Debkumar Chakrabarti

Cognitive Theories of Product Emotion and Their Applications in Emotional Product Design

Product attributes which can elicit positive or negative emotions among users, determine product acceptance in market. Different cognitive theories of emotion are found in literature for emotional product design. These theories explain the various aspects of underlying phenomena of emotion generation based on product attributes and their impact on product choice. In present paper, six popular cognitive theories of emotion (viz. ‘Kansei Engineering’, ‘Theories of product personality’, ‘Pleasure model’, ‘Product Appraisal Model’, ‘Emotional Design Model’, and, ‘Technology as Experience Framework’) have been reviewed, stating their potential benefits and limitations. An integrated theoretical framework of emotional product design has been proposed by incorporating different potential approaches of earlier mentioned cognitive theories of emotion. It is expected that developed framework would be helpful to industrial designers, ergonomist, product innovation managers and cognitive scientists towards better emotional product design.

Implementation of Ergonomic Design Interventions to Improve Workplace Amenities for Assam Policewomen

Womanhood issues at workplace with specific reference to basic amenities are major problem in the police duties. This paper looks into the womanhood specific issues at Police Stations. Personal interview and individual responses to a subjective assessment questionnaire were recorded from forty policewomen of different ranks posted in Guwahati, Assam (N = 40, purposive non-probability sampling) to have their views on these issues. A thorough scrutiny of the actual situation revealed critical lack of facilities and basic amenities for policewomen (pertinent to womanhood) at workplace, i.e. the general police stations. Analysis of the responses reflected policewomen to be under stress at their outdoor duties and workplace also, specifically due to the lack of privacy and conveniences facilities. This piece of work depicts the views and feelings of policewomen before and after implementation of proposed design interventions in an existing police station, there by improvement of their occupational wellbeing.

Ergonomic Risk Assessment on Women Handloom Weavers in Assam with the Introduction of Jacquard

Weaving was cultural and traditional activity, for every woman of Assam, which has now been transferred to commercialization. Earlier, weavers spend their leisure time in weaving as passion or for domestic needs. Now with commercialization, both time and competition plays an important role, giving rise to a new set of occupational issues. Introduction of Jacquard is the main difference between domestic and commercial frame-loom structure. The present study was conducted to find, effect of Jacquard on pedalling force with work-shift duration for commercial production. Weavers participated were from the Kamrup district of Assam, known for commercial production. Two way ANOVA was performed to see effect of two independent variables (pedal force and work shift) on a single dependent variable (lower limb pain). Significant increase of lower limb pain (LLP) was observed for both pedalling force (p < 0.001) and work shift duration (p < 0.001), but no relation was found between increased pedalling force and work-shift with LLP (p = 0.658).

Workspace Amenities for Assam Policewomen: Ergonomic Interventions

The present research explores the womanhood issues at workplace with specific reference to the basic amenities in the police station; and we aimed to evaluate the occupational well-being of policewomen. For this, forty three (n = 43) women police personnel of mixed age and ethnicity, deployed at the women police station of Pan bazaar, Guwahati, responded to a bipartite questionnaire, which envisioned their present workplace scenario and issues therein. Descriptive analysis was undertaken to understand the problems tackled by women personnel in the police station. Review of the situation and observations obtained through questionnaires revealed the basic inconveniences of policewomen in terms of lacking basic amenities like conveniences and passable privacy at workplace. Ergonomic interventions were proposed after thorough scrutiny of the situations and possibilities to recover from them, and were thus intended to aid policewomen to lessen their problems hindering their well-being.

Design of Continuously Variable Transmission Mechanism for Economy Cars in India

Over the past decades, there has been a great effort towards the development of the Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT) as it offers a continuum of the gear ratios between the two limits. It also helps in meeting the goal of reduced exhaust transmission, enhances the fuel economy and improves the dynamic performance of the vehicle by matching the engine performance to the road conditions and the traffic problems. The purpose of this paper is to improve and popularize the use of CVT in Indian cars in and below 1000 cc vehicle. The basic idea of this is to benefit the Indian citizens especially the elderly and the differently abled people with a comfortable and easy drive on the present day where traffic is the major problem. The basic concept, mathematical calculations, design procedure of the same has been discussed in detail.

