No / Microwear patterns and formation processes are examined in modern browsing and grazing Gotland sheep from Denmark. Clear differences in microwear patterning are identified between Gotland sheep, which included a high proportion of leaves, bark and twigs of deciduous trees and shrubs in their diet, and those which primarily had access to graze species, with the browsing group exhibiting enamel surfaces dominated by pitted microwear features, the grazers a predominance of striations. Analysis of abrasives in dung suggests that these trends can be attributed to higher levels of soil ingestion in the grazing population and are a consequence both of grassland management practices and height of feeding within the vegetation canopy. These findings question previous interpretations of microwear patterning in browsing and grazing ungulates, which have equated striated enamel features with the ingestion of high levels of opal phytoliths, and thus have significant implications for palaeodietary reconstruction in such species, both within archaeological and palaeontological contexts. To address further the implications of these results, comparison is made between the Gotland sheep and modern grazing and fodder-fed sheep and goats from elsewhere in Europe. It is concluded that dental microwear analysis has the potential to address questions relating to grassland management practices and the use of certain fodders, such as leafy-hay, but that it may ultimately prove more difficult to distinguish `fresh¿ browsing sheep from some grazing populations, specifically those in which levels of soil ingestion are reduced.

This research project is focused on understanding the current needs of blind users in the context of browsing on the internet. The research methods used have an inclusive design approach. The outcome was intended for both for the blind and normally sighted.  At the broadest level, this project is about reducing cognitive effort in human to computer interaction. At the next level it is about browsing the internet. Everyone using a computer and surfing the web at some point goes through the mental task of comparing between alternative choices. Examining today’s obstacles for the blind, what aspects of the experience could we improve? Could we design a better cognitive browsing experience for all users focusing on nonvisual aspects of the user experience? What would it look like, how would it behave and what characteristics would it carry?  The Semantic Scroller is a concept that could be implemented today but actually presupposes the use of some new HTML specifications specifically the adoption of “open” semantic tags. Unlike existing semantic tags like <nav> and <article> which are too context specific, an open framework would enable coders include contextual semantic descriptions where ever necessary.

The aim of this master's thesis is to examine how shelving is organized among Swedish libraries that have switched from the Swedish classification system SAB to using the DDC, and what problems arise in this process. The method used is interviewing librarians at Swedish university and special libraries. The Swedish national library announced their swap to the DDC in 2008, and several libraries followed suit. The reported advantages with a switch were mainly that using an international classification system meant that Swedish libraries would no longer have to undertake a time consuming classification work, since most of the foreign literature already is Dewey classified. Disadvantages were that the DDC is not adapted to Swedish circumstances. Research on open shelving show that obtaining a browsable book collection requires a broad shelf classification. If libraries motivate their shelving solution by wanting browsable collections, efforts will be made to keep shelf classification broad enough. Certain categories have by tradition been shelved separately in Swedish libraries, and this study seeks to find out if a classification shift changes this custom, and if so, whether or not this is only attributable to the change of classification. Findings show that libraries motivated their swapping of classification mostly by the perceived flaws of the SAB system, and not by the promise of saving time, nor by the benefits of the DDC system. Most librarians seemed to lack sufficient knowledge of the DDC, which may be a reason why librarians claimed that the workload necessary to re-shelve the stock was the biggest drawback with switching to the DDC. Most libraries desired browsable shelves, and therefore used shelf lists to better be able to adapt the classification system to the stock. The custom of shelving certain categories separately survived the classification swap for some categories, but not for others. In the latter case this can be ascribed to a dwindling use of these specific categories by the patrons.

No description available.

