1,922 research outputs found
Mobile heritage practices. Implications for scholarly research, user experience design, and evaluation methods using mobile apps.
Mobile heritage apps have become one of the most popular means for audience
engagement and curation of museum collections and heritage contexts. This
raises practical and ethical questions for both researchers and practitioners, such
as: what kind of audience engagement can be built using mobile apps? what are
the current approaches? how can audience engagement with these experience
be evaluated? how can those experiences be made more resilient, and in turn
sustainable? In this thesis I explore experience design scholarships together with
personal professional insights to analyse digital heritage practices with a view to
accelerating thinking about and critique of mobile apps in particular. As a result,
the chapters that follow here look at the evolution of digital heritage practices,
examining the cultural, societal, and technological contexts in which mobile
heritage apps are developed by the creative media industry, the academic
institutions, and how these forces are shaping the user experience design
methods. Drawing from studies in digital (critical) heritage, Human-Computer
Interaction (HCI), and design thinking, this thesis provides a critical analysis of
the development and use of mobile practices for the heritage. Furthermore,
through an empirical and embedded approach to research, the thesis also
presents auto-ethnographic case studies in order to show evidence that mobile
experiences conceptualised by more organic design approaches, can result in
more resilient and sustainable heritage practices. By doing so, this thesis
encourages a renewed understanding of the pivotal role of these practices in the
broader sociocultural, political and environmental changes.AHRC REAC
A Critical Review Of Post-Secondary Education Writing During A 21st Century Education Revolution
Educational materials are effective instruments which provide information and report new discoveries uncovered by researchers in specific areas of academia. Higher education, like other education institutions, rely on instructional materials to inform its practice of educating adult learners. In post-secondary education, developmental English programs are tasked with meeting the needs of dynamic populations, thus there is a continuous need for research in this area to support its changing landscape. However, the majority of scholarly thought in this area centers on K-12 reading and writing. This paucity presents a phenomenon to the post-secondary community. This research study uses a qualitative content analysis to examine peer-reviewed journals from 2003-2017, developmental online websites, and a government issued document directed toward reforming post-secondary developmental education programs. These highly relevant sources aid educators in discovering informational support to apply best practices for student success. Developmental education serves the purpose of addressing literacy gaps for students transitioning to college-level work. The findings here illuminate the dearth of material offered to developmental educators. This study suggests the field of literacy research is fragmented and highlights an apparent blind spot in scholarly literature with regard to English writing instruction. This poses a quandary for post-secondary literacy researchers in the 21st century and establishes the necessity for the literacy research community to commit future scholarship toward equipping college educators teaching writing instruction to underprepared adult learners
Writing Facts: Interdisciplinary Discussions of a Key Concept in Modernity
"Fact" is one of the most crucial inventions of modern times. Susanne Knaller discusses the functions of this powerful notion in the arts and the sciences, its impact on aesthetic models and systems of knowledge. The practice of writing provides an effective procedure to realize and to understand facts. This concerns preparatory procedures, formal choices, models of argumentation, and narrative patterns. By considering "writing facts" and "writing facts", the volume shows why and how "facts" are a result of knowledge, rules, and norms as well as of description, argumentation, and narration. This approach allows new perspectives on »fact« and its impact on modernity
Blending the Material and Digital World for Hybrid Interfaces
The development of digital technologies in the 21st century is progressing continuously and new device classes such as tablets, smartphones or smartwatches are finding their way into our everyday lives. However, this development also poses problems, as these prevailing touch and gestural interfaces often lack tangibility, take little account of haptic qualities and therefore require full attention from their users. Compared to traditional tools and analog interfaces, the human skills to experience and manipulate material in its natural environment and context remain unexploited. To combine the best of both, a key question is how it is possible to blend the material world and digital world to design and realize novel hybrid interfaces in a meaningful way. Research on Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) investigates the coupling between physical objects and virtual data. In contrast, hybrid interfaces, which specifically aim to digitally enrich analog artifacts of everyday work, have not yet been sufficiently researched and systematically discussed.
