Measuring the coolness of interactive products: the COOL questionnaire

Coolness has recently started to be explored as a design goal for interactive products from practitioners as well as researchers within human–computer interaction (HCI), but there is still a need to further operationalise the concept and explore how we can measure it. Our contribution in this paper is the COOL questionnaire. We based the creation of the questionnaire on literature suggesting that perceived coolness is decomposed to outer cool (the style of a product) and inner cool (the personality characteristics assigned to it). In this paper, we focused on inner cool, and we identified 11 inner cool characteristics. These were used to create an initial pool of question items and 2236 participants were asked to assess 16 mobile devices. By performing exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, we identified three factors that can measure the perceived inner coolness of interactive products: desirability, rebelliousness and usability. These factors and their underlying 16 question items comprise the COOL questionnaire. The whole process of creating the questionnaire is presented in detail in this paper and we conclude by discussing our work against related work on coolness and HCI.     

SAW Microsensor Brain Implant for Prediction and Monitoring of Seizures

An implantable surface acoustic wave (SAW) microsensor has been developed for early detection and monitoring of seizures based on local temperature changes in the brain's epileptogenic zones that occur prior to and during an epileptic event. Three SAW sensors were designed and fabricated: a 172 MHz filter, a 434 MHz filter, and a 434 MHz delay line. Their temperature sensitivities were tested by measuring the phase change between the input and output waveforms as a function of temperature. We achieved a phase sensitivity of 144 phase degrees per degC and a minimum detectable temperature of 5 mK for the 434-MHz, 10.2-mus delay line. Based on the sensitivity tests, a prototype 434 MHz SAW sensor was fabricated to a size of 11times1times1.1 mm, which is commensurate with existing brain implantable probes. Because of possible damping of the surface waves by the surrounding tissue or fluid, a glass housing with dry air was built on the top of the SAW substrate. Test and reference sensors were used in the prototype system to minimize the effect of source instabilities and to amplify the temperature effect. The phase change between the output waveforms of the sensors was measured with phase detector electronics after they were converted to lower (10.7 MHz) frequencies by standard mixers. The complete prototype sensor was tested in a saline water bath and found to detect as low as 3 mK changes of temperature caused by the addition of hot water.     

Image Segmentation via Iterative Fuzzy Clustering Based on Local Space-Frequency Multi-Feature Coherence Criteria

Fuzzy set theory has recently attracted much attention in the field of image classification, image understanding and image processing. One of the major topics in fuzzy image processing is the image classification problem. This paper presents a fast and accurate iterative fuzzy clustering (I.F.C.) method dynamically adapted to the classification process. This is used for high performance fuzzy segmentation which forms the basis for reliable image understanding. The proposed fuzzy segmentation scheme examines the image connectivity in the space and frequency domains. The detected fuzzy features are combined via a block synthesis and local correlation algorithmic procedure. Some results showing that the performance of the proposed I.F.C./clustering method is superior from that of the standard fuzzy c-means method are provided.     

Flow through a porous medium in the presence of a magnetic field

Unsteady free convective flow of an electrically conducting fluid through a porous medium bounded by an infinite vertical and porous plate is considered. The free stream velocity of the fluid vibrates about a mean constant value and the temperature of the plate is constant. The influences of the permeability parameter and the magnetic parameter on the velocity field are discussed.     

Fluorescence enhancement from plasmonic Au templates

We have fabricated sub-quarter-micron-patterned Au templates with electron beam lithography, and studied their effect on the fluorescence intensity of immobilized, anti-rabbit IgG antibody labeled with AlexaFluor® 546. Varying the geometry of the structured surface, the plasmon resonances are tuned to match the fluorescence wavelengths and achieve significant fluorescence enhancement. Full electrodynamic simulations were used to understand the optical response and access the quality of the fabricated structures for surface plasmon excitation.     

Two-Dimensional Elasticoviscous Boundary Layer Flows Near a Stagnation Point

At present many new fluids not obeying the Newtonian laws are being studied by scientists because of their industrial importance [1]. The constitutive equations of these fluids have been given by different researchers, for example, Oldroyd [2] and Walters [3]. Beard and Walters [4] solved the two-dimensional boundary layer flow for an elasticoviscous fluid, near a stagnation point for the case of Walter's liquid B″, when the elasticoviscous parameter is very small. A new method is now proposed for determination of the two-dimensional boundary layer flow near a stagnation point for Walter's liquid B″ I, which is valid not only for very small positive elasticoviscous parameters but also for positive elasticoviscous parameters.     

Vapor‐induced swelling of supported methacrylic and siloxane polymer films: Determination of interaction parameters

White light reflectance spectroscopy is applied to monitor vapor‐induced thickness changes of polymer films, supported on suitable silicon substrates. Assuming unidirectional swelling due to the constraining support, the equilibrium volume swelling of four methacrylic polymers and two siloxane‐based copolymers upon exposure to various activities of water, methanol, ethanol, and ethyl acetate vapor, at 30°C is evaluated. The deduced sorption isotherms were fitted to the Flory‐Huggins equation and interaction parameters, as well as solubility coefficients at infinite solute dilution, were deduced for each binary system. The relative sorption capacity of the different classes of polymers toward the four vapors are in line with the expected solubility interactions between solvent and solute. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2010     

Mass transfer and free convection flow through A porous medium

A theoretical analysis of the steady free convective and mass transfer flow is presented, when a viscous and incompressible fluid flows through a porous medium occupying a semi-infinite region of the space bounded by an infinite vertical porous plate. The fluid is subjected to a normal suction velocity, and the heat flux at the plate is constant. The free-stream velocity is assumed constant.