Exploring haptic interfacing with a mobile robot without visual feedback

Search and rescue scenarios are often complicated by low or no visibility conditions. The lack of visual feedback hampers orientation and causes significant stress for human rescue workers. The Guardians project [1] pioneered a group of autonomous mobile robots assisting a human rescue worker operating within close range. Trials were held with fire fighters of South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue. It became clear that the subjects by no means were prepared to give up their procedural routine and the feel of security they provide: they simply ignored instructions that contradicted their routines

Is it worthwhile going immersive? : evaluating the performance of virtual simulated stores for shopper research : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Marketing at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand

Listed in 2020 Dean's List of Exceptional ThesesAdvances in simulation technology offer the possibility of more authentic shopper environments for virtual store experiments. Criticisms of subjective measures of consumer behavior previously led to the use of test markets or simulated stores for consumer experimental research. As cost implications made such experiments unavailable to the wider market research community, virtual simulated stores (VSSs) were developed as an alternative. However, the adoption of VSSs has been slow as traditional desktop-operated VSSs do not provide an authentic multicategory shopper experience. New simulation technologies offer the opportunity for more immersive and authentic VSS environments. Yet there has been little research on how authenticity of VSSs is impacted by newly available technology such as head-mounted displays, motion tracking, force feedback controllers, and application of place and plausibility cues. Thus, this dissertation asks whether immersive technologies have potential to provide highly authentic VSS environments. Of the many factors that may determine authenticity, this dissertation examines three; participants’ sense of telepresence, the realism of shopper behaviour, and the effects of shopper locomotion alternatives. An immersive VSS incorporating new virtual technologies was specifically designed and built for this research. Three studies were undertaken. The first compared perceived telepresence and usability between a desktop-operated VSS and an equivalent immersive walk-around VSS. The second examined the authenticity of shopper behaviour in the immersive walk-around VSS by comparing observed shopping patterns to those previously reported in the marketing literature. The third tested whether walk-around locomotion was necessary for authenticity, or whether a simpler teleportation method would result in equivalent shopper behaviour and emotions. Results showed that immersive VSS systems are preferable to traditional desktop-operated systems with regards to telepresence and usability. Further, authentic behavioural patterns can be found in immersive walk-around store experiments, including plausibility of private label shares, pack inspection times, shelf-height effects and impulse purchases. Lastly, there were no differences in shopper emotions and purchase behaviour between walk-around locomotion and controller-based instant teleportation, implying that the teleportation technique can be used, thereby reducing the required physical footprint for immersive VSS simulations. Collectively, the findings imply that marketers who study in-store shopper behavior can be confident using immersive VSS for their research as opposed to outdated desktop VSS technology

Internet of robotic things : converging sensing/actuating, hypoconnectivity, artificial intelligence and IoT Platforms

The Internet of Things (IoT) concept is evolving rapidly and influencing newdevelopments in various application domains, such as the Internet of MobileThings (IoMT), Autonomous Internet of Things (A-IoT), Autonomous Systemof Things (ASoT), Internet of Autonomous Things (IoAT), Internetof Things Clouds (IoT-C) and the Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT) etc.that are progressing/advancing by using IoT technology. The IoT influencerepresents new development and deployment challenges in different areassuch as seamless platform integration, context based cognitive network integration,new mobile sensor/actuator network paradigms, things identification(addressing, naming in IoT) and dynamic things discoverability and manyothers. The IoRT represents new convergence challenges and their need to be addressed, in one side the programmability and the communication ofmultiple heterogeneous mobile/autonomous/robotic things for cooperating,their coordination, configuration, exchange of information, security, safetyand protection. Developments in IoT heterogeneous parallel processing/communication and dynamic systems based on parallelism and concurrencyrequire new ideas for integrating the intelligent “devices”, collaborativerobots (COBOTS), into IoT applications. Dynamic maintainability, selfhealing,self-repair of resources, changing resource state, (re-) configurationand context based IoT systems for service implementation and integrationwith IoT network service composition are of paramount importance whennew “cognitive devices” are becoming active participants in IoT applications.This chapter aims to be an overview of the IoRT concept, technologies,architectures and applications and to provide a comprehensive coverage offuture challenges, developments and applications

