The cases presented here are introduced as representative examples of the typologies outlined in the curatorial framework. The aim of this Stories section is to explore alternative formats that deal with absence of data in different ways and in order to address different typologies of absence. Next to the selected visuals and images, most relevant is the description of the methods that each of these initiatives and organizations have developed to identify the absence, first, and collect missing data for different purposes.
The content has been developed as part of Simona Colitti’s case study analysis through a combination of sources. Most descriptions draw on publicly available materials produced by the projects themselves, including websites, reports, toolkits, and visual outputs, as well as on the accompanying case study analysis. The final visual story contribution includes original material authored by Visualizing Palestine, expanding and contextualising the analysis through an authorial methodological note. This approach reflects our intent to situate these cases not as exhaustive accounts, but as situated entry points into the broader categories of missing data identified in the study.
Alfonso Morone, Viviana Saitto, Susanna Parlato
et al.
In the face of the increasingly critical phenomenon of depopulation and marginalization in Italy’s inner areas, a thorough reflection is needed on the role of design as a tool capable of activating territorial regeneration processes. Twenty-five years after the introduction of action-research in territorial contexts, there is an urgent need to update tools, approaches, and objectives in light of the growing complexity of contemporary challenges — from demographic desertification to socio-economic and environmental transformations — that are having an increasingly dramatic impact on these territories.
At the same time, the rise of digital culture has opened up new perspectives linked to a redefinition of the concepts of center and periphery, which may lead to the overcoming of the very notion of territorial marginality.
Design, with its ability to listen, read, interpret, and narrate local knowledge, resources, and criticalities, can activate practices capable of counteracting the progressive depletion of human and cultural capital. Within this framework, we propose a reflection on the need to redefine design practices in light of the digital shift and the emergence of new forms of community — digital and atopic — capable of connecting people and skills across increasingly abstract, fluid, and shifting boundaries.
Elisabetta Cianfanelli, Paolo Franzo, Maria Antonia Salomè
In the context of the climate crisis and resource scarcity, the fashion industry faces increasing analysis due to its linear production model and significant generation of textile waste, particularly in the pre-consumer phase. This paper presents the outcomes of RE-WASTE, a design-led research project initiated in 2023 by the University of Florence, in collaboration with academic and industrial partners. The project explores how design can reframe pre-consumer textile waste—not as a problem to be hidden or externalized, but as a material and cultural opportunity. Through a transdisciplinary and practice-based approach, RE-WASTE combined design education, material experimentation, and co-design with startups and local enterprises. The project adopted a situated methodology involving workshops, prototyping, and the creation of hybrid semi-finished materials. Results highlight the potential of design to act as a catalyst for systemic change, shifting perceptions of waste, generating new aesthetic and symbolic values, and fostering relational infrastructures across the fashion system. By adopting the paradigm of “prosperity by design”, the project positions waste as a critical entry point for rethinking production, value, and collaboration. Ultimately, RE-WASTE advocates for a regenerative and context-sensitive design culture, where waste becomes the starting point for imagining more inclusive and sustainable futures.
Aleksei Kondratenko, Mussie Birhane, Houssame E. Hsain
et al.
AEC drawings encode geometry and semantics through symbols, layout conventions, and dense annotation, yet it remains unclear whether modern multimodal and vision-language models can reliably interpret this graphical language. We present AECV-Bench, a benchmark for evaluating multimodal and vision-language models on realistic AEC artefacts via two complementary use cases: (i) object counting on 120 high-quality floor plans (doors, windows, bedrooms, toilets), and (ii) drawing-grounded document QA spanning 192 question-answer pairs that test text extraction (OCR), instance counting, spatial reasoning, and comparative reasoning over common drawing regions. Object-counting performance is reported using per-field exact-match accuracy and MAPE results, while document-QA performance is reported using overall accuracy and per-category breakdowns with an LLM-as-a-judge scoring pipeline and targeted human adjudication for edge cases. Evaluating a broad set of state-of-the-art models under a unified protocol, we observe a stable capability gradient; OCR and text-centric document QA are strongest (up to 0.95 accuracy), spatial reasoning is moderate, and symbol-centric drawing understanding - especially reliable counting of doors and windows - remains unsolved (often 0.40-0.55 accuracy) with substantial proportional errors. These results suggest that current systems function well as document assistants but lack robust drawing literacy, motivating domain-specific representations and tool-augmented, human-in-the-loop workflows for an efficient AEC automation.