Therefore, this doctoral thesis rethinks how user interfaces can provide useful digital functionality while maintaining their physical properties and familiar patterns of use in the real world. However, the development of such hybrid interfaces raises overarching research questions about the design: Which kind of physical interfaces are worth exploring? What type of digital enhancement will improve existing interfaces? How can hybrid interfaces retain their physical properties while enabling new digital functions? What are suitable methods to explore different design? And how to support technology-enthusiast users in prototyping?
For a systematic investigation, the thesis builds on a design-oriented, exploratory and iterative development process using digital fabrication methods and novel materials. As a main contribution, four specific research projects are presented that apply and discuss different visual and interactive augmentation principles along real-world applications. The applications range from digitally-enhanced paper, interactive cords over visual watch strap extensions to novel prototyping tools for smart garments. While almost all of them integrate visual feedback and haptic input, none of them are built on rigid, rectangular pixel screens or use standard input modalities, as they all aim to reveal new design approaches. The dissertation shows how valuable it can be to rethink familiar, analog applications while thoughtfully extending them digitally. Finally, this thesis’ extensive work of engineering versatile research platforms is accompanied by overarching conceptual work, user evaluations and technical experiments, as well as literature reviews.Die Durchdringung digitaler Technologien im 21. Jahrhundert schreitet stetig voran und neue Geräteklassen wie Tablets, Smartphones oder Smartwatches erobern unseren Alltag. Diese Entwicklung birgt aber auch Probleme, denn die vorherrschenden berührungsempfindlichen Oberflächen berücksichtigen kaum haptische Qualitäten und erfordern daher die volle Aufmerksamkeit ihrer Nutzer:innen. Im Vergleich zu traditionellen Werkzeugen und analogen Schnittstellen bleiben die menschlichen Fähigkeiten ungenutzt, die Umwelt mit allen Sinnen zu begreifen und wahrzunehmen. Um das Beste aus beiden Welten zu vereinen, stellt sich daher die Frage, wie neuartige hybride Schnittstellen sinnvoll gestaltet und realisiert werden können, um die materielle und die digitale Welt zu verschmelzen. In der Forschung zu Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) wird die Verbindung zwischen physischen Objekten und virtuellen Daten untersucht. Noch nicht ausreichend erforscht wurden hingegen hybride Schnittstellen, die speziell darauf abzielen, physische Gegenstände des Alltags digital zu erweitern und anhand geeigneter Designparameter und Entwurfsräume systematisch zu untersuchen.
In dieser Dissertation wird daher untersucht, wie Materialität und Digitalität nahtlos ineinander übergehen können. Es soll erforscht werden, wie künftige Benutzungsschnittstellen nützliche digitale Funktionen bereitstellen können, ohne ihre physischen Eigenschaften und vertrauten Nutzungsmuster in der realen Welt zu verlieren. Die Entwicklung solcher hybriden Ansätze wirft jedoch übergreifende Forschungsfragen zum Design auf: Welche Arten von physischen Schnittstellen sind es wert, betrachtet zu werden? Welche Art von digitaler Erweiterung verbessert das Bestehende? Wie können hybride Konzepte ihre physischen Eigenschaften beibehalten und gleichzeitig neue digitale Funktionen ermöglichen? Was sind geeignete Methoden, um verschiedene Designs zu erforschen? Wie kann man Technologiebegeisterte bei der Erstellung von Prototypen unterstützen?
