Photon mass via current confinement

A parity invariant theory, consisting of two massive Dirac fields, defined in three dimensional space-time, with the confinement of a certain current is studied. It is found that the electromagnetic field, when coupled minimally to these Dirac fields, becomes massive owing to the current confinement. It is seen that the origin of photon mass is not due to any kind of spontaneous symmetry breaking, but only due to current confinement.Comment: LaTeX2e, 14 pages, No figures, to appear in Physics Letters B. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1107.552

Dynamics of Affordances and Implications for Design

Affordance is an important concept in HCI. There are various interpretations of affordances but it has been difficult to use this concept for design purposes. Often the treatment of affordances in the current HCI literature has been as a one-to-one relationship between a user and an artefact. According to our views, affordance is a dynamic, always emerging relationship between a human and his environment. We believe that the social and cultural contexts within which an artefact is situated affect the way in which the artefact is used. Using a Structuration Theory approach, we argue that affordances need also be treated at a much broader level, encompassing social and cultural aspects. We suggest that affordances should be seen at three levels: single user, organizational (or work group) and societal. Focusing on the organizational level affordances, we provide details of several important factors that affect the emergence of affordances