is dedicated to mass-interaction methods using explicit time. By studying theoretically a specific model, we define a new basic modelization toolkit using non-linear stiffness and we show how it is possible to reach a balance between computing speed and sound realism.

Acrısio J. do Nascimento Jr. acrisio@catalao.ufg.br Departamento de Ciências da Computaç˜ao - UFG - CaC, 75705-220, Catal˜ao, GO, Brasil Alex F. de Araújo Aledir S. Pereira Norian Marranghello Jonathan Rogéri fa.alex@gmail.com aledir@ibilce.unesp.br ...

Until now theories of the gesture-speech relationship have been difficult to evaluate because of their descriptive basis. In this paper we provide a tool for investigating the relationship between speech and gesture: a system that generates speech, intonation, and gesture using two copies of an identical program that have different knowledge of the world and must cooperate to accomplish a goal. The output of the dialogue generation is fed into a three-dimensional interactive animated model -two graphic figures on a computer screen who gesture according to the rules given to the system. The advantage of computer modeling in this domain is that it forces us to come up with predictive theories of the gesture-speech relationship. A felicitous outcome is a working system to realize autonomous animated conversational agents, for virtual reality and other purposes.

Until now theories of the gesture-speech relationship have been difficult to evaluate because of their descriptive basis. In this paper we provide a tool for investigating the relationship between speech and gesture: a system that generates speech, intonation, and gesture using two copies of an identical program that have different knowledge of the world and must cooperate to accomplish a goal. The output of the dialogue generation is fed into a three-dimensional interactive animated model -two graphic figures on a computer screen who gesture according to the rules given to the system. The advantage of computer modeling in this domain is that it forces us to come up with predictive theories of the gesture-speech relationship. A felicitous outcome is a working system to realize autonomous animated conversational agents, for virtual reality and other purposes.

ecent innovations in interactive digital television 1 and multimedia products have enhanced viewers' ability to interact with programs and therefore to individualize their viewing experience. Designers for such applications need systems that provide the capability of immersing real-time simulated humans in games, multimedia titles, and film anima-tions. The ability to place the viewer in a dramatic situation created by the behavior of other, simulated digital actors will add a new dimension to existing simulation-based products for education and entertainment on interactive TV. In the games market, convincing simulated humans rejuvenate existing games and enable the production of new kinds of games. Finally, in virtual reality (VR), representing participants by a virtual actor—self-representation in the virtual world—is an important factor for a sense of presence. This becomes even more important in multiuser environments, where effective interaction among participants contribut...

We present an interactive modeling and animation system that facilitates the integration of a variety of simulation and animation paradigms. This system permits the modeling of diverse objects that change in shape, appearance, and behavior over time. Our system thus extends modeling tools to include animation controls. Changes can be effected by various methods of control, including scripted, gestural, and behavioral specification. The system is an extensible testbed that supports research in the interaction of disparate control methods embodied in controller objects. This paper discusses some of the issues involved in modeling such interactions and the mechanisms implemented to provide solutions to some of these issues, The system's object-oriented architecture uses delegation hierarchies to let objects change all of their attributes dynamically. Objects include displayable objects, controllers, cameras, lights, renderers, and user interfaces. Techniques used to obtain interactive performance include the use of data-dependency networks, lazy evaluation. and extensive caching to exploit inter-and intra-frame coherency.

A systemic approach is privileged in Automatics. A given system design description must be structured in an operative part and a sequence control part. From the system point of view, the GRAFCET (French StandardNF C03-190/ European Standard. CEI IEC 848) is today a well known and recognized graphic tool in educational and industrial world for describing the specification of a sequence control system. In a teaching context the operative part is often represented by didactic components. therefore a student must: a) Elaborate the Grafcet according to a system viewpoint; b) Implement the whole or part of the Grafcet on a PLC; c) Validate the behavior of the operative part according to the implementation mentioned in b). In this paper we describe a system allowing the accomplishment of these three tasks without the need of a real PLC nor an operative part. A visual simulation is possible by using a VRML viewer to validate the conformity of the Grafcet with the awaited automatism behavior. The virtual didactic models are stored in a library of reusable components. The reusability of components is based on the following points: a) The 3-D description of the components is made by using the standard language VRML, which makes them portable on many types of platforms. b) The storage of the components in a spatiotemporal database based on a relational model gives, to them a modular structure that facilitates reusability. c) The component is a software component that can be used in a virtual environment (simulation) or a real environment (Co-simulation). It can also be combined with different types of sequence control systems in order to create new types of automatism.

