Much research has focused on the development of methods of measuring preference for stimuli. These methods have shown to be an accurate and valid way to identify potential reinforcers. However, these methods have only been conducted with tangible stimuli and have not been extended to non-tangible stimuli or activities, potentially because these types of stimuli are not appropriate for current preference assessment presentation methodologies. This study used a single stimulus presentation preference assessment to identify preferred activities for two adults with developmental disabilities. Two measures (duration of engagement and indices of happiness) were collected to identify preferred stimuli. For both participants, there were differences in happiness measure between activities. The engagement measure only produced differentiated results for one participant. Reinforcer assessments were conducted to determine if the measures of preference were able to identify high preference stimuli that functioned as more effective reinforcers more than stimuli identified as low preference. Both participants exhibited high rates of an arbitrary response during all conditions of the reinforcer assessment. Therefore, the reinforcer assessments did not validate the results of the preference assessments.

Digital Immortality or Not?The aim of this thesis was to explore how we might be stewards for our post-life digital self after physical death, and to provide a new interaction experience in the form of a tangible, digital, or service design solution. Prior to the project kick-off secondary research, including academic research papers, analogous services, and existing projects, was distilled to form topical questions. These questions were then presented in many casual topical conversations and revealed that although post-life digital asset management awareness is increasing, little consideration exists on how to reflect legacies into the future long after death. A second stage of primary research included multiple on-site investigations, paired with in-person interviews and a quantitative online survey. Insights and understandings then lead to initial concepts that were tested to address distinctive qualities between tangible and digital design solutions. The main findings included that although people want to be remembered long after they die, current methods of tangible and digital content management can not sufficiently support the reflection of legacies long into the future. In conclusion, this thesis argues that to become part of an everlasting legacy, the interaction experience can leverage commonalities and shared moments from life events captured in digital media. These points of connections rely on associated metadata (i.e. keyword tags, date stamps, geolocation) to align relevant moments that transcend time and generations. The solution proposed here harnesses the benefits that both digital and tangible media afford and are presented as a tablet interface with an associated tangible token used as a connection key.

This field study examined how elderly and cognitively disabled people used and experienced a social companion robot. The following pages explores the questions: Which are the physical, social and affective qualities during the interaction? The aim was to through observations see how qualities of interaction could activate different forms of behavior. The results show that motion, sound and the eyes together created communicative and emotional changes for users who felt joy and were willing to share the activity with others. The robot stimulated to some extent users to create their own imaginative experiences but often failed to involve user or group for a long time and was also considered too large and heavy to handle. / Denna fältstudie undersökte hur äldre och kognitivt funktionsnedsatta personer använde och upplevde en social robot. Följande sidor utforskar frågorna: Vilka fysiska, sociala och affektiva kvaliteter finns i interaktionen? Målet var att genom observationer se hur kvaliteterna i interaktionen kunde aktivera olika typer av beteenden. Resultatet visar att rörelse, ljud och ögon tillsammans skapade kommunikativa och känslomässiga förändringar hos användarna som visade glädje och som gärna delade upplevelsen med andra. Roboten stimulerade till viss del användarna att skapa egna fantasifulla upplevelser men lyckades inte ofta involvera användare eller grupp under någon längre tid och ansågs även vara för stor och tung att hantera.

In these years, people¡¦s standard of living began to increase, so that the pattern of consumption is different from past way that pursued to meet the physical need. It means that the age of experienced economy is coming. Consumers require not only tangible goods or intangible services , but the satisfying and memorable consumer experiences. In addition, consumers want to get feeling from the products, and realize something from the process of consumption, so as to feeling toughed. These are the influence of customer emotions and touched circumstances known as ¡§Qualia¡¨. In this study, explanation of ¡§Qualia space design¡¨ as spatial environment design with five qualia factors: attractiveness, beauty, creativeness, delicacy, and engineering, then this study expect to construct scale of qualia space design through five qualia factors matrix with store atmosphere for measuring score of qualia space design and make it bring contribution to enterprises and academic field. The qualia space design appertains to static perception, but the experience marketing can be regard as dynamic feeling. So, this study explores these two variables relationship with customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and purchasing intention by questionnaire survey. Among this, 363 valid questionnaires were returned, and this research use regression analysis to analyze relationship between variables. In general, the results show that qualia space design or experience value would improve customer satisfaction, and in turn, it would increases customer loyalty. As a result, the qualia space design and experience value are the one of important competitiveness in current high competitive environment.

Specialists in conservation have recently reached a consensus about accepting cultural values as the basis of both problems and solutions within historic environments. In this respect, besides tangible properties, the intangible values need to be considered in the conservation studies. This study aims to develop a conceptual framework and methodology for the analysis and the conservation of historic environments as entities of intangible and tangible values to provide the integration of intangible values in conservation studies. As an entity, a historical urban fabric is formed by tangible features, namely, the physical structure made of built and natural structures / and intangible values, specifically, cultural practices and expressions within the built environments, meanings expressed by them and values attributed to them. Understanding and documenting intangible values which shape tangible values, help to explain the variability of buildings and settlement forms within historic environments. This study develops a conceptual and methodological framework for the documentation, conservation and sustainability of the interrelations of intangible and tangible values in the case of Ibrahimpasa Village. First, the research questions are elaborated to understand the relations between tangible and intangible values theoretically and to develop a methodological framework for the documentation and analysis of these. Then the conceptual and methodological framework is applied to the case of Ibrahimpasa Village using a combined methodology composed of the case study and the ethnographic research. As a result, the study puts forward a conservation approach, asserting that the sustainability of the interrelations between tangible and intangible values is vital for the conservation of historic environments and that specific approaches need to be developed for particular interrelations to provide their continuation.

