A consumer research panel is a representative collection of individuals whose consumption habits are continually monitored by a marketing research company. It is designed to study the behaviour rather than the attitudes of consumers in the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector. The analysed and interpreted reports help the retailer and manufacturing clients to better understand their markets and the changing dynamics within markets which are largely overseen by retail studies. It is shown that consumer research panels have a very high per panellist cost due to the nature of the data collection methodologies currently used being either very labour-intensive with the in-home interviewer visits, or due to the cost of the technology needed when using an in-home audit terminal to scan the barcode of items. The ubiquitous use of the mobile phone begs the question whether this technology, already in the hands of people, could be used as a data collection device. In 2007, Robert Adelmann demonstrated that it is possible to recognise linear barcodes using a mobile phone equipped with a camera and a barcode recognition algorithm. Three requirements are set for a mobile phone to be used as a data collection device in a consumer panel and are indicated by various studies researching each, focused on Gauteng, South Africa. The technology is shown to be quick and accurate enough to be used in everyday barcode scanning albeit not very prevalent among the responding sample. The data communication infrastructure needed to communicate the audited data was found to be 100% present although few of the respondents displayed their interest in joining a research panel based on mobile phones. It is, therefore, recommended that a phone-based consumer panel be used to supplement existing consumer panels to extend in hard-to-reach demographics like the upper-LSM households, and that the privacy and usage concerns raised by the respondents be addressed. It is also recommended that similar studies be conducted in developed economies where required mobile phone technology could be more prevalent. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2010.

Kriminalvården är den myndighet i Sverige som ansvarar för fängelser, häkten och frivård. Myndigheten har länge känt ett behov att inom flera verksamheter kunna få tillgång till delmängder av deras klientsystem i ett mobilt och uppkopplat format. Det största hindret i deras fall med mobilitet och applikationsteknik var säkerheten. Därför genomfördes en riskanalys med hänsyn till frivården och mobilapplikationsteknik. För att välja en lämplig och passande riskanalysmetod jämförde vi ett antal metoder. Det visade sig att metoden CORAS passade bäst. När vi väl genomfört riskanalysen med CORAS försökte vi sedan matcha åtgärderna mot de olika mobilplattformarnas egenskaper för att se hur de kan fullfölja åtgärderna. Mobilplattformarna vi undersökte var Android, Windows Phone 8 och iOS. Resultatet av riskanalysen och jämförelsen av plattformar kan ligga som grund till beslut hos Kriminalvården. / Kriminalvården is the government agency in Sweden which is responsible for prisons, jails and probation. The agency has realized a need of access to a several features of their inmate register systems from mobiles and handsets within different areas in their organization. The safety with the mobility and application technology is a comprehensive issue in this case. Therefore, a risk analysis about mobile application technology was initiated. We took the probation services into account as a concrete scenario where mobile application technology could be used. In order to select an appropriate and adequate risk analysis method, we compared a number of methods. It turned out that the method CORAS was the most suitable method. When we completed the risk analysis with CORAS, we tried to match the treatments against different mobile platforms properties to see how they can pursue the treatments. Mobile platforms we examined were Android, Windows Phone 8 and iOS. The result of the risk analysis and the comparison of mobile platforms can the agency use as a basis for further decisions.

Since smart homes will be more and more popular in the future, the needs of finding a friendly, comfortable and smart interface between users and home environments are growing. However, conventional interfaces have reached their limits. So, this paper describes a new concept of interface in a home environment. This work is distinguished by building a separable smart robot. A smart phone is used as a brain, and a robot car is used as a body. With the system, people will be allowed to carry the robot's brain when they are out of their home. In this case, the brain can not only be a normal smart phone, but also can monitor parameters such as the temperature at home. On the other hand, when people are at home, they will be allowed to put their phones on the robot car. By invoking the system, they will have an assist-robot. This assist-robot will act as a new interface in the smart home by following people and recognizing their voice commands in order to take notes, to read notes and to control smart home devices. This thesis also implements face recognition to improve the communication between users and the interface. Test results show that our proposed system is well accepted.

