Background: The endeavour for more effective and personalised health care requires exploration and implementation of new methods. Digital technology solutions may offer increased accessibility and efficiency and have already been proven to be both time- and cost-effective. Increased knowledge of the use and experience of e-health tools among physiotherapists may lay the ground for further development. Objective: To explore and describe the usage and experiences among Swedish physiotherapists' regarding e-health tools and evaluate which are the most used technologies. Method: A digital survey translated with cross-cultural adaptation was sent out to physiotherapists in Sweden invited to participate through digital platforms. Data were descriptively analysed and presented in tables, box diagrams, and statistical analysis was performed in Jamovi with Fisher's exact test. Results: 111 physiotherapists responded to the digital survey, but only 72 completed all of it because of a technical error. One of the most common digital tools to use was technological communication where 70% used it for their patients. The attitudes towards digital tools were generally positive among the respondents, but about 20% was however neutral in their attitude. No significant relationship was found between the variables dependent on digital tools and professional experience (p = 0.61) or to workplace (p = 0.11), respectively. Conclusion: Swedish physiotherapists in this pilot study have a positive attitude towards digital health tools. However, different tools are used to different extents, and many physiotherapists do not consider themselves dependent on them in their professional life. Further investigation is needed about opinions and experiences in the field of e-health, as well as regarding advantages and disadvantages of digital tools for further development and implementation in the clinics. / Bakgrund: Strävan efter mer effektiv och personcentrerad sjukvård kräver kartläggning och implementering av nya metoder. Digitala lösningar kan erbjuda ökad tillgänglighet och effektivitet och har redan visat sig vara både tids- och kostnadseffektiva. Ökad kunskap om användning och erfarenhet av e- hälsoverktyg bland fysioterapeuter kan lägga grunden för vidare utveckling. Syfte: Att utforska och beskriva användning och erfarenheter av e-hälsoverktyg bland svenska fysioterapeuter, och vilka de mest använda verktygen är. Metod: En digital enkät översatt och med tillämpad kulturell anpassning skickades ut till fysioterapeuter i Sverige genom digitala plattformar. Data analyserades och presenterades i tabeller, stapeldiagram och statistisk analys utfördes i Jamovi version 1.6.23.0 med Fishers exakta test. Resultat: 111 fysioterapeuter besvarade den digitala enkäten, men endast 72 genomförde hela pga ett tekniskt fel. Ett av de mest använda digitala verktygen var teknologisk kommunikation, där 70 % använde den till sina patienter. Attityderna till digitala verktyg var generellt positiva bland respondenterna i undersökningen, men ett ungefär 20% var neutrala inom ämnet. Inget signifikant samband hittades mellan variablerna beroende av digitala verktyg och arbetslivserfarenhet (p = 0,61) eller arbetsplats (p = 0,11). Slutsats: Svenska fysioterapeuter i denna pilotstudie har en positiv inställning till digitala verktyg. Olika verktyg används dock i olika utsträckning och många anser inte sig vara beroende av dem i sitt verksamma yrkesliv. Fortsatt forskning behöver göras om åsikter och erfarenheter inom området e-hälsa, samt vad som är fördelar och nackdelar med digitala verktyg. Detta för att möjliggöra att de kan utvecklas vidare och bli mer implementerade i det kliniska arbetet.