Vacuum systems are an intrinsic part of any accelerator around the world: all particles circulate under vacuum. This lecture gives rudiments on the fundamentals of vacuum science such as units, ideal gas law, partial pressure, mean free path, flow of molecules, conductance, pumping speed, and outgassing. An overview of standard vacuum instruments for pressure measurement and pumping is presented. Finally, the specificities of accelerator vacuum systems are introduced, discussing some design, construction, installation, and commissioning aspects, as well as fundamentals of beam-vacuum interactions with synchrotron radiation and electron cloud.
Recent advancements in the text-rendering capabilities of image generation models have made the end-to-end creation of graphic design content, such as posters, increasingly feasible. However, existing reward models fall short of accurately assessing design quality, as they primarily focus on global image aesthetics while overlooking the critical dimensions of typography and layout. Furthermore, the scarcity of domain-specific preference data remains a significant bottleneck, which limits the further development of graphic design evaluation and generation. To bridge this gap, we introduce an automated pipeline to construct a high-quality dataset of 70k poster preferences by leveraging the consensus of multiple Multi-modal Large Language Models (MLLMs) to simulate human-like judgment. Utilizing this dataset, we develop PosterReward, a reward model specifically designed for high-precision poster assessment through a cascaded, multi-stage training strategy. We also provide multiple variants of the model to cater to different application scenarios. Finally, we introduce PosterRewardBench and PosterBench to evaluate the performance of existing reward models in poster assessment and the generation capabilities of current text-to-image models in poster creation, respectively.
Design programmes commonly employ project-based learning (PBL) in studio settings, emphasising hands-on learning through real-world projects. However, there are multiple practices in the name of PBL. There is confusion about what is and what is not PBL. Furthermore, real-world or authentic projects are integral to PBL but have no clear interpretations. Many studies inform about the advantages of real-world or authentic projects; however, very few about its integration into teaching and even fewer in graphic design education. This action research proposes a framework for the clarity and application of PBL in a graphic design studio class using a real-world design project. The proposed framework in the study derived from the work by Blumenfeld et al., 1991; Krajcik & Blumenfeld, 2005, shows the implementation of a real-world project for graphic design students—an area where the PBL research is scarce. Applied in a communication design course at an Indian university, the framework imparts structure, clarity, and
alignment with curricular requirements. This approach ensures successful course completion with tangible outcomes, enriching students' portfolios. The study serves as a model for employing a comprehensive framework based on PBL, demystifies real-world or authentic projects and demonstrates how they can be tailored for holistic learning in graphic design education.
When the quantities of interest remain underdetermined a posteriori, we would like to draw inferences for at least one particular solution. Can we do so in a Bayesian way? What is a probability distribution over an underdetermined quantity? How do we get a posterior for one particular solution from a posterior for infinitely many underdetermined solutions? Guided by discrete invariant underdetermined ill-posed inverse problems, we find that a probability distribution over an underdetermined quantity is non-absolutely continuous, partially improper with respect to the initial reference measure but proper with respect to its restriction to its support. Thus, it is necessary and sufficient to choose the prior restricted reference measure to assign partially improper priors using e.g., the principle of maximum entropy and the posterior restricted reference measure to obtain the proper posterior for one particular solution. We can then work with underdetermined models like Hoeffding–Sobol expansions seamlessly, especially to effectively counter the curse of dimensionality within discrete nonparametric inverse problems. We show Singular Bayesian Inference (SBI) at work in an advanced Bayesian optimization application: dynamic pricing. Such a nice generalization of Bayesian–maxentropic inference could motivate many theoretical and practical developments.
Mechanical drawing. Engineering graphics, Physical and theoretical chemistry
Carola S. Heinzel, Johann F. Jadebeck, Elisabeth Zelle
et al.
