Investigating the success factors of expert users to inform device development

Objective: Expert user testing is a well recognised tool within user experience and human computer interaction design. Within the domain of assistive technology device design, however, this technique seems to be little used. It is suggested that studying the success factors of expert assistive technology device users may provide a valuable source of data to inform development of assistive technology devices. This paper presents an example of this technique, within the context of a number of studies carried out by the authors, using the example of preliminary data from a study informing the development of an innovative Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) device. Main Content: The paper presents a qualitative study whose objective was to influence the design and further development of an innovative voice-input voice-output communication aid (Vivoca) which has previously reached proof-of-concept stage. The Vivoca device is designed for people with dysarthria and this dictates a number of specific constraints and considerations. In order to understand how Vivoca could be designed to be used successfully by people with dysarthria, this study aimed to identify the factors associated with expert users' successful use of current AAC devices. In order to allow comparison, the study included users with some understandable speech and also those with no understandable speech. The study procedure was designed to provide a profile of participants' communication methods and to identify the factors that participants felt made their communication successful. Results: Preliminary results from the study (currently underway) are presented, including a qualitative analysis of interview data, and data profiling participants' communication methods and context. Initial data has highlighted the very specific requirements for a communication aid design for people with some understandable speech. Conclusion: Study of expert users may provide an effective tool to help inform assistive technology device development

Confined coherence and analytic properties of Green's functions

A simple model of noninteracting electrons with a separable one-body potential is used to discuss the possible pole structure of single particle Green's functions for fermions on unphysical sheets in the complex frequency plane as a function of the system parameters. The poles in the exact Green's function can cross the imaginary axis, in contrast to recent claims that such a behaviour is unphysical. As the Green's function of the model has the same functional form as an approximate Green's function of coupled Luttinger liquids no definite conclusions concerning the concept of "confined coherence" can be drawn from the locations of the poles of this Green's function.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figure

Sustainable production of organic wheat

The aim of the project is to use an ecological approach to analyse the interactions of a range of key agronomic variables in organic wheat production (wheat genotype, spatial arrangement of seed, seed density and wheat/white clover bi-cropping) to determine an optimal approach to improved and stabilised production. The fi rst set of data revealed that seedling competition was infl uenced by seed rate and drilling arrangement. Furthermore, the variety Hereward had increased emergence and establishment to Aristos. An interaction exists between wheat variety, seed rate and drilling arrangement on the level of canopy cover at different developmental stages – these factors are important for the suppression of weeds. The input of farmers in the selection of trial variables ensures results have a direct application to the industry. The results of yield and quality at harvest will provide further insights into the interaction of agronomic variables

Evolutionary breeding of healthy wheat: from plot to farm

Genetically diverse Composite Cross Populations (CCPs) may be useful in environmentally variable low-input systems as an alternative to pure line varieties. They are formed by hybridising lines with diverse evolutionary origins, bulking the F1 progeny, and allowing natural selection of the progeny in successive crop environments. CCPs derived from 10 high yielding parents (YCCPs), 12 high quality parents (QCCPs), or all 22 parents (YQCCPs), were grown at four sites (2 organic, 2 conventional) in the UK; they are currently (2006) in F5. The YCCPs out yielded the QCCPs, which had better quality characteristics. Although the CCPs performed within the range of the parents, the values obtained were often better than the mean of the parents. Some population samples are now being grown on farms and other sites in England, France, Germany and Hungary

Titanium alloy stress corrosion cracking in presence of dinitrogen tetroxide

Study resulting in a satisfactory stress corrosion cracking test with extremely consistent results produced six new analytical methods. Methods detect and determine differences in the minor constituent composition of different types of dinitrogen tetroxide

Pressure stimulated currents in rocks and their correlation with mechanical properties

The spontaneous electrification of marble samples was studied while they were subjected to uniaxial stress. The Pressure Stimulated Current (PSC) technique was applied to measure the charge released from compressed Dionysos marble samples, while they were subjected to cyclic loading. The experimental results demonstrate that, in the linear elastic region of the sample, no PSC is recorded, while beyond the stress limit (s>0.60), observable variations appear, which increase considerably in the vicinity of sample failure, reaching a maximum value just before the failure. The emitted current is reduced on each loading cycle and it has a reciprocal dependence to the normalized Young modulus. The MCD model, applied out of the vicinity of sample failure explains successfully the above findings. The existence of a "memory-like" behavior of the sample, could justify the weakness or absence of electrical earthquake precursors, during an aftershock sequence