Acrısio J. do Nascimento Jr. acrisio@catalao.ufg.br Departamento de Ciências da Computaç˜ao - UFG - CaC, 75705-220, Catal˜ao, GO, Brasil Alex F. de Araújo Aledir S. Pereira Norian Marranghello Jonathan Rogéri fa.alex@gmail.com aledir@ibilce.unesp.br ...

In this paper we try to define – as ethologists – the easiest ways for creating such a synergy around a common project: mixed groups of interacting animals and robots. The following aspects are explored. (1) During this century, ethology has accumulated numerous results showing that animals' interactions could be rather simple signals and it is possible to interact with

We describe the HUMANOID environment dedicated to human modeling and animation for general multimedia, VR, and CAD applications integrating virtual humans. We present the design of the system and the integration of the various features: generic modeling of a large class of entities with the BODY data structure, realistic skin deformation for body and hands, facial animation, collision detection, integrated motion control and parallelization of computation intensive tasks.

Interpretation and audit of financial information is a significant undertaking that must rest on a fuller understanding of the firm and its operations. A pictorial representation of firm activity offers promise for supporting this requirement. After reviewing the literature related to visualizations, we describe the design of an interactive animated version of the cycle model. Business Animator assists users in developing an intuitive sense about the cycle model itself, while exploring and visualizing how firms at various stages of growth, sustenance, and decay are affected by specific operating decisions. Principles and findings from the accounting and information systems literatures were used to drive the design of the representation and software used to control it. This resulting system adds depth to traditional accounting representations by conveying information about the momentum of the firm's activities, the rate of change at which various activities are occurring. The animation facilitates identification of backlogs or breaks in operating processes, thus increasing understanding of the firm's financial health.

Animating natural human motion in dynamic environments is difficult because of complex geometric and physical interactions. Simulation provides an automatic solution to parts of this problem, but it needs control systems to produce lifelike motions. This paper describes the systematic computation of controllers that can reproduce a range of locomotion styles in interactive simulations. Given a reference motion that describes the desired style, a derived control system can reproduce that style in simulation and in new environments. Because it produces high-quality motions that are both geometrically and physically consistent with simulated surroundings, interactive animation systems could begin to use this approach along with more established kinematic methods.

Habitat disturbance, particularly of human origin, promotes the invasion of exotic plants, which in turn might foster the invasion of alien-interacting animals. Here we assess whether the invasion of exotic plants – mostly mediated by habitat disturbance – facilitates the invasion of exotic flower visitors in temperate forests of the southern Andes, Argentina. We recorded visit frequencies and the identity

Complex software systems are difficult to understand and very hard to debug. Programmers trying to understand or debug these systems must read through source code which may span over thousands of files. Software Visualization tries to ease this burden by using graphics and animation to convey important information about the program to the user, which may be used either for understanding the behavior of the program or for detecting any defects within the code. SoftViz is one such software visualization system, developed by Ben Kurtz under the guidance of Prof. George T. Heineman at WPI. We carry forward the work initiated with SoftViz. Our preliminary study showed various avenues for making the system more effective and user-friendly. Specifically I completed the unfinished work, made optimizations, implemented new functionality and added new visualization plug-ins, all aimed at making the system a more versatile and user-friendly debugging tool. We built a solid core functionality that would be able to support various functionalities and created new plug-ins that would make understanding and bug-detection easier. Further we integrated SoftViz with the Eclipse development environment, making the system easily accessible and potentially widely used. We created an error classification framework relating the common error classes and the visualizations that could be used to detect them. We believe this will be helpful in both selecting the right visualization options as well as constructing new plug-ins. I express my greatest gratitude to my advisors, Prof. George T. Heineman and Prof. Matthew O. Ward, for their guidance and invaluable contributions to this work. I consider myself very fortunate that I have two such excellent professors as my advisors. I thank Prof. Gary F. Pollice for being the reader of this thesis and giving me much valuable feedback. He has been a great support all along the way and provided much needed assistance with Eclipse. This work would have been impossible without the loving care of my family and friends. Special thanks to Anil and Nishant for providing help with Java and LaTeX. Without all of you, I couldn't have done it. Thank You ! i 3.2 Enhancements to plug-in architecture The two existing plug-ins of SoftViz were only partially implemented; in particular plugin Timeline required a lot of work. The enhancements made to the plug-ins are described below. 3.2.1 Sunburst According to [31] "Sunburst visualization represents a class of visualizations capable of representing a hierarchical data set in an intuitive and space-efficient manner."