Better understanding of the fitness and flexibility of microbial platform organisms is central to biotechnological process development. Live-cell experiments uncover the phenotypic heterogeneity of living cells, emerging even within isogenic cell populations. However, how this observed heterogeneity in growth relates to the variability of intracellular processes that drive cell growth and division is less understood. We here approach the question, how the observed phenotypic variability in single-cell growth rates links to metabolic processes, specifically intracellular reaction rates (fluxes). To approach this question, we employ the Maximum Entropy (<i>MaxEnt</i>) principle that allows us to bring together the phenotypic solution space, derived from metabolic network models, to single-cell growth rates observed in live-cell experiments. We apply the computational machinery to first-of-its-kind data of the microorganism <i>Corynebacterium glutamicum</i>, grown on different substrates under continuous medium supply. We compare the MaxEnt-based estimates of metabolic fluxes with estimates obtained by assuming that the average cell operates at its maximum growth rate, which is the current predominant practice in biotechnology.
Mechanical drawing. Engineering graphics, Physical and theoretical chemistry
Pierre Pugnat, Rafik Ballou, Philippe Camus
et al.
Two outstanding problems of particle physics and cosmology, namely the strong-CP problem and the nature of dark matter, can be solved with the discovery of a single new particle, the axion. The modular high magnetic field and flux hybrid magnet platform of LNCMI-Grenoble, which was recently put in operation up to 42 T, offers unique opportunities for axion/axion-like particle search using Sikivie-type haloscopes. In this paper, the focus will be on the 350–600 MHz frequency range corresponding to the 1–3 μeV axion mass range requiring a large-bore RF-cavity. It will be built by DMAG and integrated within the large-bore superconducting hybrid magnet outsert, providing a central magnetic field up to 9 T in 812 mm warm bore diameter. The progress achieved by Néel Institute in the design of the complex cryostat with its double dilution refrigerators to cooldown below 50 mK the ultra-light Cu RF-cavity of 650 mm inner diameter and the first stage of the RF measurement chain are presented. Perspectives for the targeted sensitivity, assuming less than 2-year integration time, are recalled.
Mechanical drawing. Engineering graphics, Physical and theoretical chemistry
شهریار مهدوی, صادق یوسفی اورند, فیروزه نوروزی گلدره
et al.
این پژوهش با هدف ارزیابی کارایی نانو صفحات گرافن در حذف رنگزاهای کاتیونی رودامین B، مالاشیت سبز و متیلن بلو از محلولهای آبی انجام شد. آزمایشها با بررسی اثر متغیرهایی مانند مقدار جاذب (۱ تا ۵ گرم بر لیتر)، pH (۳ تا ۷)، زمان تماس (۱۰ تا۱۸۰ دقیقه) و دما (۲۰ تا ۶۰ درجه سانتیگراد) انجام شد. بازده جذب مالاشیت سبز در شرایط بهینه (4pH= ، دما °C 40، جاذب 2 گرم بر لیتر و زمان 90 دقیقه) برابر 15/88 درصد و بالاتر از دو رنگزای دیگر بود. مطالعه ایزوترمها نشان داد که جذب مالاشیت سبز و متیلن بلو از مدل لانگمویر(90/0R²>) و رودامین Bاز مدل فروندلیچ (۹۹/0= R²) تبعیت میکند. براساس مدل لانگمویر، حداکثر ظرفیت جذب (qmax) برای رودامین B، مالاشیت سبز و متیلن بلو به ترتیب 56/5، 65/5 و 78/11میلیگرم بر گرم به دست آمد. دادههای سینتیکی نیز بهترین برازش را با مدل شبه مرتبه دوم (98/0<R² ) داشتند که بیانگر جذب شیمیایی است. عوامل ترمودینامیکی نیز گرماگیر و خودبهخودی بودن فرایند جذب را تأیید کردند. نتایج نشان میدهد نانوصفحات گرافن جاذبی کارآمد، اقتصادی و سازگار با محیطزیست برای حذف رنگزاهای کاتیونی از فاضلاب صنعتی هستند.
Due to increases in chronic diseases, hospital costs, and aging populations, home care has become a growing world- wide trend in elder care. This research proposes Intelligent Home Care Environment (IHCE) as a solution that can assist the elderly with physical and cognitive functioning, while reducing costs and avoiding the social and cultural problems associated with current solutions.
In order to examine the interrelationship between the elderly and their physical environments in home care, this research starts with ecological models of human-environment relationships and the disablement model that is used in the epidemiology of aging and gerontology. Then, Acupuncture Theory is employed as a metaphor/model for formulating a Dynamic Multi-Agent System (DMAS) that can dynamically respond to ever-changing events in the environment; this is a way to design the physical environment as a ‘living ecology’. Finally, with the aim of considering how the elderly are assisted in home care from a social and cultural perspective, quantitative and qualitative case studies describe how personal and cultural tastes affect the user’s physical and cognitive functioning.
