So Sun-Yiu Sunny. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 38-40). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / ABSTRACT --- p.ii-iii / ACKNOLEDGEMENT --- p.iv / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.v / INTRODUCTION --- p.1-3 / Internet in Hong Kong / LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES --- p.4-13 / Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) / Attitudes toward e-shopping / Perceived Social Norm / E-Shopping Experience / Social Economic Status (SES) / Internet Usage / Economic Motivation / Trust / Perceived Control / Channels matching / METHOD --- p.14-18 / Procedure / Measures / RESULTS --- p.19-26 / General Demographics / Technical Demographics / WWW and Internet Usage / Personal Information Disclosure / E-Shopping / Measurement Model / Structural Model / DISCUSSION --- p.27-37 / Attitude and Social Norm / E-Shopping Experience / Channel Appropriateness / Intention for Future E-Shopping / Implications / Limitation and Future Research Direction / REFERENCE --- p.38-40 / TABLE --- p.41-52 / Table 1 to Table11 / FIGURE --- p.53-59 / Figure 1 to Figure5

Thesis (MPH) --University of Limpopo, 2014 / Topic An investigation of the visual and systemic symptoms experienced by computer users at the National Home Builders’ Registration Council (NHBRC) and British Petroleum (BP) in Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, South Africa. Background The repetitive use of computers in the working places results in the visual and ergonomic disorders that affect the computer users adversely. The computer users experience fatigue which causes visual symptoms such as eyestrain, blurred vision, heaviness of the eyelids or forehead, dry eyes, sensitivity to light and irritatedeyes. The ergonomic disorders like neck pain, backache and wrist pain are also experienced by computer users. These conditions are collectively called Computer Vision Syndrome which is considered as an occupational hazard. Uncorrected refractive errors and binocular anomalies can contribute to these symptoms. The visual and systemic symptoms that affect the computer users in the workplace need to be investigated. Purpose The purpose of the study was to subjectively investigate the visual and systemic symptoms experienced by computer users in the two selected companies in Gauteng Province South Africa. Methodology Structured questions, (open and close ended) were used to obtain information needed for this study. The questions covered demographic as well as information relating to the use of the computer such as the duration of working on computer, the offices/working environment, the appearance and the distance of the screen to the eyes, the working station and visual devices et cetera. Results Participants included 47 (72.3%) females and 17 (26.2%) males and their ages ranged from 20 to 59 years with the mean of 39.5 and the standard deviation of ± 13.1years. Many (80%) of the participants between the ages of 20 to 29 years reported experiencing eye strain. The highest (75%) percentage of slow refocus was reported by the participants that were between the ages of 30 to 39 years. Most males (58.8%) reported experiencing eye strain, slow refocus and headaches associated with computer use. The majority of the females (63.8%) reported experiencing eye strain, while (59.6%) experienced slow refocus and (51.1%) suffered from headaches. A higher percentage of males (23.5%) experienced wrist pain while lower (14.9%) of females experienced wrist pain. No males (0.0%) reported back pain and only a small (8.5%) of females reported back pain. Conclusion Based on the above findings, it is concluded that visual and the systemic symptoms associated with the use of the computer affected most of the workers from the two companies. The factors that may lead to the various symptoms experienced may be ergonomic (environmental) or visual or a combination of these. The environmental factors can be the angle of gaze to the computer screen or the illumination of the working area, while visual factors could be uncorrected refractive error or binocular anomaly. Other factors may include age and working for prolonged time looking at the computer monitor. These factors may then leads to symptoms like eye strain, slow refocus, blurred vision, headaches, dry eyes and systemic symptoms such as neck pain.

