31,668 research outputs found
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The joy of vacuuming? How the user experience affects vacuum cleaner longevity
An apparent reduction in the average lifetime of vacuum cleaners is explored in this paper in relation to their perceived usability and increasingly frequent product replacement. Motivations for product disposal combine perceived and real product failure with a perceived or real improved product offer. From an historical perspective, vacuum cleaners typify this pattern, continually offering a âcheaper and improvedâ product. Vacuum cleaner manufacturers reinvigorate the sense of satisfaction and revulsion associated with extracting dirt from our homes through new performance focused product development. For example, increased motor power, filtration, bag-less machines and clear bin compartments have all acted as sales drivers, whilst cost effective materials and offshore and more efficient manufacturing have reduced purchase prices. The latter, cost-driven, processes can create machines that are more likely to be functionally and aesthetically damaged in use, reinforcing the trend for faster replacement. The market appears likely to continue to focus on improved user experience, with growth in market share for lighter weight cordless battery powered machines posing the risk of an increased environmental burden. Drawing from qualitative and quantitative research undertaken for a study for Defra, we explore the userâs relationship to the product, investigating the frustrations and joys of vacuum cleaner use and ownership. The findings illustrate that the revulsion and attraction of cleaning, as well as the tedium and satisfaction fostered by the product, have direct implications for vacuum cleaner longevity
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The relationship between ideas about cleanliness and actions that affect product longevity
As Mary Douglas famously put it, âwhere there is dirt there is systemâ (1991 (1966): 35). She was concerned particularly with the cultural systems that determine the ideas about dirt that motivate and constrain peopleâs actions with material objects. This paper assumes that such motivations and constraints may affect consumersâ willingness to keep or to dispose of their possessions, and therefore have an impact on product longevity. It reports on ongoing empirical research using product analysis, ethnographic interviews, a questionnaire and student design work into the possibility of increasing the longevity of vacuum cleaners by design interventions. Because its object of study is a cleaning product used in everyday cleaning practices, the research naturally connects with Douglasâ ideas as well as more recent work such as Dant 2003 that focuses on how people deal practically with the materiality of dirt, not determined by cultural categories. This paper builds on Vaussard et al.âs (2014) classification of individuals by their degree of concern for keeping their house clean, into âSpartanâ, âMinimalisticâ, âCaringâ and âCommittedâ cleaners and their implications for vacuum cleaner replacement. Introducing a short history of concern about dirt since germ theory, it considers whether the desire for a more up to date/efficient/powerful/good looking/clean/shiny machine may accelerate replacement. It finally considers whether a design that âages gracefullyâ might have a longer life-span, either as a personal possession or as part of a service system
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What is broken? Expected lifetime, perception of brokenness and attitude towards maintenance and repair
This paper addresses the discrepancy between the expected and actual lifetimes of vacuum cleaners considering perceived âbrokennessâ as a driver for replacement. Among electrical products, vacuum cleaners have a high rate of domestic ownership in the UK. They also embody large quantities of greenhouse gases which could be reduced by increasing their longevity and resource efficiency (Schreiber et al., 2012). A focus on energy efficiency has only shown limited or even negative results, therefore to meet recent European Union regulations on durability requirements a focus on product longevity is needed. Around one half of new vacuum cleaner purchasers replace one less than 5 years old, below the expected lifespan, with perceived breakage, poor performance and unreliability as the major reasons for replacement. Their relative simplicity could allow vacuum cleaners to last for significantly longer. The nature of the common causes of failure is known, including stretched cords or blockages, and WRAP has developed guidelines for product improvements. However, many working or repairable machines are disposed of because they are perceived to be âirremediablyâ broken
Stability of Elastic Glass Phases in Random Field XY Magnets and Vortex Lattices in Type II Superconductors
A description of a dislocation-free elastic glass phase in terms of domain
walls is developed and used as the basis of a renormalization group analysis of
the energetics of dislocation loops added to the system. It is found that even
after optimizing over possible paths of large dislocation loops, their energy
is still very likely to be positive when the dislocation core energy is large.