Zhening Huang, Xiaoyang Wu, Fangcheng Zhong
et al.
We propose LiteReality, a novel pipeline that converts RGB-D scans of indoor environments into compact, realistic, and interactive 3D virtual replicas. LiteReality not only reconstructs scenes that visually resemble reality but also supports key features essential for graphics pipelines -- such as object individuality, articulation, high-quality physically based rendering materials, and physically based interaction. At its core, LiteReality first performs scene understanding and parses the results into a coherent 3D layout and objects with the help of a structured scene graph. It then reconstructs the scene by retrieving the most visually similar 3D artist-crafted models from a curated asset database. Next, the Material Painting module enhances realism by recovering high-quality, spatially varying materials. Finally, the reconstructed scene is integrated into a simulation engine with basic physical properties to enable interactive behavior. The resulting scenes are compact, editable, and fully compatible with standard graphics pipelines, making them suitable for applications in AR/VR, gaming, robotics, and digital twins. In addition, LiteReality introduces a training-free object retrieval module that achieves state-of-the-art similarity performance on the Scan2CAD benchmark, along with a robust material painting module capable of transferring appearances from images of any style to 3D assets -- even under severe misalignment, occlusion, and poor lighting. We demonstrate the effectiveness of LiteReality on both real-life scans and public datasets. Project page: https://litereality.github.io; Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecK9m3LXg2c
Background: Harnessing advanced computing for scientific discovery and technological innovation demands scientists and engineers well-versed in both domain science and computational science and engineering (CSE). However, few universities provide access to both integrated domain science/CSE cross-training and Top-500 High-Performance Computing (HPC) facilities. National laboratories offer internship opportunities capable of developing these skills. Purpose: This student presents an evaluation of federally-funded postgraduate internship outcomes at a national laboratory. This study seeks to answer three questions: 1) What computational skills, research skills, and professional skills do students improve through internships at the selected national laboratory. 2) Do students gain knowledge in domain science topics through their internships. 3) Do students' career interests change after these internships? Design/Method: We developed a survey and collected responses from past participants of five federally-funded internship programs and compare participant ratings of their prior experience to their internship experience. Findings: Our results indicate that participants improve CSE skills and domain science knowledge, and are more interested in working at national labs. Participants go on to degree programs and positions in relevant domain science topics after their internships. Conclusions: We show that national laboratory internships are an opportunity for students to build CSE skills that may not be available at all institutions. We also show a growth in domain science skills during their internships through direct exposure to research topics. The survey instrument and approach used may be adapted to other studies to measure the impact of postgraduate internships in multiple disciplines and internship settings.
Differentiable vector graphics (VGs) are widely used in image vectorization and vector synthesis, while existing representations are costly to optimize and struggle to achieve high-quality rendering results for high-resolution images. This work introduces a new differentiable VG representation, dubbed Bézier Splatting, that enables fast yet high-fidelity VG rasterization. Bézier Splatting samples 2D Gaussians along Bézier curves, which naturally provide positional gradients at object boundaries. Thanks to the efficient splatting-based differentiable rasterizer, Bézier Splatting achieves 30x and 150x faster per forward and backward rasterization step for open curves compared to DiffVG. Additionally, we introduce an adaptive pruning and densification strategy that dynamically adjusts the spatial distribution of curves to escape local minima, further improving VG quality. Furthermore, our new VG representation supports conversion to standard XML-based SVG format, enhancing interoperability with existing VG tools and pipelines. Experimental results show that Bézier Splatting significantly outperforms existing methods with better visual fidelity and significant optimization speedup.
This article presents a design investigation of how to address social justice concerns in participatory activities when debating energy futures. As the climate crisis grows and technological progress exacerbates environmental issues, the design field is increasingly committed to understanding and mitigating the impact of new products in the world. This is resulting in a conscious redesign of products or in developing strategies to nudge sustainable behaviours. Yet little methodological work exists on how to address social concerns when designing in the context of energy transitions. This paper explores this gap by delineating an energy scenario of Switzerland in 2030, designing two fictional artefacts and a participatory toolkit, and then hosting a world café with twelve participants. The results provide insights into the value as well as the methodological challenges of designing for debating justice in energy futures.
