How the Kano model contributes to Kansei engineering in services

Recent studies show that products and services hold great appeal if they are attractively designed to elicit emotional feelings from customers. Kansei engineering (KE) has good potential to provide a competitive advantage to those able to read and translate customer affect and emotion in actual product and services. This study introduces an integrative framework of the Kano model and KE, applied to services. The Kano model was used and inserted into KE to exhibit the relationship between service attribute performance and customer emotional response. Essentially, the Kano model categorises service attribute quality into three major groups (must-be [M], one-dimensional [O] and attractive [A]). The findings of a case study that involved 100 tourists who stayed in luxury 4- and 5-star hotels are presented. As a practical matter, this research provides insight on which service attributes deserve more attention with regard to their significant impact on customer emotional needs. STATEMENT OF RELEVANCE: Apart from cognitive evaluation, emotions and hedonism play a big role in service encounters. Through a focus on delighting qualities of service attributes, this research enables service providers and managers to establish the extent to which they prioritise their improvement efforts and to always satisfy their customer emotions beyond expectation.     

Removal of partial occlusion from single images

This paper examines large partial occlusions in an image which occur near depth discontinuities when the foreground object is severely out of focus. We model these partial occlusions using matting, with the alpha value determined by the convolution of the blur kernel with a pinhole projection of the occluder. The main contribution is a method for removing the image contribution of the foreground occluder in regions of partial occlusion, which improves the visibility of the background scene. The method consists of three steps. First, the region of complete occlusion is estimated using a curve evolution method. Second, the alpha value at each pixel in the partly occluded region is estimated. Third, the intensity contribution of the foreground occluder is removed in regions of partial occlusion. Experiments demonstrate the method's ability to remove the effects of partial occlusion in single images with minimal user input.     

Approximate Predictive Densities and Their Applications in Generalized Linear Models

Exact calculations of model posterior probabilities or related quantities are often infeasible due to the analytical intractability of predictive densities. Here new approximations for obtaining predictive densities are proposed and contrasted with those based on the Laplace method. Our theory and a numerical study indicate that the proposed methods are easy to implement, computationally efficient, and accurate over a wide range of hyperparameters. In the context of GLMs, we show that they can be employed to facilitate the posterior computation under three general classes of informative priors on regression coefficients. A real example is provided to demonstrate the feasibility and usefulness of the proposed methods in a fully Bayes variable selection procedure.     

Assessment of the EEG complexity during activations from sleep

The present study quantitatively analyzes the EEG characteristics during activations (Act) that occur during NREM sleep, and constitute elements of sleep microstructure (i.e. the Cyclic Alternating Pattern). The fractal dimension (FD) and the sample entropy (SampEn) measures were used to study the different sleep stages and the Act that build up the sleep structure. Polysomnographic recordings from 10 good sleepers were analyzed. The complexity indexes of the Act were compared with the non-activation (NAct) periods during non-REM sleep. In addition, complexity measures among the different Act subtypes (A1, A2 and A3) were analyzed. A3 presented a quite similar complexity independently of the sleep stage, while A1 and A2 showed higher complexity in light sleep than during deep sleep. The current results suggest that Act present a hierarchic complexity between subtypes A3 (higher), A2 (intermediate) and A1 (lower) in all sleep stages.     

TimeLapseAnalyzer: multi-target analysis for live-cell imaging and time-lapse microscopy

The direct observation of cells over time using time-lapse microscopy can provide deep insights into many important biological processes. Reliable analyses of motility, proliferation, invasive potential or mortality of cells are essential to many studies involving live cell imaging and can aid in biomarker discovery and diagnostic decisions. Given the vast amount of image- and time-series data produced by modern microscopes, automated analysis is a key feature to capitalize the potential of time-lapse imaging devices. To provide fast and reproducible analyses of multiple aspects of cell behaviour, we developed TimeLapseAnalyzer. Apart from general purpose image enhancements and segmentation procedures, this extensible, self-contained, modular cross-platform package provides dedicated modalities for fast and reliable analysis of multi-target cell tracking, scratch wound healing analysis, cell counting and tube formation analysis in high throughput screening of live-cell experiments. TimeLapseAnalyzer is freely available (MATLAB, Open Source) at http://www.informatik.uni-ulm.de/ni/mitarbeiter/HKestler/tla.     

Dimeric spectra analysis in Microsoft Excel: a comparative study

The purpose of this work is to introduce the reader to an Add-in implementation, Decom. This implementation provides the whole processing requirements for analysis of dimeric spectra. General linear and nonlinear decomposition algorithms were integrated as an Excel Add-in for easy installation and usage. In this work, the results of several samples investigations were compared to those obtained by Datan.     

单级倒立摆的逼近逆模型及趋近控制

基于非线性分级控制思想,研究了逼近逆模型的设计方法,并结合变结构趋近控制律规则,将基于综合误差方法的滑动模逼近控制应用在某单级倒立摆上,通过仿真分析,收到了良好的控制效果.     

21世纪企业竞争前沿——大规模定制模式下的敏捷产品开发

本书提供了实施所有敏捷生产方式的工具,从书中您可以学到如何管理产品的多样性,如何迅速而方便地进行产品的定制,以及如何以JIT和敏捷制造方式进行产品的开发。通过应用敏捷产品开发中的各种技术,您的公司将能够实现：极其迅速地开发模块化的产品;对变化的市场和机遇做出敏捷的快速反应;具有获得额外收入的机会;更低的间接成本;用户满意度的提高。本书可供企业经营管理方法论研究的工作者、企业主管和高层管理者、咨询人员、工程技术人员和有关专业的师生阅读和参考。21世纪企业竞争前沿——大规模定制模式下的敏捷产品开发!(美)…