Multi-touch technology, used in consumer products such as the iPad, enables users to register multiple points of contact at the same time; this enables a user to interact with a touch screen interface using several fingers on one hand, or even both hands. This affords interface designers the opportunity to define gestural interactions based on what is most natural for users and not on merely what can be recognised and processed by technology. In light of this, the research question that this study aimed to address was: what is the most intuitive user-defined gesture set for conducting an informational search on a multi-touch tablet web browser? In addressing this research question, the aim of this study was to create a user-defined gesture set for conducting an informational search on a multi-touch tablet web browser, based on gestures elicited from participants with little or no experience with touch screen devices. It was necessary to use these participants as users who are familiar with touch screen interfaces would draw upon the gestures they have learnt or used before, and would therefore be biased in the gestures they proposed. Inexperienced or naïve users would simply provide gestures that came naturally to them, providing a more accurate reflection of what a typical, unbiased user would do. A set of hypotheses, relating to the gestures that would be elicited from this participant group, were drawn up and investigated. These investigations yielded the following key findings: • The use of two-handed gestures should be limited. • If two-handed gestures are developed for a specific function, an alternative one-handed gesture should be made available. • It is not be advisable to create completely novel gestures for tablet web browsing that do not correspond to any of the ways in which desktop web browsing is performed. • Should novel gestures be developed for tablet web browsing, gestures that are desktop computing adaptations, including those that require menu access, should be made available as alternatives to users. • Tasks should be designed is such a way that they may be completed with a variety of gestures. • Complex tasks should be designed in such a way that they may be achieved through varying combinations of gestures. These findings may assist interface designers and developers in the gestures they design or developer for their applications. In addition to these findings, the study presents a coherent, user-defined gesture set that may be used in practice by designers or developers.

Information retrieval (IR) is an important part of many tasks performed by people when they use computers. However, most IR research and theory isolates the IR component from the tasks performed by users. This is done by expressing user needs as a query performed on a database. In contrast this dissertation investigates the design and evaluation of information retrieval systems where the information retrieval mechanisms remain embedded in the user tasks. While there are a many different types of user tasks performed with computers we can specify common requirements for the IR needed in most tasks. There are both user interface and machine processing requirements. For user interfaces it is desirable if users interact directly with information databases, keep control of the interaction and are able to perform IR in a timely manner. Machine processing has to be within the capabilities of machines yet must fit with human perceptions and has to be efficient in both storage and computation. Given the overall requirements, the dissertation gives a particular implementation for how to embed IR in tasks. The implementation uses a vector representation for objects and organises the objects in a near neighbour data structure. Near neighbours are defined within the context of the tasks the users wish to achieve. While the implementation could use many different finding mechanisms, it emphasises a constructive solution building approach with localised browsing in the database. It is shown how the IR implementation fits with the overall task activities of the user. Much of the dissertation examines how to evaluate embedded IR. Embedded IR requires testing users' task performance in both real experiments and thought experiments. Implementation is tested by finding known objects, by validating the machine representations and their correspondence with human perceptions and by testing the machine performance of the implementation. Finally implications and extensions of the work arc explored by looking at the practicality of the approach, other methods of investigation and the possibility of building dynamic learning systems that improve with use.

<p>Aspen (<em> Populus tremula</em>), rowan (<em>Sorbus auquparia</em>) and sallow (<em>Salix caprea</em>) are deciduous tree species of low economic value for forestry and contribute to biodiversity of boreal forests. The species are rare in managed forest landscapes, and severely browsed by moose. Their recruitment needs to increase to meet requirements of sustainable forestry to factors that affect occurrence need to be indentified. <strong>Paper I</strong> is an exploratory study on distribution of these species in relation to natural and cultural factors. In <strong>paper II</strong> moose browsing on saplings, in young forests and the influence of the landscape at three spatial scales: stand (8.6 ± 0.8 SE ha), winter home range of moose (10 km²) and annual home range of moose (25 km²). Presence of these rare species was depending on a multitude of factors acting at different spatial scales. The most important variables were soil quality, successional stage, and ownership at the stand scale and area of deciduous forest at the landscape scale. Moreover, saplings occurred at low densities in young forests <strong>(paper II)</strong> and most interestingly, saplings occurred most in middle-aged forests (20-80 years) and less than expected in younger forests (<20y) (<strong>Paper I</strong>). Browsing intensity on the different species corresponded with moose food preference and annual home range scale was most relevant for understanding browsing. Browsing on rowan was highest where the volume of deciduous food and overall young forest area were low. Browsing on birch increased when pine volume and mean patch size of young forest increased, whereas browsing on aspen was negatively related to the same variables. Thus, my results strengthen the idea that food selection is a scale-dependent process and that trade-offs between food and cover may exist for moose. Moreover, I conclude that the presence of deciduous species was a result mainly of soil quality, forest management intensity, landscape context and that the distribution of food for moose at landscape scales similar to or larger than their home range may be useful for predicting browsing on the stand scale. I propose that deciduous forests may be valuable predictors of regeneration potential in the forested landscape, and that understory deciduous sapling in middle-aged forests may be important to promote restoration and conservation actions.</p>

