The explosive growth in the usage of IEEE 802.11 network has resulted in dense deployments in diverse environments. Most recently, the IEEE working group has triggered the IEEE 802.11ax project, which aims to amend the current IEEE 802.11 standard to improve efficiency of dense WLANs. In this paper, we evaluate the Dynamic Sensitivity Control (DSC) Algorithm proposed for IEEE 802.11ax. This algorithm dynamically adjusts the Carrier Sense Threshold (CST) based on the average received signal strength. We show that the aggregate throughput of a dense network utilizing DSC is considerably improved (i.e. up to 20%) when compared with the IEEE 802.11 legacy network.

Recent work by the `CombeChem' project together with the UK National Crystallography Service (NCS) has integrated the NCS into an e-Science environment. The existing high-throughput crystallography facility is enhanced by on-line feedback with the ability to monitor and steer diffraction experiments remotely. Security mechanisms are used to determine authorisation attributes and hence to allow user interaction at appropriate stages, together with access of a database recording the status of the submitted samples. The user can monitor the position of their samples, be alerted to all stages from submission to experiment and then analysis, visualise raw data as it is generated, be involved in the key decision-making during the parameterisation and initialization of the experiment and then track the data collection to ensure its successful completion. Results data are staged to a secure area and made available for download (either the raw diffraction data or a refined structure generated by NCS staff)

The success of translating an analog or manual practice into a digital interactive system may depend on how well that translation captures not only the functional what and how aspects of the practice, but the why of the process as well. Addressing these attributes is particularly challenging when there is a gap in expertise between the design team and the domain to be modeled. In this paper, we describe Making Tea, a design method foregrounding the use of analogy to bridge the gap between design team knowledge and domain expertise. Making Tea complements more traditional user-centered design approaches such as ethnography and task analysis. In this paper, we situate our work with respect to other related design methods such as Cultural Probes and Artifact Walkthroughs. We describe the process by which we develop, validate and use analogy in order to maximize expert contact time in observation, interviews, design reviews and evaluation. We contextualize the method in a discussion of its use in a project we ran to replace a paper-based synthetic chemistry lab book with an interactive system for use in a pervasive lab environment.

The UK e-Science programme is relying on the evolution of the paper lab book into a pervasive data gathering lab system. To date take up of existing commercial or research lab book replacement systems has not been great. In this paper, we reconsider both the role of the lab book in the experimental cycle, as well as its affective and experiential properties as an artefact, in order to design an e-Science lab book that will be acceptable to the scientists who will use it. To this end we combined and extended existing design analysis models in order to assess the artefact functionally and experientially. We present the approach we developed, the prototype we designed based on our analysis, and the results of the formative study we performed of the artefact in real use. We show that our design elicitation method strongly contributed to the success of our prototype's take up.

We describe simple techniques for object group manipulation, an important operation in user interaction with a virtual environment. All presented manipulation techniques exploit constraints to simplify user interaction. The techniques are based on how humans perceive groups and afford direct manipulation of such groups. Furthermore, we introduce two new intuitive ways to create a whole group of objects: drag-add and random drag-add. Finally, we present an evaluation of the presented techniques.