Number Plate Design for Bicycles: An Approach from Aesthetic and Ergonomic Perspective

Need for design of a part or as a whole of a utility item/issue and ergonomics considerations interact in an intertwined way while re-looking the issue either for betterment of existing product or to develop a new one. Around 4000 students of 13 hostels use bicycles in IIT Guwahati campus and identity of bicycles is an issue. The present study looks into the possibilities of using identity labels on bicycles being used in IIT Guwahati campus by the students of different hostel resident. Attempt has been made to develop an ergonomically visible and aesthetically appealing numbering system with specific attention to information flow presentation for easy readability and legibility in both static and moving conditions. Study was conducted through placing relevant information using horizontal and vertical orientation on the mudguard. This study was done with the observational and experimental analysis of the design. Results show that instead of horizontal orientation, the vertical placement on mudguard area is preferred. It was clearly found that the new design was better in terms of readability, legibility, and design aesthetics.

Anthropomorphic Televisions Are More Attractive: The Effect of Novelty

Literature suggests that anthropomorphic (humanlike) shapes in product appearance may be fruitful to design a product. However, anthropomorphism may have either positive or negative consequence in market. Novelty is an aesthetic dimension which may cause acceptance of an anthropomorphic product in market, due to attractiveness of the product. The present study was conducted to investigate whether anthropomorphic product appearance causes a high level of perceived novelty; thus, the higher level of perceived attractiveness and product choice. Results of the present study revealed that users perceived a higher level of novelty in product due to a higher level of anthropomorphism. It was also evident that users perceived the product as more attractive which had a higher level of novelty in appearance. Eyetracking study indicated that average fixation counts and fixation durations were higher in the case of television which had a higher level of novelty. Further, people choose the product (television) which had a higher level of novelty and attractiveness. Hence, novelty is the basis of making anthropomorphic product attractive and anthropomorphic product choice.

Meditation as a Countermeasure to Reduce Cognitive Decline During Total Sleep Deprivation

Decline in cognitive functions is a major challenge for professionals during sustained wakefulness. We aimed to evaluate the efficacy of meditation as an intervention in the reduction of the cognitive decline during total sleep deprivation (TSD). Healthy male volunteers (n = 10) drawn randomly from the Indian Army participated in a 4-night study design executed before and after 2 months of meditation practice pre-intervention TSD for 24 and 36 h increased dysfunction rating score (DRS) in terms of a decline in remote and recent memory, mental balance, attention/concentration, delayed and immediate recall, verbal retention, and recognition. Visual retention remained unaltered. Stroop color-word interference (SCWI) showed a decline in ‘word’ scores after 36 h, ‘color’ score after 24 h, and ‘color-word’ score after 24 h TSD. Maze tracing test scores decreased after 24 and 36 h TSD. Post-intervention recordings of DRS no longer showed the decline in remote and recent memory, mental balance, attention/concentration, delayed and immediate recall, verbal retention, and recognition, which was seen without intervention. SCWI improved post-intervention with no significant change in ‘word’ scores and ‘color’ scores. However, ‘color-word’ scores remained low after 36 h TSD. Maze tracing test scores improved post-intervention with no significant change after 24 and 36 h TSD. After recovery sleep, there was a significant improvement in all the above measures. It was concluded that meditation could serve as an effective intervention to reduce the cognitive decline during TSD. The study substantiated the potency of meditation in reducing cognitive decline following TSD.

Meghalaya Tourism: A Study on Women’s Attitudes and Perceptions Towards the Cultural Exposure and Interaction in the Context of Meghalaya Tourism

In a matriarchal society like Meghalaya where women are given high value of importance and independence it is seen that their involvement and exposure to work in various spheres is increasing over the years. The matriarchal way of thinking and upbringing has made the women in Meghalaya to inherit a confident, amiable and open-minded persona, which makes them more likely to interact effortlessly with people. There is very less research done on women in a matriarchal society in the field of tourism. There is need to understand and interpret their behavioural patterns and extent of willingness to share their culture with the tourists. Data Collection on 120 indigenous men and women of Meghalaya was done to find out their views on the context of Meghalaya Tourism and the extent of how culture is shared as well as how the level of interaction between the natives and tourists is achieved through tourism was done.

Occupational Well-Being of Policewomen in India and China: Scope of Ergonomic Design Interventions

Impact of environmental stress on occupation well-being of women engaged in police service requires thorough understanding, which is deemed obvious to inspire them to join police organization The objective of this study was to assess environmental stress at the workplace and consequences on occupational well-being of policewomen in two types of regions – Guwahati, (a Metro city of Assam, also its capital city) and Hangzhou, (China). The survey was conducted on 43 policewomen from All Women Police Station (AWPS) of Guwahati and 31 policewomen from Hangzhou city of China. The questionnaire was designed using standard procedures (including analysis of reliability and validity by Cronbach’s alpha) to analyses job stress and occupational well-being. This piece of research attempted to elucidate the real-time scenario and the need of corrective ergonomic design interventions, which when implemented, might reduce the workplace stress, thus making Indian police organizations more women-friendly.