Fabric Cooling by Water Evaporation

Clothing can provide safety and comfort for persons exposed to both cold and hot thermal environments. To assess the potential impact of clothing moisture and wetness on fabric cooling, a series of wind-tunnel tests was conducted to quantify the evaporative cooling capacity of selected fabric samples. Single-layer cotton, polyester, nylon and silk were evaluated. The results showed that onset and magnitude of evaporative cooling was determined by the amount of water contained in a fabric sample. The results also showed that an exposed skin exhibited more cooling when covered with a fabric than when it was not. The information obtained helps better understand the evaporative cooling process for fabrics and assist in the selection of garment materials that optimize worker comfort and safety

Pressure Thresholds and Stiffness on the Plantar Surface of the Human Foot

The objective was to develop a methodology to assess Pressure Discomfort Thresholds (PDT), Pressure Pain Thresholds (PPT), and tissue stiffness on the plantar surface of the foot. Ten male and ten female participants volunteered for the study. Foot landmarks were used to create a standardized grid-type template of 95 points. For each test point, PPT and PDT values were obtained, and stiffness was calculated for each of the twenty participants. Cluster analyses were performed to determine the regions of similarity for the three dependent variables, PPT, PDT and stiffness. Moran’s-I-index was used to determine the spatial auto correlations. The use of k-means clustering showed five distinct clusters while the three dependent variables showed strong correlations to each other. Morisita’s similarity index was used to check the similarity of the grid among all participants. Both male and female participants showed a Morisita’s index greater than 0.7 confirming the reliability of the foot template

Efficacy of Information Extraction from Bar, Line, Circular, Bubble and Radar Graphs

With the emergence of enormous amounts of data, numerous ways to visualize such data have been used. Bar, circular, line, radar and bubble graphs that are ubiquitous were investigated for their effectiveness. Fourteen participants performed four types of evaluations: between categories (cities), within categories (transport modes within a city), all categories, and a direct reading within a category from a graph. The representations were presented in random order and participants were asked to respond to sixteen questions to the best of their ability after visually scanning the related graph. There were two trials on two separate days for each participant. Eye movements were recorded using an eye tracker. Bar and line graphs show superiority over circular and radial graphs in effectiveness, efficiency, and perceived ease of use primarily due to eye saccades. The radar graph had the worst performance. “Vibration-type” fill pattern could be improved by adding colors and symbolic fills. Design guidelines are proposed for the effective representation of data so that the presentation and communication of information are effective

Viewing versus Experiencing in Adopting Somatosensory Technology for Smart Applications

Emerging somatosensory technology offers unprecedented opportunities for researchers and industrial practitioners to design a touchless smart home system. However, existing touchless smart home systems often fail to attract a satisfying level of acceptance among home owners. The experience users have with the touchless system is key to making somatosensory technology a pervasive computing home application, yet little research has been conducted to assess the influence of direct and indirect experience on user’s behavioral intention to use somatosensory technology. To address this research gap, this paper set up an experimental design to investigate the influence of direct and indirect experience in user technology acceptance. Using an in-house developed touchless system, two experimental studies (i.e., video observation versus product trial) were conducted with sixty-two participants to investigate whether the user experience has an impact on the adoption decision. Our findings indicate that direct experience has an impact on a user’s acceptance of somatosensory technology. We found a significant difference in the relationships between perceived complexity and usage intentions. Perceived complexity was a significant predictor of an individual’s behavioral intention to use the touchless system after video observation, while its relationship to usage intention was insignificant after the user had direct experience with touchless system. Our study reveals an important implication for somatosensory technology marketers, in which product trial (direct experience) engenders more reliable inferences than does exposure to video demonstration (indirect experience). Based on this, companies should devise marketing programme involving direct experience (e.g., product trial and showroom visit) to promote new somatosensory-enabled smart home systems. The results of the study also demonstrate that user experience in research design may influence the results of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) studies. Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/pajais/vol6/iss3/2

Get a Grip:Evaluating Grip Gestures for VR Input Using a Lightweight Pen

The use of Virtual Reality (VR) in applications such as data analysis, artistic creation, and clinical settings requires high precision input. However, the current design of handheld controllers, where wrist rotation is the primary input approach, does not exploit the human fingers' capability for dexterous movements for high precision pointing and selection. To address this issue, we investigated the characteristics and potential of using a pen as a VR input device. We conducted two studies. The first examined which pen grip allowed the largest range of motion---we found a tripod grip at the rear end of the shaft met this criterion. The second study investigated target selection via 'poking' and ray-casting, where we found the pen grip outperformed the traditional wrist-based input in both cases. Finally, we demonstrate potential applications enabled by VR pen input and grip postures

Proof-of-Principle for Immune Control of Global HIV-1 Reactivation In Vivo

Background. Emerging data relating to human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) cure suggest that vaccination to stimulate the host immune response, particularly cytotoxic cells, may be critical to clearing of reactivated HIV-1–infected cells. However, evidence for this approach in humans is lacking, and parameters required for a vaccine are unknown because opportunities to study HIV-1 reactivation are rare

Inspection method for comparison of articles

Two articles are compared to detect differences by forming images of the two articles and then viewing said images in respective eyes. This forms a superimposed image and any differences between the two articles are visible as a three-dimensional element to the image by the stereoscopic effect. The method may be used to compare a product with a master to detect any errors, or may for example be used to compare fingerprints or for DNA matching. Three dimensional or remote articles can likewise be compared by viewing and comparing camera-caught images of the articles rather than the articles themselves