Die automatisierte Steuerung von Robotern scheiterte in der Vergangenheit häufig an der enormen Größe des Zustandsraumes. Der Grund sind hochauflösende Sensoren in Verbindung mit Servomotoren, die numerische Werte als Eingabe verwenden. Selbst moderne Computer sind überfordert, den Spielbaum für derartige lowlevel Zustandsräume zu bestimmen, geschweige denn mehrere Schritte in die Zukunft zu planen. Der Ausweg aus dem Dilemma ist die Projektion des ursprünglichen Zustandsraumes in einen abstrakten kognitiven Zustandsraum. Dieses Mapping ist auch als Symbol grounding Problem bekannt und bedeutet die Transformation von Sensordaten in eine symbolische Schrift. Es handelt sich um ein Kodierungsproblem zur Repräsentation der Realität in einem Roboter. Das Erzeugen einer linguistischen Grammatik ist Teil der folgenden Ausarbeitung. Ferner wird am Beispiel eines Autorennspiels demonstriert, wie eine natürlichsprachliche Beschreibung der Ist Situation aussieht.

This paper introduces a new software tool for teaching power electronics and electrical machines. The tool consists of HTML text where small programs in form of Javaapplets are inserted which are used for interactive animation, simulation and design of power electronic circuits and/or electrical machines. The whole tool does need just a standard web-browser, is fully independent of the underlying operating system, also no installation is necessary, and all interactive Java-programs are written with the focus on very easy usage. Therefore, the tool can be accessed via the World Wide Web and/or by a CD-ROM in stand-alone PCs by students and professionals. Since the Java-programs are simple to handle, a student can immediately start working with the programs and can fully concentrate on the theory of the problem instead of studying help-manuals. Because of the underlying software technology the tool can be used for on-line learning and can be easily integrated into an E-Learning platform for distance learning. It can be also used in the traditional classroom with laptop and beamer, via Internet or CD-ROM. Therefore, it can be integrated in a course making use of other modern technologies like video, slide-shows or sound-clips. It can be used by professionals or students for self-studying. The focus of this paper is on the introduction of the usage and the technology of this new E-Learning software tool which is optimized for education in power electronics and electrical machines. It is not about certain teaching techniques. The E-Learning tool as presented at the conference can be found at www.pes.ee.ethz.ch.

Many of the problems facing physicists and applied mathematicians
involve difficulties as nonlinear governing equations, variable
coefficients, and nonlinear boundary conditions at complex known or
unknown boundaries that preclude solving them exactly. In this paper we
introduce a numerical parametrization of the orbits around the Lagrange
points of the circular restricted three-body problem, together with their
stable and unstable invariant manifolds. Studying about Lagrange points
is very important. On December 25, 2021, the James Webb Telescope
was launched into space. Why was Lagrange point L2 chosen to send the
Web telescope? This point will be the James Webb Space Telescope’s
home in space. The stable and unstable invariant manifold associated to
Lagrange point orbits are the phase space conduits transporting material
between primary bodies for separate three-body systems. Manifolds and
optimal control were used to better understand trajectories in the circular
restricted three-body problem. Equations of this problem were used to
generate two-dimensional stable and unstable invariant manifolds.
The numerical integration requires an initial position and velocity so that
it can generate a trajectory over a specified time interval. A zero initial
velocity is required to find the stable manifold to travel to a Lagrange
point. The stable manifold can be propagated forward and backward in
time so that a spacecraft is able to travel to and from a Lagrange point on
the manifold. Low-energy lunar exploration orbit is designed by
changing orbit at a certain intersection field through manifold of two
periodic orbit of three body system. An example of orbit design is given
to show that the Earth-Moon transfer orbit based on invariant manifold
splicing has the characteristics of energy saving and long-time
consumption.

