Creative practices in the design studio culture: collaboration and communication

For the purpose of developing collaborative support in design studio environments, we have carried out ethnographic fieldwork in professional and academic product design studios. Our intention was to understand design practices beyond the productivity point of view and take into account the experiential, inspirational and aesthetical aspects of design practices. Using examples from our fieldwork, we develop our results around three broad themes by which design professionals support communication and collaboration: (1) use of artefacts, (2) use of space and (3) designerly practices. We use the results of our fieldwork for drawing implications for designing technologies for the design studio culture.     

Shaping stable periodic motions of inertia wheel pendulum: theory and experiment

We consider an underactuated two‐link robot called the inertia wheel pendulum. The system consists of a free planar rotational pendulum and a symmetric disk attached to its end, which is directly controlled by a DC‐motor. The goal is to create stable oscillations of the pendulum, which is not directly actuated. We exploit a recently proposed feedback‐control design strategy based on motion planning via virtual holonomic constraints. This strategy is shown to be useful for design of regulators for achieving orbitally exponentially stable oscillatory motions. The main contribution is a step‐by‐step procedure on how to achieve oscillations with pre‐specified amplitude from a given range and an arbitrary independently chosen period. The theoretical results are verified via experiments with a real hardware setup. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley and Sons Asia Pte Ltd and Chinese Automatic Control Society     

How can I help you? Design principles for task-oriented speech dialog systems in customer service

Organizations are increasingly delegating customer inquiries to speech dialog systems (SDSs) to save personnel resources. However, customers often report frustration when interacting with SDSs due to poorly designed solutions. Despite these issues, design knowledge for SDSs in customer service remains elusive. To address this research gap, we employ the design science approach and devise a design theory for SDSs in customer service. The design theory, including 14 requirements and five design principles, draws on the principles of dialog theory and undergoes validation in three iterations using five hypotheses. A summative evaluation comprising a two-phase experiment with 205 participants yields positive results regarding the user experience of the artifact. This study contributes to design knowledge for SDSs in customer service and supports practitioners striving to implement similar systems in their organizations.

     

Nanowire encapsulation with polymer for electrical isolation and enhanced optical properties

Light management and electrical isolation are essential for the majority of optoelectronic nanowire (NW) devices.Here,we present a cost-effective technique,based on vapor-phase deposition of parylene-C and subsequent annealing,that provides conformal encapsulation,anti-reflective coating,improved optical properties,and electrical insulation for GaAs nanowires.The process presented allows facile encapsulation and insulation that is suitable for any nanowire structure.In particular,the parylene-C encapsulation functions as an efficient antireflection coating for the nanowires,with reflectivity down to ＜1％ in the visible spectrum.Furthermore,the parylene-C coating increases photoluminescence intensity,suggesting improved light guiding to the NWs.Finally,based on this process,a NW LED was fabricated,which showed good diode performance and a clear electroluminescence signal.We believe the process can expand the fabrication possibilities and improve the performance of optoelectronic nanowire devices.     

The Free Fall Machine--a ground-based facility for microgravity research in life sciences

A device is described in which a biological specimen is periodically accelerated for a short period. Each event is followed by a variable period of free fall. Assuming that the g-dose (expressed g s) has to surpass a certain minimal value to be perceived by cells, and in addition, there is a minimal time threshold for sensing a change in gravity, it is conceivable that conditions are created in which cells do not detect the periodic acceleration, and only experience the periodic free-fall movement as a long-term weightlessness condition. Using the cell-cycle progression of the unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas as an example, it is shown that with this device effects can be generated which are similar to those observed in satellite flights.     

Influence of a chip scale package on the frequency response of a MEMS microphone

This paper describes the influence of a chip scale MEMS package (CSMP) on the acoustic behaviour of a silicon microphone. The influence was calculated using an electro-mechanical–acoustical equivalent circuit. Standard packaging of microphones using die bonding and wire bonding leads to a large front volume which acts as a Helmholtz resonator. This can dramatically influence the frequency response of the microphone system by adding a second resonance. In the worst case this second resonance is in the acoustic frequency range, thus degrading its performance in an unacceptable way. In case of the CSMP only a small front volume is generated between the substrate and the flip-chipped microphone chip. Thus the resonance step-up is very small compared to standard packages. Furthermore the frequency response can be flattened by optimizing the geometry of the small sound holes in the substrate. By choosing an appropriate geometry of these sound holes the package can act as a low pass filter where the cut-off frequency can be placed to the desired value of the acoustic spectrum.     

Semi‐global stabilization of discrete‐time systems subject to non‐right invertible constraints

This paper investigates time‐invariant linear systems subject to input and state constraints. We study discrete‐time systems with full or partial constraints on both input and state. It has been shown earlier that the solvability conditions of stabilization problems are closely related to important concepts such as the right invertibility or non‐right invertibility of the constraints, the location of constraint invariant zeros, and the order of constraint infinite zeros. In this paper, for general time‐invariant linear systems with non‐right invertible constraints, necessary and sufficient conditions are developed under which semi‐global stabilization in the admissible set can be achieved by state feedback. Sufficient conditions are also developed for such a stabilization in the case where measurement feedback is used. Such sufficient conditions are almost necessary. Controllers for both state feedback and measurement feedback are constructed as well. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Surface plasmon resonance imaging (SPRi) as an alternative technique for rapid and quantitative screening of small molecules, useful in drug discovery

Surface plasmon resonance imaging (SPRi) is a label free technology for biomolecular interaction, which gives access to binding kinetic parameters from real time acquisition. It offers the possibility to test in a single run a large number of interactions, allowing rapid identification of the most suitable compounds toward a given biological entity. Until now, this technique has proven to be relevant for interaction between relatively large molecules (protein, antibodies, DNA) but has not been challenged yet for the screening of small molecules that can be of interested in the field of drug discovery. As a proof a principle, we have used SPRi to screen for interaction of several small molecules, referred to as G4-ligands on G-quadruplex DNA. This technology allowed to easy discrimination of the binding properties of four G4-ligands on quadruplex DNA models.     

Selective voltammetric determination of electroactive neuromodulating species in biological samples using iron(II) phthalocyanine modified multi-wall carbon nanotubes paste electrode

Iron(II) phthalocyanine (FePc) modified multi-wall carbon nanotubes paste electrodes (MWCNTPEs) were used as voltammetric sensors to selectively detect dopamine (DA) in the presence of serotonin (5-HT). The electrochemical behavior of DA at the new modified electrode was investigated using CV. The enhanced current response of DA indicates that FePc modification of the MWCNTPE surface results in a high catalytic activity for the redox reaction of DA. Differential pulse voltammetry was applied in detection of DA and 5-HT at FePc-MWCNTPE. The method parameters were optimized. Detection limit of 2.05 × 10⁻⁷ M was obtained for DA by using the electrocatalytic oxidation signal corresponding to the Fe^II/Fe^III redox process. The separation between the peak potentials of DA and 5-HT is 170 mV which is large enough for the simultaneously, selective determination of the two chemical species in their mixtures. There was no electrochemical response for ascorbic acid (AA) added in the sample. The monoamine neurotransmitter measuring method has been tested in analyzing deproteinized serum samples.