Design and semantics of form and movement (DeSForM 2006)

Design and Semantics of Form and Movement (DeSForM) grew from applied research exploring emerging design methods and practices to support new generation product and interface design. The products and interfaces are concerned with: the context of ubiquitous computing and ambient technologies and the need for greater empathy in the pre-programmed behaviour of the ‘machines’ that populate our lives. Such explorative research in the CfDR has been led by Young, supported by Kyffin, Visiting Professor from Philips Design and sponsored by Philips Design over a period of four years (research funding £87k). DeSForM1 was the first of a series of three conferences that enable the presentation and debate of international work within this field: • 1st European conference on Design and Semantics of Form and Movement (DeSForM1), Baltic, Gateshead, 2005, Feijs L., Kyffin S. & Young R.A. eds. • 2nd European conference on Design and Semantics of Form and Movement (DeSForM2), Evoluon, Eindhoven, 2006, Feijs L., Kyffin S. & Young R.A. eds. • 3rd European conference on Design and Semantics of Form and Movement (DeSForM3), New Design School Building, Newcastle, 2007, Feijs L., Kyffin S. & Young R.A. eds. Philips sponsorship of practice-based enquiry led to research by three teams of research students over three years and on-going sponsorship of research through the Northumbria University Design and Innovation Laboratory (nuDIL). Young has been invited on the steering panel of the UK Thinking Digital Conference concerning the latest developments in digital and media technologies. Informed by this research is the work of PhD student Yukie Nakano who examines new technologies in relation to eco-design textiles

Role of color and odor on the attraction of insect visitors to spring blooming trillium

Plants relying on insects to pollinate flowers attract pollinators through varying floral cues such as unique colors and scents. Pollinators rely on these cues to identify flowers for sources of food such as nectar, pollen, and oils. The goals of this study were to investigate color and odor cues associated with pollinator attraction in populations of Trillium at the Botanical Gardens, Asheville, NC. Insect visitors to the red-scented T. cuneatum and white-non-scented T. grandiflorum were collected using tangle-trap, bottle-traps, transect walk methods. Floral color and odor cues also were investigated using artificial flowers placed among a spring blooming plant community. Artificial flowers colored wine-red, white, or yellow and scented or unscented were covered with transparency film and sprayed with tangle-trap to capture insect visitors. Insects were identified to the level of order and family. Insect visitors to T. cuneatum and T. grandiflorum did not differ and primarily consisted of individuals belonging to the order Diptera, Hymenoptera, and Coleoptera. Diptera were the most abundant visitors consisting of weakly flying dipteran such as Sciaridae and Mycetophilidae. Similar to the real flowers the main visitors to artificial flowers were Diptera, Hymenoptera, and Coleoptera but also included 13 additional orders representing 106 families. Some orders and families collected showed low abundances that could reflect they were being repelled by the floral cues or might not be abundanct in the study area. Overall there was a difference in color (p 0.05). However, when looking at each individual order or family separately, some orders and families were equally distributed for color and odor while others were not, indicating that the importance of floral cues depends on the insect family investigated. For those that were not equally distributed for color, insects were found in greater average percent of individuals on yellow flowers but there was no difference between red and white. For those that were not equally distributed for odor, a greater average percent of individuals were found on scented flowers. Some insects were generalists; visiting all artificial flower treatments randomly, while other insects were more specialized visiting certain color and/or odor treatments in greater numbers indicating a continuum along a gradient of generalized to specialized insect visitors. The ability for plants to attract generalist insect visitors and the ability for insects to visit multiple floral cues might be important where visitation is affected by varying weather conditions and advantageous in the event of environmental change and human altered ecosystems

Let Opportunistic Crowdsensors Work Together for Resource-efficient, Quality-aware Observations

International audienceOpportunistic crowdsensing empowers citizens carrying hand-held devices to sense physical phenomena of common interest at a large and fine-grained scale without requiring the citizens' active involvement. However, the resulting uncontrolled collection and upload of the massive amount of contributed raw data incur significant resource consumption, from the end device to the server, as well as challenge the quality of the collected observations. This paper tackles both challenges raised by opportunistic crowdsensing, that is, enabling the resource-efficient gathering of relevant observations. To achieve so, we introduce the BeTogether middleware fostering context-aware, collaborative crowdsensing at the edge so that co-located crowdsensors operating in the same context, group together to share the work load in a cost- and quality-effective way. We evaluate the proposed solution using an implementation-driven evaluation that leverages a dataset embedding nearly 1 million entries contributed by 550 crowdsensors over a year. Results show that BeTogether increases the quality of the collected data while reducing the overall resource cost compared to the cloud-centric approach