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This research examines the relationship between online and offline sales in an omnichannel sales environment centered around the selling of parking spaces. This dissertation consists of a pilot study followed by an expanded study. The studies delved into the effects of e-commerce additions upon traditional brick and mortar revenue channels. The parking industry was selected as the backdrop, given the high degree of current relevant concerns in this space around internet sales-related cannibalization concerns against physical stores, and given the author’s substantial access to relevant research data. Data was collected for an intervention group and a control group from a leading parking management firm with thousands of parking garages located across North America. In the pilot study, and using panel data gathered from the firm, we sought to examine the effects of an online intervention to existing aggregate revenues through the implementation of a new 3rd party e-commerce sales channel (Parkwhiz.com). Under the intervention group, data was collected on 1.7 million revenue transactions over an approximately two-year period, from 2016 through 2018 across 15 parking properties in New York City. The control group consisted of 493,950 revenue transaction entries, also spanning a roughly two-year period from 2016 through 2018, and across 28 different parking properties throughout the City of New York. A fixed-effect model was used for analyzing the data, which came with unforeseen challenges of balance, outlier concerns, and sample size. Ultimately, insignificant results were observed, but these were attributed mainly to difficulties in data structure and sample size (N = 386) of daily revenue observations. Despite those challenges, individual summary statistics showed potential strength in the primary hypothesis, and this motivated further examination. In the expanded study, an adapted approach from the pilot was used to correct for a majority of its shortcomings in the data structure, sample size, balance, and modeling. Further, several moderating components were incorporated to test practice relevant relationships between revenue, the competitive landscape, and online search sessions. Using the same primary hypothesis from the pilot study, the expanded work provided for 15 intervention group properties and 15 control group properties in New York City, with a balanced dataset of 90 days pre-intervention and 90 days post-intervention for each property examined in the year 2018 or 2019. The original hypothesis (H1A) evaluates whether or not an online intervention increases total revenue at a given location. Additional hypotheses (H1B) evaluating whether offline revenue sources are affected by the online intervention, (H2) moderation of revenue by the volume of competition using the same online channel, (H3) moderation of revenue by the volume of parking locations in the marketplace (zip code area) regardless of selling online or offline, and (H4) revenue predicted by the volume of online searches for parking occurring in the marketplace. Sample sizes ranged from N = 3,491 to 5,098 across our various regression models. Our overall H1 outcomes (across four different regression models) showed strong statistical significance with p-values less than 0.001, and moderate R^2 scores between 37%-47% for the online ParkWhiz intervention. Online intervention increases revenue per parking space in the range of $1.171 to $1.196 in the experiment. The results provide support for the proposition that adding an online sales channel to an existing body of physical parking facilities is additive, non-cannibalistic and overall productive for the business. Our H2 and H3 study outcomes were inconclusive, as the moderators were not significant. The tests of the moderating effects in H2 and H3 provided no practical results, other than perhaps anecdotal perception to supplement the other findings. The testing of H4 did show significance in the importance of the assessment of online search demand in a given zip code as an amplifier of the effect of online intervention on parking revenue. Search volume is positively related to a change in the net new revenues. Overall, the analysis generated learnings valuable for future researchers to expand upon through better data gathering, statistical models, and analysis. In totality, the desired contribution of this body of research is to provide today’s brick and mortar business manager with strategic insights into the conditions needed to make healthy e-commerce decisions, based on observable market conditions, in an omnichannel environment that combines online and offline models for maximum aggregate revenue growth. Avoidance or minimization of cannibalization between existing channels and new channels can ensure success. Our work demonstrates several critical aspects of the phenomena of successful online and offline channel cohabitation with practical conclusions for the strategic decision-maker to use in reaching that equilibrium, and leaves a discernible path for future researchers to supplement our efforts with additional moderating variables. Keywords: Omnichannel, cannibalization; externality; brick and mortar; platform; two-sided marketplace; e-commerce; parking; retail; online/offline; distribution; multi-channel; cross-channel; offline-to-online service platform, channel addition, mobile apps. / Business Administration/Strategic Management

Developers often need to re-engineer distributed applications to address changes in requirements, made only after deployment. Much of the complexity of inspecting and evolving distributed applications lies in their distributed nature, while the majority of mature program analysis and transformation tools works only with centralized software. Inspired by business process re-engineering, in which remote operations can be insourced back in house to restructure and outsource anew, this dissertation brings an analogous approach to the re-engineering of distributed applications. Our approach introduces a novel automatic refactoring---Client Insourcing---that creates a semantically equivalent centralized version of a distributed application. This centralized version is then inspected, modified, and redistributed to meet new requirements. This dissertation demonstrates the utility of Client Insourcing in helping meet the changed requirements in performance, reliability, and security. We implemented Client Insourcing in the important domain of full-stack JavaScript applications, in which both the client and server parts are written in JavaScript, and applied our implementation to re-engineer mobile web applications. Client Insourcing reduces the complexity of inspecting and evolving distributed applications, thereby facilitating their re-engineering. This dissertation is based on 4 conference papers and 2 doctoral symposium papers, presented at ICWE 2019, SANER 2020, WWW 2020, and ICWE 2021. / Doctor of Philosophy / Modern web applications are distributed across a browser-based client and a remote server. Software developers need to optimize the performance of web applications as well as correct and modify their functionality. However, the vast majority of mature development tools, used for optimizing, correcting, and modifying applications work only with non-distributed software, written to run on a single machine. To facilitate the maintenance and evolution of web applications, this dissertation research contributes new automated software transformation techniques. These contributions can be incorporated into the design of software development tools, thereby advancing the engineering of web applications.

