The advertising climate is very dynamic; media and the way companies advertise have evolved countless times since the end of the 19thcentury. Advertising spending in print-based media has been steadily decreasing in Europe during the past years, whereas advertising spending online and on television has been increasing.The emergence of social media as an advertising medium has significantly impacted the advertising climate. Even though it is not yet fully matured, some advertisers believe social media to be the ideal medium, and perhaps the primary medium, to be utilized as an advertising channel in the future. Others believe that the enormous amount of online clutter will be its Achilles heel, hindering its effectiveness in the future. The purpose of this degree project was to study how ad-space buyers perceive different media channels and understand how these perceptions influence the selection of media. Our aim was to fill the research gap of whether the task-media fit hypothesis is applicable in an advertising setting.During our research we have conducted a qualitative study, gathering data through semi-structured interviews from some of the largest media agenciesand ad-space buyersin Northern Europe. We have incorporated a deductive research approach, thus incorporating elements from both the inductive and deductive research approaches. During the course of our study, we have developed our theoretical framework based on communication theories.The purpose of this study is to investigate the role media richness has in advertising. We have striven to gain an understanding of how ad-space buyers perceive different media channels in terms of richness and how these perceptions influence the media selection process.We can conclude that ad-space buyers in fact perceive media types to possess different levels of media richness, and that these perceptions influencethe media selection process based on the communication strategy at hand. However, we can also conclude that regardless of how rich the media is,the ad-space buyer will not select it if the price is too high. Thus,the media selection is therefore not cost-effective.

Burned forests provide plenty of dead wood that can host rare and threatened species, especially fire dependent species that need charred wood to survive. Few studies have investigated the difference in lichen assemblages on dead wood in forests that have burned with those that have not. In this study lichens on snags of Pinus sylvestris in burnt and unburnt areas of Tyresta national park and nature reserve were investigated, with the aim to assess differences in lichen diversity and richness. In total 42 trees were analysed, and 25 species were identified. No threatened or rare species were found in the burnt area, possibly as none of the snags were charred. There was no significant difference in diversity or richness between burnt and unburnt areas. However, lichens were generally more abundant in the burnt area where the light levels also were higher, especially on the northern sides of the snags. Only macrolichen species were significantly more abundant in the burnt area. The species composition in the areas differed slightly with a majority of microlichen species in the unburnt area while the burnt area had equally many macro- and microlichen species. However, several species of microlichen were missing in the burnt area. Together with previous studies this could indicate that microhabitats forming post-fire are favourable for some lichen but not for others. Further studies are needed to confirm which species are favoured by burning to optimize the restoration and managing of burned forests as well as the conservation of threatened species.

O presente trabalho tem por objetivo discutir a relação homem-natureza no Tesouro Descoberto no Máximo Rio Amazonas, obra escrita pelo jesuíta João Daniel, em meados do século XVIII. Expulso pelo ministério pombalino em 1757, o jesuíta, nos catorze anos em que ficou preso em Portugal, escreveu uma extensa obra sobre a região amazônica, na qual traça um panorama de sua natureza, suas populações e sua cultura. Seus escritos, entretanto, têm por objetivo apresentar um programa de reformas nos métodos de aproveitamento das riquezas naturais da região no intuito de fomentar o aumento do Estado. Seu projeto conta com duplo alicerce: os tesouros descobertos na região e a experiência que serve de guia para o desenvolvimento dos métodos mais adequados de usufruto dos tesouros. / This paper aims to discuss the relationship between men and nature in \"Tesouro Descoberto no Máximo Rio Amazonas\", a book written by the Jesuit João Daniel, in the middle of the eighteenth century. Banned by the pombaline ministry in 1757, João Daniel, during the fourteen years while he was arrested in Portugal, wrote an extensive work on the Amazon region, which depicts its nature, people and culture. His writings, however, aim to present a program of reforms in the methods of exploitation of that region\'s natural resources in order to foment the growth of the state. His project is based on two principles: the treasures discovered in the region and the experience that serves as a guide for the development of more appropriate methods of using the mentioned treasures.

