Eliciting user requirements with older adults: Lessons from the design of an interactive domestic alarm system

This paper documents how methodological challenges were addressed when identifying user requirements for an Interactive Domestic Alarm System (IDAS) designed to enable older adults to live independently in their own homes for longer. A novel approach to determine possible IDAS functionality is described, and the results of focus groups conducted with older adults and care workers are reported. The paper identifies some difficulties encountered when using the focus group method with an ageing sample, and highlights the importance of careful preparatory work if this method is to be used successfully in such a context

Pipelined Asynchronous Circuits

This thesis presents a design style for implementing communicating sequential processes (CSP) as quasi delay insensitive asynchronous circuits, based on the compilation method of [1]. Although hand compilation can always yield optimal circuits to a good designer, a restricted approach is suggested which can easily implement circuits with some slack between inputs and outputs. These circuits are fast and versatile building blocks for highly pipelined designs. The first chapter presents the implementation approach for individual cells. The second chapter investigates the time behavior of complex pipelined circuits, with the goal of adding slack where necessary and adjusting transistor sizes to optimize the overall throughput

Multiple Peril Crop Insurance: What is it? Should you buy it?

Exact date of bulletin unknown.PDF pages: 1

Participation and organizational commitment during change: From utopist to realist perspectives

Trust has a great potential for furthering our understanding of organizational change and learning. This potential however remains largely untapped. It is argued that two reasons as for why this potential remains unrealized are: (i) A narrow conceptualization of change as implementation and (ii) an emphasis on direct and aggregated effects of individual trust to the exclusion of other effects. It is further suggested that our understanding of the effects of trust on organizational change, should benefit from including effects of trust on the formulation stage. It should also benefit from exploring the structuring effects of trust in organizations. Throughout this chapter, ways to extend current research on trust in organizations are suggested. The chapter also provides examples of relevant contributions where available. In order to capture organizational effects of trust, it is suggested that trust should be studied over longer time intervals, and include several referents of trust, spanning both horizontal and vertical relationships in the organizatio

Older adults' comprehension of speech as interactive domestic alarm system output: A field study

Please contact the publisher for further reprinting or re-use.A rapidly ageing population has led to the development of Interactive Domestic Alarm Systems (IDASs) to assist older adults with independent living. This research considers the use of speech as IDAS output and the impact the domestic environment may have on older adults’ comprehension of speech outputs. This paper introduces IDASs, the benefits of employing speech as a mode of system output and the critical design issue of user comprehension. Extending previous laboratory studies (see Lines & Hone, 2002a, Lines & Hone, 2002b, Lines & Hone, 2002c) a field investigation is reported that considers older adults’ comprehension of speech gender and speech type [natural/synthetic] within the domestic environment. The main findings are discussed and future research directions explored

When Leadership Leads to Loathing: The Effect of Culturally (In)Congruent Leadership on Employee Contempt and Voluntary Work Behaviors

This article suggests that contempt ― a proclivity towards loathing others ― as an emotional response, can arise as a consequence of culturally incongruent leadership, i.e. leader behaviors and actions that do not comply with follower-held, culturally derived expectations and values. Outcomes of contempt were also studied by hypothesizing that contempt, when experienced in response to a situation of culturally incongruent leadership, can cause followers to reduce their display of organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) while engaging in deviant behaviors. The model was tested in a sample of 348 follower-level employees using structural equation modeling. Empirical results largely support theoretical hypotheses. Culturally congruent leadership was negatively related to contempt, while contempt was positively related to deviant behaviors and negatively related to OCB. The results contribute to the understudied field of contempt research, and suggest that leaders faced with cultural diversity may be well advised to adapt their behaviors to the local cultural values to stimulate follower OCB rather than deviance

An Experimental Evaluation of Nearest Neighbour Time Series Classification

Data mining research into time series classification (TSC) has focussed on alternative distance measures for nearest neighbour classifiers. It is standard practice to use 1-NN with Euclidean or dynamic time warping (DTW) distance as a straw man for comparison. As part of a wider investigation into elastic distance measures for TSC~\cite{lines14elastic}, we perform a series of experiments to test whether this standard practice is valid. Specifically, we compare 1-NN classifiers with Euclidean and DTW distance to standard classifiers, examine whether the performance of 1-NN Euclidean approaches that of 1-NN DTW as the number of cases increases, assess whether there is any benefit of setting $k$ for $k$-NN through cross validation whether it is worth setting the warping path for DTW through cross validation and finally is it better to use a window or weighting for DTW. Based on experiments on 77 problems, we conclude that 1-NN with Euclidean distance is fairly easy to beat but 1-NN with DTW is not, if window size is set through cross validation

Percy Thomas wind generator designs

The technical and economic feasibilities of constructing a windpowered generator with a capacity of 2,000 to 4,000 kilowatt are considered. Possible benefits of an integrated wind generating electric energy source in an electric utility network are elaborated. Applications of a windpowered waterpump, including its use as a pumping source for hydroelectric pump storage operations, are also mentioned. It is concluded that the greatest potential of the wind generator is to generate heat directly and not conversion to electricity and then to heat

Age related cognitive impairments and assistive web-base technology

Several researchers argue that age related cognitive impairments have detrimental affect on use of web services by older adults. However little and systematic applied research has been conducted on how age related cognitive impairments might affect the usage of web services by older adults. Undoubtedly, understanding the relationship between the cognitive changes that accompany aging and their impact on older adults’ usage of web services will be beneficial for designing web services for this group. The paper demonstrates how such understanding has been employed to develop an assistive technology in order to improve older adults’ interaction with online forms