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)

Isomerisation of an intramolecular hydrogen-bonded photoswitch:Protonated azobis(2-imidazole)

Photoisomerisation of protonated azobis(2-imidazole), an intramolecular hydrogen-bonded azoheteroarene photoswitch molecule, is investigated in the gas phase using tandem ion mobility mass spectrometry. The E and Z isomers exhibit distinct spectral responses, with E-Z photoisomerisation occurring over the 360-520 nm range (peak at 460 nm), and Z-E photoisomerisation taking place over the 320-420 nm range (peak at 390 nm). A minor photodissociation channel involving loss of N2 is observed for the E-isomer with a maximum efficiency at 390 nm, blue-shifted by ≈70 nm relative to the wavelength for maximum photoisomerisation response. Loss of N2 is also the predominant collision-induced dissociation channel. Electronic structure calculations suggest that E-isomer photoisomerisation involves S1(ππ∗) excitation, whereas the Z-isomer photoisomerisation involves S2(ππ∗) excitation. Conversion between the E and Z isomers through collisional excitation, which is calculated to occur through both inversion and torsion pathways, is investigated experimentally by colliding the molecular ions with nitrogen buffer gas over a range of electric fields. This study demonstrates the versatility of tandem ion mobility mass spectrometry for exploring the isomerisation of molecular photoswitches initiated by either light or collisions

Associations and within-group differences in physical characteristics and golf performance data in high-level amateur players

The aim of the present study was to assess the relationship between a comprehensive physical testing battery and golf performance, as quantified through a variety of previously determined usable metrics from launch monitor data. Twenty-six high level, amateur golfers undertook a series of physical assessments, including: anthropometry measurements, isometric mid-thigh pull (IMTP), isometric bench press, countermovement jump (CMJ), seated medicine ball throws for distance, and a seated thoracic rotation test. In addition, golf shot data was recorded in an indoor biomechanics laboratory, with a driver and 6-iron to quantify clubhead speed (CHS), ball speed, carry distance, and smash factor. Pearson’s r associative analysis showed that the strongest relationships between golf shot data was with the isometric bench press for the upper body (r values up to 0.76), and countermovement jump for the lower body (r values up to 0.82). In addition, median split analysis for physical performance data revealed that players who were able to exhibit greater maximal and explosive strength capabilities in the IMTP, isometric bench press and CMJ assessments, had significantly greater CHS (g range = 1.09-1.28; p < 0.05), ball speed (g range = 1.18-1.41; p < 0.05), carry distance (g range = 1.06-1.53; p < 0.05), and smash factor (g range = 0.81-1.17; p < 0.05). These data underscore the importance of superior physical capacity for golfers, especially for maximal force production in both the lower and upper body, as well as explosive force production for the lower body

Brighter prospects? Assessing the franchise advantage using census data

This paper uses Census micro data to examine how starting a business as a franchise rather than an independent business affects its survival and growth prospects. We assess factors that influence the decision to become a franchisee and use various empirical approaches to correct for selection bias in our performance analyses. We find that franchised businesses on average exhibit higher survival rates than independent businesses, but importantly, the difference is small compared to claims in the trade press. The effect is also short lived: conditional on surviving a year or two, we no longer find survival (or growth) differences. We then explore two potential sources for this small survival advantage, namely franchisors’ screening process and the benefits arising from the brand and business know-how provided by franchisors. We find evidence that both of the sources contribute to the franchising advantage

Monitoring the CMS strip tracker readout system

The CMS Silicon Strip Tracker at the LHC comprises a sensitive area of approximately 200 m2 and 10 million readout channels. Its data acquisition system is based around a custom analogue front-end chip. Both the control and the readout of the front-end electronics are performed by off-detector VME boards in the counting room, which digitise the raw event data and perform zero-suppression and formatting. The data acquisition system uses the CMS online software framework to configure, control and monitor the hardware components and steer the data acquisition. The first data analysis is performed online within the official CMS reconstruction framework, which provides many services, such as distributed analysis, access to geometry and conditions data, and a Data Quality Monitoring tool based on the online physics reconstruction. The data acquisition monitoring of the Strip Tracker uses both the data acquisition and the reconstruction software frameworks in order to provide real-time feedback to shifters on the operational state of the detector, archiving for later analysis and possibly trigger automatic recovery actions in case of errors. Here we review the proposed architecture of the monitoring system and we describe its software components, which are already in place, the various monitoring streams available, and our experiences of operating and monitoring a large-scale system

The Cosmological Moduli Problem, Supersymmetry Breaking and Stability in Postinflationary Cosmology

A survey of solutions to the cosmological moduli problem in string theory. The only extant proposal which may work is Intermediate Scale Inflation as proposed by Randall and Thomas. Supersymmetry preserving dynamics which could give large masses to the moduli is strongly constrained by cosmology and requires the existence of string vacuum states possessing properties different from those of any known vacuuum. Such a mechanism cannot give mass to the dilaton unless there are cancellations between different exponentially small contributions to the superpotential. Our investigation also shows that stationary points of the effective potential with negative vacuum energy do not correspond to stationary solutions of the equations of postinflationary cosmology. This suggests that supersymmetry breaking is a requirement for a successful inflationary cosmology.Comment: harvma

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

Structures for Knowledge Co-creation Between Organisations and the Public

A definitive version of this conference paper is available in the ACM Digital Library http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2556420.2558854© ACM 2014Social computing technologies are emerging to support innovative new relationships between organisations and the public. Inspired by concepts such as collective intelligence and crowdsourcing, diverse organisations are exploring new ways to increase engagement with the public, collect localised knowledge, or leverage human cognition and creativity. The COP2014 workshop will assimilate the craft understanding and experimentation underpinning innovations in relationships between public and professional realms. We aim to provide an opportunity for discussion and to build understanding of the principles of making these sociotechnical systems work, and discuss possible designs and opportunities that may be valuable and remain underexplored. As a tangible outcome, our main goal will be to co-author a paper discussing our positions on current systems and future visions, for submission to Communications of the ACM. We welcome participation from interested organisations, alongside those conducting research in this area. Topics of interest include: How can systems be designed for participation that is beneficial to individuals and organisations? How do we draw boundaries between ‘official’ and externally-generated knowledge? How can professional activities connect with the just-in-time, emergent nature of amateur interactions?RCUK Horizon Hu

Achieving Practical and Accurate Indoor Navigation for People with Visual Impairments

Methods that provide accurate navigation assistance to people with visual impairments often rely on instrumenting the environment with specialized hardware infrastructure. In particular, approaches that use sensor networks of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons have been shown to achieve precise localization and accurate guidance while the structural modifications to the environment are kept at minimum. To install navigation infrastructure, however, a number of complex and time-critical activities must be performed. The BLE beacons need to be positioned correctly and samples of Bluetooth signal need to be collected across the whole environment. These tasks are performed by trained personnel and entail costs proportional to the size of the environment that needs to be instrumented. To reduce the instrumentation costs while maintaining a high accuracy, we improve over a traditional regression-based localization approach by introducing a novel, graph-based localization method using Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (PDR) and particle filter. We then study how the number and density of beacons and Bluetooth samples impact the balance between localization accuracy and set-up cost of the navigation environment. Studies with users show the impact that the increased accuracy has on the usability of our navigation application for the visually impaired