The Object-oriented Reuse Tool (ORT) supports the reuse of object-oriented software by maintaining a library of reusable classes and recording information about their reusability as well as information associated with their design and verification. In the early design phases of object-oriented development, ORT facilitates reuse by providing a flexible way to navigate the library, thereby aiding in the process of refining a design to maximally reuse existing classes. A collection of extensions to ORT have also been identified. These extensions would compose the remainder of a system useful in increasing reuse in object-oriented software production.

With the wide-spread adoption of hypermedia systems and the World Wide Web (WWW) in particular, these systems have evolved from simple systems with only textual content to those that incorporate a large content base, which consists of a wide variety of document types. Also, with the increase in the number of users, there has grown a need for these systems to be accessible to a wider range of users. Consequently, the growth of the systems along with the number and variety of users require new presentation and navigation mechanisms for a wider audience. One of the new presentation methods is the audio-only presentation of hypertext content and this research proposes a novel solution to this problem for complex and dynamic systems. The hypothesis is that the proposed Audio Browser is an efficient tool for presenting hypertext in audio format, which will prove to be useful for several applications including browsers for visually-impaired and remote users. The Audio Browser provides audio-only browsing of contents in a Petri-based hypertext system called Context-Aware Trellis (caT). It uses a combination of synthesized speech and pre-recorded speech to allow its user to listen to contents of documents, follow links, and get information about the navigation process. It also has mechanisms for navigating within documents in order to allow users to view contents more quickly.

Aspen ( Populus tremula), rowan (Sorbus auquparia) and sallow (Salix caprea) are deciduous tree species of low economic value for forestry and contribute to biodiversity of boreal forests. The species are rare in managed forest landscapes, and severely browsed by moose. Their recruitment needs to increase to meet requirements of sustainable forestry to factors that affect occurrence need to be indentified. Paper I is an exploratory study on distribution of these species in relation to natural and cultural factors. In paper II moose browsing on saplings, in young forests and the influence of the landscape at three spatial scales: stand (8.6 ± 0.8 SE ha), winter home range of moose (10 km2) and annual home range of moose (25 km2). Presence of these rare species was depending on a multitude of factors acting at different spatial scales. The most important variables were soil quality, successional stage, and ownership at the stand scale and area of deciduous forest at the landscape scale. Moreover, saplings occurred at low densities in young forests (paper II) and most interestingly, saplings occurred most in middle-aged forests (20-80 years) and less than expected in younger forests (&lt;20y) (Paper I). Browsing intensity on the different species corresponded with moose food preference and annual home range scale was most relevant for understanding browsing. Browsing on rowan was highest where the volume of deciduous food and overall young forest area were low. Browsing on birch increased when pine volume and mean patch size of young forest increased, whereas browsing on aspen was negatively related to the same variables. Thus, my results strengthen the idea that food selection is a scale-dependent process and that trade-offs between food and cover may exist for moose. Moreover, I conclude that the presence of deciduous species was a result mainly of soil quality, forest management intensity, landscape context and that the distribution of food for moose at landscape scales similar to or larger than their home range may be useful for predicting browsing on the stand scale. I propose that deciduous forests may be valuable predictors of regeneration potential in the forested landscape, and that understory deciduous sapling in middle-aged forests may be important to promote restoration and conservation actions.