Marketers use relationship marketing in order to establish mutually beneficial long-term relationships with their customers as a means to retain these customers in the competitive market environment. Relationship marketing should, however, not be used to target each and every customer as not all customers want to build long-term relationships with organisations. In order to identify the most profitable customers to target through relationship marketing, organisations should consider their customers' relationship intentions to form long-term relationships with them. The primary objective of this study was to determine young adults' (aged 18 to 25) relationship intentions towards the South African cell phone network providers they use, namely Vodacom, MTN or Cell C. This was done by considering the five constructs used to measure relationship intention, namely involvement, expectations, forgiveness, feedback and fear of relationship loss. A focus group was used to determine which features related to cell phone network providers young adults consider when selecting a cell phone network provider. This data was used to develop a self-administered questionnaire, which was distributed among respondents studying at the Potchefstroom Campus of the North-West University in the North-West Provirice. A convenience (non­ probability) sampling method was used and a total of 315 respondents participated in this study. The distribution between the cell phone network providers was Vodacom (115), MTN (101) and Cell C (99). Initial data analysis revealed that 73% of respondents had high relationship intentions, while the remainder (26%) had low relationship intentions of forming long-term relationships with their respective cell phone network providers. By means of a factor analysis it was determined that the five relationship intention factors, namely involvement, expectations, forgiveness, feedback and fear of relationship loss, were valid and reliable to measure the relationship intentions of respondents. The results further indicated that respondents with a t"iigh relationship intention are more involved with thei r cell phone network providers and feared losing thei r relationships with their cell phone network providers more than those respondents with a low relationship intention. Furthermore, respondents from the different cell phone network providers do not view the five factors comprising relationship intention differently, but they do differ with regards to other factors related to cell phone network providers. It was found that the majority of respondents regard Vodacom (not necessarily the respondent's cell phone network provider) as the cell phone network provider with the latest technology, as being the quickest, having the best coverage, best handsets, coolest image and best service. The majority of respondents regard Cell C as being the cheapest and MTN as being the most expensive. Results also indicate that respondents' parents play an important role with regard to the choice of their cell phone network providers as the majority of respondents' parents initially chose the cell phone network providers and pay their cellular expenses. It is recommended that cell phone network providers should target young adults' parents with a view to gain a foothold in the young adult market. Furthermore, it is recommended that cell phone network providers should determine how their customers perceive them as compared with competitors in order to better position themselves and to improve communication with young adults. Most importantly, it is recommended that cell phone network providers should identify those young adults with high relationship intentions (those young adults who are more involved with and fear losing their relationship with the cell phone network provider more) in order to retain them by attempting to build long-term relationships with these young adults through dedicated relationship marketing efforts. Recommendations for future research include examining relationship intention with regards to other age groups (such as scholars and adults), other service industries and other geographical areas. Furthermore, the influence which young adults exert on decisions concerning cell phone network providers and the influence of parents on young adults' product and service choices, can be explored in future research by means of the family decision roles. / Thesis (M.Com. (Marketing Management))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.

With the development of modern technology, mobile communications are changing people’s life and making their day to day life activities easier. The aim of this thesis work is to address one of the modern technology solution that simplifies and act as an HMI solution between a pump drive and a operator based on smart phones.   Xylem provides a wide range of pump control units, serving several advanced features includes condition monitoring, cleaning sequence, flow calculation, energy optimizer, sump cleaning and so on. Smart run is a pump control unit, whose parameters installed at wastewater pump stations are possible to monitor and configure physically using keypad or remotely using extension communication  gateway, which is a costly solution for installations and maintenance. So, a simple working prototype HMI solution based on smart phones is interested to see how smart phone can relay information between a pump control and an operator in the vicinity of the pump.    For this approach a thorough study has been done on different types of smart phones, their trends and different possible wireless communication solutions between  operator’s smart phone  and the pump. An interactive design process with a focus on usability and data representation  on a smart phone application was developed to support their needs and provide a cost effective solution. The result showed that this approach has many benefits includes serving as cost effective HMI solution, data monitoring, better alarm monitoring with additional information, enhanced display over Smart Run’s OLED displays, multilingual support, provides easier support services and also useful as a receiver unit for dewatering pumps hardware developed in parallel with this thesis. This thesis work is carried out in Xylem Water Solutions AB[1], Stockholm, Sweden in collaboration with Mittuniversitetet[2], Sundsvall, Department of Electronics Design.  This report can be used as groundwork for future development of smart phone applications for Xylem products [1]  http://www.xyleminc.com [2]  http://www.miun.se