ITALY marisa. michel in i(ci)uniud. iI, stefano. vercellal i(ci)uniud. il Electromagnetic phenomena offer an ideal theoretical framework in which students could address the investigation of the physical reality by means of the use of multivariable abstract elements of synthesis. The role played by the flux of the magnetic field in that description is pivotal but at the same time its interpretation represents an important learning knot that students had to face. To explore this physical quantity, a Real Time Laboratorial activity was developed and proposed to Italian high school students in the framework of the development of vertical Inquired Based Learning path in which the formal nature of the magnetic field flux is constructed step by step from the observation of simple hands-on experimental activities and developed thought the use of the real time sensor to reach the interpretation of the electromagnetic induction. The core activities of the investigation of the magnetic field flux is described looking to the experimental explorations and discussions done with students concerning core concepts as the constancy of magnetic field flux along a flux tubes, the measure of the field along field lines and in each flux tubes individuating the relation between the magnetic field and the distance between the lines, the identification of the vector nature of the magnetic field distinguishing this entity from a the forces. In particular the visualization by means of a flux tubes representation of the magnetic field which is built from the field line representation in a framework in which the role of experiment founded the formal role of the entity and the formal representation and the critical analysis of them provide new more refined interpretative tools that could be applied in different, more general, contexts. The experimental apparatus and its characteristics will be addressed and the analysis of the learning outcomes and reasoning that this learning activity promotes in students mind will be presented and discussed. Data presented from students referred to four different activities held with different groups of high school students: 1) 5th class of experimental scientific lyceum, 2) 5th class of scientific lyceum; 3) 5th class of a classic lyceum; 4) a selection of the Italian best student coming from all of the 4th and 5th classes of all the Italian high schools. From it, looking in particular to the role of the development of the angle of attach proposed, it represent a crucial step in which pupils recognize the presence of a constant of the system that is related to a multivariable abstract entity as the flux. In this way the role of the rigor and the inner coherence adopted in the learning path allow students to address the exploration of the phenomenology and its analysis in a systematic way constructing the formal representation of the physical entity involved.

The net was one of the determining factors in a training of a group of 4 primary and middle school teachers (L. M. in Forni Di Sopra and C. D. F. in Villa Santina, P. C. in Tolmezzo and D. S. in Gemona, all places in the mountains of Friuli, in the Nord-East of Italy) in an action-research on the electric charge. It was developed through meetings with researchers in physics education and exchange and sharing of experiences and projects on the net, in an environment designed for teaching activities and under the guidance of a project tutor. The environment allowed to establish different kinds of relations: between teachers, between them and researchers, between classes. It offered to teachers (two in middle school and two in primary school) a place for discussions during the design of paths to be presented to their classes, to structure and share the products of their training both during and after it, to reflect on their training path.

Teacher formation requires the integration of different models, metacultural, experential and situated, to realize a professionality based on PCK: in the framework of EU MOSEM Project we carried out a researchbased formation for teachers with different modalities. Blended modality, dedicated to the discussion on some aspects related to disciplinary and conceptual knots, aims to work implementation and to transform a proposal according to the personal style and classroom context. Problem Solving activities play a fundamental role in reflection and new elaboration: teachers carried out original proposal with respect to those proposed by the project.

