539,907 research outputs found
Too Cool at School - Understanding Cool Teenagers
Cool can be thought about on three levels; the having of cool things, the doing of cool stuff and the being of cool. Whilst there is some understanding of cool products, the concept, of being cool is much more elusive to designers and developers of systems. This study examines this space by using a set of pre-prepared teenage personas as probes with a set of teenagers with the aim of better understanding what is, and isnât cool about teenage behaviours. The study confirmed that teenagers are able to rank personas in order of cool and that the process of using personas can provide valuable insights around the phenomenon of cool. The findings confirm that cool is indeed about having cool things but in terms of behaviours cool can be a little bit, but not too, naughty
Constructing the Cool Wall: A Tool to Explore Teen Meanings of Cool
This paper describes the development and exploration of a tool designed to assist in investigating âcoolâ as it applies to the design of interactive products for teenagers. The method involved the derivation of theoretical understandings of cool from literature that resulted in identification of seven core categories for cool, which were mapped to a hierarchy. The hierarchy includes having of cool things, the doing of cool activities and the being of cool. This paper focuses on a tool, the Cool Wall, developed to explore one specific facet of the hierarchy; exploring shared understanding of having cool things. The paper describes the development and construction of the tool, using a heavily participatory approach, and the results and analysis of a study carried out over 2 days in a school in the UK. The results of the study both provide clear insights into cool things and enable a refined understanding of cool in this context. Two additional studies are then used to identify potential shortcomings in the Cool Wall methodology. In the first study participants were able to populate a paper cool wall with anything they chose, this revealed two potential new categories of images and that the current set of images covered the majority of key themes. In the second study teenagers interpretations of the meaning of the images included in the Cool Wall were explored, this showed that the majority of meanings were as expected and a small number of unexpected interpretations provided some valuable insights
Constructing the Cool Wall: A tool to explore teen meanings of cool
This paper describes the development and exploration of a tool designed to assist in investigating âcoolâ as it applies to the design of interactive products for teenagers. The method involved the derivation of theoretical understandings of cool from literature that resulted in identification of seven core categories for cool, which were mapped to a hierarchy. The hierarchy includes having of cool things, the doing of cool activities and the being of cool. This paper focuses on a tool, the Cool Wall, developed to explore one specific facet of the hierarchy; exploring shared understanding of having cool things. The paper describes the development and construction of the tool, using a heavily participatory approach, and the results and analysis of three studies. The first study was carried out over 2 days in a school in the UK. The results of the study both provide clear insights into cool things and enable a refined understanding of cool in this context. Two additional studies are then used to identify potential shortcomings in the Cool Wall methodology. In the second study participants were able to populate a paper cool wall with anything they chose, this revealed two potential new categories of images and that the current set of images covered the majority of key themes. In the third study teenagers interpretations of the meaning of the images included in the Cool Wall were explored, this showed that the majority of meanings were as expected and a small number of unexpected interpretations provided some valuable insights
Towards an Understanding of the Atmospheres of Cool White Dwarfs
Cool white dwarfs with Teff < 6000 K are the remnants of the oldest stars
that existed in our Galaxy. Their atmospheres, when properly characterized, can
provide valuable information on white dwarf evolution and ultimately star
formation through the history of the Milky Way. Understanding the atmospheres
of these stars requires joined observational effort and reliable atmosphere
modeling. We discuss and analyze recent observations of the near-ultraviolet
(UV) and near-infrared (IR) spectrum of several cool white dwarfs including
DQ/DQp stars showing carbon in their spectra. We present fits to the entire
spectral energy distribution (SED) of selected cool stars, showing that the
current pure-hydrogen atmosphere models are quite reliable, especially in the
near-UV spectral region. Recently, we also performed an analysis of the coolest
known DQ/DQp stars investigating further the origin of the C2 Swan bands-like
spectral features that characterize the DQp stars. We show that the carbon
abundances derived for DQp stars fit the trend of carbon abundance with Teff
seen in normal cool DQ stars. This further supports the recent conclusion of
Kowalski A&A (2010) that DQp stars are DQ stars with pressure distorted Swan
bands. However, we encounter some difficulties in reproducing the IR part of
the SED of stars having a mixed He/H atmosphere. This indicates limitations in
current models of the opacity in dense He/H fluids.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the "18th
European White Dwarf Workshop" in Krakow, Poland (2012
Observations of Cool-Star Magnetic Fields
Cool stars like the Sun harbor convection zones capable of producing
substantial surface magnetic fields leading to stellar magnetic activity. The
influence of stellar parameters like rotation, radius, and age on cool-star
magnetism, and the importance of the shear layer between a radiative core and
the convective envelope for the generation of magnetic fields are keys for our
understanding of low-mass stellar dynamos, the solar dynamo, and also for other
large-scale and planetary dynamos. Our observational picture of cool-star
magnetic fields has improved tremendously over the last years. Sophisticated
methods were developed to search for the subtle effects of magnetism, which are
difficult to detect particularly in cool stars. With an emphasis on the
assumptions and capabilities of modern methods used to measure magnetism in
cool stars, I review the different techniques available for magnetic field
measurements. I collect the analyses on cool-star magnetic fields and try to
compare results from different methods, and I review empirical evidence that
led to our current picture of magnetic fields and their generation in cool
stars and brown dwarfs.Comment: Published version at http://www.livingreviews.org/lrsp-2012-
Hipsters, trendies and rebels: if fun is cool, is game design cool design?
