Customer Value Co-Creation Intention, Practices and Experience in Self-Service Technologies

Many service encounters are moving from traditional physical interfaces to technologically incorporated self-service options. However, it is surprising that very limited extant literature is devoted to understanding the movement towards self-service technologies. Therefore, this study aims at understanding customer value co-creation intention, practices including both the value co-creation and co-destruction and their co-creation experiences in self-service technology context. Based on the positivistic approach, a quantitative study carried out distributing self-administered questionnaires to 600 individuals chosen based on a non-probabilistic convenience sampling method. Study found that customer value co-creation intention has significant positive effects on customer value co-creation practices and significant negative effects on customer value co-destruction in SSTs. Value co-creation practices show a strong positive effect on customer functional experiences and ‘positive emotional experiences’ while having a negative effect on ‘negative emotional experiences. In contrast, co-destruction shows inverse relationships. This study assists practitioners to understand why customers collaborate with SSTs, what they do in co-creating value and how this links with their experience. Service providers can use this understanding to facilitate customer co-creation by securing positive customer experiences and achieving competitive advantage by designing and delivering value enhancing self-service technological interfaces from both strategic and operational perspectives.

Bioresorbable Multilayer Photonic Cavities as Temporary Implants for Tether-Free Measurements of Regional Tissue Temperatures

Objective and Impact Statement. Real-time monitoring of the temperatures of regional tissue microenvironments can serve as the diagnostic basis for treating various health conditions and diseases. Introduction. Traditional thermal sensors allow measurements at surfaces or at near-surface regions of the skin or of certain body cavities. Evaluations at depth require implanted devices connected to external readout electronics via physical interfaces that lead to risks for infection and movement constraints for the patient. Also, surgical extraction procedures after a period of need can introduce additional risks and costs. Methods. Here, we report a wireless, bioresorbable class of temperature sensor that exploits multilayer photonic cavities, for continuous optical measurements of regional, deep-tissue microenvironments over a timeframe of interest followed by complete clearance via natural body processes. Results. The designs decouple the influence of detection angle from temperature on the reflection spectra, to enable high accuracy in sensing, as supported by in vitro experiments and optical simulations. Studies with devices implanted into subcutaneous tissues of both awake, freely moving and asleep animal models illustrate the applicability of this technology for in vivo measurements. Conclusion. The results demonstrate the use of bioresorbable materials in advanced photonic structures with unique capabilities in tracking of thermal signatures of tissue microenvironments, with potential relevance to human healthcare.

SCATTER PHY: An Open Source Physical Layer for the DARPA Spectrum Collaboration Challenge

DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency from the United States, has started the Spectrum Collaboration Challenge with the aim to encourage research and development of coexistence and collaboration techniques of heterogeneous networks in the same wireless spectrum bands. Team SCATTER has been participating in the challenge since its beginning, back in 2016. SCATTER’s open-source software-defined physical layer (SCATTER PHY) has been developed as a standalone application, with the ability to communicate with higher layers of SCATTER’s system via ZeroMQ, and uses USRP X310 software-defined radio devices to send and receive wireless signals. SCATTER PHY relies on USRP’s ability to schedule timed commands, uses both physical interfaces of the radio devices, utilizes the radio’s internal FPGA board to implement custom high-performance filtering blocks in order to increase its spectral efficiency as well as enable reliable usage of neighboring spectrum bands. This paper describes the design and main features of SCATTER PHY and showcases the experiments performed to verify the achieved benefits.

La Realidad Virtual en la Creación Artística: Conceptos, Tecnologías, Trayectoria y Actualidad

La aplicación de la Realidad Virtual (RV) en la creación artística se remonta a la década de 1990, cuando se comercializan losprimeros sistemas de RV. Sin embargo, los altos costos y lasdificultades técnicas para realizar y exhibir este tipo de obras limitaron la exploración artística de esta tecnología. En la segundadécada del s. XXI, la RV ha experimentado un renacimiento debido,en parte, a los avances tecnológicos en la computación gráfica y las interfaces físicas, bien como a su abaratamiento. Todos estos factores, están reimpulsado la utilización de la RV en las artes al facilitar la creación y exhibición de las obras. Virtual Reality (VR) art can be traced back to the 1990s, whenthe first VR systems were commercialized. However, the art exploration of this technology was limited due to the high costs and technical difficulties to create and exhibit VR artworks. In the second decade of the 21st century, VR has experienced a renaissance partly because of the technological advances in computer graphics and physical interfaces and the reduction of their cost. All these factors have revitalized the use of VR in the arts by facilitating the creation and exhibition of artworks.