Thesis advisor: S. Anukriti / Since the launch of M-PESA in 2007, mobile money has created the potential to increase financial inclusion by providing a safe and convenient place to store wealth. This paper analyzes the impact of mobile money on savings practices in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using 2015 survey data from Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania, I find that mobile money account holders are 10.9 percent more likely to save than non-account holders, holding constant other characteristics. Mobile money has a positive and significant impact on saving for daily consumption, for protection against income shocks, and for business and education investments. In addition, I find that mobile money is a complement to formal savings (bank accounts) and a substitute for informal savings. By increasing saving, mobile money better enables individuals to rely on savings in the event of a negative income shock. These results are consistent with a policy agenda that promotes financial inclusion by increasing access to mobile technologies. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: Economics.

[pt] Esta pesquisa procura entender melhor de que forma as operadoras de telefonia móvel podem configurar suas ofertas de pacotes de produtos e serviços, através de um estudo de percepção de valor por parte dos clientes que já utilizam os serviços. Através de questionários estruturados, procurou-se avaliar a questão da percepção de valor dos usuários, examinando a compensação entre o benefício que se recebe e o sacrifício dispendido para obter esses benefícios. Apesar de o preço ser, na maioria das vezes, o lado do sacrifício na relação de valor, os resultados mostram que os usuários estão dispostos a desembolsar uma quantia até 50 por cento maior para adquirir serviços cujas características sejam mais adequados a seus padrões de uso. / [en] The objective of this research is to understand how mbile phone operators can set their service bundling offers. An exploratory study, followed by a survey made through structured questionaries were done in order to evaluate the customers value perceptions. Value perceptions here is defined as the trade-off between the perceived benefits and the perceived sacrifice to obtain a given benefit. Although most of the times price is the sacrifice side on the perceived value relationship, the results show that on average the customers are willing to pay 50 percent more to have benefits that better fit and control their use standards.

<p>Motivation deficits remain an unmet treatment need in schizophrenia. Recent preclinical research has identified novel mechanisms underlying motivation deficits, namely impaired effort-cost computations and reduced future reward-value representation maintenance, that may serve as more effective treatment targets to improve motivation. The main aim of this study was to test the feasibility and preliminary effectiveness of a translational mechanism-based intervention, MEMS (Mobile Enhancement of Motivation in Schizophrenia), which leverages mobile technology to target these mechanisms with text-messages. Fifty-six participants with a schizophrenia-spectrum disorder were randomized to MEMS (<i>n</i> = 27) or a control condition (<i>n</i> = 29). All participants set recovery goals to complete over eight-weeks. The MEMS group also received personalized, interactive text-messages each weekday to support motivation. Retention and engagement in MEMS was high: 92.6% completed 8 weeks of MEMS, with an 86.1% text-message response rate, and 100% reported that they were satisfied with the text-messages. Compared to the control condition, the MEMS group had significantly greater improvements in interviewer-rated motivation and anticipatory pleasure and obtained significantly more recovery-oriented goals at the end of the 8-week period. There were no significant group differences in performance-based effort-cost computations and future reward-value representations, self-reported motivation, quality of life, functioning, or additional secondary outcomes of positive symptoms, mood symptoms, or neurocognition. Results suggest that MEMS is feasible as a relatively brief, low-intensity mobile intervention that could effectively improve interviewer-rated motivation, anticipatory pleasure, and recovery goal attainment in those with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders. </p>

Le but de notre thèse est d’analyser par le moyen des approches interdisciplinaires «douces» des Cultural Studies les pratiques d’utilisation des téléphones portables par les jeunes bulgares (de la génération née après la chute du communisme dans le pays) en tant que bases non seulement de restructuration, mais aussi de création de nouveaux types de micro cultures juvéniles. Nous faisons l’hypothèse que les téléphones portables changent les conditions traditionnelles et les moyens d’exprimer une identité, de préserver l’intégrité d’un groupe d’appartenance, de construire une hiérarchie et des formes d’autorité. D’abord nous présentons le téléphone portable dans la perspective de l’imaginaire social, par les récits qui se reproduisent dans les produits de la culture de masse. Ensuite nous analysons les interprétations que les utilisateurs eux-mêmes donnent aux téléphones portables, ainsi que les moyens dont ils se servent pour créer de nouveaux types de relations sociales ou bien pour légitimer les anciennes, tout en nuançant certaines différences d’âge, de sexe, de statut social dans l’utilisation. A la fin nous montrons que les téléphones portables favorisent une forme de communauté spécifique, notamment l’individualisme en réseau, qui promut un individu capable de choisir et gérer ses loyautés et ses appartenances en tout temps et à tout lieu. Le téléphone portable est la technologie la plus intime, dont l’obtention est considérée comme un rite de passage qui intègre l’individu à la société de communication et à ses idéologies de transparence et de care et qui contribue ainsi à la « domestication » des situations qui lui arrivent. / The aim of this thesis is to analyze the practices of mobile phone use among young Bulgarians (the generation born after the fall of communism in the country), by using the « soft » interdisciplinary approaches of Cultural Studies. These are practices which are bases not only for restructuring of micro cultures, but also for the appearance of new ones. We assume that mobile phones are changing the traditional conditions and ways of expressing identity, of preserving the integrity of a group of belonging, of building hierarchies and forms of authority. In the first place we present the mobile phone in the perspective of the social imaginary, by summarizing repetitive discourses in the products of mass culture. Afterwards we analyze the interpretations that users themselves give to mobile phones, and the means they exploit to create new kinds of social relationships or to legitimize the existing ones, while taking into consideration certain differences in use related to age, gender and social status. Finally we show that mobile phones encourage a specific form of community, the networked individualism, which promotes an individual able to choose and manage his loyalties and his allegiances at any time and at any place. The mobile phone is the most intimate technology. Its acquisition is considered to be a rite of passage that marks the transition to the communication society and its ideologies of transparence and care, and which contributes also to the « domestication » of the situations that happen.