Für eine systematische Untersuchung stützt sich die Arbeit auf einen designorientierten, explorativen und iterativen Entwicklungsprozess unter Verwendung digitaler Fabrikationsmethoden und neuartiger Materialien. Im Hauptteil werden vier Forschungsprojekte vorgestellt, die verschiedene visuelle und interaktive Prinzipien entlang realer Anwendungen diskutieren. Die Szenarien reichen von digital angereichertem Papier, interaktiven Kordeln über visuelle Erweiterungen von Uhrarmbändern bis hin zu neuartigen Prototyping-Tools für intelligente Kleidungsstücke. Um neue Designansätze aufzuzeigen, integrieren nahezu alle visuelles Feedback und haptische Eingaben, um Alternativen zu Standard-Eingabemodalitäten auf starren Pixelbildschirmen zu schaffen. Die Dissertation hat gezeigt, wie wertvoll es sein kann, bekannte, analoge Anwendungen zu überdenken und sie dabei gleichzeitig mit Bedacht digital zu erweitern. Dabei umfasst die vorliegende Arbeit sowohl realisierte technische Forschungsplattformen als auch übergreifende konzeptionelle Arbeiten, Nutzerstudien und technische Experimente sowie die Analyse existierender Forschungsarbeiten
Tradition and Innovation in Construction Project Management
This book is a reprint of the Special Issue 'Tradition and Innovation in Construction Project Management' that was published in the journal Buildings
Active Curation: algorithmic awareness for cultural commentary on social media platforms
This thesis examines how everyday social media users engage in curation practices to influence what news and information they see on their social feeds. It finds that cultural commentary content can act as a proxy for news on these platforms, contributing to public debate and the fifth estate.
While much research has explored the implications of algorithmically driven recommender systems for content personalisation and news visibility, this thesis investigates a gap in our understanding of how social media users understand and respond to algorithmic processes, customising their feed in their day-to-day curation practices on these platforms. It explores how a group of Australians aged 18–30 respond to algorithmic recommender systems and how effective their practices are in shaping their social feeds. The study used a mixed methods approach that included a digital ethnography of social media use and a comparative content analysis of social media news exposure and topics in the legacy news cycle.
This study develops a taxonomy of consumptive curation practices that users can engage in to influence their personalised social feeds. The study also examines users’ motivations for this curation and how effective these are in filtering news and ‘cultural commentary’ content into or out of their feed.
The findings demonstrate that algorithmic literacy is a driver of active curation practices, where users consciously engage in practices designed to influence recommender processes that customise their social feed. They also demonstrate the prevalence of non-journalistic news-related content or ‘cultural commentary’ on social media platforms in the form of hot takes, memes, and satire, and how this cultural commentary can act as a proxy for the news, even for users who are news avoidant. These findings address gaps in our understanding of news discovery and consumption on social media platforms, with implications for how news businesses can reach emerging news audiences
Digital agriculture: research, development and innovation in production chains.
Digital transformation in the field towards sustainable and smart agriculture. Digital agriculture: definitions and technologies. Agroenvironmental modeling and the digital transformation of agriculture. Geotechnologies in digital agriculture. Scientific computing in agriculture. Computer vision applied to agriculture. Technologies developed in precision agriculture. Information engineering: contributions to digital agriculture. DIPN: a dictionary of the internal proteins nanoenvironments and their potential for transformation into agricultural assets. Applications of bioinformatics in agriculture. Genomics applied to climate change: biotechnology for digital agriculture. Innovation ecosystem in agriculture: Embrapa?s evolution and contributions. The law related to the digitization of agriculture. Innovating communication in the age of digital agriculture. Driving forces for Brazilian agriculture in the next decade: implications for digital agriculture. Challenges, trends and opportunities in digital agriculture in Brazil
Exoteric effects at nanoscopic interfaces - Uncommon negative compressibility of nanoporous materials and unexpected cavitation at liquid/liquid interfaces
This PhD thesis is devoted to the investigation of some peculiar effects happening at nanoscopic interfaces between immiscible liquids or liquids and solids via molecular dynamics simulations. The study of the properties of interfaces at a nanoscopic scale is driven by the promise of many interesting technological applications, including: a novel technology for developing both eco-friendly energy storage devices in the form of mechanical batteries, as well as energy dissipation systems and, in particular, shock absorbers for the automotive market; biomedical applications related to cavitation, such as High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) ablation of cancer tissues and localised drug delivery, and many more. The kinetics of phenomena taking places at these scales is typically determined by large free-energy barriers separating the initial and final states, and even intermediate metastable states, when they are present. Because of such barriers, the phenomena we are interested in are "rare events", i.e. the system attempts the crossing of the barrier(s) many times before finally succeeding when an energy fluctuation makes it possible. At the same time, the magnitude of the barrier is determined by the energetics and dynamics of atoms, which forces us to model the system by taking into account both the femtosecond atomistic timescale and the timescale of the relevant phenomena, typically exceeding the former by several orders of magnitude. These longer timescales are inaccessible to standard molecular dynamics, so, in order to tackle this issue, advanced MD techniques need to be employed.
