Visualizing personal histories requires a tool that can present users with multiple time intervals along with supporting information. The Human-Computer Interaction Lab (HCIL) at the University of Maryland created LifeLines, a visualization tool for personal histories in 1994 to visualize youth records [7]. The software was recoded in 2003 to facilitate easy zooming, but not all of the original...

1. Project goals and objectives This project aimed at developing analytical models and methods for assessing the seismic response of electrical substation equipment connected by assemblies of rigid bus (RB) and flexible strap connectors (FSC) or slider connectors (SC). Also developed is a method to estimate the reliability of electrical substation systems subjected to stochastic earthquake load...

Lightning is one of the fascinating phenomena exhibiting tremendous natural power. It is source of awe, curiosity, enticement, inspiration as well as fear. On average, 50 lightning strikes occur on earth in one second. Fortunately not all of them kill people, albeit 10% people fall prey to lightning annually, out of which hardly 20 to 25% die. Lightning injures victims by heat, shockwave, inten...

This paper uses dynamic programming to investigate when contestants should use lifelines or when they should just stop answering in the TV quiz show ‘Who wants to be a millionaire?’. It obtains the optimal strategies to maximize the expected reward and to maximize the probability of winning a given amount of money. 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.