Recent years have witnessed great improvements in ways of game controlling yielding to higher level of interaction. Release of motion controller devices radically changed the conventional ways of interaction that have been used for controlling games so far, also giving developers the opportunity of exploring various new possible ways of interaction. One of these off the shelf tools, Microsoft Kinect for Xbox 360, recognizes motions of the players as game controlling inputs. Although touchless interaction is perceived to be attractive, games that mimic real life activities such as table tennis, sword fighting, baseball and golf may benefit from the player&rsquo / s holding a tangible object to get more involved into game, sensing the actions deeply. In this thesis, a tangible gameplay interaction method that senses whether or not the player holds an object in the hand / if so, detects its dimensions and incorporates the hand-held object into gameplay by projecting motions of the player accordingly, is developed using Microsoft Kinect for Xbox 360. Developed algorithm is implemented on an experimental game and a user study is performed which revealed that an improved gameplay with more natural and accurate motion controlling yielding to new possible actions is achieved with the developed system.

This Thesis explores the application of Tangible User Interfaces to Education. For this, a research study was conducted by building and testing an interactive game called Tangram Bridge. This Tangram based game was designed to teach players about basic physics principles such as balance, friction and motion on inclined planes. The focus of this Tangram Bridge is middle school physics, and therefore concerns children aged 11 years and up, their instructors and care givers. This research also lays a lot of emphasis on constructive play amongst children. Tangram Bridge is a versatile platform that can be scaled for younger or older populations A comparative study of existing Tangible User Interfaces ( TUIs) revealed opportunity spaces for this project. Through a compilation of related research in the fields of education, hands on learning, Tangible interaction and understanding play and learning amongst children, the constructionist views on learning are explored as guidelines for the design of this study. Through the analysis of comparative research studies, trends on TUI with relation to education emerged, informing the design process for Tangram Bridge. This research study discusses the application of Tangible user interfaces to education. It combines the research data collected through market research, user testing and literature reviews to explore the efficacy of TUI as teaching tool for abstract concepts that require imagination and experimentation.

Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; contains 49 pages. / Thesis (M.A.)--University of South Florida, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: Much research has focused on the development of methods of measuring preference for stimuli. These methods have shown to be an accurate and valid way to identify potential reinforcers. However, these methods have only been conducted with tangible stimuli and have not been extended to non-tangible stimuli or activities, potentially because these types of stimuli are not appropriate for current preference assessment presentation methodologies. This study used a single stimulus presentation preference assessment to identify preferred activities for two adults with developmental disabilities. Two measures (duration of engagement and indices of happiness) were collected to identify preferred stimuli. For both participants, there were differences in happiness measure between activities. The engagement measure only produced differentiated results for one participant. / ABSTRACT: Reinforcer assessments were conducted to determine if the measures of preference were able to identify high preference stimuli that functioned as more effective reinforcers more than stimuli identified as low preference. Both participants exhibited high rates of an arbitrary response during all conditions of the reinforcer assessment. Therefore, the reinforcer assessments did not validate the results of the preference assessments. / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Final work of the master studies consists from 122 pages, 20 pictures, 11 tables, 77 literature sources, and 10 annexes. The work is written in Lithuanian. KEY WORDS: long-term tangible assets, accounting, purchase costs, depreciation, repairs. Object of the study-long-term tangible assets. Research subject -Long-term tangible assets accounting methods. Aim of the research – after methods of accounting of long term-tangible assets analysis to establish accounting problems and to present recommendations for methods improvement. Tasks: o after conception of long-term assets and it’s classification analysis to present the definition of long-term tangible assets and to expose it’s classification importance; o after analysis of scientific economic literature, acts regulating accounting of long-term tangible assets and accounting standards, to establish accounting of long-term tangible assets methods problems and to present how to solve the problems; o after investigation of long-term tangible assets accounting methods solution problems practical validity , to present proposals for long-term tangible assets accounting methods improvement. The research methods are monographic, observation, data systematize and work up, logical analysis and synthesis, comparable analysis and graphic. After analysis of economic literature, scientific works, publications, international and national accounting standards, Republic of Lithuania laws and other normative acts cleared up the problems of... [to full text]

Recent years have shown a broad spectra of tangible interfaces or TUI's, based upon interaction with music, but also other interfaces containing ubiquitous computing. This is an interesting field due to how engaging music can be and work as connector between people. But the field of human computer interaction has some explorational properties. This paper presents an idea of abstraction with a tangible interface for creating music. The idea behind abstraction of the interface is to engage the user(s) in exploring the artifact, rather than explaining the artifact to the user what can and cannot be done with the artifact.