Urban forests play key roles in animal and plant biodiversity and provide important ecosystem services.  Habitat fragmentation and expanding urbanization threaten biodiversity in and around urban areas.  Saproxylic beetles can act as bioindicators of forest health and their diversity may help to explain and define urban-forest edge effects.  I explored the relationship between saproxylic beetle diversity and distance to an urban area along nine transects in the Västra Götaland region of Sweden.  Specifically, the relationships between abundance and species richness and distance from the urban-forest boundary, forest age, forest volume, and tree species ratio was investigated Unbaited flight interception traps were set at intervals of 0, 250, and 500 meters from an urban-forest boundary to measure beetle abundance and richness.  A total of 4182 saproxylic beetles representing 179 species were captured over two months.  Distance from the urban forest boundary showed little overall effect on abundance suggesting urban proximity does not affect saproxylic beetle abundance.  There was an effect on species richness, with saproxylic species richness greater closer to the urban-forest boundary.  Forest volume had a very small positive effect on both abundance and species richness likely due to a limited change in volume along each transect.  An increase in the occurrence of deciduous tree species proved to be an important factor driving saproxylic beetle abundance moving closer to the urban-forest.  Overall, analysis showed inconsistent effects on both abundance and richness as functions of proximity to the urban-forest boundary.  Urban edge effects, forest volume, forest age, and forest tree species make up are all variables that may effect saproxylic abundance and species richness.  Forest managers should consider these variables when making management decisions.

The aim of this master thesis is to investigate the design of the reference service and its development that Internet has caused in college/university libraries when it comes to the service provided to the user. I want to examine the quality of this development from the view of the librarians, and also investigate their attitude and how they deal with this development.The following questions were asked:•How has Internet changed the reference service at college/university libraries?•How do the librarians look upon the possible change of quality in the reference service when the Internet is involved?•What attitude do the librarians hold toward this development where Internet is used in the reference service and how do they deal with it?The method used was qualitative interviews. A total of six librarians from Blekinge tekniska högskola, Halmstad högskola, Lunds universitet and Växjö universitet have been interviewed.The theories and models used were “media richness”, a quality framework including “quality aspects of a service”, and social psychology and its “reasons for a positive/negative attitude on an organisations change”.The result shows that Internet has brought more sources of information and additional ways to contact the library. It also shows a change in “how” and “where” the search is conducted. Furthermore the study indicates that the quality of service was not affected by Internet and that the librarians were positive towards the change and handled with it through education and “technical support” among other things. / Uppsatsnivå: D

During the last two decades, a broad spectrum of short- and long-term studies on different taxonomic groups has enriched our understanding about how dynamics of taxonomic and ecological diversification have changed through geologic time. There are two major issues that have impacted these studies: the quality and quantity of data used are often insufficient in various ways and the methods used may produce results that are more equivocal than supposed. To investigate these issues more fully, this dissertation focuses on studies on two major aspects: 1) short-term studies examining the nature of successful and unsuccessful predatory attacks on Plio-Pleistocene bivalves; and 2) a Phanerozoic-scale project examining trends in bivalve richness and ecological differentiation. The short-term studies, focusing on shell-breaking predation on bivalves, have shown that the existing methodologies which only study either successful or unsuccessful component of predation in isolation are fraught with potential issues in developing effective interpretations. When these two components (i.e., successful and unsuccessful) are studied in tandem as was done here, however, traces of predation can be used to better constrain potential paleoecological interpretations related to predation intensity, predator's attack strategies, and predator-prey dynamics. The long-term project includes two Phanerozoic studies on bivalves' taxonomic and ecological richness. The taxonomic study has shown how the elements included in various datasets used can affect the Phanerozoic richness trajectory of bivalves. The revised and newly compiled dataset developed here reveals that bivalves showed three major episodes of diversification - a Ordovician radiation of orders and families, a Mesozoic diversification of families, and a dramatic Cenozoic rise in the total number of genera - all of which were synchronous with ecological diversification in terms of appearances of new life forms capable of colonizing new ecospace (i.e., cubes). However, these synchronous changes in taxonomic-ecologic richness were influenced by many biotic (e.g., predation, competition, and adaptive innovations) and abiotic (e.g., nutrient availability, sea level, and temperature) components, for which I propose a multilevel mixed model such that all these components can be studied in tandem.

