Social e-atmospherics in practice (or not): a French and Turkish web designers’ perspectives

Little is known about the development of social e- atmospherics. And yet, e-atmospherics havemotivated an emerging body of research which reports that both better layouts and‘recognized’ atmospherics encourage consumers to modify their shopping habits. While the literature has analyzed mainly the functional (design) aspect of e-atmospherics, little has been done in terms of linking its characteristics’ to social (co-) creation. This paper attempts to redress the imbalance by exploring the anatomy from a website designer perspective of the social dimension of design in relation to e-atmospherics, which includes factors such as the aesthetic design of space and the influence of visual cues as a socially constructed meaning. We identify the challenges that web designers as social agents, who interact within intangible social reference sets, restricted by social standards, value, beliefs, status and duties, face daily within their work. We aim to review the current understanding of the importance and voluntary integration of social cues displayed by web designers from a mature market and an emerging market, and provides an analysis based recommendation towards the development of an integrated e-social atmospheric framework. Results report exploratory findings from questionnaires with 10 French and 16 Turkish web designers. These allow us to re-interpret the web designers’ reality regarding social e-atmospherics. We contend that by comprehending (before any consumer/client input) social capital, daily micro practices, habits and routine of designers, a deeper understanding of social e-atmospherics possible functions in the future will be unpacked

Salinity-driven changes in Salicornia cell wall nano-mechanics and lignin composition

Preprint artykułuWidespread increases in soil salinization significantly reduce agricultural lands. Nevertheless, salt-tolerant plants, such as Salicornia europaea L., can play a crucial role in the reclamation of these lands. We selected S. europaea for this study due to its potential to mitigate soil salinization and its numerous applications, such as intercropping in agriculture, biocompounds production and bioenergy. This work was designed to determine whether different salinities induce significant biophysical, anatomical, lignin and gene transcript changes in S. europaea. Through atomic force microscopy (AFM), we revealed that salinity stimulated an increase in cell wall elasticity (CWE) as an important physiological mechanism of adaptation known as cell’s turgor conservation effect. Direct values of the cell wall stiffness subjected to salinity were obtained, with Young’s modulus (E) ranging from low and high salinity 0.52 to 0.03 MPa. The softening of the cell wall properly correlated with an increase in cell size, plant cells under strong salinity 1000 mM NaCl, swelled 5.4 times. The best salinity range found for its optimum growth was 200–400 mM NaCl. At higher salinities, we identified increases in the lignified xylem, large calcium oxalate crystals, and in transcript amounts of SeSOS1 and SeNHX1, which has a significant negative correlation with cell wall stiffness ( 0.57 and 0.95, respectively). The high syringyl and guaiacyl ratio (S/G) in lignin for 0–400 mM NaCl may have influenced the rigidity and hydrophobicity of the cell walls. A positive S/G ratio and sugar yields are associated with higher bioethanol production, these values may also be useful for agriculture, biorefinery, biocompounds and plant-breeding applications. We conclude that salinity indeed influenced the cell wall traits of S. europaea. This halophyte is capable of markedly softening its cell wall as a way of adapting to the high level of salinity. Our presented insights and correlations not only provide a better understanding of cell wall remodelling but are also considered vital traits of adaptation strategies that this halophyte holds under salinity environment. These inputs can also be applied in future research aiming to produce biomass and biofuel or to improve the salinity tolerance during the cultivation of non-tolerant plants, crops and glycophytes, which is a significant challenge in agriculture, particularly in arid and coastal regions. The unique properties of the S. europaea cell walls could also inspire the development of materials with enhanced nanomechanical elasticity for resistance to osmotic stress

Experimental Method for Plotting S-N Curve with a Small Number of Specimens

The study presents two approaches to plotting an S-N curve based on the experimental results. The first approach is commonly used by researchers and presented in detail in many studies and standard documents. The model uses a linear regression whose parameters are estimated by using the least squares method. A staircase method is used for an unlimited fatigue life criterion. The second model combines the S-N curve defined as a straight line and the record of random occurrence of the fatigue limit. A maximum likelihood method is used to estimate the S-N curve parameters. Fatigue data for C45+C steel obtained in the torsional bending test were used to compare the estimated S-N curves. For pseudo-random numbers generated by using the Mersenne Twister algorithm, the estimated S-N curve for 10 experimental results plotted by using the second model, estimates the fatigue life in the scatter band of the factor 3. The result gives good approximation, especially regarding the time required to plot the S-N curve

Comparing Guidelines Concerning Construction of the S-N Curve within Limited Fatigue Life Range

The article collates guidelines concerning experimental construction of the S-N fatigue curves within a limited fatigue life range. An attempt is made to compare these guidelines, based on experimental data recorded during rotating bending of a notched specimen made of 42CrMo4. The recorded differences in fatigue life values between the constructed curves reach the maximum of 12.2%. According to the above guidelines, the number of tests in particular test series varies from 6 to 28. Based on the performed analysis a conclusion was made that the increase in the number of tests leads to the increase of accuracy but, on the other hand, remarkably increases the time of the experiment and, consequently, its cost. In this context, it is the research worker who, taking into account a possible future use of the fatigue curve, should individually decide about its accuracy

Comparing Guidelines Concerning Construction of the S-N Curve within Limited Fatigue Life Range

The article collates guidelines concerning experimental construction of the S-N fatigue curves within a limited fatigue life range. An attempt is made to compare these guidelines, based on experimental data recorded during rotating bending of a notched specimen made of 42CrMo4. The recorded differences in fatigue life values between the constructed curves reach the maximum of 12.2%. According to the above guidelines, the number of tests in particular test series varies from 6 to 28. Based on the performed analysis a conclusion was made that the increase in the number of tests leads to the increase of accuracy but, on the other hand, remarkably increases the time of the experiment and, consequently, its cost. In this context, it is the research worker who, taking into account a possible future use of the fatigue curve, should individually decide about its accuracy

Estimation of fatigue S-N curves for aluminium based on tensile strength – proposed method

The paper presents its own proposition of an analytical method for determining the S-N characteristic for aluminium material. The method is based on the value of the slope coefficient of the limited fatigue lifeline, determined based on the equation, which was proposed by analyzing a database of these parameters for a given group of materials. Also, the parameters of the method are tensile strength, yield strength, and the number of load cycles assigned to the knee point of the characteristic. A verification carrying out for three materials (AW-6063 T6, 2017-T4 & 2024 T351) shown that the proposed method gave better results than other methods presented in the literature