Online fashion shopping experiences, web atmospherics and consumer's emotions

This thesis was previously held under moratorium from 1st December 2016 until 1st December 2021.The notion of ‘experience’ marks a shift in consumer research from focusing on the rational consumer to focusing on emotions (Holbrook & Hirschman, 1982). This research studies consumer experiences in the specific context of online fashion shopping. It contributes to the field of atmospherics and consumption emotions and experiences, thus bridging a gap that has been highlighted in the literature (e.g. Turley & Milliman, 2000). This thesis aims to study the online fashion-shopping experience as the consumer lives and constructs it. The research conducted two studies that are underpinned by the philosophical stance of pragmatism. First, Kelly’s (1955) personal construct theory (PCT) is adopted to gain an in-depth understanding of consumers’ shopping experience using their own words and construction. The study conducted 25 repertory grid interviews, analysed first with Jankowicz’s (2005) method of initial eyeball and process analyses. Next, following Lemke, Clark, and Wilson (2011), qualitative construct coding was performed by multi-coders for inter-reliability checks. This study contributes to our understanding of the online fashion-shopping experience by (1) introducing the construction of the experience as emotional, perceptual, situational and behavioural, (2) highlighting how individuality in such experiences often changes the meaning of such constructs, and (3) arguing that situational constructs provide a context that shapes the whole experience. Second, screencast videography is introduced as a novel method that captures the shoppers’ live experiences. Critical incident analysis of ten videos allowed the experience journey to be mapped, highlighting the main critical incidents and the contexts (e.g. purposeful vs. purposeless browsing) that shape the experience. In addition to its methodological contribution, this study provides great insights into an otherwise unobservable phenomenon. Furthermore, it presents the ‘fashionscape’ as a concept tailored especially to understanding the online fashion-shopping environment in its visual, verbal, social and educational dimensions.The notion of ‘experience’ marks a shift in consumer research from focusing on the rational consumer to focusing on emotions (Holbrook & Hirschman, 1982). This research studies consumer experiences in the specific context of online fashion shopping. It contributes to the field of atmospherics and consumption emotions and experiences, thus bridging a gap that has been highlighted in the literature (e.g. Turley & Milliman, 2000). This thesis aims to study the online fashion-shopping experience as the consumer lives and constructs it. The research conducted two studies that are underpinned by the philosophical stance of pragmatism. First, Kelly’s (1955) personal construct theory (PCT) is adopted to gain an in-depth understanding of consumers’ shopping experience using their own words and construction. The study conducted 25 repertory grid interviews, analysed first with Jankowicz’s (2005) method of initial eyeball and process analyses. Next, following Lemke, Clark, and Wilson (2011), qualitative construct coding was performed by multi-coders for inter-reliability checks. This study contributes to our understanding of the online fashion-shopping experience by (1) introducing the construction of the experience as emotional, perceptual, situational and behavioural, (2) highlighting how individuality in such experiences often changes the meaning of such constructs, and (3) arguing that situational constructs provide a context that shapes the whole experience. Second, screencast videography is introduced as a novel method that captures the shoppers’ live experiences. Critical incident analysis of ten videos allowed the experience journey to be mapped, highlighting the main critical incidents and the contexts (e.g. purposeful vs. purposeless browsing) that shape the experience. In addition to its methodological contribution, this study provides great insights into an otherwise unobservable phenomenon. Furthermore, it presents the ‘fashionscape’ as a concept tailored especially to understanding the online fashion-shopping environment in its visual, verbal, social and educational dimensions

Advances in Human-Robot Interaction

Rapid advances in the field of robotics have made it possible to use robots not just in industrial automation but also in entertainment, rehabilitation, and home service. Since robots will likely affect many aspects of human existence, fundamental questions of human-robot interaction must be formulated and, if at all possible, resolved. Some of these questions are addressed in this collection of papers by leading HRI researchers

Customer relationship management field lab at PCDIGA: brand activation AND communication

Nowadays, the concept of brand is highly related with communities – brands’ success is no longer relying just on a product benefit; instead, they must create its own culture. In addition, being customer-centric is increasingly important for companies, as building engaging relationships with customers is a source of customer loyalty. This Work Project consists of an analysis of PCDIGA’s current brand identity and positioning, and of the brand image held by its customers. Due to an identity-image gap, an updated brand identity and positioning are suggested. Moreover, as PCDIGA is a multichannel retailer, online and offline practical recommendations are made

Possible Applications of Industry 4.0 Based on Customer Relationship Management in Bakery

Production of bakery products went through a long and gradual transformation from individual, craft to modern industrial production. Today, the production of bakery products has been developed by mass high-automated industrial production. Although production plants that find their economic justification mostly on the expenditure side of reduction of production costs and production processes, the modern business requires a change of the income side, where development of relations with consumers has more important role. Production of bakery products had all the features of mass production until recently. Due to the importance of bakery products in the nutrition of people, particularly in developed parts of the world, demand for bakery products could be considered as non-elastic, since the price, quality and range of bakery products were basically irrelevant to the volume of demand for these products. However, at the end of the twentieth century the purchasing power of the population, as well as the level of information, knowledge and self-awareness, significantly influenced the con-sumption of bakery products. The modern consumer changes the structure of food in the nutrition and he is no longer satisfied with a mass-produced product, but requires a product that is “tailored” according to his needs. The manufacturing capabilities of modern, numerically controlled machines that make Industry 4.0, allow the production of “tailored” products according to the needs of individual consumers. Consequently, transformation and transition from mass to individualized bakery product production requires a scientific and systematic approach

Civil and Environmental Engineering for the Sustainable Development Goals

This open access volume collects emerging issues in Environmental and Civil Engineering, originating from outstanding doctoral dissertations discussed at Politecnico di Milano in 2021. The advanced innovative insights provided are presented with reference to the relevant sustainable development goals (SDGs), hoping that scientists, technicians and decision makers will find them as a valid support to face future sustainability challenges. Indeed, the fast evolution of our society often falls short in properly taking into consideration its relationship with the environment, which is not only the primary source of any resource and the sink of all the wastes we generate throughout our activities, but also the cause of most of the loading and constraints applied to structures and infrastructures. The lack of a proper consideration of the relationship between the needs of both the society and the environment may lead to strong disequilibria, generating a large amount of threats for a robust, resilient and continuous development. In this perspective, the SDGs set by the United Nations represent the criteria to revise our development model, towards the ability to conjugate different needs to build a safe relation between anthropic activities and the environment. Civil and Environmental Engineering plays a relevant role in providing methods, approaches, risk and impact assessments, as well as technologies, to fulfil the SDGs. Research in these fields may in fact provide technical knowledge and tools to support decision makers and technicians in: (i) planning mitigation and adaptation actions to climate change, extreme weather, earthquakes, drought, flooding and other natural disasters; (ii) designing efficient and sustainable strategies for resources exploitation, minimizing the impact and the unequal distributions; (iii) increasing the safety of structures and infrastructures under exceptional loadings and against the deterioration due to their lifecycle; (iv) adopting a holistic risk management approach and appropriate technologies to reduce pollution and environment deterioration, which increase vulnerability; (v) providing a safe drinking water and sanitation system to protect human health