Search for: All records

In 1995, Jesyca Durchin accepted a job as a producer at Mattel Media under Nancie Martin. The then-fledgling game and software studio had fewer than a dozen employees and existed at a distance from Mattel’s more central toy business Barbie Fashion Designer (Mattel Media, 1996) was Durchin’s first major project and is widely credited with catalyzing the girls’ game and software market in the mid-1990s. However, as Durchin discusses throughout this interview, the game’s success was not as immediate or automatic as might be assumed. In the first weekend of its release, Barbie Fashion Designer sold only eleven copies; Mattel CEO Jill Barad’s enthusiasm for the project and willingness to invest in a television commercial salvaged the situation. Most companies attempting to create the games-for-girls market lacked the resources of toy giant Mattel, of course, and the reality that even Mattel nearly failed to break through speaks volumes about the level of inertia that defined the mid-1990s computer and video game market. Over the past two decades, Durchin has worked extensively with Disney Imagineering; founded and sold her own startup, Digital Playspace; and today works as a senior producer at Warner Bros., where she is producing the company’s first AAA game featuring Wonder Woman. Her interests in storytelling, multimedia interface design, and play patterns have driven her professional trajectory and serve as useful examples of her audience-focused approach to media production. She summarizes her creative and design ethos as one of wish fulfillment, enabling players and audience members to experience the magic of making things better than they found them and using technology for creative ends. In this interview, Durchin reflects on her career, offering insights from her experiences creating games that girls love. She shares stories of early production discoveries that led to pivotal games like Barbie Fashion Designer, and she discusses the difficulties the field faced in trying to forge a more inclusive industry. Taken together, Durchin’s insights shed light on an important and often overlooked chapter of games history. 

Abstract We present power spectra of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy in temperature and polarization, measured from the Data Release 6 maps made from Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) data. These cover 19,000 deg²of sky in bands centered at 98, 150 and 220 GHz, with white noise levels three times lower thanPlanckin polarization. We find that the ACT angular power spectra estimated over 10,000 deg², and measured to arcminute scales in TT, TE and EE, are well fit by the sum of CMB and foregrounds, where the CMB spectra are described by the ΛCDM model. Combining ACT with larger-scalePlanckdata, the joint P-ACT dataset provides tight limits on the ingredients, expansion rate, and initial conditions of the universe. We find similar constraining power, and consistent results, from either thePlanckpower spectra or from ACT combined withWMAPdata, as well as from either temperature or polarization in the joint P-ACT dataset. When combined with CMB lensing from ACT andPlanck, and baryon acoustic oscillation data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI DR1), we measure a baryon density of Ω_bh²= 0.0226 ± 0.0001, a cold dark matter density of Ω_ch²= 0.118 ± 0.001, a Hubble constant ofH₀= 68.22 ± 0.36 km/s/Mpc, a spectral index ofn_s= 0.974 ± 0.003, and an amplitude of density fluctuations ofσ₈= 0.813 ± 0.005. Including the DESI DR2 data tightens the Hubble constant toH₀= 68.43 ± 0.27 km/s/Mpc; ΛCDM parameters agree between the P-ACT and DESI DR2 data at the 1.6σlevel. We find no evidence for excess lensing in the power spectrum, and no departure from spatial flatness. The contribution from Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) anisotropy is detected at high significance; we find evidence for a tilt with suppressed small-scale power compared to our baseline SZ template spectrum, consistent with hydrodynamical simulations with feedback. 

Abstract We present Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) Data Release 6 (DR6) maps of the Cosmic Microwave Background temperature and polarization anisotropy at arcminute resolution over three frequency bands centered on 98, 150 and 220 GHz. The maps are based on data collected with the AdvancedACT camera over the period 2017–2022 and cover 19,000 square degrees with a median combined depth of 10 μK arcmin. We describe the instrument, mapmaking and map properties and illustrate them with a number of figures and tables. The ACT DR6 maps and derived products are available on LAMBDA athttps://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/product/act/actadv_prod_table.html. We also provide an interactive web atlas athttps://phy-act1.princeton.edu/public/snaess/actpol/dr6/atlasand HiPS data sets in Aladin (e.g.https://alasky.cds.unistra.fr/ACT/DR4DR6/color_CMB). 

Abstract We use new cosmic microwave background (CMB) primary temperature and polarization anisotropy measurements from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) Data Release 6 (DR6) to test foundational assumptions of the standard cosmological model, ΛCDM, and set constraints on extensions to it. We derive constraints from the ACT DR6 power spectra alone, as well as in combination with legacy data from thePlanckmission. To break geometric degeneracies, we include ACT andPlanckCMB lensing data and baryon acoustic oscillation data from DESI Year-1. To test the dependence of our results on non-ACT data, we also explore combinations replacingPlanckwithWMAPand DESI with BOSS, and further add supernovae measurements from Pantheon+ for models that affect the late-time expansion history. We verify the near-scale-invariance (running of the spectral indexdn_s/dlnk= 0.0062 ± 0.0052) and adiabaticity of the primordial perturbations. Neutrino properties are consistent with Standard Model predictions: we find no evidence for new light, relativistic species that are free-streaming (N_eff= 2.86 ± 0.13, which combined with astrophysical measurements of primordial helium and deuterium abundances becomesN_eff= 2.89 ± 0.11), for non-zero neutrino masses (∑m_ν< 0.089 eV at 95% CL), or for neutrino self-interactions. We also find no evidence for self-interacting dark radiation (N_idr< 0.134), or for early-universe variation of fundamental constants, including the fine-structure constant (α_EM/α_EM,0= 1.0043 ± 0.0017) and the electron mass (m_e/m_e,0= 1.0063 ± 0.0056). Our data are consistent with standard big bang nucleosynthesis (we findY_p= 0.2312 ± 0.0092), theCOBE/FIRAS-inferred CMB temperature (we findT_CMB= 2.698 ± 0.016 K), a dark matter component that is collisionless and with only a small fraction allowed as axion-like particles, a cosmological constant (w= -0.986 ± 0.025), and the late-time growth rate predicted by general relativity (γ= 0.663 ± 0.052). We find no statistically significant preference for a departure from the baseline ΛCDM model. In fits to models invoking early dark energy, primordial magnetic fields, or an arbitrary modified recombination history, we findH₀= 69.9^+0.8_-1.5, 69.1 ± 0.5, or 69.6 ± 1.0 km/s/Mpc, respectively; using BOSS instead of DESI BAO data reduces the central values of these constraints by 1–1.5 km/s/Mpc while only slightly increasing the error bars. In general, models introduced to increase the Hubble constant or to decrease the amplitude of density fluctuations inferred from the primary CMB are not favored over ΛCDM by our data. 

Direct particle models are a promising tool for predicting microstructural properties of fiber reinforced composites. In order to validate our modeling approach for fiber orientation prediction, compression molded reinforced Polypropylene samples were subjected to a simple shear flow in a Sliding Plate Rheometer. Micro computed tomography was used to measure the orientation tensor for deformations up to 60 shear strain units. The fully characterized microstructure at zero shear strain was used to reproduce the initial conditions in the particle simulation. Fibers were placed in a periodic boundary cell and a flow field matching the experiment was applied. Samples created with the proposed compression molding technique showed repeatable and controlled initial orientation. The model showed good agreement with the steady state orientation; however, it showed a faster orientation evolution at the start of the shearing process.