12,953 research outputs found
A Participatory Design Framework For Customisable Assistive Technology
High product costs and device abandonment negatively affect people with disabilities who require Assistive Technology (AT), and poor product design is a root cause. The purpose of this research is to develop and demonstrate a participatory design framework for customisable AT, which addresses the need for low-cost assistive products that satisfy a broad range of consumersâ needs. This framework addresses two main gaps in the literature. First, user involvement in the design process of medical and rehabilitative products helps create products that are more effective but, although methods to involve users exist, there are currently scant techniques to translate the research data into design solution concepts. Second, adaptive mass customisation offers a way to reduce a productâs cost by making it useful to more people and adaptable to a userâs changing needs. Although the creation of one-off, tailored AT devices is discussed in the literature, there are no methods to support the development of customisable or adaptable AT.
Two-phases of participatory design research are described in the thesis, and make up the body of the design framework. First, a Delphi study is used to facilitate AT professionals working with individuals with disabilities in reaching a consensus on important design issues relating to a specific type of AT. An adapted morphological matrix is then presented as a novel way of applying the results of a Delphi study to concept generation. The second phase facilitates the involvement of AT users with disabilities in a series of participatory design workshops to create a final product design and prototype. The research approach was exploratory and Assistive Technology Computer Input Devices (ATCIDs) were employed as a sample technology domain to develop and substantiate the framework. Three key contributions resulted from this work; a wide range of problems and design issues related to ATCIDs; a method for using touch panel technology as a customisable ATCID; and, most pertinent due to its transferability, a participatory design framework for customisable AT with recommendations for participatory design practice involving individuals with diverse disabilities
Nurturing the Accumulation of Innovations: Lessons from the Internet
The innovations that became the foundation for the Internet originate from two eras that illustrate two distinct models for accumulating innovations over the long haul. The pre-commercial era illustrates the operation of several useful non-market institutional arrangements. It also illustrates a potential drawback to government sponsorship â in this instance, truncation of exploratory activity. The commercial era illustrates a rather different set of lessons. It highlights the extraordinary power of market-oriented and widely distributed investment and adoption, which illustrates the power of market experimentation to foster innovative activity. It also illustrates a few of the conditions necessary to unleash value creation from such accumulated lessons, such as standards development and competition, and nurturing legal and regulatory policies.
A bricolage perspective on technological innovation in emerging markets
Due to endogenous and exogenous constraints, companies from emerging markets often adopt surprising and unconventional strategies for their innovative efforts. Various concepts such as jugaad, frugal, and cost innovation have been coined to describe technological innovations originating from emerging markets. However, the organisational and inter-organisational processes underpinning the development of product innovations in emerging markets remain unclear. Consequently, the practical value of these concepts remains limited in the absence of specific insights and guidelines regarding replicable activities that managers can undertake to achieve cost-driven, innovative outcomes. [Continues.
Higher education reform: getting the incentives right
This study is a joint effort by the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) and the Center for Higher Education Policy Studies. It analyses a number of `best practicesÂż where the design of financial incentives working on the system level of higher education is concerned. In Chapter 1, an overview of some of the characteristics of the Dutch higher education sector is presented. Chapter 2 is a refresher on the economics of higher education. Chapter 3 is about the Australian Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS). Chapter 4 is about tuition fees and admission policies in US universities. Chapter 5 looks at the funding of Danish universities through the so-called taximeter-model, that links funding to student performance. Chapter 6 deals with research funding in the UK university system, where research assessments exercises underlie the funding decisions. In Chapter 7 we study the impact of university-industry ties on academic research by examining the US policies on increasing knowledge transfer between universities and the private sector. Finally, Chapter 8 presents food for thought for Dutch policymakers: what lessons can be learned from our international comparison
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People centred eco-design: consumer adoption of low and zero carbon products and systems
Literature review, research model and findings of exploratory empirical research on consumer adoption and effective use of low and zero carbon technologies ranging from a hybrid car to solar water heating systems
Interrogating the technical, economic and cultural challenges of delivering the PassivHaus standard in the UK.
A peer-reviewed eBook, which is based on a collaborative research project coordinated by Dr. Henrik Schoenefeldt at the Centre for Architecture and Sustainable Environment at the University of Kent between May 2013 and June 2014. This project investigated how architectural practice and the building industry are adapting in order to successfully deliver Passivhaus standard buildings in the UK. Through detailed case studies the project explored the learning process underlying the delivery of fourteen buildings, certified between 2009 and 2013.
Largely founded on the study of the original project correspondence and semi-structured interviews with clients, architects, town planners, contractors and manufacturers, these case studies have illuminated the more immediate technical as well as the broader cultural challenges. The peer-reviewers of this book stressed that the findings included in the book are valuable to students, practitioners and academic researchers in the field of low-energy design. It was launched during the PassivHaus Project Conference, held at the Bulb Innovation Centre on the 27th June 2014
Alternative Energy Solutions
Providing a self-sustaining, efficient, and cost-affordable source of energy is perhaps the greatest challenge posed in modern society. With supplies of common fossil fuels and many other non-renewable resources nearing depletion, humanity must soon find safe, dependable, and inexpensive fuel sources capable of adequately fulfilling our heat and electricity generation needs. In this report, unique solutions and regulatory policies are proposed after closely examining the advantages, disadvantages, and sociopolitical concerns of many different fuels in both qualitative and quantitative respects
National strategies for technology adoption in the industrial sector: Lessons of recent experience in the developing regions
human development, technology
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