Designing Meaning to Change Consumer Behaviour: An Exploration

in Chakrabarti, Amaresh (Ed.) ICoRD’15 – Research into Design Across Boundaries Volume 1: Theory, Research Methodology, Aesthetics, Human Factors and Education (2015)

The focus of our research is to support designers in fostering a more sustainable behaviour of consumers by creating meaning in products and services. The paper describes the results of a literature study ... [more ▼]

The focus of our research is to support designers in fostering a more sustainable behaviour of consumers by creating meaning in products and services. The paper describes the results of a literature study into the process of meaning making and the mechanisms through which meaning affects consumer behaviour. Meaning is defined as a mental representation of possible relationships. An initial model, the Meaning-Behaviour Model, is presented, integrating the mechanisms found in literature. Five possible interventions, derived from the model, show how designers can use meaning as a lever to foster enduring behavioural change. The paper contributes to the discussion of introducing meaning through design by exploring the link between meaning and behaviour. [less ▲]

Designing normative theories for ethical and legal reasoning: LogiKEy framework, methodology, and tool support

in Artificial Intelligence and Law (2020), 287

A framework and methodology|termed LogiKEy|for the design and engineering of ethical reasoners, normative theories and deontic logics is presented. The overall motivation is the development of suitable ... [more ▼]

A framework and methodology|termed LogiKEy|for the design and engineering of ethical reasoners, normative theories and deontic logics is presented. The overall motivation is the development of suitable means for the control and governance of intelligent autonomous systems. LogiKEy's unifying formal framework is based on semantical embeddings of deontic logics, logic combinations and ethico-legal domain theories in expressive classic higher-order logic (HOL). This meta-logical approach enables the provision of powerful tool support in LogiKEy: off-the-shelf theorem provers and model finders for HOL are assisting the LogiKEy designer of ethical intelligent agents to flexibly experiment with underlying logics and their combinations, with ethico-legal domain theories, and with concrete examples|all at the same time. Continuous improvements of these off-the-shelf provers, without further ado, leverage the reasoning performance in LogiKEy. Case studies, in which the LogiKEy framework and methodology has been applied and tested, give evidence that HOL's undecidability often does not hinder e fficient experimentation. [less ▲]

Designing Pareto optimal electricity retail rates when utility customers are prosumers

in Energy Policy (2021), 156

Electric retail rate design is relevant to utilities, customers, and regulators as retail rates impact the utility's revenue as well as the customers' electricity bills. In California, regulators approve ... [more ▼]

Electric retail rate design is relevant to utilities, customers, and regulators as retail rates impact the utility's revenue as well as the customers' electricity bills. In California, regulators approve rate proposals by privately owned vertical integrated utilities. Approval, however, is subject to compliance with multiple, potentially conflicting objectives such as economic or environmental objectives. Additionally, retail rates are price signals that affect how customers use electricity services. When utility customers change their usage, they also impact the ratemaking objectives to which rates have been designed. This suggests a feedback loop, which is particularly pronounced with prosumers, as they can systematically optimize their interactions with the electricity system. Prevalent ratemaking methods may not deliver retail rates that are optimal for multiple objectives when customers are prosumers. We propose a novel ratemaking method that formalizes the problem of designing retail rates as a multi-criteria optimization problem and accounts for prosumer reactions through a simulation-based optimization approach. Through a fictive case study, we found that the resulting Pareto frontiers are useful in recognizing and balancing tradeoffs among conflicting ratemaking objectives. Additionally, our results indicate that prevailing retail rates in California are not Pareto optimal. [less ▲]

Designing products and services by considering the meaning-based perspective of potential users

Presentation (2017, September 05)

Designing Robust Volunteer-based Evolutionary Algorithms

in Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines (2014)

This paper tackles the design of scalable and fault-tolerant evolutionary algorithms computed on volunteer platforms. These platforms aggregate computational resources from contributors all around the ... [more ▼]

