To Develop and Evaluate Children’s Cognitive Development through An AR-Playful-Learning Approach

Augmented Reality (AR) technology have been recognised as an effective experience enhancer with a broad application range. It is challenging to explore such potentials in the area of learning and teaching by utilising AR features in behavioural stimulation and monitoring. In this study, the author aims at exploit AR technology to institute a system for cognitive development. The principle goal of such playful learning system is to improve the overall ability of toddlers to function in social environments through cognition forming and behavioural redirecting. This paper introduces an interactive training game that assists children between two and seven years old to develop their cognitive model through intuitive theory-based educational AR gami cation. A pilot study implements Montessori training theory is described in this paper

Understanding chatbot service encounters:consumers’ satisfactory and dissatisfactory experiences

Abstract. The service industry keeps growing these years. Artificial intelligence (AI) has started to be used in the service industry gradually, and the service chatbot is an excellent example of this phenomenon. Many giants have applied chatbots to handle their consumer services, such as LATTJO from IKEA, Stylebot from Nike, and Siri from Apple. Understanding the advanced chatbot service experiences can help companies to optimize their chatbot services and improve their consumers’ satisfaction, which can bring them positive word-of-mouth, customer loyalty, re-purchase behavior, etc. However, chatbot services is an edge research area with limited studies about it. Thus, having the most advanced understanding of chatbot service experiences becomes particularly important. This study intends to fill this gap from chatbot service encounters’ perspective by understanding consumers’ satisfactory and unsatisfactory experiences with chatbots. Due to this study focuses on chatbot service encounters and online customer service experiences, a qualitative research method be applied because it enables data to be explainable and justifiable. Data collection methods consist of the critical incident technique (CIT) and the online focus group. In the end, 22 validity incidents were collected. Through data analysis, the author developed an incident sorting process and concluded eight types of chatbot service encounters within three groups by this process. The three groups are chatbot response to after-sales services, chatbot response to consumers’ needs, and unprompted chatbot actions. Moreover, 16 sources of different types of chatbot service encounters were found. Based on all the findings stated above, this study created an integrated framework for chatbot service encounters in online customer service experiences. In conclusion, this study develops theoretical contributions by developing the integrated framework, creating an incident sorting process, and finding the sources for different service encounters. Based on these findings, this study also provides some managerial implications that companies could use to manage their chatbot services

A Service Life Analysis of Roundabouts Retrofits for Signalized Intersections

Roundabouts have long been regarded as an effective traffic control method. While this method is quite popular in some foreign countries like Australia, there are not as many existing roundabout sites in the U.S. According to foreign experiences and limited experience in the U.S., roundabouts can be good replacement alternatives where signalized intersections no longer function well. This thesis examined and monetized the potential benefits of converting signalized intersections to roundabouts under three different circumstances. To be specific, the potential benefits included crash reduction, delay time reduction, fuel efficiency improvement and air pollutant reduction. Then a benefit-cost analysis (BCA) was conducted. The monetization of environmental benefits was used to improve the BCA methodology that has been used by others. Three different intersections, that are currently signalized, were studied to determine the BCA. After a systematic evaluation, it was found that a five-way intersection with moderate traffic volume had the best benefit-cost ratio among all three intersections studied

Critical role of vertical radiative cooling contrast in triggering episodic deluges in small-domain hothouse climates

Seeley and Wordsworth (2021) showed that in small-domain cloud-resolving simulations the pattern of precipitation transforms in extremely hot climates ($\ge$ 320 K) from quasi-steady to organized episodic deluges, with outbursts of heavy rain alternating with several dry days. They proposed a mechanism for this transition involving increased water vapor absorption of solar radiation leading to net lower-tropospheric radiative heating. This heating inhibits lower-tropospheric convection and decouples the boundary layer from the upper troposphere during the dry phase, allowing lower-tropospheric moist static energy to build until it discharges, resulting in a deluge. We perform cloud-resolving simulations in polar night and show that the same transition occurs, implying that some revision of their mechanism is necessary. We show that episodic deluges can occur even if the lower-tropospheric radiative heating rate is negative, as long as the magnitude of the upper-tropospheric radiative cooling is about twice as large. We find that in the episodic deluge regime the mean precipitation can be inferred from the atmospheric column energy budget and the period can be predicted from the time for radiation and reevaporation to cool the lower atmosphere