Bakgrund och problemformulering - Vi har valt att studera och analysera i vilket avseende det sker user innovation på ett forum skapat av företaget Salesforce. Forumet är ett brand community för användare som utvecklar Salesforce tjänster. Frågeställningarna behandlar om det sker olika typer av user innovation och vad det är som driver användarna till att innovera på det forum vi har valt att studera. Vår studie syftar till att bidra med en bredare kunskap och förståelse kring ämnet då det finns begränsad forskning kring user innovation inom online brand communities idag. Teori - Begreppet brand communities förklaras utifrån Muniz och O’Guinns (2001) synsätt som innebär att ett online brand community är en samlingsplats på internet dedikerat till ett specifikt varumärke. På vårt valda brand community innoverar användarna och vi utgår från Gault (2012) för att redogöra för begreppet innovation som i sin tur möjliggör en fördjupad förståelse för user innovation. Vi utgår från en definition av user innovation som innebär att användare innoverar för sin egen skull (von Hippel & Euchner 2013). Metodologi - Vi eftersträvar en djupare förståelse för user innovation på vårt specifika forum och då lämpar sig en kvalitativ explorativ ansats bäst. Inspiration har hämtats från Kozinets (2006, 2011) kvalitativa metod netnografi som innebär en deltagande-observerande forskning på nätet. Resultat - I detta avsnitt presenterar vi de likheter och skillnader som Salesforce forum har med Muniz och O’Guinns (2001) kriterier för vad ett brand community är. Vidare presenteras vårt resultat i form av två kategorier av user innovations: modifierade innovationer och skapande innovationer. Kategorierna förklaras och illustreras med exempel som klargör deras innebörd. Analys och diskussion - I analysen diskuterar vi vad som driver användarna på vårt valda forum att innovera och analyserar likheter och skillnader med redan befintliga teorier kring user innovation. Vi resonerar oss fram till en ny term vi väljer att kalla user co-innovation samt spekulerar i huruvida innovationerna genererar någonting för Salesforce. Slutsats - Vårt teoretiska bidrag till forskningen presenteras genom vår modell som illustrerar sambandet mellan user innovation, user co-innovation och våra två kategorier. Modellen innefattar vilka användare som innoverar, vilkafaktorer som driver dem till att innovera och resultatet av user co-innovation på vårt valda brand community.Nyckelbegrepp - Innovation, user innovation, lead users, brand community, online community, netnografi. / Background and problematization -We have chosen to study to what extent user innovation occurs on a forum created by the company Salesforce. This forum is a brand community devoted to user development of Salesforce services. Our main research question is whether there occur different types of user innovations on the brand community we are studying and what it is that drives these users to innovate. Our study aims to contribute with a wider knowledge and understanding of user innovation on brand communities since the research of today on the subject is limited. Theory - In this chapter we explain the concept of brand community based on Muniz and O’Guinns (2001) definition which implies that an online brand community is an online meeting place for people dedicated to a specific brand. User innovation occurs on our chosen brand community and we base ourselves on Gaults (2012) theory to explain innovation in order to explain the term user innovation. We use one definition of user innovation which implies that users innovate for themselves (von Hippel & Euchner 2013). Methodology - We seek a deeper understanding of user innovation on our specific brand community and that makes a qualitative exploratory approach best suited. Inspiration has been taken from Kozinets (2006, 2011) netnography which is a qualitative method and involves participatory observation research online. Results - In this chapter we present the similarities and differences that we have been able to identify between Salesforce forum and the criteria for a brand community set by Muniz and O’Guinn (2001). Furthermore we introduce our result which consists of two categories of user innovations: modified innovations and creativity innovations. The categories are explained and illustrated with examples that clarify their meaning. Analysis and discussion - In this chapter we discuss what drives users on our chosen brand community to innovate and analyze similarities and differences between already existing theory on user innovation. Our discussion results in a new term which we choose to name user co-innovation. We also speculate whether the user innovations generate something of value for Salesforce. Conclusion - Our theoretical contribution to the subject is presented by our model that illustrates the connection between user innovation, user co-innovation and our two categories. The model includes which users that innovate, the factors driving them to innovate and the results of user co-innovation on our chosen brand community.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wollongong, 2007. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references: leaf 331-363.

ABSTRACT Keywords: Users, Innovation, User driven innovation, Design, Mobile, Products/services, benefits. User driven innovation helps companies to compete in a global market by developing what the customers or end users want. So users are considered as a resource for companies developing mobile products/services because user driven innovation process is mainly carried out by the end users or user firms/partner companies. The companies perceive the needs and wishes of the users through their involvement in idea creation, design, development and feedback. Mobile companies involve users in their innovation process in different phases but they have no standard guidelines regarding which type of users to be involved in which phases of the innovation process. This thesis work is aimed at filling this research gap. Qualitative research methodology was used to carry on this research work. The literature review provided the current status of research in the problem domain. Then industrial and academic interviews were conducted on the basis of the findings of the literature review. Finally, a short survey was conducted in mobile companies to validate our findings from literature review and interviews. There are major four phases of the innovation process: Exploration, Idea creation, Idea selection and Commercialization. We identified four types of users to be involved in the innovation process i.e. Ordinary end users, corporate users/partner companies, and professional/expert users and lead users. Mobile companies should involve users in different innovation phases of the innovation process by using different methods like diary search, explorative interviews, workshops, market test and field tests. So it is beneficial to involve different types of users in phases of the innovation process by using different methods.

This research is concerned with some aspects of the retrieval of information from database systems by casual, naive computer users. A "casual user" is defined as an individual who only wishes to execute queries perhaps once or twice a month, and a "naive user" is someone who has little or no expertise in operating a computer and, more specifically for the purposes of this study, is not practiced at querying a database. The research initially focuses on a specific group of casual, naive users, namely a group of clinicians, and analyzes their characteristics as they pertain to the retrieval of information from a computer database. The characteristics thus elicited are then used to create the requirements for a database interface that would, potentially, be acceptable to this group. An interface having the desired requirements is then proposed. This interface consists, from a user's perspective, of three basic components. A graphical model gives a picture of the database structure. Windows give the ability to view different areas of the database, physically group together items that come under one logical heading and provide the user with immediate access to the data item names used by the system. Finally, a natural language query language provides a means of entering a query in a syntax (that of ordinary English) which is familiar to the user. The graphical model is a logical abstraction of the database. Unlike other database interfaces, it is not constrained by the model (relational, hierarchical, network) underlying the database management system, with the one caveat that the graphical model should not imply any connections which cannot be supported by the management system. Versions of the interface are implemented on both eight-bit and sixteen-bit microcomputers, and testing is conducted in order to validate the acceptability of the interface and to discover the level of graphical model which the users find most acceptable. The results of this testing are reported and further areas for research suggested.

