Improving Location Determination for non-GPS devices

Location awareness is one of the most important information that an individual looks for, both in an outdoor and indoor environment. One of the primary location determination techniques is the Global Positioning system, though this system provides a good accuracy in an outdoor environment, its accuracy decreases in densely populated areas and in an indoor environment a GPS system ceases to provide location information since the satellite signal cannot permeate through the roof and the walls. Various location estimation techniques have been proposed for location estimation in an indoor environment, some utilizing the signal strength of a wifi transmitter, while others using the time of arrival of a signal. In an indoor environment location can be estimated using either of the techniques or by using a hybrid approach. In this paper I will study different algorithms to determine which algorithm is the best approach for indoor location determination is

An aesthetics of touch: investigating the language of design relating to form

How well can designers communicate qualities of touch? This paper presents evidence that they have some capability to do so, much of which appears to have been learned, but at present make limited use of such language. Interviews with graduate designer-makers suggest that they are aware of and value the importance of touch and materiality in their work, but lack a vocabulary to fully relate to their detailed explanations of other aspects such as their intent or selection of materials. We believe that more attention should be paid to the verbal dialogue that happens in the design process, particularly as other researchers show that even making-based learning also has a strong verbal element to it. However, verbal language alone does not appear to be adequate for a comprehensive language of touch. Graduate designers-makers’ descriptive practices combined non-verbal manipulation within verbal accounts. We thus argue that haptic vocabularies do not simply describe material qualities, but rather are situated competences that physically demonstrate the presence of haptic qualities. Such competencies are more important than groups of verbal vocabularies in isolation. Design support for developing and extending haptic competences must take this wide range of considerations into account to comprehensively improve designers’ capabilities

The significance of outdoor recreationists' digital technology engagement in peri-urban settings : A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Lincoln University

Outdoor recreation is reported to facilitate a range of benefits including increased physical, social, mental and spiritual well-being by giving individuals an opportunity to disconnect from their day-to-day lives (Driver, 1998b; Manning, 2011). These benefits are realised through activities in specific settings within individual experiences (Driver & Brown, 1978; Manning, 2011; McCool, 2006). A digital technology revolution is reshaping outdoor recreation participation and experience, potentially undermining principal values of nature-based recreation engagements. While the impact of digital technology on the outdoor recreation experience has been researched in remote recreation settings (Amerson et al., 2020; Ewert & Shultis, 1999; Lindell, 2014; Martin, 2016; Pohl, 2006; Shultis, 2001, 2012, 2015), little is known about how outdoor recreationists use digital technology in peri-urban settings. Growing urbanisation has increased demand for, and value of access to outdoor spaces located on the urban fringe. These accessible outdoor recreation spaces, referred to as peri-urban, are the interaction zones where urban and rural activities are juxtaposed, and form an increasingly important component of urban recreational systems (Pigram & Jenkins, 2006). Using a mixed-methods approach, this study examined the significance of digital technology from outdoor recreation users’ perspectives in the context of a peri-urban setting. Quantitative survey data was collected on the use of digital technology by outdoor recreationists (N = 520), evaluating engagement with digital technology and the implications of this engagement. Additionally, qualitative interviews (N = 40) with recreationists, recreation managers, and members of outdoor recreation groups were completed focusing on the digital technology experience and perspectives on the role of digital technology in outdoor recreation. The research was undertaken in the peri-urban recreation area of the Port Hills (Te Poho-o-Tamatea) in Christchurch, New Zealand, known for its importance as a place of recreation and natural resources. This research found that the majority of recreationists carried at least one digital device, the most common of which was the smartphone. During the outdoor recreation experience, digital devices were primarily used for self-logging and quantification, to listen to music, and to communicate and stay connected for safety, for social reasons, or to access information. Findings led to the development of a typology of digital technology engagement in the peri-urban setting. The typology revealed that for a minority of recreationists digital technology was absent from the activity, and that for the majority of recreationists technology acted as a form of reassurance, support, or dependency in the experience. Through drawing on conceptual ideas included in the recreation demand hierarchy framework, and in the literature on technology usage in urban and in outdoor recreation settings, these findings expand our understandings of how and why recreationists engage with technology. Of particular importance is the interconnectivity of the variables such as activity, setting, and outdoor recreationists’ personal preferences and experiences. The varied experiences suggested tensions between our increasingly technologised existence (Lindell, 2014; Shultis, 2001, 2016) and traditional reasons for recreating outdoors, which played out through the range of responses in this study

Approaches to Disaster Management

Approaches to Disaster Management regards critical disaster management issues. Ten original research reports by international scholars centered on disaster management are organized into three general areas of hazards and disaster management. The first section includes discussions of perspectives on vulnerability and on evolving approaches to mitigation. The second section highlights approaches to improve data use and information management in several distinct applications intended to promote prediction and communication of hazard. The third section regards the management of crises and post-event recovery in the private sector, in the design of urban space and among the victims of disaster. This volume contributes both conceptual and practical commentary to the disaster management literature

