Sachsen hat eine der dichtesten Forschungslandschaften deutschlandweit. In der reich bebilderten Broschüre stellen sich Hochschulen und Forschungseinrichtungen vor. Redaktionsschluss: 15.11.2014 / Our brochure is designed to give you an initial overview of “Saxony – the Science State”. We called on our universities and research institutes in the various science regions to present short profiles of themselves.

Common visualisation techniques such as bar-charts and scatter-plots are not sufficient for visual analysis of large sets of complex multidimensional data. Technological advancements have led to a proliferation of novel visualisation tools and techniques that attempt to meet this need. A crucial requirement for efficient visualisation tool design is the development of objective criteria for visualisation quality, informed by research in human perception and cognition. This thesis presents a multidisciplinary approach to address this requirement, underpinning the design and implementation of visualisation software with the theory and methodology of cognitive science. An opening survey of visualisation practices in the research environment identifies three primary uses of visualisations: the detection of outliers, the detection of clusters and the detection of trends. This finding, in turn, leads to a formulation of a cognitive account of the visualisation comprehension processes, founded upon established theories of visual perception and reading comprehension. Finally, a psychophysical methodology for objectively assessing visualisation efficiency is developed and used to test the efficiency of a specific visualisation technique, namely an interactive three-dimensional scatterplot, in a series of four experiments. The outcomes of the empirical study are three-fold. On a concrete applicable level, three-dimensional scatterplots are found to be efficient in trend detection but not in outlier detection. On a methodological level, ‘pop-out’ methodology is shown to be suitable for assessing visualisation efficiency. On a theoretical level, the cognitive account of visualisation comprehension processes is enhanced by empirical findings, e.g. the significance of the learning curve parameters. All these provide a contribution to a ‘science of visualisation’ as a coherent scientific paradigm, both benefiting fundamental science and meeting an applied need.

Collaboration between Designers and Scientists in the Context of Scientific Research This thesis presents the results of a research project that examines collaboration between product designers and scientific researchers. For this purpose, it initially illustrates the objectives and scope of the research and examines current relevant literature on the subject, highlighting its reach and limitations. The core research question is then introduced: How can product designers and scientists collaborate and, as a result, how might designers contribute towards scientific research activity? This question is subsequently answered in several stages. First, the relevant literature is reviewed in order to produce an analytical framework. It examines the disciplinary characteristics of designers and scientists, the characteristics of both design work and scientific research, and the nature of interdisciplinary collaboration. This analytical framework is then used as the basis for a collaboration matrix to record and examine the collaboration between designers and scientists. Secondly, the analytical framework is also employed to help explore findings from five case studies (three exploratory and two development cases) in which designers worked alongside scientists. Finally, results from the case studies are compared with current theoretical work on the subject, highlighting differences and commonalities. As a result of this analysis, the thesis answers the research question posed and presents as a main contribution: -The main ways in which designers collaborate with scientists. -The roles that designers might have while collaborating with scientists. -The contribution that designers can offer to scientific research. -The barriers to and enablers of collaboration between designers and scientists. -The areas of scientific research in which design intervention can make an impact.

This thesis investigates the local innovation system of public research organisations in the Thai context, in which research centres and firms are co-located in a planned science park, with particular emphasis on the influence of co-location on interactions between research centres and local firms, and the research collaboration between the research centres and industrial firms. It aims to gain insight into the factors that influence the interaction of research centres and firms located in close proximity and the ways in which research centres and firms interrelate in relation to their research collaboration. This thesis draws upon three theoretical concepts: the concept of local innovation system, the concept of proximity, and the theories of inter-organisational relationships.The study suggests that co-location (i.e. physical proximity) to research centres does not normally lead to formal interaction between local firms and research centres in this context. Most of the interactions between them were found to be informal. Thus, the influence of physical proximity on the interactions and linkages of actors in this local innovation system is to some extent over-estimated. There is insufficient synergy to create an innovative surplus from co-location of firms and research centres in this context. The study also suggests that promoting social and technological proximity between research centres and local firms, by introducing institutional or organisational arrangements that would facilitate these two dimensions of proximity, encourages greater extent of formal interaction between them as well as facilitates benefits from spatial relation of these local actors. Despite the absence of formal interaction with local firms, research centres collaborate with firms located outside the science park. The study introduces a typology to understand how research centres work with firms and shows that most of the collaborative projects involved industrial application and utilisation of technological knowledge accumulated within the research centres, which applied to the firms' products or development processes. Many of these projects resulted from collective projects or partnering experience between the research centre and firm, and were likely to follow with subsequent collaborations. In addition, the study reveals that technological factors, i.e. technological relatedness between the knowledge base of firms and research centres and firm's technological capacity, influence the way in which research centres work with firms in collaborative projects. Organisational and institutional settings of research centres, as well as cultural factors are identified as barriers of research collaboration in this study.The thesis concludes by indicating that physical proximity alone cannot trigger interaction of actors, especially formal interaction such as research collaboration, bounded by spatial relation. Interaction between public research organisations and firms can take place without closeness in distance. Other dimensions of their relationship are important factors influencing their interaction. The research collaboration between research centres and firms is a complex process and requires supportive organisational and institutional arrangements and effective policy intervention.