This paper tackles the design of scalable and fault-tolerant evolutionary algorithms computed on volunteer platforms. These platforms aggregate computational resources from contributors all around the world. Given that resources may join the system only for a limited period of time, the challenge of a volunteer-based evolutionary algorithm is to take advantage of a large amount of computational power that in turn is volatile. The paper analyzes first the speed of convergence of massively parallel evolutionary algorithms. Then, it provides some guidance about how to design efficient policies to overcome the algorithmic loss of quality when the system undergoes high rates of transient failures, i.e. computers fail only for a limited period of time and then become available again. In order to provide empirical evidence, experiments were conducted for two well-known problems which require large population sizes to be solved, the first based on a genetic algorithm and the second on genetic programming. Results show that, in general, evolutionary algorithms undergo a graceful degradation under the stress of losing computing nodes. Additionally, new available nodes can also contribute to improving the search process. Despite losing up to 90% of the initial computing resources, volunteer-based evolutionary algorithms can find the same solutions in a failure-prone as in a failure-free run. [less ▲]

Designing Set of Binary Sequences and Space-Time Receive Filter for Moving Targets in Colocated MIMO Radar Systems

in 2019 20th International Radar Symposium (IRS) (2019)

Designing Sustainable Technologies, Products and Policies

Book published by Springer (2018)

This book provides insight into the implementation of Life Cycle approaches along the entire business value chain, supporting environmental, social and economic sustainability related to the development ... [more ▼]

This book provides insight into the implementation of Life Cycle approaches along the entire business value chain, supporting environmental, social and economic sustainability related to the development of industrial technologies, products, services and policies; and the development and management of smart agricultural systems, smart mobility systems, urban infrastructures and energy for the built environment. The book is based on papers presented at the 8th International Life Cycle Management Conference that took place from September 3-6, 2017 in Luxembourg, and which was organized by the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) and the University of Luxembourg in the framework of the LCM Conference Series. [less ▲]

Designing the (Most) Mobile University: The Centrality of International Student Mobility in Luxembourg’s Higher Education Policy Discourse

Scientific Conference (2018)

Designing with Genius Loci: An Approach to Polyvocality in Interactive Heritage Interpretation

in Multimodal Technologies and Interaction (2022), 6(6), 41

Co-design with communities interested in heritage has oriented itself towards designing for polyvocality to diversify the accepted knowledges, values and stories associated with heritage places. However ... [more ▼]

Co-design with communities interested in heritage has oriented itself towards designing for polyvocality to diversify the accepted knowledges, values and stories associated with heritage places. However, engagement with heritage theory has only recently been addressed in HCI design, resulting in some previous work reinforcing the same realities that designers set out to challenge. There is need for an approach that supports designers in heritage settings in working critically with polyvocality to capture values, knowledges, and authorised narratives and reflect on how these are negotiated and presented in the designs created. We contribute “Designing with Genius Loci” (DwGL)—our proposed approach to co-design for polyvocality. We conceptualised DwGL through long-term engagement with volunteers and staff at a UK heritage site. First, we used ongoing recruitment to incentivise participation. We held a series of making workshops to explore participants’ attitudes towards authorised narratives. We built participants’ commitments to collaboration by introducing the common goal of creating an interactive digital design. Finally, as we designed, we enacted our own commitments to the heritage research and to participants’ experiences. These four steps form the backbone of our proposed approach and serve as points of reflexivity. We applied DwGL to co-creating three designs: Un/Authorised View, SDH Palimpsest and Loci Stories, which we present in an annotated portfolio. Grounded in research through design, we reflect on working with the proposed approach and provide three lessons learned, guiding further research efforts in this design space: (1) creating a conversation between authorised and personal heritage stories; (2) designing using polyvocality negotiates voices; and (3) designs engender existing qualities and values. The proposed approach places polyvocality foremost in interactive heritage interpretation and facilitates valuable discussions between the designers and communities involved. [less ▲]

La désinstutionnalisation psychiatrique. Un phénomène introuvable en Belgique dans les années 1960 et 1970?

in Guillemain, Hervé; Klein, Alexandre; Thifault, Marie-Claude (Eds.) Fin de l’asile ?: histoire de la déshospitalisation psychiatrique dans l’espace francophone au XXe siècle (2018)