My responsibility in the face of mass extinction

Extinction is the “irreversible condition of a species or other group of organisms having no living representatives in the wild, which follows the death of the last surviving individual of that species or group” (Hine and Martin 2015g, para. 1). Mass extinctions are extinctions of the greatest magnitude, occurring “when many diverse groups of organisms become extinct over short periods of time” (Condie 2011, 250). These “are not step-events but rather a step into a prolonged alternative global ecosystem state” (Hull 2015, R941). Five mass extinctions have previously been recorded. A sixth has begun. Humans are the cause of the latest episode. This thesis develops an Indigenous, non-agential conception of responsibility for considering an ethical problem of wide consequence. Founded in mātauranga Māori and recalling the work of Emmanuel Levinas, it applies Kaupapa Māori autoethnography, narrative, and conceptual analyses alongside exegeses and a replication study. Investigations of responsibility across various positions are encountered: those found in place and polity, those made as visitor and the commanded, those gifted as inherited erudition and in the suffering-with. Now facing the last structural violence, what is my responsibility

Improving the Performance of Wireless LANs

This book quantifies the key factors of WLAN performance and describes methods for improvement. It provides theoretical background and empirical results for the optimum planning and deployment of indoor WLAN systems, explaining the fundamentals while supplying guidelines for design, modeling, and performance evaluation. It discusses environmental effects on WLAN systems, protocol redesign for routing and MAC, and traffic distribution; examines emerging and future network technologies; and includes radio propagation and site measurements, simulations for various network design scenarios, numerous illustrations, practical examples, and learning aids

The Gamification of Crowdsourcing Systems: Empirical Investigations and Design

Recent developments in modern information and communication technologies have spawned two rising phenomena, gamification and crowdsourcing, which are increasingly being combined into gamified crowdsourcing systems. While a growing number of organizations employ crowdsourcing as a way to outsource tasks related to the inventing, producing, funding, or distributing of their products and services to the crowd – a large group of people reachable via the internet – crowdsourcing initiatives become enriched with design features from games to motivate the crowd to participate in these efforts. From a practical perspective, this combination seems intuitively appealing, since using gamification in crowdsourcing systems promises to increase motivations, participation and output quality, as well as to replace traditionally used financial incentives. However, people in large groups all have individual interests and motivations, which makes it complex to design gamification approaches for crowds. Further, crowdsourcing systems exist in various forms and are used for various tasks and problems, thus requiring different incentive mechanisms for different crowdsourcing types. The lack of a coherent understanding of the different facets of gamified crowdsourcing systems and the lack of knowledge about the motivational and behavioral effects of applying various types of gamification features in different crowdsourcing systems inhibit us from designing solutions that harness gamification’s full potential. Further, previous research canonically uses competitive gamification, although crowdsourcing systems often strive to produce cooperative outcomes. However, the potentially relevant field of cooperative gamification has to date barely been explored. With a specific focus on these shortcomings, this dissertation presents several studies to advance the understanding of using gamification in crowdsourcing systems

Experiential manufacturing: designing meaningful relationships between people, data and things

This thesis presents a practice-led research investigation into ways of designing more experiential and evocative interactions with data that relates to our experiences whereby less explicit, more intrinsic and aesthetic relationships are made between people, objects and data. I argue that the utilitarian values and instrumental approach behind the design of most systems that mediate our personal autobiographical data, while important, are not appropriate for more emotional forms of remembering. Therefore, systems are needed that cater specifically to modes of remembering such as reminiscence and reflection. By learning from our material encounters with memory, there are rich opportunities for design to uncover the latent values that might exist in biographical data. To articulate the design rationale of the thesis, I describe two existing design projects: the Digital Slide Viewer and Photobox. These provide some design principles that offer guidance in making memory data physical so as to encourage meaningful material practices, and ways that interactions might be designed to promote reflection. After exploratory interviews to gather insight into the ways people associate meaning with objects a set of designed provocations were produced. The Poker Chip sought to understand the ways that the material form of an object connects to its meaning, while The Bowl investigates how the actions we might use to make these meaningful objects might in themselves be meaningful. The final designed provocation takes ideas from its predecessors, and puts them into practice with a data driven system. By responding to live data from real earthquakes, the Earthquake Shelf creates a tangible rendition that, by damaging objects, leaves behind material evidence of a remote event. During a long-term field deployment, connection between the objects on the shelf and the participant’s memories proved illusive, but the shelf itself provided a viscerally real connection to a past experience. The outcome of this thesis then is to articulate Experiential Manufacturing; a position on the design of technologies intended to mediate more emotional forms of memory, such that they can create more compelling relations between data, people, and things. It does this by first opening and exploring a design space based on alternative values for designing technologies of reminiscence that mediate our life experiences. By prioritizing the aesthetic elements of the experiences, rather than focusing on the data that describes it, this thesis explores the potential of material, liveness and slowness to create systems that mediate our experience data in more evocative and emotionally valuable ways. It then presents this position as a set of thematic values, or Strong Concepts at the heart of Experiential Manufacturing