Analytical affective design with ambient intelligence for mass customization and personalization

The fulfillment of individual customer affective needs may award the producer extra premium in gaining a competitive edge. This entails a number of technical challenges to be addressed, such as the elicitation, evaluation, and fulfillment of affective needs, as well as the evaluation of affordability of producers to launch the planned products. Mass customization and personalization have been recognized as an effective means to enhance front-end customer satisfaction while maintaining back-end production efficiency. This paper proposes an affective design framework to facilitate decision-making in designing customized product ecosystems. In particular, ambient intelligence techniques are applied to elicit affective customer needs. An analytical model is proposed to support affective design analysis. Utility measure and conjoint analysis are employed to quantify affective satisfaction, while the producer affordability is evaluated using an affordability index. Association rule mining techniques are applied to model the mapping of affective needs to design elements. Configuration design of product ecosystems is optimized with a heuristic genetic algorithm. A case study of Volvo truck cab design is reported with a focus on the customization of affective features. It is demonstrated that the analytical affective design framework can effectively manage the elicitation, analysis, and fulfillment of affective customer needs. Meanwhile, it can account for the manufacturer’s capabilities, which is vital for ensuring a profit margin in the mass customization and personalization endeavor.     

Solar-Driven Interfacial Evaporation and Self-Powered Water Wave Detection Based on an All-Cellulose Monolithic Design

Solar-driven interfacial evaporation is an emerging technology with a strong potential for applications in water distillation and desalination. However, the high-cost, complex fabrication, leaching, and disposal of synthetic materials remain the major roadblocks toward large-scale applications. Herein, the benefits offered by renewable bacterial cellulose (BC) are considered and an all-cellulose-based interfacial steam generator is developed. In this monolithic design, three BC-based aerogels are fabricated and integrated to endow the 3D steam generator with well-defined hybrid structures and several self-contained properties of lightweight, efficient evaporation, and good durability. Under 1 sun, the interfacial steam generator delivers high water evaporation rates of 1.82 and 4.32 kg m⁻² h⁻¹ under calm and light air conditions, respectively. These results are among the best-performing interfacial steam generators, and surpass a majority of devices constructed from cellulose and other biopolymers. Importantly, the first example of integrating solar-driven interfacial evaporation with water wave detection is also demonstrated by introducing a self-powered triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG). This work highlights the potential of developing biopolymer-based, eco-friendly, and durable steam generators, not merely scaling up sustainable clean water production, but also discovering new functions for detecting wave parameters of surface water.     

Comparison of spatial orientation skill between real and virtual environment

Virtual Reality - Virtual reality (VR) is a promising tool and is increasingly used in many different fields, in which virtual walking can be generalized through detailed modeling of the physical...     

Structure and properties of composites of polyethylene or maleated polyethylene and cellulose or cellulose esters

Composites of linear low‐density poly(ethylene‐co‐butene) (PE) or maleated linear low‐density poly (ethylene‐co‐butene) (M‐PE) and cellulose (CEL), cellulose acetate (CA), cellulose acetate propionate (CAP), or cellulose acetate butyrate (CAB) were prepared in an internal laboratory mixer with 20 wt % polysaccharide. The structure and properties of the composites were studied with tensile testing, dynamic mechanical thermal analysis, differential scanning calorimetry, extraction with a selective solvent, Raman spectroscopy, and X‐ray diffraction. Composites prepared with M‐PE presented yield stress and elongation values higher than those of composites prepared with PE, showing the compatibilizer effect of maleic anhydride. Dynamic mechanical thermal analysis performed for M‐PE–CEL, M‐PE–CA, M‐PE–CAP, and M‐PE–CAB composites showed one glass‐transition temperature (T_g) close to that observed for pure M‐PE, and for M‐PE–CAP, another T_g lower than that measured for the polysaccharide was observed, indicating partial mutual solubility. These findings were confirmed by the extraction of one phase with a selective solvent, gravimetry, and Raman spectroscopy. X‐ray diffraction showed that the addition of CEL, CA, CAP, or CAB had no influence on the lattice constants of PE or M‐PE, but the introduction of the reinforcing material increased the amorphous region. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 103:402–411, 2007     

Can we get from liking to buying? Behavioral differences in hedonic and utilitarian Facebook usage