Yes / Online retailers are increasingly using augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies to solve mental and physical intangibility issues in a product evaluation. Moreover, the technologies are easily available and accessible to consumers via their smartphones. The authors conducted three experiments to examine consumer responses to technology interfaces (AR/VR and mobile apps) for hedonic and utilitarian products. The results show that AR is easier to use (vs. app), and users find AR more responsive when buying a hedonic (vs. utilitarian) product. Touch interface users are likely to have a more satisfying experience and greater recommendation intentions, as compared to AR, for buying utilitarian products. In contrast, a multisensory environment (AR) results in a better user experience for purchasing a hedonic product. Moreover, multisensory technologies lead to higher visual appeal, emotional appeal, and purchase intentions. The research contributes to the literature on computer-mediated interactions in a multisensory environment and proposes actionable recommendations to online marketers.

Technology is becoming more central to people’s lives than ever before, and the most widely embraced technological device on the consumer market are mobile phones. This creates an ever-increasing market place for mobile apps, which during 2016 had revenues amounted to 88.3 billion U.S. dollars. The number is expected to increase, and together is estimated to generate 188.9 billion U.S. dollars in revenues 2020. One of the industries affected by this strong online presence is direct selling, where branded mobile apps have started to be used as a sales tool for sales representatives. The apps aim to facilitate the sales representatives’ daily work and bring new opportunities to engage with the end customers in a more convenient way. However, limited research exists about how the sales representatives experience the branded mobile apps in the industry. The purpose of this paper is to explore the sales representatives’ behavior and attitude towards using branded mobile apps within the direct selling industry. This study has been conducted by a quantitative descriptive and exploratory study using a survey. Sales representatives that placed an order exceeding 100 Euros during the last three weeks in five Western culture countries for one direct selling company were targeted. In total, 460 responses were gathered. The result gave some valuable insights although the initial hypothesized benefits could not be confirmed. The findings instead suggest separate items that contributed the most to sales representatives’ satisfaction and purchase intentions. In order to increase satisfaction among sales representatives, branded mobile apps used in direct sales should 1) facilitate the interaction with the company, 2) be easy to navigate with, 3) provide relevant information, 4) be convenient to shop from, and finally 5) work as a good conversation topic in a social context. Further on, the item identified to have the greatest contribution to purchase intentions is how convenient the app is to shop from, i.e. the same as number 4) above. The future challenge for the direct selling industry and its managers is thus to take advantage of these insights and further study how the attributes more practically can be implemented for their business. By focusing on these actions in the creation and development of branded mobile apps, the direct selling industry can expect to achieve higher satisfaction among their sales representatives and also increase their purchase intentions. / Dagens teknik har blivit en allt mer central del i människors liv, och den vanligaste enheten på konsumentmarknaden idag är mobiltelefoner. Detta har skapat en ständigt ökande marknad för mobilappar, som år 2016 genererade 88.3 miljarder U.S. dollar. Antalet appanvändare framöver förväntas att öka, och tillsammans generera 188.9 miljarder U.S. dollar i intäkter år 2020. En av de branscher som påverkats av denna starka närvaro online är direktförsäljning, där appar har börjat användas som försäljningsverktyg för konsulenterna. Apparna syftar till att underlätta konsulenternas dagliga arbete och ge nya möjligheter att engagera sig med slutkunderna på ett lättare och mer fördelaktigt sätt. Dock existerar det lite