5,777 research outputs found
Living with the user: Design drama for dementia care through responsive scripted experiences in the home
Participation in forms of drama and narrative can provoke empathy and creativity in user-centred design processes. In this paper, we expand upon existing methods to explore the potential for responsive scripted experiences that are delivered through the combination of sensors and output devices placed in a home. The approach is being developed in the context of Dementia care, where the capacity for rich user participation in design activities is limited. In this case, a system can act as a proxy for a person with Dementia, allowing designers to gain experiences and insight as to what it is like to provide care for, and live with, this person. We describe the rationale behind the approach, a prototype system architecture, and our current work to explore the creation of scripted experiences for design, played out though UbiComp technologies.This research is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK, (AH/K00266X/1) and Horizon Digital Economy Research (RCUK grant EP/G065802/1)
Using cultural probes to inform the design of assistive technologies
This paper discusses the practical implications of applying cultural probes to drive the design of assistive technologies. Specifically we describe a study in which a probe was deployed with home-based carers of people with dementia in order to capture critical data and gain insights of integrating the technologies into this sensitive and socially complex design space. To represent and utilise the insights gained from the cultural probes, we created narratives based on the probe data to enhance the design of assistive technologies.This work was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AH/K00266X/1) and RCUK through the Horizon Digital Economy Research grant (EP/G065802/1)
Resistant starch as a dietary intervention to limit the progression of diabetic kidney disease
Diabetes is the leading cause of kidney disease, and as the number of individuals with diabetes increases there is a concomitant increase in the prevalence of diabetic kidney disease (DKD). Diabetes contributes to the development of DKD through a number of pathways, including inflammation, oxidative stress, and the gut-kidney axis, which may be amenable to dietary therapy. Resistant starch (RS) is a dietary fibre that alters the gut microbial consortium, leading to an increase in the microbial production of short chain fatty acids. Evidence from animal and human studies indicate that short chain fatty acids are able to attenuate inflammatory and oxidative stress pathways, which may mitigate the progression of DKD. In this review, we evaluate and summarise the evidence from both preclinical models of DKD and clinical trials that have utilised RS as a dietary therapy to limit the progression of DKD
Supersymmetry, Axions and Cosmology
Various authors have noted that in particular models, the upper bound on the
axion decay constant may not hold. We point out that within supersymmetry, this
is a generic issue. For large decay constants, the cosmological problems
associated with the axion's scalar partner are far more severe than those of
the axion. We survey a variety of models, both for the axion multiplet and for
cosmology, and find that in many cases where the cosmological problems of the
saxion are solved, the usual upper bound on the axion is significantly relaxed.
We discuss, more generally, the cosmological issues raised by the pseudoscalar
members of moduli multiplets, and find that they are potentially quite severe.Comment: 27 pages, published version, some discussions clarifie
Relaxing the Cosmological Moduli Problem
Typically the moduli fields acquire mass m =C H in the early universe, which
shifts the position of the minimum of their effective potential and leads to an
excessively large energy density of the oscillating moduli fields at the later
stages of the evolution of the universe. This constitutes the cosmological
moduli problem, or Polonyi field problem. We show that the cosmological moduli
problem can be solved or at least significantly relaxed in the theories in
which C >> 1, as well as in some models with C << 1.Comment: 9 pages, 3 Postscript figure
On the Solution to the Polonyi Problem with (10~TeV) Gravitino Mass in Supergravity
We study the solution to the Polonyi problem where the Polonyi field weighs
as and decays just before the primordial nucleosynthesis. It
is shown that in spite of a large entropy production by the Polonyi field
decay, one can naturally explain the present value of the baryon-to-entropy
ratio, if the Affleck-Dine mechanism for
baryogenesis works. It is pointed out, however, that there is another
cosmological problem related to the abundance of the lightest superparticles
produced by the Polonyi decay
A Model of Direct Gauge Mediation
We present a simple model of gauge mediation (GM) which does not have a
messenger sector or gauge singlet fields. The standard model gauge groups
couple directly to the sector which breaks supersymmetry dynamically. This is
the first phenomenologically viable example of this type in the literature.
Despite the direct coupling, the model can preserve perturbative gauge
unification. This is achieved by the inverted hierarchy mechanism which
generates a large scalar expectation value compared to the size of
supersymmetry breaking. There is no dangerous negative contribution to the
squark, slepton masses due to two-loop renormalization group equation. The
potentially non-universal supergravity contribution to the scalar masses can be
suppressed enough to maintain the virtue of the gauge mediation. The model is
completely chiral, and one does not need to forbid mass terms for the messenger
fields by hand. Beyond the simplicity of the model, it possesses cosmologically
desirable features compared to the original models of GM: an improved gravitino
and string moduli cosmology. The Polonyi problem is back unlike in the original
GM models, but is still much less serious than in hidden sector models.Comment: LaTeX, 12 page
Relating PH and Ion Release from Ga2O3-Na 2O-CaO-ZnO-SiO2 Bioactive Glasses
Three glasses were designed for this study, including one Ga-free glass (Control), and two Ga-containing glasses (TGa-1, TGa-2). In the Ga-containing glasses, Ga2O3 is included at the expense of ZnO. This study focuses on the relation between pH and ion concentration present in solution in which these bioactive glasses have been submerged for periods of 1, 7, and 14 days. © 2013 IEEE
The Structural Characterization of Ga 2O 3-Na 2O-CaO-ZnO-SiO 2 Bioactive Glasses
The characterization of bioactive glasses in which zinc (Zn) has been incrementally replaced by gallium (Ga). © 2012 IEEE
Supergravity Inflation Free from Harmful Relics
We present a realistic supergravity inflation model which is free from the
overproduction of potentially dangerous relics in cosmology, namely moduli and
gravitinos which can lead to the inconsistencies with the predictions of baryon
asymmetry and nucleosynthesis. The radiative correction turns out to play a
crucial role in our analysis which raises the mass of supersymmetry breaking
field to intermediate scale. We pay a particular attention to the non-thermal
production of gravitinos using the non-minimal Kahler potential we obtained
from loop correction. This non-thermal gravitino production however is
diminished because of the relatively small scale of inflaton mass and small
amplitudes of hidden sector fields.Comment: 10 pages, revtex, 1 eps figure, references added, conclusion section
expande
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