The Conceptual Laboratory of Operative Exploration (CLOE) provides an informal context for pupils that stimulates conceptual reasoning and offers anchors for the construction of the first steps in scientific knowledge from the common sense vision. Research based CLOE labs are carried out by a researcher on a specific topic, based on a semi-structured interview protocol, which represents an open work environment through the proposal of everyday life scenarios. Phenomena in everyday situations are explored following sequences of reasonings by means of simple hands-on apparatus in different contexts. A research focused on construction of formal thinking through CLOE allows to identify students' spontaneous ideas and conceptual paths into the evolution of reasoning in the interpretation of magnetic and electromagnetic phenomena. This particular activity was carried out with primary and lower secondary school students (from 6 to 13 years old; from 1 to 8 grade). Starting from the identification and the classification of magnets, students highlighted the presence of a space property described by the orientation of a compass (magnetic field) having as sources both magnetic objects and both an electric current. The quantities involved into the Lenz induction process are individuated exploring the conditions for the generation of an electric motive force, highlighting the transient nature of the phenomena. The task to explain the functioning of an unknown artifact (induced torch) give the opportunity to apply the ideas on electromagnetic induction. Data are collected using personal worksheets and recording of the activity looking in particular to: 1) how an operative exploration may help students to identified and organize electromagnetic phenomena; 2) how the exploration and the comparison between phenomena is useful to help students in the interpretation of artifact; 3) how exploratory elements are reused by students in the interpretation of artifacts.

Even if magnetism and electromagnetism are generally not addressed during the formative courses in Italy, they are part of the curricular programs in primary schools. A formative learning intervention concerning electromagnetism was conducted in the context of the physics course for Prospective Primary Teachers (PPT) held at the University of Udine. In this paper are analysed how PPT address the analysis of the electromagnetic phenomena while they are facing an experimental learning path for pupils, looking to what conceptual nuclei and the learning knots are identified and re-used by them in the design of their own learning path.

Untuk peningkatan kualitas pendidikan dibutuhkan berbagai inovasi dan terobosan baru, baik dalam penambahan kurikulum, inovasi pembelajaran, dan pemenuhan sarana serta prasarana pendidikan. Memanfaatkan kemajuan teknologi informasi dan komunikasi khususnya pada teknologi komputer dalam kegiatan belajar dan mengajar yang diharapkan menjadi sebuah pemecahan masalah dalam kegiatan tersebut. Penulis membuat sebuah Media pembelajaran untuk mendorong siswa dapat belajar secara optimal di dalam belajar mandiri maupun didalam pelajaran di kelas. Untuk membuat sebuah media pembelajaran penulis menggabungkan teks, gambar dan suara yang dibuat dengan aplikasi Adobe Animate CC 2017. Hasil akhir dari penulisan laporan ini berupa media pembeljaran berupa penggolongan hewan berdasarkan jenis makanannya. Dan penulis membuat stationary berupa amplop surat dan kop surat dan merchandise berupa mug (gelas).

Our goal with this project was to build a piece of software capable of visualizing the solution to partial differential equations of numerous variables in 3D space. To that end, we have created the framework and infrastructure for said software. The package comprises an initialization file parser, an expression parser, all of the numerical methods, and a GUI that includes the majority of the various requisite control interfaces, all of which are largely completed. We were able to link the various components of the software and demonstrate a visual output based on a simple test equation. However, the program still requires additional work. We failed to meet some of our customers initial requirements such as the ability to work with up to 50 variables, but we feel that our software framework has the potential capability to support all of these requirements in the future. During development, we also discovered many things that should be added to make this a more useful software, such as the inclusion of more operators. With that in mind, we set up the software framework so that it would be very easy for future users to add more operators (e.g. the trigonometric functions). Also,

A review of the practical uses of errors in education reveals three contexts where errors have been shown to help: teaching conceptual knowledge, changing students' attitudes and promoting learning skills. Conflictive animations form a novel approach to teaching programming that follows a long tradition on research and development on program animation tools. Conflictive animations link the benefits of errors with program animation tools and programming education. This approach involves presenting to the students conflictive animations that do not animate faithfully the programs or concepts taught. Conflictive animations are versatile enough to cover the fundamental building blocks of programs such as operators, expressions and statements. With conflictive animations a novel set of learning activities can be introduced to computer science classes. This conflictive dimension of activities augments an engagement taxonomy for animation tools at all levels. They are an example of activities that promote critical thinking. A particular implementation of conflictive animations has been empirically evaluated aiming for ecological validity rather than statistical significance. Results indicate that students using conflictive animations improve their metacognitive skills, and, when compared to a control group, their conceptual knowledge improves at a better rate.

