Colour and lighting in hospital design

Little information or guidance has been available to assist the development of a hospital's visual environment. A report on lighting and colour design schemes, accessible to non professionals with responsibility for refurbishment strategies, was required by NHS Estates. Firstly, 20 hospitals were audited to establish a picture of current practice and to identify key issues where colour design could broadly enhance the environment for patients, staff and visitors. Critical areas were outlined in this report, where colour design can be utilised and applied, for the benefit of all users, from ambience to essential legal requirements such as colour contrast for the visually impaired.Provision of staff relaxation rooms that are different in terms of colour and lux levels from immediate work spaces, or thoughtfully designed areas for patients awaiting intensive treatment, have been shown to have some beneficial effects on a sense of well being. Colour and design have not been established as a definite cure for sickness and ill health, but certainly monotony and poor conditions in premises that have not been refurbished with any care, have had a detrimental affect on recovery rates and staff morale. The realisation that a well balanced and attractive environment is of major importance to patients’ health is, in no way new; Florence Nightingale observed that ‘a variety of form and brilliance of colour in the objects presented to patients are an actual means of recovery’.     

Red in Estonian popular belief and folk costume

A visit by one of the authors to Estonia, and the discovery that the term ‘red’ was used locally for the colour ‘orange’, led to a detailed study of the colour red in Estonian belief and culture. The study is reported here, together with an interpretation of the red/orange substitution based on Berlin and Kay's model of colour term development in language.     

An unusual phenomenon observed when anodising CP titanium to produce coloured surfaces for jewellery and other decorative uses

The unpredictability of the evenness of colour developed on titanium surfaces for use in jewellery has led to a research project at Central Saint Martin's College of Art and Design (CSM) to investigate the detailed structure of the thin oxide films that produce the interference colours.In the course of some initial investigations an unusual phenomenon was observed when a specific material was anodised. Examination of the anodised surface by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed a profusion of flower-like ‘oxide growths’ developed in random orientations from about 30 V with increasing density up to 110 V.In honour of the late Professor Harvey Flower these features are currently referred to as ‘Flower oxides’ or ‘flowers’.Further work is continuing to clarify the nature of these growth features and their structure and composition.     

LED光环境及服装色彩对消费者行为影响分析

LED光源具有高显色性、高发光效率、寿命长、节能环保等优秀的性能,目前很多服装店已经采用L ED进行照明.但服装店在选择照明方式上出现很多问题,比如灯光不能再现服装的真实原貌,消费者的氛围感知不强,消费者购买欲望差.以可调L ED光源为基础,针对服装店室内照明场合,分别采用普通照明方式、重点照明方式、局部照明方式和混合...     

High-p jets in diffractive electroproduction

The diffractive production of high-p jets in deep-inelastic scattering is studied in the semiclassical approach. The p-spectra of and diffractive final states are found to be qualitatively different. For fina states, which are produced by ‘hard’ colour-singlet exchange, the p-spectrum is much softer than for final states, where the colour neutralization is ‘soft’. Furthermore, the two different final states can be clearly distinguished by their diffractive mass distributions.     

Colour, design and virtual reality at JET

Joint European torus (JET) is the world's largest nuclear fusion research facility investigating the use of nuclear fusion, the process that powers the stars, as a source of clean, limitless electrical energy.The JET machine undergoes an on-going program of upgrades and modifications facilitating a broad scientific program of experimentation. Maintenance of the JET machine is carried out remotely using telemanipulators mounted on a robotic Boom, employing a ‘man in the loop’ approach. The system relies on the use of real time 3D computer graphic models in a ‘virtual reality’ environment for preparation and support of remote-handling operations. Colour is used in this virtual environment to emphasise robots from the vessel environment and to highlight materials, components and systems requiring special care.     

Bipolar quantum corrections in resolving individual dopants in ‘atomistic’ device simulation

In ‘atomistic’ device simulation the resolving of discrete charges onto a fine-grained simulation mesh can lead to problems. The sharply resolved Coloumb potential can cause simulation artefacts to appear in classical simulation environments using Boltzmann or Fermi–Dirac statistics. Various methods have been proposed in an effort to reduce or eliminate such artefacts as the localisation of mobile carriers by sharply resolved Coulomb wells, however they have met with limited success. In this paper we present an alternative approach for handling discrete charges in drift diffusion ‘atomistic’ simulations by properly introducing the related quantum mechanical effects using the density gradient formalism for both electrons and holes. This eliminates the trapping of mobile charge in heavily doped regions of the device and the related artefacts in the simulated device characteristics.     

Fibre-optic systems for dynamic light scattering — a review

‘Photon correlation spectroscopy’ has become a standard method in applied science for analysing the properties of submicron particles in a fluid environment. The fast, local fluctuations in the intensity of the light scattered from such particles are recorded and analysed in terms of the local motions. This has led to the use of the method both to characterize particle geometry and to monitor particle translation as a marker for fluid flow. The advent of fibre-optics has enabled portable, small, remote and more flexible systems to be established in recent years. This paper reviews those instrument designs which have represented advances in the development of fibre-based systems. Emphasis is laid on instruments (a) for monitoring blood flow and (b) for measuring Brownian-induced translatory diffusion in colloidal suspensions.     

