What is Good Design in the Eyes of Older Users?

With the population of older consumers increasing and with the recent changes in legislation and attitudes towards this group, there have been corresponding changes in product design practice and a growing attempt to adopt an inclusive design approach. This recognises that people can become excluded from using products, services or environments if the needs and capabilities of all potential users are not taken into account. The inclusive design approach has developed from collaborations between industry, designers and researchers. One major influence in this area is the i~design project, whose definition is simply that “inclusive design is better design” (EDC, 2011). The Inclusive Design Toolkit website, a key output from the i~design project, states that a successful product must be “functional, usable, desirable and ultimately profitable” and that a key to good design is to reduce the demand on the user when capabilities decline with age or disability (EDC, 2011). It is also important to consider more emotional aspects, such as social acceptability and whether the potential user would actually want to use or be seen using the product (Keates and Clarkson, 2003). Other authors also emphasise that whilst inclusive design research and practice to date have focused primarily on the physical accessibility and usability of products, a better understanding is required of people’s emotional needs, such as social acceptability and desirability of products (Coleman et al, 2007; Lee, 2010). Similar views regarding the required shift in design focus are reflected in a number of other sources: the need to consider the less tangible human factors such as identity, emotion, delight and selfexpression (Cassim et al, 2007); simplicity, aesthetics, pleasure, personality, conspicuousness and fashion (Pullin, 2009); the product’s visual appearance (Crilly et al, 2004); creating pleasurable experiences (Demirbilek and Sener, 2003; Jordan, 2000); and the importance of the emotional aspects of design for a successful product (Norman, 2004), as well as needs related to specific cognitive conditions (e.g. Baumers and Heylighen, 2010)

Why all the fuss about 2D semiconductors?

Graphene is no longer alone; a family of atomically thin 2D semiconductors has emerged. Optoelectronics and photonics applications are in their experimental infancy but the future holds much promise.Comment: Commentary article, 1 figure, 1 tabl

First High-Convergence Cryogenic Implosion in a Near-Vacuum Hohlraum

Recent experiments on the National Ignition Facility [M. J. Edwards et al., Phys. Plasmas 20, 070501 (2013)] demonstrate that utilizing a near-vacuum hohlraum (low pressure gas-filled) is a viable option for high convergence cryogenic deuterium-tritium (DT) layered capsule implosions. This is made possible by using a dense ablator (high-density carbon), which shortens the drive duration needed to achieve high convergence: a measured 40% higher hohlraum efficiency than typical gas-filled hohlraums, which requires less laser energy going into the hohlraum, and an observed better symmetry control than anticipated by standard hydrodynamics simulations. The first series of near-vacuum hohlraum experiments culminated in a 6.8 ns, 1.2 MJ laser pulse driving a 2-shock, high adiabat (α ~ 3.5) cryogenic DT layered high density carbon capsule. This resulted in one of the best performances so far on the NIF relative to laser energy, with a measured primary neutron yield of 1.8×10[superscript 15] neutrons, with 20% calculated alpha heating at convergence ~27×

Reducing antibiotic use on the neonatal unit by improving communication of blood culture results: a completed audit cycle

No abstract available