Marzie Hatef Jalil, Qistina Donna - Lee Abdullah, Natasha Rusdy Wong
et al.
Orang Ulu's culture and traditions are adapting to modernization and finding new ways to thrive amidst changes that have influenced various aspects of their lives and material culture in Malaysia. This paper highlights the exciting potential for Orang Ulu’s material culture to flourish through the development of motif design and presents the first Orang Ulu woven fabric in a 3D graphical view. Motif design is a beautiful way to preserve and promote the rich cultural identity of Orang Ulu through graphical expression. It also has the potential to boost the local economy by providing employment opportunities for skilled artisans. The paper highlights the importance of Orang Ulu motif design in their material culture, emphasizes the value of art as a tool for cultural expression and preservation, and outlines the development of these designs through graphic design and research. This study has adopted mixed-methods research to achieve its goal. The accomplished method for this study is categorized into three phases: research and inspiration in Orang Ulu's material culture market; 2D motif design conceptualization; and 3D artistic creation. This study recommends exploring the potential for incorporating Orang Ulu motifs in apparel products. The findings showcase the exciting potential for small and medium enterprises to preserve and promote the Orang Ulu cultural heritage and sustainability while providing economic benefits for the community.
مژگان حسیننژاد, کمال الدین قرنجیگ, مهدی قهاری
et al.
سلولهای خورشیدی حساسشده به مواد رنگزا، یک فناوری کارآمد در تولید انرژی تجدیدپذیر بوده که برای تبدیل نور خورشید به انرژی الکتریکی معرفی شدهاند. برای تسهیل تجاریسازی این فناوری، جایگزینی بخشهای گران قیمت و کاهش پدیده بازترکیب، میتواند موثر باشد. برای این منظور اثر دو بخش نیمههادی و الکترود مقابلدر تهیه سلولهای خورشیدی حساس شده به مواد رنگزا مورد بررسی قرار گرفت. نیمه هادیها در تهیه فوتوآند مورد استفاده قرار گرفته و الکترون تولید شده در اثر تهییج ماده رنگزا را دریافت میکنند. در این پژوهش دو نیمه هادی اکسید روی و دیاکسید تیتانیم دوپ شده با سدیم انتخاب و عملکرد آنها با دیاکسید تیتانیم مقایسه شد. دو ماده رنگزای آلی- معدنی دارای دو گروه الکترون گیرنده مختلف به عنوان حساسکننده تهیه گردید. بیشترین بازده در حضور ماده رنگزای دارای گروه سیانوآکریلیک اسید و دیاکسید تیتانیم دوپ شده با سدیم و در حدود 6.27 درصد به دست آمد. پلاتین به عنوان الکترود مقابل، بخش گران قیمت سلولهای خورشیدی حساس شده به مواد رنگزا است. اکسید گرافن، هیبرید و کامپوزیت آن با دیسولفید مولیبدن برای جایگزینی پلاتین انتخاب گردید. اکسید گرافن دارای خواص الکتروکاتالیستی ضعیفی بوده که با استفاده از دیسولفید مولیبدن این محدودیت برطرف میگردد. بیشترین بازده در حضور ماده رنگزای دارای گروه سیانوآکریلیک اسید، کامپوزیت MoS2/GO و دیاکسید تیتانیم دوپ شده با سدیم در حدود 6.03 درصد به دست آمد. نتایج نشان داد که میتوان از کامپوزیت MoS2/GO به جای پلاتین در ساختار سلولهای خورشیدی حساس به مواد رنگزا استفاده کرد.
The article describes the definition of a joint Master degree program for designers, focused on integrated skills to address the complexity of the future and to contribute to the green and digital transition of the European industrial context. Based on the application framework of the INTRIDE European project, the article presents an analysis of designers’ skills and the needs of European companies. The reflection then extends to the research methodology adopted, developing a state of the art on the European training offer on soft, digital, green skills, useful for the design of the interdisciplinary joint Master degree program. Based on the research results, authors propose the INTRIDE output as an innovative training course with integrated key competencies for designers, enhancing them as innovation triggers for SMEs in the manufacturing sector. Lastly, authors will discuss the design process carried out and will suggest a sustainable implementation of the training program designed.