The thesis is divided into two parts, corresponding to the main lines of research investigated, which are (I) the interfaces between water and complex nanoporous solids, and (II) planar solid-liquid and liquid-liquid interfaces. Anticipating some results, atomistic simulations helped uncovering the microscopic mechanism behind the (incredibly rare!) giant negative compressibility exhibited by the ZIF-8 metal organic framework (MOF) upon water intrusion. Molecular dynamics simulations also supported experimental results showing how it is possible to change the intermediate intrusion-extrusion performance of ZIF-8 by changing its grain morphology and arrangement, from a fine powder to compact monolith. Free-energy MD calculations allowed to explain the exceptional stability of surface nanobubbles in water, at undersaturated conditions, on a surprisingly wide variety of substrates, characterized by disparate hydrophobicities and gas affinities; and yet, how they catastrophically destabilize in organic solvents. Finally, through simulations, some light was shed upon the working mechanism behind the novelly discovered phenomenon of how the interface between two immiscible liquids can act as a nucleation site for cavitation
Economic and Social Consequences of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Energy Sector
The purpose of the Special Issue was to collect the results of research and experience on the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for the energy sector and the energy market, broadly understood, that were visible after a year. In particular, the impact of COVID-19 on the energy sector in the EU, including Poland, and the US was examined. The topics concerned various issues, e.g., the situation of energy companies, including those listed on the stock exchange, mining companies, and those dealing with renewable energy. The topics related to the development of electromobility, managerial competences, energy expenditure of local government units, sustainable development of energy, and energy poverty during a pandemic were also discussed
Improving approaches to material inventory management in construction industry in the UK
Materials used in construction constitute a major proportion of the total cost of construction projects. An important factor of great concern that adversely affects construction projects is the location and tracking of materials, which normally come in bulk with minimal identification. There is inadequate integration of modern wireless technologies (such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) or Just-in-Time (JIT)) into project management systems for easier and faster materials management and tracking and to overcome human error. This research focuses on improving approaches to material inventory management in the UK construction industry through the formulation of RFID-based materials management tracking process system with projects.
Existing literature review identified many challenges/problems in material inventory management on construction projects, such as supply delays, shortages, price fluctuations, wastage and damage, and insufficient storage space. Six construction projects were selected as exploratory case studies and cross-case analysis was used to investigate approaches to material inventory management practices: problems, implementation of ICT, and the potential for using emerging wireless technologies and systems (such as RFID and PDA) for materials tracking. Findings showed that there were similar problems of storage constraints and logistics with most of the construction projects. The synthesis of good practices required the implementation of RFID-facilitated construction management of materials tracking system to make material handling easier, quicker, more efficient and less paperwork. There was also a recommendation to implement Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools to integrate plant, labour and materials into one system.
The findings from the cases studies and the literature review were used to formulate a process for real-time material tracking using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) that can improve material inventory management in the UK construction industry. Testing and validation undertaken assisted in formulating a process that can be useful, functional and acceptable for a possible process system’s development. Finally, research achievements/contributions to knowledge, and limitations were discussed and some suggestions for further research were outlined
- …