This dissertation explores the history and culture of a mobile communication device and practice that has been superseded by today’s networked communication devices. The pager—known later in the 1980s and 1990s as a beeper—has a longer history than most assume. In the early 1950s the device was not a distinct technology in its own right, but a haphazard combination of existing communications technologies: telegraphy, telephony, radio broadcasting, answering services, and hearing aids. These technological origins, and the cultures that support them, are important for broadcast and telecommunications historians, as well as media history and theory in general, for three reasons. First, research on the pager fills a gap in telecommunications history that typically begins with Bell’s wired telephone and ends with wireless mobile car-phones and, later, cellular telephones. Second, the pager’s history contributes to the limited scholarship that has emphasized radio’s many directions after the major broadcast networks left radio for larger television audiences in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Being in-between telephone and radio technology has given the pager somewhat of an identity crisis for historians. Yet this is a silver lining for communication theorists to think about the connection between a medium’s physical form (e.g., a radio is a receiving device that can’t talk back) and its communication form (e.g., a pager was once known as a radio that you would use with the telephone to talk back). Lastly, the pager is not just a technological device, but the embodiment of a rarely discussed form of communication: paging. This project investigates the history of paging as a cultural technique and communication practice. While early pagers utilized both broadcast and telecommunications techniques, paging as a form of communication does not fall clearly within either of those categories. Like being paged over a public intercom system, early paging systems broadcast a message (from one to many) in order to grab the attention of a single individual (one out of many). This form of communication, this project argues, is fundamental for understanding the many contemporary discussions over the publicly-private and privately-public nature of today’s social media services.

<p>The high penetration rate of mobile phones along with the recent technological development has created a whole new marketing medium named mobile advertising filled with possibilities for the advertisers. Earlier studies have although indicated the success of this new advertising channel to depend on user acceptance of receiving mobile ads. Wherefore a study of consumer attitudes towards mobile advertising can be considered necessary in order to create a lucrative business. Even though this topic is relatively new several studies have already been gathered concerning user attitudes towards mobile advertising, mostly in Asian countries. Our paper aims to fill up the research gap by targeting the research to young adults in Sweden and providing thus with a study on young adult attitudes towards mobile advertising and the factors affecting them, in Sweden.</p><p>To be able to see if any relation between existing literature and empirical data exists four hypotheses have been constructed. This paper has identified user acceptance of advertising, user-based characteristics, advertising characteristics, as a well as mobile service characteristic to be main consumer acceptance drivers of mobile adverting. The four hypotheses set up for the paper could be confirmed with the help of a Pearson correlation test, which showed a significant relationship between all tested variables and a weak positive correlation. The relations are though weaker than the previous literature declares. Further results of this paper indicates that users are in general negative towards mobile advertising, and that permission and incentive based services most likely are to influence consumer attitudes towards the service.</p>

<p>Mobile Phone, without this we can’t think to pass a day in presence. We have found a rapid increase of mobile phone users from a few years ago till now. Day by day the modern technologies allow the mobile phone to become smaller, cheaper, and more reliable. This also creates new possibilities for applications and integrations of the classical broadcast systems and modern mobile phone technologies. One example is the FM transmitter in mobile phone. The FM transmitter in a mobile phone is a “cool” feature which allows listening to the music content in phone on a car or home radio.</p><p> </p><p>This thesis work deals with the near field characterization of FM transmitters in mobile phone applications. The RF scientists and engineers neglect the near field zone because typical RF links operate at distances of many wavelengths away where near field effects are totally insignificant. But in this work we are interested in the near field properties of the FM transmitter. We measured the field intensity at near field and estimated the field strength at the far field region at 3 meters. To measure the field intensity and the effective radiated power we used HR1 near field scanner. As this is a new measurement approach, we made the validation of this system by measuring a reference dipole antenna at 880MHz and then compare the measured results to the CST simulation results. A basic phone model of FM transmitter has been created by CST simulation and a prototype has been made which was also used as our DUT. After validation of the near field measurement system we measured our DUTs (3 models-one cable fed prototype and two active devices) with the near field system and estimate the effective radiated power and field intensity at 3 meter. Furthermore, we measured our DUTs at 3 meter with a far field measurement system with optical fiber connection. A feasible relation between field strength and measured power was defined in order to correlate the near field scanner results with the far field measurement system.</p><p> </p><p>This paper also provides a short design guide line for built in FM antennas by relating the antenna size and placement to input power and the field strength in mobile phone FM transmitter application</p>

