16,059 research outputs found
Can User Experience affect buying intention? A case study on the evaluation of exercise equipment.
Treadmills are increasingly loaded with digital technology for assisting the
individual during the workout sessions by providing information for tracking
relevant training parameters. Also, this technology makes exercise more pleasurable
by keeping the user connected to her/his digital ecosystem (e.g. social networking,
access to multimedia content). Although there is an increasing interest in digital
technologies to be used in fitness, a cursory literature search shows that the interest
towards gym equipment is currently limited to the hardware component, thus
making biomechanics the focus of the investigation. Other types of contributions are
very rare and mostly focused on the design of tools for special populations (e.g.
elderly, disabilities) as well as for promoting physical activity monitoring (eHealth).
In the present study information on the perceived usability of the interface was
collected and analysed along with opinions about buying intention and estimated
pricing. Twenty-three individuals were tested after using a treadmill (Technogym
S.p.A.) equipped with an interface allowing equipment and training management,
activity monitoring and user entertainment. Results indicated a significant influence
of perceived usability of the interface on the intention of buying the whole system,
thus suggesting the existence of a ROI of Human-Centred Design strategies
Alien Registration- Di Simon, Louisa (Portland, Cumberland County)
https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/25585/thumbnail.jp
Bulk-edge coupling in the non-abelian quantum Hall interferometer
Recent schemes for experimentally probing non-abelian statistics in the
quantum Hall effect are based on geometries where current-carrying
quasiparticles flow along edges that encircle bulk quasiparticles, which are
localized. Here we consider one such scheme, the Fabry-Perot interferometer,
and analyze how its interference patterns are affected by a coupling that
allows tunneling of neutral Majorana fermions between the bulk and edge. While
at weak coupling this tunneling degrades the interference signal, we find that
at strong coupling, the bulk quasiparticle becomes essentially absorbed by the
edge and the intereference signal is fully restored.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur
A sensitive survey for 13CO, CN, H2CO and SO in the disks of T Tauri and Herbig Ae stars
We use the IRAM 30-m telescope to perform a sensitive search for CN N=2-1 in
42 T Tauri or Herbig Ae systems located mostly in the Taurus-Auriga region.
CO J=2-1 is observed simultaneously to indicate the level of confusion
with the surrounding molecular cloud. The bandpass also contains two
transitions of ortho-HCO, one of SO and the CO J=2-1 line which
provide complementary information on the nature of the emission.
While CO is in general dominated by residual emission from the cloud,
CN exhibits a high disk detection rate % in our sample. We even report CN
detection in stars for which interferometric searches failed to detect
CO, presumably because of obscuration by a foreground, optically thick,
cloud. Comparison between CN and o-HCO or SO line profiles and intensities
divide the sample in two main categories. Sources with SO emission are bright
and have strong HCO emission, leading in general to [HCO/CN].
Furthermore, their line profiles, combined with a priori information on the
objects, suggest that the emission is coming from outflows or envelopes rather
than from a circumstellar disk. On the other hand, most sources have
[HCO/CN], no SO emission, and some of them exhibit clear
double-peaked profiles characteristics of rotating disks. In this second
category, CN is likely tracing the proto-planetary disks. From the line flux
and opacity derived from the hyperfine ratios, we constrain the outer radii of
the disks, which range from 300 to 600 AU. The overall gas disk detection rate
(including all molecular tracers) is , and decreases for fainter
continuum sources.
This study shows that gas disks, like dust disks, are ubiquitous around young
PMS stars in regions of isolated star formation, and that a large fraction of
them have AU.Comment: 31 pages (including 59 figures
Correlators of N=1 Superconformal Currents
We give an explicit expression for the M-point correlator of the
superconformal current in two dimensional N=1 superconformal field theories.Comment: 8 pages. Some typos fixed. Unfortunately, these typos exist in the
published version in J Phys
Crowdscanning: The future of open innovation and artificial intelligence
Open innovation will take on a new meaning as AI will scan internal and open data to find the best ideas, write Alessandro di Fiore and Simon Schneide
Social Service Delivery in Violent Contexts: Achieving Results Against the Odds. A report from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nepal
This report provides the foundation for a new approach to service delivery in violence-affected contexts that is sensitive to the actual forms of violence, politics, and bargaining encountered in many conflict-affected states. The findings unearth issues about how development organizations should approach service delivery in contested settings. As many countries today are riven by conflict and internal division, some familiar rules of the game may be inadequate to deal with the mounting humanitarian and development challenges posed by complex conflict situations, particularly where affected people need access to social services. This raises dilemmas about the ethical and political judgments and trade-offs that development actors frequently have to make. A key challenge is whether development actors can adapt their procedures and ways of working to the fluidity, uncertainties, and risk taking that the new, conflict-riven landscape demands while preserving financial accountability, doing no harm, and ensuring aid effectiveness. Based on research in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nepal, the report probes how social service delivery is affected by violent conflict and what are the critical factors that make or break successful delivery
Intelligent Feature Extraction, Data Fusion and Detection of Concrete Bridge Cracks: Current Development and Challenges
As a common appearance defect of concrete bridges, cracks are important
indices for bridge structure health assessment. Although there has been much
research on crack identification, research on the evolution mechanism of bridge
cracks is still far from practical applications. In this paper, the
state-of-the-art research on intelligent theories and methodologies for
intelligent feature extraction, data fusion and crack detection based on
data-driven approaches is comprehensively reviewed. The research is discussed
from three aspects: the feature extraction level of the multimodal parameters
of bridge cracks, the description level and the diagnosis level of the bridge
crack damage states. We focus on previous research concerning the quantitative
characterization problems of multimodal parameters of bridge cracks and their
implementation in crack identification, while highlighting some of their major
drawbacks. In addition, the current challenges and potential future research
directions are discussed.Comment: Published at Intelligence & Robotics; Its copyright belongs to
author
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