Perspective Chapter: From Data to Design – Leveraging Façade Sensors for Intelligent Architecture

This chapter explores the fascinating domain of leveraging façade sensors for intelligent architecture, focusing on the seamless transition from data to design. This study will delve into the integration of advanced sensor technologies within building façades to collect valuable data that inform the architectural design process. This chapter investigates how these sensors provide real-time information on various aspects, such as environmental conditions, occupancy and energy usage, enabling architects to design responsive, sustainable and occupant-centric buildings. Architects can improve building performance, optimise user experience and shape the future of intelligent architecture by harnessing the capabilities of façade sensors

Robotic Rabbit Companions: amusing or a nuisance?

Most of the studies in human-robot interaction involve controlled experiments in a laboratory and only a limited number of studies have put robotic companions into people’s home. Introducing robots into a real-life environment does not only pose many technical challenges but also raises several methodological issues. And even though there might be a gain in ecological validity of the findings, there are other drawbacks that limit the validity of the results. In this paper we reflect on some of these issues based on the experience we gained in the SERA project where a robotic companion was put in the homes of a few people for ten days. We try to draw some general lessons from this experience

A half century of progress towards a unified neural theory of mind and brain with applications to autonomous adaptive agents and mental disorders

Invited article for the book Artificial Intelligence in the Age of Neural Networks and Brain Computing R. Kozma, C. Alippi, Y. Choe, and F. C. Morabito, Eds. Cambridge, MA: Academic PressThis article surveys some of the main design principles, mechanisms, circuits, and architectures that have been discovered during a half century of systematic research aimed at developing a unified theory that links mind and brain, and shows how psychological functions arise as emergent properties of brain mechanisms. The article describes a theoretical method that has enabled such a theory to be developed in stages by carrying out a kind of conceptual evolution. It also describes revolutionary computational paradigms like Complementary Computing and Laminar Computing that constrain the kind of unified theory that can describe the autonomous adaptive intelligence that emerges from advanced brains. Adaptive Resonance Theory, or ART, is one of the core models that has been discovered in this way. ART proposes how advanced brains learn to attend, recognize, and predict objects and events in a changing world that is filled with unexpected events. ART is not, however, a “theory of everything” if only because, due to Complementary Computing, different matching and learning laws tend to support perception and cognition on the one hand, and spatial representation and action on the other. The article mentions why a theory of this kind may be useful in the design of autonomous adaptive agents in engineering and technology. It also notes how the theory has led to new mechanistic insights about mental disorders such as autism, medial temporal amnesia, Alzheimer’s disease, and schizophrenia, along with mechanistically informed proposals about how their symptoms may be ameliorated

From Grounded Theory to Design Practice

Grounded Theory methodology was not developed with the aim of informing design, but we have found it useful for doing so. Using Grounded Theory to inform design does, however, raise a number of issues (such as whether to ‘stop short’ of generating a theory, how to analyse data at a suitable level of abstraction and how to support revolutionary as well as evolutionary design). We discuss these issues, and potential solutions

My Website Reads at an Eighth Grade Level: Why Plain Language Benefits Your Users (and You)

Writing in plain language aims to help users find what they need and ensures that the information is both useful and understandable. This is key for distance students whose primary library interaction may be with the library Website. A mix of user research and readability scores can be used to measure whether content is findable, useful, and understandable. There are several strategies authors can adopt to help them write in plain language, including keeping the users\u27 needs and tasks in mind and structuring the content so that it can be quickly scanned. Converting existing Website content to a plain language format can be a large task; running a content audit can help determine which pages should be prioritized for revision. Once the Website is written in plain language, an ongoing content strategy is necessary to help it stay that way

Optimal Space-time Coverage and Exploration Costs in Groundwater Monitoring Networks

A method to determine the optimal subset of stations from a reference level groundwater monitoring network is proposed. The method considers the redundancy of data from historical time series, the times associated with the total distance required to run through the entire monitoring network, and the sum of the times for each monitoring station. The method was applied to a hypothetical case-study consisting of a monitoring network with 32 stations. Cost-benefit analysis was performed to determine the number of stations to include in the new design versus loss of information. This optimisation problem was solved with simulated annealing. Results showed that the relative reduction in exploration costs more than compensates for the relative loss in data representativeness

Information Design for Personas in Four Professional Domains of User Experience Design, Healthcare, Market Research, and Social Media Strategy

Practitioners in user-centric industries have increasingly recognized the applicability of personas. However, the methods used to create personas in different domains remain inconsistent and unsystematic. We analyzed 51 studies focused on designing personas for professional purposes and found the practice most prevalent in the user experience design, healthcare, market research, and social media strategy domains. Within these domains, user experience design personas are characterized by their focus on user activity goals, health personas on medical patients’ physical symptoms, market research personas on customers’ lifestyles, and social media strategy personas on interactions within and between online communities. We identify and compare the elements in the personas. Based on these, we provide guidelines for professionals interested in developing personas for understanding barriers to positive user experience, recruiting users, and building online communities, including how to represent persona details related to lifestyle and health, contexts of product usage, and scaling of online data