Empirical Challenges in Organizational Aesthetics Research: Towards a Sensual Methodology

Despite growing scholarly interest in aesthetic dimensions of organizational life, there is a lack of literature expressly engaging with the methodological mechanics of 'doing aesthetics research'. This article addresses that gap. It begins with an overview of the conceptual idiosyncrasies of 'aesthetics' as a facet of human existence and maps out the challenges these pose for empirical research methodology. A review of methodological approaches adopted to date in empirical studies of organizational aesthetics is then presented. The remainder of the article draws on the author's experiences and suggests methods and techniques to address both conceptual and practical challenges encountered during the execution of an organizational aesthetics research project. The article calls for a firmer focus on the aesthetic experiences of organizational members in addition to those of researchers and concludes with some suggestions as to the future of such 'sensual methodologies' </jats:p

Emerging Technology Adoption and Use : Consolidated Assignments from Spring 2020

Digitalization changes the world. Information systems, software applications and other technologies are in a central role in this change. They enable new work practices and processes, new business models and opportunities, initiate changes in how technologies are used, perceived and interpreted, and ultimately force individuals, organizations, and even societies at large to respond to those changes. Individuals, organizations, and societies have to somehow transform and adjust their old ways of doing things. Yet, not only technologies drive digital transformation. Increasing amounts of data that is produced by numerous sensors, applications, and systems account for the transformation as well. Such data is gathered and collected, merged together, and analyzed by different methods and tools; by using artificial intelligence, data analytics, or data science. The sense-making of such versatile data is of importance because not only can it be used to improve decision-making at workplaces but also, it can be utilized for the benefit of individuals and societies, in organizational and non-work settings. These views, transformation and smartness, pose several questions for information system (IS) research. In general, we might ask what actually is the smartness of individuals, organizations, or a society. We can even ask whether stakeholders possess the required abilities, skills and competences to enable and support the change. These, and other related questions arise due to fast evolving landscape of information technology, and information and technology. The nuanced understanding of Smart Transformation in IS has become even more critical due to governmental and organizational programs that foster smartness. This report summarizes research reports of students attending “Emerging Technology Adoption and Use” course in Tampere University. During the course, we focused on three emerging technologies. Extended Reality Blockchain Artificial Intelligence Each group collaborated on finding a common topic of interest. They focused on the adoption and/or use of a particular emerging technology in a setting of their own choosing. As you are about to see, the findings of each group emphasize different perspectives. These range from the negative effects of technology use to the opportunities and delights of information systems

iPulse: April 2011

Issues: April 1, 2011 April 4, 2011 April 5, 2011 April 6, 2011 April 7, 2011 April 8, 2011 April 12, 2011 April 18, 2011 April 22, 2011 April 25, 2011 April 29, 2011https://spiral.lynn.edu/studentnews/1170/thumbnail.jp

Multi-Sensory Interaction for Blind and Visually Impaired People

This book conveyed the visual elements of artwork to the visually impaired through various sensory elements to open a new perspective for appreciating visual artwork. In addition, the technique of expressing a color code by integrating patterns, temperatures, scents, music, and vibrations was explored, and future research topics were presented. A holistic experience using multi-sensory interaction acquired by people with visual impairment was provided to convey the meaning and contents of the work through rich multi-sensory appreciation. A method that allows people with visual impairments to engage in artwork using a variety of senses, including touch, temperature, tactile pattern, and sound, helps them to appreciate artwork at a deeper level than can be achieved with hearing or touch alone. The development of such art appreciation aids for the visually impaired will ultimately improve their cultural enjoyment and strengthen their access to culture and the arts. The development of this new concept aids ultimately expands opportunities for the non-visually impaired as well as the visually impaired to enjoy works of art and breaks down the boundaries between the disabled and the non-disabled in the field of culture and arts through continuous efforts to enhance accessibility. In addition, the developed multi-sensory expression and delivery tool can be used as an educational tool to increase product and artwork accessibility and usability through multi-modal interaction. Training the multi-sensory experiences introduced in this book may lead to more vivid visual imageries or seeing with the mind’s eye