This implies the existence of an equilibrium elastic glass phase in three
dimensional random field X-Y magnets, and a dislocation free,
bond-orientationally ordered ``Bragg glass'' phase of vortices in dirty Type II
superconductors.Comment: 12 pages, Revtex, no figures, submitted to Phys Rev Letter
Determination of the superconducting gap in near optimally doped Bi_2Sr_{2-x}La_xCuO_{6+\delta} (x ~ 0.4) from low-temperature specific heat
Low-temperature specific heat of the monolayer high-Tc superconductor
Bi_2Sr_{2-x}La_xCuO_{6+\delta} has been measured close to the optimal doping
point (x ~ 0.4) in different magnetic fields. The identification of both a T^2
term in zero field and a \sqrt{H} dependence of the specific heat in fields is
shown to follow the theoretical prediction for d-wave pairing, which enables us
to extract the slope of the superconducting gap in the vicinity of the nodes
(v_{\Delta}, which is proportional to the superconducting gap \Delta_0 at the
antinodes according to the standard d_{x^2-y^2} gap function). The v_{\Delta}
or \Delta_0 (~ 12 meV) determined from this bulk measurement shows close
agreement with that obtained from spectroscopy or tunneling measurements, which
confirms the simple d-wave form of the superconducting gap.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl
Positive noise cross-correlations in superconducting hybrids: Roles of interfaces and interactions
Shot noise cross-correlations in normal metal-superconductor-normal metal
structures are discussed at arbitrary interface transparencies using both the
scattering approach of Blonder, Tinkham and Klapwik and a microscopic Green's
function approach. Surprisingly, negative crossed conductance in such set-ups
[R. Melin and D. Feinberg, Phys. Rev. B 70, 174509 (2004)] does not preclude
the possibility of positive noise cross-correlations for almost transparent
contacts. We conclude with a phenomenological discussion of interactions in the
one dimensional leads connected to the superconductor, which induce sign
changes in the noise cross-correlations.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figure
Phase Diagram for Splay Glass Superconductivity
Localization of flux lines to splayed columnar pins is studied. A sine-Gordon
type renormalization group study reveals the existence of a Splay glass phase
and yields an analytic form for the transition temperature into the glass
phase. As an independent test, the characteristics are determined via a
Molecular Dynamics code. The glass transition temperature supports the RG
results convincingly. The full phase diagram of the model is constructed.Comment: 14 pages, uuencoded compressed tar file with 3 postscript figure
Cluster Variation Approach to the Random-Anisotropy Blume-Emery-Griffiths Model
The random--anisotropy Blume--Emery--Griffiths model, which has been proposed
to describe the critical behavior of He--He mixtures in a porous
medium, is studied in the pair approximation of the cluster variation method
extended to disordered systems. Several new features, with respect to mean
field theory, are found, including a rich ground state, a nonzero percolation
threshold, a reentrant coexistence curve and a miscibility gap on the high
He concentration side down to zero temperature. Furthermore, nearest
neighbor correlations are introduced in the random distribution of the
anisotropy, which are shown to be responsible for the raising of the critical
temperature with respect to the pure and uncorrelated random cases and
contribute to the detachment of the coexistence curve from the line.Comment: 14 pages (plain TeX) + 12 figures (PostScript, appended), Preprint
POLFIS-TH.02/9
Thermodynamics of Mesoscopic Vortex Systems in 1+1 Dimensions
The thermodynamics of a disordered planar vortex array is studied numerically
using a new polynomial algorithm which circumvents slow glassy dynamics. Close
to the glass transition, the anomalous vortex displacement is found to agree
well with the prediction of the renormalization-group theory. Interesting
behaviors such as the universal statistics of magnetic susceptibility
variations are observed in both the dense and dilute regimes of this mesoscopic
vortex system.Comment: 4 pages, REVTEX, 6 figures included. Comments and suggestions can be
sent to [email protected]
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