To the Chinese people, jade is a precious stone endowed with magical properties which encapsulated all that mankind aspires to in terms of character, elegance, tranquility, purity and virtue. The Chinese love jade not merely because of its rarity or its luster but because of a deeper aesthetic value. Chinese Jade: The Spiritual and Cultural Significance of Jade in China presents a comprehensive view of jade and its history in China from Neolithic times to the Qing dynasty. It illustrates pieces of jade that are on display not only in the Palace Museum in Beijing but in the many provincial and other museums across China. It will help the reader to understand what jade means to the Chinese in China; how it is classified and described and where it is found and worked and displayed. It has a value beyond that of a simple catalogue and places jade in its natural, and central, cultural context.

Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics (AHFE 2023), July 20–24, 2023, San Francisco, USA

These past few years have taught me a lot about me. After finally hitting my stride, my old friend karma kicked me in the ass; hard enough to leave a lasting mark. I don’t know if it’s the poetry or the art of storytelling I love most, but I’m glad to have finally reached the climax of the trilogy, and who doesn’t like a good climax? I’ve worn many hats but being called a poet never crossed my mind. With that being said, I’m glad I dove in headfirst into something challenging because it turned out I enjoy it. They say never judge a book by its cover and you shouldn’t, but if you did, this cover is amazing, ain’t it. These poems are like Pringles, I bet you can’t read just one. Go ahead, try me, and take a walk on the wild side. You just might like it! After three renditions, it’s time to move on to a new challenge. Like everything else in life, it’s about moderation and I’ve spent an enormous amount of time writing. For as much as I love it, I love living more and being able enjoying the things I’ve I been blessed with. That and I got other stuff I wanna do.

This 5-volume HCII-DUXU 2023 book set constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Design, User Experience, and Usability, DUXU 2023, held as part of the 24th International Conference, HCI International 2023, which took place in Copenhagen, Denmark, in July 2023. A total of 1578 papers and 396 posters have been accepted for publication in the HCII 2023 proceedings from a total of 7472 submissions. The papers included in this volume set were organized in topical sections as follows: Part I: Design methods, tools and practices; emotional and persuasive design; Part II: Design case studies; and creativity and design education; Part III: Evaluation methods and techniques; and usability, user experience and technology acceptance studies; Part IV: Designing learning experiences; and chatbots, conversational agents and robots: design and user experience; Part V: DUXU for cultural heritage; and DUXU for health and wellbeing.

Cinema, the primary vehicle for storytelling in the twentieth century, is being reconfigured by new media in the twenty-first. Terms such as "worldbuilding," "virtual reality," and "transmedia" introduce new methods for constructing a screenplay and experiencing and sharing a story. Similarly, 3D cinematography, hypercinema, and visual effects require different modes for composing an image, and virtual technology, motion capture, and previsualization completely rearrange the traditional flow of cinematic production. What does this mean for telling stories? Fast Forward answers this question by investigating a full range of contemporary creative practices dedicated to the future of mediated storytelling and by connecting with a new generation of filmmakers, screenwriters, technologists, media artists, and designers to discover how they work now, and toward what end. From Chris Milk and Aaron Koblin's exploration of VR spherical filmmaking to Rebeca Méndez's projection and installation work exploring climate change to the richly mediated interactive live performances of the collective Cloud Eye Control, this volume captures a moment of creative evolution and sets the stage for imagining the future of the cinematic arts.

Technology companies claim to connect people through touchscreens, but by conflating physical contact with emotional sentiments, they displace the constructed aspects of devices and women and other oppressed individuals’ critiques of how such technologies function. Technology companies and device designers correlate touchscreens and online sites with physical contact and emotional sentiments, promising unmediated experiences in which the screen falls away in favor of visceral materiality and connections. While touchscreens are key elements of most people’s everyday lives, critical frameworks for understanding the embodied experiences of using them are wanting. In Touch Screen Theory, Michele White focuses on the relation between physically touching and emotionally feeling to recenter the bodies and identities that are empowered, produced, and displaced by these digital technologies and settings. Drawing on detailed cases and humanities methods, White shows how and why gender, race, and sexuality should be further analyzed in relation to touchscreen use and design. White delves into such details as how women are informed that their bodies and fingernails are not a fit for iPhones, how cellphone surfaces are correlated with skin and understood as erotic, the ways social networks use heart buttons and icons to seem to physically and emotionally connect with individuals, how online references to feminine and queer feelings are resisted by many men, and how women producers of autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) videos use tactile strategies and touch screens to emotionally bond with viewers. Proposing critical methods for studying touchscreens and digital engagement, Touch Screen Theory expands a variety of research areas, including digital and internet cultures, hardware, interfaces, media and screens, and popular culture.

Our massive, global system of consumption is broken. Our individual relationship with our stuff is broken. In each of our homes, some stuff is broken. And the strain of rampant consumerism and manufacturing is breaking our planet. We need big, systemic changes, from public policy to global economic systems. But we don’t need to wait for them. Since founding Fixup, a pop-up repair shop that brought her coverage in The New York Times, Salon, New York Public Radio, and more, Sandra Goldmark has become a leader in the movement to demand better “stuff.” She doesn’t just want to help us clear clutter—she aims to move us away from throwaway culture, to teach us to reuse and repurpose more thoughtfully, and to urge companies to produce better stuff. Although her goal is ambitious, the solution to getting there is surprisingly simple and involves all of us: have good stuff, not too much, mostly reclaimed, care for it, and pass it on. Fixation charts the path to the next frontier in the health, wellness, and environmental movements—learning how to value stewardship over waste. We can choose quality items designed for a long lifecycle, commit to repairing them when they break, and shift our perspective on reuse and “preowned” goods. Together, we can demand that companies get on board. Goldmark shares examples of forward-thinking companies that are thriving by conducting their businesses sustainably and responsibly. Passionate, wise, and practical, Fixation offers us a new understanding of stuff by building a value chain where good design, reuse, and repair are the status quo.