Recent discussions within the HCI community around designing software and devices for âcoolnessâ have identified the importance of playfulness as an aspect of cool products.
Game studies, as a field of inquiry, has long been occupied with understanding playfulness, so it stands to reason that findings from this field might also support playfulness and therefore coolness outside the context of games. In this paper, we briefly explore potential overlaps between the research into designing for coolness and that of designing for playfulness. An example of an overlap in terms of motivation is presented and potential future directions are discussed
Cool for Cats
The iconic Schr\"odinger's cat state describes a system that may be in a
superposition of two macroscopically distinct states, for example two clearly
separated oscillator coherent states. Quite apart from their role in
understanding the quantum classical boundary, such states have been suggested
as offering a quantum advantage for quantum metrology, quantum communication
and quantum computation. As is well known these applications have to face the
difficulty that the irreversible interaction with an environment causes the
superposition to rapidly evolve to a mixture of the component states in the
case that the environment is not monitored. Here we show that by engineering
the interaction with the environment there exists a large class of systems that
can evolve irreversibly to a cat state. To be precise we show that it is
possible to engineer an irreversible process so that the steady state is close
to a pure Schr\"odinger's cat state by using double well systems and an
environment comprising two-photon (or phonon) absorbers. We also show that it
should be possible to prolong the lifetime of a Schr\"odinger's cat state
exposed to the destructive effects of a conventional single-photon decohering
environment. Our protocol should make it easier to prepare and maintain
Schr\"odinger cat states which would be useful in applications of quantum
metrology and information processing as well as being of interest to those
probing the quantum to classical transition.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures. Significantly updated version with supplementary
informatio
Ab initio Stellar Astrophysics: Reliable Modeling of Cool White Dwarf Atmospheres
Over the last decade {\it ab initio} modeling of material properties has
become widespread in diverse fields of research. It has proved to be a powerful
tool for predicting various properties of matter under extreme conditions. We
apply modern computational chemistry and materials science methods, including
density functional theory (DFT), to solve lingering problems in the modeling of
the dense atmospheres of cool white dwarfs (). Our
work on the revision and improvements of the absorption mechanisms in the
hydrogen and helium dominated atmospheres resulted in a new set of atmosphere
models. By inclusion of the Ly- red wing opacity we successfully
fitted the entire spectral energy distributions of known cool DA stars. In the
subsequent work we fitted the majority of the coolest stars with hydrogen-rich
models. This finding challenges our understanding of the spectral evolution of
cool white dwarfs. We discuss a few examples, including the cool companion to
the pulsar PSR J0437-4715. The two problems important for the understanding of
cool white dwarfs are the behavior of negative hydrogen ion and molecular
carbon in a fluid-like, helium dominated medium. Using {\it ab initio} methods
we investigate the stability and opacity of these two species in dense helium.
Our investigation of indicates that the absorption features observed
in the ``peculiar'' DQp white dwarfs resemble the absorption of perturbed in dense helium.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, submitted to proceedings of 17th European White
Dwarf Workshop, Tuebingen, Germany 201
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Keeping California cool: Recent cool community developments
In 2006, California introduced the Global Warming Solutions Act (Assembly Bill 32), which requires the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. "Cool community" strategies, including cool roofs, cool pavements, cool walls and urban vegetation, have been identified as voluntary measures with potential to reduce statewide emissions. In addition, cool community strategies provide co-benefits for residents of California, such as reduced utility bills, improved air quality and enhanced urban livability. To achieve these savings, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) has worked with state and local officials, non-profit organizations, school districts, utilities, and manufacturers for 4 years to advance the science and implementation of cool community strategies. This paper summarizes the accomplishments of this program, as well as recent developments in cool community policy in California and other national and international efforts. We also outline lessons learned from these efforts to characterize successful programs and policies to be replicated in the future
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