Locative Media and Sociability:Using Location-Based Social Networks to Coordinate Everyday Life

Foursquare was a mobile social networking application that enabled people to share location with friends in the form of “check-ins.” The visualization of surrounding known social connections as well as unknown others has the potential to impact how people coordinate social encounters and forge new social ties. While many studies have explored mobile phones and sociability, there is a lack of empirical research examining location-based social network’s (LSBNs) from a sociability perspective. Drawing on a dataset of original qualitative research with a range of Foursquare users, the paper examines the application in the context of social coordination and sociability in three ways. First, the paper explores if Foursquare is used to organize certain social encounters, and if so, why. Second, the paper examines the visualization of surrounding social connections and whether this leads to “serendipitous encounters.” Lastly, the paper examines whether the use of Foursquare can produce new social relationships

Design of a Broadband Array Using the

Broadband scanning arrays require small element spacing over a broad frequency band to achieve the desired scan capabilities. Previous research has concentrated on the development of small broadband elements to meet the demands of broadband arrays. However, mutual coupling between elements in a tightly spaced array can change the operating frequency and bandwidth from that of the single isolated element. Several research efforts have focused on minimizing the mutual coupling to maintain the frequency response of the single isolated element. This dissertation focuses on using the strong coupling between Foursquare antennas to obtain the broadband frequency response while maintaining a small element spacing