forskning och kännedom om hur konsulenterna upplever användandet av appar i branschen. Syftet med detta examensarbete är att undersöka försäljningsrepresentanternas beteende och attityd gentemot att använda appar inom direktförsäljningsbranschen. Studien har varit både beskrivande och undersökande, och har genomförts genom en samla in kvantitativ data med hjälp av en enkätundersökning. Kunder som har lagt en order över 100 Euros de tre senaste veckorna i fem västeuropeiska länder för ett direktförsäljningsföretag har studerats. Totalt erhölls 460 svar. Resultatet gav flertalet värdefulla insikter, även om de initiala hypoteserna syftade till att undersöka olika fördelar inte kunde bekräftas. Resultaten föreslår istället separata aspekter med störst påverkan på hur nöjda konsulenterna är, samt deras köpintentioner. För att öka nöjdheten bland konsulenter bör appar som används i direktförsäljning 1) underlätta samspelet med företaget, 2) vara lätta att navigera med, 3) tillhandahålla relevant information, 4) vara bekväm att handla från och slutligen 5) fungera som ett bra samtalsämne i ett socialt sammanhang. Vidare kunde det ses att den identifierade aspekten som bidrar mest till konsultenternas köpintentioner är hur bekvämt appen är att handla från, det vill säga samma aspekt som identifierades för konsulenters tillfredställelse under nummer 4) ovan. Den framtida utmaningen för direktförsäljningsindustrin och dess chefer är således att utnyttja dessa insikter och studera vidare hur dessa aspekter kan lämpas mer i praktiken för deras företag. Genom att fokusera på dessa åtgärder vid skapandet och utvecklingen av appar kan direktförsäljningsindustrin räkna med att erhålla högre tillfredsställelse bland sina konsulenter, samt att även öka deras köpintentioner.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2018-09-03T12:58:21Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Ana Carolina Simões de Freitas Cabral.pdf: 4968546 bytes, checksum: 97741efc0c80619790afca2e2ea661c2 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-09-03T12:58:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ana Carolina Simões de Freitas Cabral.pdf: 4968546 bytes, checksum: 97741efc0c80619790afca2e2ea661c2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-03-02 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / Not everyone has the ease and pleasure to learn new languages. However, learning languages is increasingly important. With regard to entry into the labor market, for example, 91% of executives from different countries interviewed in the Global English Corporation survey believe that English is the main language of business. In the search for a solution to this issue, combining learning, translation and gamification, the Duolingo application was able to facilitate this task for users of the platform, who got involved and learned languages with the help of it. However, although widely used and well-evaluated in digital stores, under an academic view, many articles criticize its methodology (SANTANA, 2016; MOTA et al., 2016; DUARTE et al., 2016; BOGDAN, 2016; VALADARES et al., 2016; Gavarri, 2016), believing that it is inappropriate for this teaching. But if the methodology used is said to be ineffective, what corroborated for the application to reach so many users? This research aimed to evaluate heuristically (NIELSEN AND MOLICH, 1990; DESURVIRE et al., 2004; MALONE, 1980; PINELLI et al, 2008) the design of Duolingo interface and the way you interact directly with your users by playful aspects, in order to understand the relevance of these in the popularization of the application. In this way, we evaluated the role of user experience in the use of the application, the involvement with the learning offered there and the return to the use of the interface. It was inferred from the obtained results that, in the search for applications that can aid in the learning of foreign languages, it is not only the educational aspects and the contents presented that govern the choice of the users, they also look for easily understandable interfaces and personally satisfying experiences, apt to add intrinsic motivation to learning / Nem todos tem facilidade e prazer em aprender novas línguas. Contudo, aprender idiomas se demonstra cada vez mais importante. No que diz respeito à entrada