The high penetration rate of mobile phones along with the recent technological development has created a whole new marketing medium named mobile advertising filled with possibilities for the advertisers. Earlier studies have although indicated the success of this new advertising channel to depend on user acceptance of receiving mobile ads. Wherefore a study of consumer attitudes towards mobile advertising can be considered necessary in order to create a lucrative business. Even though this topic is relatively new several studies have already been gathered concerning user attitudes towards mobile advertising, mostly in Asian countries. Our paper aims to fill up the research gap by targeting the research to young adults in Sweden and providing thus with a study on young adult attitudes towards mobile advertising and the factors affecting them, in Sweden. To be able to see if any relation between existing literature and empirical data exists four hypotheses have been constructed. This paper has identified user acceptance of advertising, user-based characteristics, advertising characteristics, as a well as mobile service characteristic to be main consumer acceptance drivers of mobile adverting. The four hypotheses set up for the paper could be confirmed with the help of a Pearson correlation test, which showed a significant relationship between all tested variables and a weak positive correlation. The relations are though weaker than the previous literature declares. Further results of this paper indicates that users are in general negative towards mobile advertising, and that permission and incentive based services most likely are to influence consumer attitudes towards the service.

This project has been made in collaboration with the company Tinitell in Stockholm. The purpose of the project is to design mobile phones for children. This report explains all the Design Process, as SVID (Swedish Industrial Design Foundation) describes it. It starts with a research phase and according to its conclusions, a concept generation phase follows. After discussing the possible concepts, the best alternative is selected and developed. The final part of the report is the analysis and conclusions of the whole process. / Detta projekt har genomförts i samarbete med Tinitell i Stockholm. Syftet med projektet är att ta fram en design på mobiltelefoner anpassade för barn i åldrarna fem till elva år. Frågeställningen som skall besvaras i denna uppsats är ”Hur bör dessa telefoner fungera, och hur bör de se ut?” Målet har varit att ta fram en design som är häftig och innovativ men samtidigt enkel och rolig för barn att använda. Den skall även vara en trygghet för föräldrarna då den möjliggör kommunikation mellan förälder och barn vart som helst, när som helst. Projektet började med en omfattande undersökning bestående av observation av barn som hanterar mobiltelefoner, vilka problem som uppstår och vad man kan utveckla för att tillgodose barns behov, utöver detta genomfördes även tre stora enkäter. Barn i olika åldrar hanterar saker på olika sätt beroende på karaktärsdrag, utveckling och beteende. Baserat på detta faktum togs beslutet i början av arbetsprocessen att dela in användaren i tre olika åldersgrupper. Övergångsåren (5- 6 år), mellanåren (7-9 år) samt yngre ungdomsåren (10-11 år). Utifrån de första skisserna valdes tre olika koncept ut, ett för varje åldersgrupp. Trots att alla tre telefoner har samma grundfunktioner har de, beroende på åldersgrupp, olika extra funktioner och olika utformning för att på bästa möjliga sätt passa slutanvändaren. De tre skisserna presenterades för Mats Horn, grundare av Tinitell. De hade dock räknat med att göra en fast investering och valde därför att fokusera på produktion och design för en av modellerna. För att kunna välja ut ett av koncepten genomfördes en ”value opportunity analysis”, efter att ha tolkat resultaten från denna undersökning valdes koncept två (7-9 år) ut för vidareutveckling. Efter att ha gjort flertalet digitala 3D-modeller och provat många olika idéer nådde jag slutligen mitt mål vad gäller design och funktion för telefonen. Resultatet är Tiniphone, en mobiltelefon med touch-screen utformad som ett armband som barnet kan fästa på armen. Alla funktioner i Tiniphone kontrolleras av föräldrarna via en dator. Detta projekt har genomförts parallellt med Tinitell, som jobbar på en liknande produkt. Jag är väldigt nöjd med slutresultatet och jag hoppas att Tinitell kan använda det material jag framställt som hjälp och inspiration för att hitta en slutdesign för telefonen.

The aim of this thesis was to investigate how students, teachers and special teachers use, or may want to use, mobile phones as a resource in everyday schoolwork. An analysis of the result was made base on two main theories. One i Säljös theory about the sociocultural perspective, where artefacts play an important part in the devolopment of human society. The other is Laurillardss thougts of social learning and the use of technology in teaching. The methods used were inquiries and semi-structured interwiews with individuals and groups. The result shows that students in compulsory school use the mobile phone as a calculator and för listening to music as a means to concentrate. Senior high school students use the mobile phone as a calculator, to seek information on the internet, and to communicate aboute schoolwork. The older the students, the more they appreciated the use of the mobile phones calendar and its reminder function. Both students, teachers and special teachers could see benefits in using the mobile phone in schoolwork, for example using apps, making recordings and reading e-books. Older students, and some teachers, wanted to use the mobile phone as a means for accessing shared knowledge.