The identification and production of varieties that increase the value of oats as a profitable component of organic production

Two experiments, one comprising husked, and the other naked, oats were established at Wakelyns Agroforestry, Suffolk in October 2004 to determine traits and varieties of oats suited to organic systems, and whether growing variety mixtures conferred any advantage. Unselected F2 breeding lines were also included for selection. Husked varieties had relatively higher yields; this may have been partly the result of poor establishment in the naked varieties. Variety height was found to be an important characteristic; tall oat varieties out-yielded the dwarfs. Two of the three variety mixtures containing the naked oat variety Expression yielded 8 and 9 % higher than the average of the component varieties. The data will be verified in the second year of replicated trials (2005/06), which will include the best performing husked and naked varieties, and a mixture of superior IGER-bred F2 breeding lines

Helium, neon, and tritium in the Black Sea

Measurements of the 3He/4He ratio, and concentrations of helium, neon, and tritium have been made in samples collected at station 1355 in the Black Sea during the 1975 cruise of R/V Chain. Helium concentrations increase rapidly from 400 m to about 1000 m and then less rapidly below 1000 m. The maximum He concentration excess is about 16% above solubility equilibrium. Neon concentrations are constant, within a few percent of solubility equilibrium, below 400 m. The He-Ne data thus clearly indicate a large component of radiogenic 4He in the deep water from decay of U and Th in the bottom sediments. Tritium concentrations decrease from 67.2 T.U. at the surface to near-zero values at 726 m, 968 m, and 1358 m. Two deeper samples at 1745 m and 1939 m contain some tritium—0.6 ± 0.3 T.U. and 0.7 ± 0.2 T.U. respectively, which shows that a small amount of high-tritium surface water has descended to the bottom during the past twenty years. A one-dimensional three-box model using our tritium concentrations and the geothermal heat flux values measured by Erickson and Simmons (1974) gives vertical exchange times of 440 ± 180 years between the deep water (1000 m-2000 m) and the middle water (400 m-1000 m), and 125 ± 75 years between the middle water and a layer above from 200 m to 400 m in the salinity interval 21.50‰-22.00‰. The fluxes of radiogenic 4He and primordial 3He into the deep water are found to be 1.3 ± 0.5 × 105 atoms cm—2 sec—1 and 1.1 ± 0.6 atoms cm—2 sec—1 respectively which may be compared with world-ocean estimates of Craig et al. (1975)—3 ± 1.5 x 105 atoms cm—2 sec—1 and 4 ± 1 atoms cm—2 sec—1

Understanding Chinese tourist mobility and consumption-related behaviours in London using Sina Weibo check-ins

In this paper, we detail an individual-level analysis of under-exploited location-based social network (LBSN) data extracted from Sina Weibo, a comprehensive source for data-driven research focused on Chinese populations. The richness of the Sina Weibo data, coupled with high-quality venue and attraction information from Foursquare, enables us to track Chinese tourists visiting London and understand behaviours and mobility patterns revealed by their activities and venue-based ‘check-ins’. We use these check-ins to derive a series of indicators of mobility which reveal aggregate and individual-level behaviours associated with Chinese tourists in London, and which act as a tool to segment tourists based on those behaviours. Our data-driven tourist segmentation indicates that different groups of Chinese tourists have distinctive activity preferences and travel patterns. Our primary interest is in tourists’ consumption behaviours, and we reveal that tourists with similar activity preferences still exhibit individualised behaviours with regards to the nature and location of key consumption activities such as shopping and dining out. We aim to understand more about Chinese tourist shopping behaviours as a secondary activity associated with multi-purpose trips, demonstrating that these data could permit insights into tourist behaviours and mobility patterns which are not well captured by official tourism statistics, especially at a localised level. This analysis could be up-scaled to incorporate additional LBSN data sources and broader population subgroups in order to support data-driven urban analytics related to tourist mobilities and consumption behaviours