Den här studien undersöker för- och nackdelar med att migrera existerande mobilaapplikationer till Xamarins crossplatform ramverk Xamarin Forms. Metoden somanvänts för att samla in data är inom ramen för forskningsparadigmet Design Science.En prototyp har utvecklats med syftet att undersöka vad som är möjligt att migrera tillXamarin Forms. Prototyputvecklingen har dokumenterats i loggböcker som sedananalyserats som kvalitativ data. Två intervjuer har även genomförts med andraxamarinutvecklare med syftet att nå en djupare förståelse för ämnet. Studien harproducerat ett flödesschema för när ett beslut om att migrera en existerande applikationtill Xamarin Forms bör tas. Vid beslut om migration har vi även formulerat ett antalriktlinjer som bör efterföljas för att uppnå bra resultat. Flödesschemat och riktlinjerna ärbaserade på resultaten från analysen av loggböckerna och intervjuerna. / This study investigates the pros and cons of migraiting existing mobile applications toXamarins crossplatform framework Xamarin Forms. The method that is being used tocollect data is within the scope of the research paradigm Design Science. A prototype ofan existing mobile application has been developed in order to research the possibilitiesof migraiting existing applications to Xamarin Forms. The development process of theprototype has been documented in journals which later were to be analyzed asqualitative data. Two interviews have been done with other Xamarin developers in orderto get a deeper understanding of the subject. This study produced a flowchart that is tobe used when deciding about a migration of an existing mobile application aswell asguidelines for the migration itself. The flowchart and guidelines are based on analyzingthe data from our journals aswell as our interviews with other developers.

In recent years, spatial data derived from cell phones has become increasingly recognized as a valuable data source for urban analysis. Using a sizeable dataset depicting the physical movements of several million Swedish and Danish cell phones during 24 hours, an analysis of aggregated individual mobility levels and mobility patterns is conducted. The analysis covers two measurements of mobility, total diurnal mobility and commuting mobility. Findings indicate that phone data may provide seminal insights on otherwise scarcely accessible information on how space is experienced and interacted with depending on the individual's residential location. The data is analysed using a broad set of spatial analysis techniques incorporating both statistical and visual representations of spatial mobility and spatial relationships.

There are several potential applications for a high data density barcode that can be easily photographed and decoded by mobile phones, but no such symbology currently exists. As a result, a new barcode was designed to exploit the low-pass characteristic of a camera phone channel and is presented as a means of facilitating wireless optical communication with mobile phones. A channel model was established and subsequent simulation results led to the design of a colour barcode with encoding done in the Discrete Cosine Transform domain. A waterfilling process and a noise-shaping algorithm enhance performance, while a new fast acquisition method allows for rotational and size invariance. An outer Accumulate-Repeat-Accumulate code is employed, followed by an inner Reed Muller code with a rate varying according to spatial frequency. The final barcode data-density is 3.5 times greater than the leading symbology and has proven robust to various impediments imposed by camera phones.

There are several potential applications for a high data density barcode that can be easily photographed and decoded by mobile phones, but no such symbology currently exists. As a result, a new barcode was designed to exploit the low-pass characteristic of a camera phone channel and is presented as a means of facilitating wireless optical communication with mobile phones. A channel model was established and subsequent simulation results led to the design of a colour barcode with encoding done in the Discrete Cosine Transform domain. A waterfilling process and a noise-shaping algorithm enhance performance, while a new fast acquisition method allows for rotational and size invariance. An outer Accumulate-Repeat-Accumulate code is employed, followed by an inner Reed Muller code with a rate varying according to spatial frequency. The final barcode data-density is 3.5 times greater than the leading symbology and has proven robust to various impediments imposed by camera phones.

Thesis (PhD) - Institute for Social Research, Faculty of Life and Social Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, 2007. / Thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Institute for Social Research, Faculty of Life and Social Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, 2007. Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (p. 208-243).