No description available.

Social media has become an important means of everyday communication. It is a mechanism for “sharing” and “resharing” of information. While social network platforms provide the means to users for resharing/reblogging (aka retweeting), it remains unclear what motivates users to share. Predicting the spread of content is quite important for several purposes such as viral marketing, popular news detection, personalized message recommendation and on-line advertisement. Social content systems store all the information produced in the interactions between users. However, to turn this data into information that allows us to extract patterns, it is important to consider the different phenomena involved in these interactions. In this work, two phenomena that influence the evolution of networks are studied for Twitter: diffusion of information and communication among users. Previous studies have shown that history of interaction among users and properties of the message are good attributes to understand the retweet behavior of users. Factors like content of message and time are less investigated. We propose a prediction model for retweet actions of users. It formulates a function which ranks the users according to how receptive they are to a particular message. The function generates a confidence score for the edges joining the initiator of the message and the followers. Two different pieces of information propagate through different users in the network. We divide the task of calculating confidence score into two parts. The first part is independent of the test tweet. It models transmission rate of the tie between the initiator and the follower. We call this as ‘Pairwise Influence Estimation’. The second part incorporates the tweet properties and user activeness as per time in the ranking function. The proposed model exploits all the dimensions of information dif-fusion process-influence, content and temporal properties. We have captured local aspects of diffusion. It has been observed that users do not read all the messages on their site. This results in shortcomings in the above models. Considering this, we first study the temporal behavior of users’ activities, which directly reflects their availability pertaining to the upcoming post. Also, as it is a continuous task of predicting retweet behavior, we design a user-centric, and temporally localized incremental classification model by considering the fact that users do not read all their tweets. We have tested the effectiveness of this model by using real data from Twitter. We demonstrate that the new proposed model is more accurate in describing the information propagation in microblog compared to the existing methods. Our model works well when we consider different classes of users depending on their activity patterns. In addition, we also investigate the parameters of the model for different classes of users. We report some interesting distinguishing patterns in retweeting behavior of users.

M.A. (Information Science) / The study was undertaken to explore the remote users of services available public university libraries in Kenya. Scarce literature was available locally on the subject of the study. Provision of quality and relevant information services to support teaching, learning and research remains a central objective of libraries in higher education world over. Higher education institutions in Kenya continue to experience unprecedented growth in student population against limited human capital and physical infrastructure, among the library services. This reality has prompted Universities to adopt different education delivery models; distant learning, e-learning, and part time modules to accommodate the extra numbers seeking higher education. Depending on the preferred module, the students can be categorized into three main groups: on-campus, off-campus and remote user groups. Higher learning standards require that all users to have equitable and inclusive access to resources. This study explores the nature and availability of support services and resources available for remote library users in public university libraries in Kenya. The research methodology adopted was a descriptive research design; where qualitative data was collected using Focus Group Discussions (FGDs). The findings revealed that public university libraries in Kenya have various forms of resources and services that can support remote user needs. However they face certain challenges that hinder the use of the available remote user resources and services in providing equitable access to information services to all its types of users. Key among the challenges was that remote users were not identified as a special user group in the libraries studied contrary to what the study grounded. The results of the study are discussed under three main thematic areas: services for remote users, facilities available for remote users, and policies and regulations that govern remote use of library resources. Equally included in the study are discussions, conclusions and recommendations based on the findings besides identified informational gaps for further research. / Information Science

Tato práce se zabývá srovnáváním pervitinových a opiátových uživatelů zejména z pohledu kontaktního centra. Teoretická část se zabývá stimulačními drogami, opioidy a srovnáním těchto dvou skupin návykových látek. Tato část se rovněž zabývá závislostí, problémovým užíváním a nízkoprahovými zařízeními. Výzkumná část si klade za cíl získání podrobnějších informací o rozdílech v návštěvnosti kontaktního centra mezi těmito skupinami uživatelů, získání podrobnějších informací o rozdílech využívání jednotlivých služeb nabízených kontaktním centrem mezi těmito skupinami a vytvoření základů pro další podobné studie. Pro výzkum byla stavena nulová hypotéza: problémoví uživatelé pervitinu a uživatelé opiátů během svého prvního roku využívání služeb kontaktního centra toto centrum navštěvují ve stejné míře. V práci je položeno šest výzkumných otázek, které se ptají na poměr uživatelů opiátů a pervitinu, rozdíly ve vzdělání těchto uživatelů a na samotné rozdíly ve využívání jednotlivých služeb. Pro řešení zvoleného problému jsem si vybrala kvantitativní design. Výzkum zpracovává data od celkem 273 problémových uživatelů pervitinu a opiátů. Respondenti pro tuto studii byli vybráni záměrným (účelovým) výběrem přes instituci a jedná se o data již zaznamenaná v databázi programu FreeBase od 1. 1. 2006 do 31. 12....