Figure 1: Coupling multiple codes such as a rigid body simulation (a) and a fluid solver (b) enables to build complex worlds (c)-(d). Different distribution and parallelization approaches can next be applied to achieve real-time user interactions (e)-(f).

Figure 1: Coupling multiple codes such as a rigid body simulation (a) and a fluid solver (b) enables to build complex worlds (c)-(d). Different distribution and parallelization approaches can next be applied to achieve real-time user interactions (e)-(f).

A completamento di quanto già pubblicato in QuaderniCIRD n. 11 (2015) circa l'attività di formazione per l'area Matematica, presentiamo ora il resoconto di quanto svolto nell'occasione per le aree Chimica e Fisica. A queste era dedicata, in particolare, la prima giornata dei lavori, intitolata Dalla luce alla struttura della materia. Durante la mattinata sono stati proposti due contributi di Fisica e tutta l'attività (seminario e laboratorio) di Chimica. Nel pomeriggio si sono svolti, invece, diversi laboratori di Fisica in parallelo, per gruppi di insegnanti. Alcuni di questi prevedevano sia attività in laboratorio "tradizionale" che in laboratorio informatico. Riportiamo di seguito un sunto dei contenuti per le due aree. Il programma completo è riportato alla fine di questo contributo.

This study investigated the modality effect in relation to verbal working memory capacity and time of testing within a computerized second language multimedia learning environment. Twenty-nine advanced learners of English with Turkish as the first language were randomly assigned to audiovisual or visual-only presentations about an unfamiliar topic and completed immediate and delayed tests to assess retention and transfer of information performance. They also completed a reading span test as a measure of working memory capacity. Results revealed a significant combined effect of time, input modality and working memory capacity on participants' retention performance while the only significant effect observed on transfer performance was that of time. Analyses on the significant three-way interaction revealed that although input modality and working memory capacity play some role in retention performance, their effects emerged dependent upon one other and time of testing.

Upon arrival to a new area, alien species have to overcome a series of biotic and abiotic barriers to survive, reproduce, and spread and thus, succeed along the invasion continuum. Failing to understand the role of the different sets of barriers and factors operating across the stages of the invasion continuum limit our ability to predict invasion dynamics, leading to misinformed management. Here, we explore how the European plant Cytisus scoparius overcomes the survival and reproductive barriers to establish along the roadsides of Nahuel Huapi National Park (Argentina). We evaluate the direct and indirect influence of climatic and landscape factors, species traits and their interaction with patch cover, plant height, and pollinator visitation rates as proxies of population persistence, plant growth, and reproduction, respectively. Cytisus scoparius cover was positively associated with the length of water shores and urban cover, factors that may relate to the arrival of propagules, new introduction events, and high levels of disturbance. Plant height was positively associated with annual precipitation and mean temperature. Visitation rates positively related to shrubland cover and to a lesser extent to slope, two factors that may influence pollinator availability and long-distance detectability, respectively. However, factors positively affecting survival had no effect (in the case of height) or negative effect (in the case of cover) on visitation rates, probably due to the saturation of the pollinator

Animation authoring involves an author's interaction with a scene, resulting in varying scene complexity for a given animation sequence. In such a varying environment, detection and prediction of collision in minimal time and with high accuracy is a challenge. This paper proposes using the bounding volume-based space subdivision mechanism to reduce search space for an object pair collision search. This data structure is enhanced using a direction-based spatial hash table, which predicts collision between static and dynamic objects. These techniques are shown to work in conjunction with existing search space reduction methods. The event of collision is accurately detected using known methods, such as kinetic data structures. Simulation results show that for a scene with 10 000 objects with varying dynamic objects (10%-90%), the method finds probable collision-pairs with 95%-99% accuracy.