Global noise characteristics of a laser Doppler vibrometer-II. Experiments using beam dynamics

The use of a laser Doppler vibrometer to obtain velocity information from vibrating structures has gained wide acceptance in recent years. Although use of such an instrument can yield a spatially dense matrix of velocity information, several users have noted ‘noise’ at certain points in the spatial field. The technique by which the SLDV system operates results in occasional velocity ‘drop-outs’ which are unidirectional, always estimating the velocity response closer to zero than reality. These ‘drop-out’ areas occur more predominately at points of maximum velocity response with small rotational components. Alternatively, points exhibiting minimum velocity response with large rotational components are less susceptible to the ‘noise’. In this paper, an experiment to visualize the speckle pattern motions received by the photo-detectors during these vibration conditions is presented. Theories regarding the source(s) of the ‘noise’ are developed.     

Optical fibre strength/fatigue experiments

New techniques for measuring and analysing the strength characteristics of optical waveguide fibres have evolved as the strength of the optical fibres improved. A recent life-fatigue experiment is described and the results analysed in terms of the most commonly used theoretical model which results in the power law V = AKⁿ. Ten m long fibre samples were tensilely stressed in a high humidity environment by both fixed (static fatigue) and constant rate (dynamic fatigue) loads. The respective test values for the power law exponent, the fatigue constant ‘n’, were 38 and 17. The results of the tests indicate the more conservative value, 17, for practical engineering design, and the need for incorporating an ageing term in the model.     

Critical ray-like propagation modes along graded-index planar optical waveguides

Graded-index planar optical waveguides and surface compression layers were formed simultaneously in the surface layer of glass plates by ion exchange. A change in the refractometer patterns was observed. Before ion exchange, only a critical ray fringe was observed, but with ion exchange a guided wave fringe appeared on the high effective refractive index side of the ‘critical ray’ fringe, and the number of guided wave fringes increased. The guided wave fringe or fringes were birefringent, whereas the ‘critical ray’ fringe was kept nonbirefringent. It was concluded that the ‘critical ray’ propagated along the bottom of a waveguide, ie at the foot of the refractive index distribution.     

Colour Appearance of Surfaces as Affected by Different Time-Varying Colour-Adaptation Sequences

We report on experiments in which observers judged colour appearance within the context of time-varying colour adaptation. We used pairs of contextual images consisting of a rapid succession of colour surfaces reproduced under different illuminants to analyse the effect of temporal colour adaptation rather than a spatial context on asymmetric matching and also to judge its influence upon the cone excitation components. We used adaptation colour distributions along the red-green and yellow-blue axes (selective conditions) and random colour distributions (non-selective condition). The results of observers’ matches for both conditions showed approximate colour-constant appearance. Although light adaptation did not fully compensate the colour changes, we obtained average colour-constancy index values of 0.6. The results for the two opponent conditions showed similar contextual effects. No significant differences between each condition were found for the L- and S-cone mechanisms and the three test illuminants. On the contrary, some degree of interaction between the comparison-field cone excitations and the colour axis can be seen when the colour mechanisms are analysed separately. This seems to be more pronounced for the S-cone mechanism and suggests that the selective condition of the adaptation sequence may well affect the observer’s chromatic matching response.     

Coupling of one-dimensionally confined optical modes in porous silicon: Spectral observation and photonic-quantum-well description

Single and double photonic-quantum-wells (PQWs) have been fabricated, using refractive-index-modulated porous silicon multilayer structures. The one-dimensionally confined optical modes observed are consistent with those calculated using the transfer matrix method. While single PQWs exhibit atom-like discrete spectral features, molecule-like energy level splitting is accessible by combining two single PQWs into a double PQW structure. Similar to an electron in a double-quantum-well structure, the energy separation between the split ‘anti-bonding’ and ‘bonding’ photonic states can be ‘tuned’ by changing the strength of inter-well coupling.     

Linear and nonlinear optical properties of CdSexS1−x microcrystallites

Microcrystals of CdSe_xS_1−x (x≈0.6) with nanometer dimensions have been investigated experimentally by a range of optical techniques. This system of ‘quantum dot’ consists of nanometer sized semiconductor particles embedded within an insulating glass matrix. The existence of microscopic CdSeS crystals within the glass matrix is demonstrated by the observation of Raman scattering from the ‘CdSe-like’ and ‘CdS-like’ LO phonons. The nature of the electronic states within these three dimensionally confined systems is investigated by linear absorption and photoluminescence spectroscopy. The photoluminescence spectra show features which are attributed to direct electron-hole recombination and recombination via states within the ‘blue shifted’ energy gap (which are possibly surface related). Carrier relaxation is also investigated by a pump-probe experiment whereby the absorption is partially bleached by a short pump pulse then probed some variable time later by a delayed probe pulse of much lower intensity. Fast and slow components in the carrier relaxation process are identified, and a relationship is suggested between the carrier relaxation and the features observed in the photoluminescence spectra. The well known ‘photodarkening’ properties of such materials are also investigated by the above techniques.     

