Communication about Planned Obsolescence as an Atypical Two-sided Message

While many information technology vendors deliberately cut their products’ lifecycles to elicit repeat purchases, consumers are often unaware of such planned obsolescence. This paper investigates the effects of atypical two-sided communication about planned obsolescence on consumers’ beliefs and buying intentions. Drawing upon insights from inoculation theory, we hypothesize that trust and intent to buy initially decrease after individuals are exposed to communication about planned obsolescence, but that they partly bounce back after some time during which the inoculated individuals get a chance to discuss and practice counter-arguing the two-sided message. Through a repeated measures survey design, we confirm the study’s main hypotheses. We also show that the drop in intent to buy depends on gender, the importance given to friendship, and the weighted average decrease in friends’ intent to buy

Sustainability in design: now! Challenges and opportunities for design research, education and practice in the XXI century

Copyright @ 2010 Greenleaf PublicationsLeNS project funded by the Asia Link Programme, EuropeAid, European Commission

Система управління та моніторингу безпілотного літального апарату. Підсистема моніторингу (компл.)

Робота публікується згідно наказу Ректора НАУ від 27.05.2021 р. №311/од "Про розміщення кваліфікаційних робіт здобувачів вищої освіти в репозиторії університету". Керівник роботи: д.т.н., професор, зав. кафедри авіаційних комп’ютерно-інтегрованих комплексів, Синєглазов Віктор МихайловичRecently, unmanned aviation has been rapidly developing. The development of unmanned aerial systems based on unmanned aerial vehicles is currently carried out by almost all industrialized countries of the world. Until recently, UAVs had a military purpose, now the use of UAVs is effective both in military and civilian tasks, for example, in combating the consequences of emergencies, natural disasters, agricultural applications, reconnaissance and aerial photography. The impetus for the development of unmanned aviation worldwide was the need for light, relatively cheap aircraft with high maneuverability characteristics and capable of performing a wide range of tasks. Unmanned aerial vehicles are successfully used in military operations around the world, and at the same time they successfully perform civilian tasks. Today, most of the existing unmanned aerial vehicles are piloted manually, using remote controls operating on radio channels. When manually piloting Unmanned aerial vehicles, there are difficulties associated with pilot training, insufficient operating range, and weather restrictions. UAV control is the task of a well-trained professional. For example, in the U.S. Army, UAV operators become active duty Air Force pilots after a year of preparation and training. In many aspects, it is more difficult than piloting an aircraft and, as is known, most accidents of unmanned aircraft are due to pilot-operator errors and mechanical failures. According to the official data provided for 2012, 70 unmanned aircraft crashed in the US Air Force.Останнім часом стрімко розвивається безпілотна авіація. Розробкою безпілотних авіаційних систем на базі безпілотних літальних апаратів в даний час займаються практично всі промислово розвинені країни світу. До недавнього часу БПЛА мали військове призначення, зараз використання БПЛА ефективно як в військові та цивільні завдання, наприклад, у боротьбі з наслідками надзвичайних ситуацій, стихійних лих, застосування в сільському господарстві, розвідка та аерофотозйомка. Поштовхом до розвитку безпілотної авіації в усьому світі стала потреба в легких, відносно дешевих літальних апаратах з високими маневреними характеристиками, здатних виконувати широкий спектр завдань. Безпілотні літальні апарати успішно використовуються у військових діях по всьому світу, і в той же час вони успішно виконують цивільні завдання. Сьогодні більшість існуючих безпілотних літальних апаратів управляються вручну, за допомогою пультів дистанційного керування, що працюють по радіоканалах. При ручному пілотуванні безпілотних літальних апаратів виникають труднощі, пов’язані з підготовкою пілотів, недостатньою дальністю польоту та погодними обмеженнями. Керування БПЛА – це завдання добре підготовленого професіонала. Наприклад, в армії США оператори БПЛА стають активними пілотами ВПС після року підготовки та навчання. У багатьох аспектах це складніше, ніж пілотування літака, і, як відомо, більшість аварій безпілотних літальних апаратів відбувається через помилки пілота-оператора та механічні несправності. За офіційними даними, наданими за 2012 рік, у ВПС США розбилося 70 безпілотних літаків

Summary care record early adopter programme: an independent evaluation by University College London.