no mercado de trabalho, por exemplo, 91% dos executivos de países distintos entrevistados na pesquisa da Global English Corporation acredita ser o inglês o principal idioma dos negócios. Na busca de uma solução para essa questão, unindo aprendizado, tradução e gamificação, o aplicativo Duolingo conseguiu facilitar esta tarefa aos usuários da plataforma, que se envolveram e aprenderam idiomas com a ajuda da mesma. Entretanto, apesar de muito utilizado e bem avaliado em lojas digitais, sob um olhar acadêmico, muitos artigos criticam sua metodologia (SANTANA, 2016; MOTA et al., 2016; DUARTE et al., 2016; BOGDAN, 2016; VALADARES et al., 2016; GAVARRI, 2016), acreditando que a mesma seja inadequada para este ensino. Mas se a metodologia utilizada é dita como ineficaz, o que corroborou para que o aplicativo alcançasse tantos usuários? A presente pesquisa buscou avaliar heuristicamente (NIELSEN E MOLICH, 1990; DESURVIRE et al., 2004; MALONE, 1980; PINELLI et al., 2008) o design da interface do Duolingo e a forma como interage diretamente com seus usuários mediante aspectos lúdicos, a fim de compreender a relevância destes na popularização do aplicativo. Desta forma, foi avaliado o papel da experiência do usuário no uso do aplicativo, no envolvimento com o aprendizado ali oferecido e no retorno ao uso da interface. Inferiu-se a partir dos resultados obtidos que, na busca por aplicativos que possam auxiliar no aprendizado de línguas estrangeiras, não são apenas os aspectos educacionais e os conteúdos apresentados que regem a escolha dos usuários, estes buscam também interfaces facilmente compreensíveis e experiências pessoalmente satisfatórias, aptas a adicionar motivação intrínseca ao aprendizado

As mobile devices are nowadays used regularly and everywhere, their energy consumption has become a central concern for their users. However, mobile applications often do not consider energy requirements and users have to install and try them to reveal information on their energy behavior. In this paper, we compare mobile applications from two domains and show that applications reveal different energy consumption while providing similar services. We define microbenchmarks for emailing and web browsing and evaluate applications from these domains. We show that non-functional features such as web page caching can but not have to have a positive influence on applications' energy consumption.

This paper explores how known machine learning techniques can be applied in unique ways to simplify software and therefore dramatically increase its usability. As software has increased in popularity, its complexity has increased in lockstep, to a point where it has become burdensome. By shifting the focus from the software to the user, great advances can be achieved by way of simplification. The example problem used in this report is well known: suggest local dining choices tailored to a specific person based on known habits and those of similar people. By analyzing past choices and applying likely probabilities, assumptions can be made to reduce user interaction, allowing the user to realize the benefits of the software faster and more frequently. This is accomplished with Java Servlets, Apache Mahout machine learning libraries, and various third party resources to gather dimensions on each recommendation. / text

M. Tech. Information Technology / Voting is a widely spread and democratic way of making decisions. For centuries, South Africa has been using the popular paper-based voting system though it does not provide the desirable blend of accessibility and efficiency. Missing ballot papers, invalid votes and miscount are some of the challenges that come with the paper-based voting system. Time is precious to everyone and correct information is even more precious in the fast-paced information technology era. Merging all these together we look in for easier, effective, efficient and time managing way of casting a vote. Mobile phones facilitate communication and rapid access to information and their diffusion has reached a larger proportion of the population in a short period of time. In this thesis, we propose designing and developing a mobile phone voting system, which allows users to vote spontaneous and timeous, using existing mobile phone networks and technologies via their mobile phones.