Diffraction-free beams and their caustics

We discuss the feasibility of generating focal areas in different diffraction fields and prove that the term ‘diffraction-free’ beams is used to designate a spatially limited portion of the toroidal light wave. The light line, or axial caustic, is a result of interference of intersecting areas of this wave. It is shown that the ‘diffraction-free’ beams are generated by such optical elements whose phase transmission function includes linear terms with respect to the radial coordinate. A comparison of optical characteristics of caustics in the near- and far-diffraction fields is made. Synthesis of a new diffraction-modulated axicon that forms two focal areas of different types is reported. The results of experimental studies of its optical characteristics are discussed.     

Missing data in image and signal processing: The case of binary objects

I investigated which portions of the Fourier transform of binary signals, images and three-dimensional objects are necessary to correctly identify an object in the presence of noise. This is practically possible for very small binary data sets since the total number of possible objects is then very limited. There are for example 512 different binary images with 9 pixels. It is easy to see that this number soon becomes impractically large for bigger images or if one allows more than two possible pixel values. It turns out that even in the presence of large amounts of noise a relatively small portion of the Fourier transform is essential for deciding which of all possible binary objects the Fourier transform belongs to. These ‘decision experiments’ can be used as a standard for how well algorithms for retrieval of missing Fourier components perform. In another set of computer experiments I investigate the possibility of retrieving various missing Fourier components algorithmically. The main finding of this second set of computer experiments is that the simple retrieval algorithm (a limited form of ‘projection onto convex sets’) used falls very much short of what one might expect from the ‘decision experiments’.I conclude with a discussion what this discrepancy might be due to and some suggestions how to improve the performance of retrieval algorithms for binary objects.     

The effect of velocity-dependent boundary conditions on pattern formation

We discuss the role played by velocity-dependent boundary conditions in several problems of non-local interface dynamics. Qualitative and quantitative effects are demonstrated through three examples which are: (i) quantitative verification of the scenario of ‘microscopic solvability’ in pattern selection for the case of viscous fingering in a rectangular Hele-Shaw cell, (ii) detection of the presence of this type of boundary condition through an analysis of the statistical properties of the interface for radial Hele-Shaw flow and, (iii) generation of qualitatively different interface morphologies by tuning the magnitude of this effect in the case of radial Hele-Shaw flow. We also point out the possible implications of this last example for the observation of similar morphologies in some problems of solidification.     

Contemporary artists and colour: Meaning, organisation and understanding

What implications do the ranges of traditional and non-traditional media used by contemporary artists have for understanding the selection and specification of coloured materials? Interviews with prominent artists explore their use of colour and their views on the role of colour in their work. The paper establishes that the interview respondents operate successfully within a professional and permeable frame of reference, with different approaches to determination of colour meaning. The colour propositions of neuroscience, psychophysics and anthropological linguistics appear to have little impact on the respondents’ practice, and the paper concludes by suggesting the need to explore boundaries between disciplines.     

An operatorially solved model of massless two-dimensional quantum chromodynamics

An operator solution is constructed in (1,1) dimensions to the massless quantum chromodynamics of n fermion quarks and n² ? 1 vector boson gluons with local colour SU(n) symmetry. The interacting quark field is a confined SU(n) Thirring field with zero Abelian coupling. The colour gluons are dependent Lie fields obeying the gluon-free fermionic current identity. Explicit local infinitesimal operator colour transformations (with an arbitrary coordinate-independent Lorentz vector coefficient defining the gauge) are given and the requirement of proper colour covariance linked to the vanishing of the coloured quark source currents and hence to the absence of coloured quark-composite states. The status of Noether's theorem is also clarified.     

A spatial filtering technique for improved holographic character recognition

Conventional holographic pattern recognition systems suffer from the disadvantage that, in dealing with highly ordered patterns such as Arabic numerals or the letters of the Roman alphabet it is sometimes impossible to distinguish between patterns with a high degree of similarity (eg the capital letters ‘E’ and ‘F’ or ‘B’ and ‘P’).The present paper analyzes a simple case and shows how the insertion of a suitable spatial filter in the Fourier transform plane can reduce the unwanted cross-correlation signal between dissimilar patterns to zero, without removing the desired auto-correlation signal between similar patterns. Although no attempt is made to generalize the analysis, it seems probable that in cases involving the recognition of a small number of patterns with a strong ‘family resemblance’ a compromise filtering arrangement could be developed which would lead to a substantially improved performance.