Benefits The main potential benefit of the SCR is considered to be in emergency and unscheduled care settings, especially for people who are unconscious, confused, unsure of their medical details, or unable to communicate effectively in English. Other benefits may include improved efficiency of care and avoidance of hospital admission, but it is too early for potential benefits to be verified or quantified. Progress As of end April 2008, the SCR of 153,188 patients in the first two Early Adopter sites (Bolton and Bury) had been created. A total of 614,052 patients in four Early Adopter sites had been sent a letter informing them of the programme and their choices for opting out of having a SCR. Staff attitudes and usage The evaluation found that many NHS staff in Early Adopter sites (which had been selected partly for their keenness to innovate in ICT) were enthusiastic about the SCR and keen to see it up and running, but a significant minority of GPs had chosen not to participate in the programme and others had deferred participation until data quality improvement work was completed. Whilst 80 per cent of patients interviewed were either positive about the idea of having a SCR or ?did not mind?, others were strongly opposed ?on principle?. Staff who had attempted to use the SCR when caring for patients felt that the current version was technically immature (describing it as ?clunky? and ?complicated?), and were looking forward to a more definitive version of the technology. A comparable technology (the Emergency Care Summary) introduced in Scotland two years ago is now working well, and over a million records have been accessed in emergency and out-of-hours care. Patient attitudes and awareness Having a SCR is optional (people may opt out if they wish, though fewer than one per cent of people in Early Adopter sites have done so) and technical security is said to be high via a system of password protection and strict access controls. Nevertheless, the evaluation showed that recent stories about data loss by government and NHS organisations had raised concerns amongst both staff and patients that human fallibility could potentially jeopardise the operational security of the system. Despite an extensive information programme to inform the public in Early Adopter sites about the SCR, many patients interviewed by the UCL team were not aware of the programme at all. This raises important questions about the ethics of an ?implied consent? model for creating the SCR. The evaluation recommended that the developers of the SCR should consider a model in which the patient is asked for ?consent to view? whenever a member of staff wishes to access their record. Not a single patient interviewed in the evaluation was confident that the SCR would be 100 per cent secure, but they were philosophical about the risks of security breaches. Typically, people said that the potential benefit of a doctor having access to key medical details in an emergency outweighed the small but real risk of data loss due to human or technical error. Even patients whose medical record contained potentially sensitive data such as mental health problems, HIV or drug use were often (though not always) keen to have a SCR and generally trusted NHS staff to treat sensitive data appropriately. However, they and many other NHS patients wanted to be able to control which staff members were allowed to access their record at the point of care. Some doctors, nurses and receptionists, it seems, are trusted to view a person?s SCR, whereas others are not, and this is a decision which patients would like to make in real time

Roberto Gerhard’s Sound Compositions: A Historical-Philological Perspective. Archive, Process, Intent and reenactment

This research advances the current state of knowledge in the field of early tape music both empirically and methodologically. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact that the electronic medium exerted in the musical thinking of Roberto Gerhard, one of the most outspoken, prolific and influential composers in the Spanish diaspora whose musical legacy, for the most part unknown, is a major landmark in the early history of electroacoustic music. Gerhard’s personal tape collection, one of the largest historical archives of its kind reported in the literature, is exceptional for both its antiquity (50+-year-old tapes) and its abundance of production materials. Through the digitisation and analysis of the composer’s tape collection this research argues that the empirical study of audio documents sets out a basis for a broader understanding of textual processes. More specifically, the research demonstrates that the reconstruction of works based on magnetic tape sketches is a powerful method to advance the understanding of early tape music. This research also examines Gerhard’s sound compositions in relation to the post-war context in which they were composed. Finally, this research presents performance documentation that proposes an approach to the electroacoustic music repertoire in which creativity is not at odds with rigor and critical discernment demonstrating that archival study can be closely aligned to the concept of re-enactment

Itinerant Architecture: Global Politics and World Building in the Work of Minoru Yamasaki and Associates, 1951-86

The office of Minoru Yamasaki and Associates (MYA) was an important actor in twentieth century American architectural production, yet Yamasaki himself appears as an ambiguous figure in postwar architecture. Until recently, practicing architects and historians alike have largely overlooked MYA’s many contributions, dismissing them as overly corporate or without significant formal innovation. At the same time, Yamasaki’s status as a Japanese-American growing up during WWII has been largely overlooked. Reconsidering MYA’s projects through the thematic lens of itinerancy and displacement, the dissertation explores connections between architecture and Cold War diplomacy, international travel, and global economic development. Over the course of four chapters, I examine the firm’s designs for airports, hotels, apartment, and governmental buildings as emblematic of global capitalism—but also as constitutive of new forms of global political and economic relations. Each building-centered case study discloses important partnerships constituted among architects, city planners, developers, private corporations, and foreign governments that influenced the production of American-designed buildings on a range of global sites. Looking beyond the World Trade Center and the Pruitt-Igoe public housing project, the dissertation reveals how MYA constructed postwar America in a global setting—at home and abroad—even as the figure of Yamasaki himself ambiguously reflects the costs of U.S. hegemony.PHDArchitectureUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/147694/1/jossk_1.pd