Hexahedral (or Hex-) meshes are preferred in a number of scientific and engineering simulations and analyses due to their desired numerical properties. Recent state-of-the-art techniques can generate high quality hex-meshes. However, they typically produce hex-meshes with uniform element sizes and thus may fail to preserve small scale features on the boundary surface. In this work, we present a new framework that enables users to generate hex-meshes with varying element sizes so that small features will be filled with smaller and denser elements, while the transition from smaller elements to larger ones is smooth, compared to the octree-based approach. This is achieved by first detecting regions of interest (ROI) of small scale features. These ROIs are then magnified using the as-rigid-as-possible (ARAP) deformation with either an automatically determined or a user-specified scale factor. A hex-mesh is then generated from the deformed mesh using existing approaches that produce hex-meshes with uniform-sized elements. This initial hex-mesh is then mapped back to the original volume before magnification to adjust the element sizes in those ROIs. We have applied this framework to a variety of man-made and natural models to demonstrate its effectiveness.

Figure 1: Our architecture allows the loading of any 3D graphics format simultaneously in any available rendering engine. The scene graph adapter is an interface that adapts a scene graph (SG) of a given format into a renderer scene graph and which also allows the rendering part to request this scene graph.

In signalling interactions, animals can directly address information to a specific individual. Vocal overlapping is such a signalling strategy used in songbirds, anurans, and insects. In songbirds, numerous studies using high rates of song overlap to simulate an escalating situation have shown that song overlapping is perceived as a threatening signal by interacting and by listening (eavesdropping) individuals, indicating a high social relevance of song overlapping. Here we present a playback experiment on nocturnally singing male territorial nightingales (Luscinia megarhynchos). Using three different rates of song overlap (1, 25, or 50%), we tested whether or not lower levels of song overlapping act as a signal of aggressive intent and if birds would increase the intensity of their response with increasing level of song overlapping. Subjects did not vary song duration in response to the different playback treatments but increasingly interrupted their singing with increasing overlap by the three playback treatments. The effects persisted even after the playback ceased to overlap and switched to an alternating singing mode. These results expand on previous studies by showing that song overlapping is interpreted as an aggressive signal even when it is used at low or moderate levels. They suggest that, within the range tested here, increasing levels of song overlapping are perceived to be increasingly aggressive.

Accurately simulating Additive Manufacturing (AM) processes is useful to predict printing failures and test 3D printing without wasting precious resources, both in terms of time ad material. In AM the object to be fabricated is first cut into a set of slices aligned with the build direction, and then printed, depositing or solidifying material one layer on top of the other. To guarantee accurate simulations, it is therefore necessary to encode the temporal evolution of the shape to be printed within the simulation domain. We introduce slice2mesh, to the best of our knowledge the first software capable of turning a sliced object directly into a volumetric mesh. Our tool inputs a set of slices and produces a tetrahedral mesh that endows each slice in its connectivity. An accurate representation of the simulation domain at any time during the print can therefore be easily obtained by filtering out the slices yet to be processed. slice2mesh also features a flexible mesh generation syste...

Shadows are of great importance to computer graphics, especially for interactive animation due to the visual cues which they provide. Most research in the field of dynamic shadowing has focussed on shadows from point light sources, since they are much easier to compute than those from area light sources. This means that such shadows have sharp boundaries, and so often appear to be unrealistic. We present an algorithm which enables the interactive animation of shadows due to area light sources which have been computed using discontinuity meshing. The results in this paper show that it can be used interactively, and more importantly that it has good scalability characteristics with more complex scenes.

Data structures are a conceptually demanding topic which confronts many Computer Science students early in their course. The topic has a strong conceptual basis and often proves difficult for many to grasp. A number of previous studies have examined that the use of interaction and visualization within the systems can motivate a student to engage in the learning process. This literature review investigates the effectiveness of these systems that were and are being used today for teaching and learning of data structures to novice Computer Science students. It also explores the different techniques that are used to develop the intelligent tutoring systems and concludes on presenting which techniques are most effective.