Companies’ Facebook pages have emerged as a commonly used marketing channel and their importance as a sales channel is likely to increase. Details about consumers’ underlying motivations to use these pages need to be linked to their effect on the host company’s business. This study distinguishes between consumers’ hedonic and utilitarian motivations for using company-hosted Facebook pages and relates them to two types of community usage behavior: browsing and participation. The effects on variables closely linked to business performance are examined. Analysis of data collected from 1162 members of a travel agency’s Facebook page reveals that hedonic motivations indicate a higher propensity to participate in the community whereas utilitarian motivations relate more strongly to merely browsing the community page. The participating members, however, do not show intentions to buy from the host company or refer it to others, while the browsers do. For practitioners, the finding that hedonic community participants are needed to maintain the community, but that they are unlikely to profit the company, is crucial.     

Mass customization design of engineer-to-order products using Benders’ decomposition and bi-level stochastic programming

Leveraging product differentiation and mass production efficiency in mass customization basically entails a configure-to-order paradigm. In the engineer-to-order (ETO) business, however, companies build unique products in response to ‘foreseeable’ customer specifications. The key challenge of ETO mass customization lies in the complexity of accommodating future design changes when customers are involved in customizing design specifications. This paper proposes a two-stage, bi-level stochastic programming framework to tackle ETO mass customization. At the first stage, product platform configuration is integrated with production reconfiguration, which is formulated as a shortest path problem with resource constraints (SPPRC) to optimize production delays within the capabilities of the process platform. Benders’ decomposition algorithm is applied to solve this optimal configuration problem owing to its high computational efficiency. The second stage scrutinizes the optimal configuration resulting from the first stage for scaling optimization of design parameters (DPs) for each module. All DPs are differentiated by standard or customizable DPs. A bi-level stochastic program is implemented to leverage conflicting goals between the producer (leader) and consumer (follower) surpluses. As a result, ETO customization design is anchored with optimal values of standard DPs and optimal value ranges of customizable DPs. A case study of ship engine and power generator ETO design is presented, demonstrating the feasibility and potential of the ETO mass customization framework.     

Lakes in the Finnish Eurowaternet: status and trends

The Eurowaternet is a monitoring network designed to cover all European countries, with the overall objective of obtaining timely, quantitative and comparative information on the status of inland waters so that their key environmental problems can be defined, quantified and monitored. Finland launched the Eurowaternet for lakes in 2000. The network was set up according to guidelines of the European Environment Agency (EEA) and was based on national, regional and local monitoring programmes. It includes 253 lake sites, divided into the following groups by, for example, their loading background and size: (i) reference sites, (ii) point-source loading (impact) sites, (iii) agricultural sites, (iv) representative sites, i.e. lakes <100 km(2) with typical water quality in the catchment and (v) lake deep sites in large lakes (>100 km(2)). We examined the water quality and its development during 1976-2001 in these groups, using data from surface and near-bottom water layers at summer and winter stagnation. In addition, the representativeness of the network was evaluated. Summer mean concentrations of total P (TP) during 1990-2001 in surface water were (i) 6.8+/-1.8 microg 1(-1) in reference lakes, (ii) 24+/-5 microg 1(-1) in lakes affected by point loading, (iii) 58+/-32 microg l(-1) in agricultural lakes, (iv) 14+/-2.2 microg l(-1) in representative lakes and (v) 11+/-2.1 microg l(-1) in large lakes. Comparison with reference lakes revealed major impact of human activities on TP and total N (TN)-and consequently on chlorophyll a (a-chl) and transparency-in all other groups, especially agricultural lakes. Decreasing TP and increasing O(2) trends were found at impact sites, reflecting water protection measures taken in pulp and paper mills and municipalities. More surprisingly, we found increasing alkalinity trends in all but agricultural sites and decreasing NO(2)-N+NO(3)-N (NO(x)-N) trends particularly in pelagic areas of large lakes. Comparison of water quality in Eurowaternet lakes with those in randomly sampled lakes (Finnish Lake Survey) revealed that the Eurowaternet covers the entire range of concentrations of TP, TN and conductivity in Finnish lakes, but <1-km(2), eutrophic and/or brown water lakes are underrepresented. Only 0.2% of a total of 13114 small lakes (0.1-1 km(2)) are included in the annual monitoring program of the Eurowaternet.