Les termites forment un groupe animal important en milieu tropical, où leur richesse spécifique est plus élevée que dans n’importe quel autre écosystème. Ils se nourrissent de matière organique végétale à différent état de décomposition, du bois dur à la matière organique minérale du le sol. Cette diversification du régime alimentaire ne se produit que chez les Termitidae, parfois appelés « termites supérieurs », alors que les autres familles se nourrissent exclusivement de bois ou d’herbe. Les termites humivores sont extrêmement abondants en Amérique du Sud et en Afrique tropicale, mais sont relativement peu étudiés par rapport aux termites xylophages. C’est particulièrement vrai pour le groupe Anoplotermes, qui représente le groupe de termites le moins bien connu. Ce travail vise à faire la lumière sur l’écologie et la diversité de ce groupe strictement humivore, et comprend les sections suivantes : (1) Des échantillonnages standardisés dans sept sites de Guyane Française ont révèle, avec quelques exceptions, que les termites xylophages sont relativement peu spécialisés à un site. Au contraire, les espèces du groupe Anoplotermes, ainsi que les termites humivores en général, sont spécialisés à un type de forêt. Cette spécialisation contribue plus que probablement à la diversification écologique, et donc, à une augmentation de la richesse spécifique des termites humivores. (2) En utilisant les ratios d’isotopiques δ13C et δ15N, nous avons aussi trouvé qu’il existe une spécialisation des espèces le long d’un gradient d’humification chez le groupe Anoplotermes, de l’interface entre le bois pourri et le sol au sol pauvre en matière organique. Donc, au moins deux facteurs favorisent la richesse spécifique du groupe Anoplotermes dans le sol, malgré le manque d’évidence pour une séparation spatiale et temporelle entre les espèces. Cette spécialisation spécifique réduit la compétition interspécifique aux espèces se nourrissant de matière organique au même état de décomposition. (3) Ce mécanisme n’est probablement pas restreint aux espèces du groupe Anoplotermes et le ratio isotopique δ15N varie considérablement entre les termites humivores de manière générale. Les termites humivores comptent des espèces avec des régimes alimentaires différents ne partageant pas toujours les mêmes niches écologiques. Cette diversification du régime alimentaire ne c’est pas produit de manière aléatoire durant l’évolution des termites et les espèces proches tendent à se nourrir du même substrat. (4) Au niveau intraspécifique, il semble que la compétition contraigne la dynamique des colonies. En effet, chez A. banksi, nous avons trouvé que les nids matures sont surdispersés. Les nouveaux nids se trouvent principalement à une certaine distance des nids établis, plus particulièrement dans les trous laissés par les nids morts. Si ce patron est le résultat d’une sélection des sites de nidification, ou plutôt d’une exclusion compétitive reste sujet à discussion, mais met néanmoins en évidence la présence de compétition chez les termites humivores du groupe Anoplotermes. (5) Au vu de la richesse spécifique locale du groupe Anoplotermes, le nombre d’espèces décrites reste remarquablement bas. Après inspection du matériel type, seuls 30 espèces du groupe se sont avérés valides en Amérique du Sud, alors que 80% des espèces que nous avons collectées sont nouvelles pour la science. Cette disproportion entre ce qui est connu et la diversité réelle du groupe, met en évidence le besoin de réaliser des études supplémentaires pour améliorer la connaissance de ce groupe peu connu, le groupe Anoplotermes.

Following the booming of global e-business, the demand for online negotiations is growing apparently. Recently, instant messaging (IM) software such as Microsoft MSN, Yahoo messenger has become very popular synchronous communication tool. Although the instant messaging tools make people can negotiate or communicate with each other synchronously over the Internet, in terms of the richness of communication media, instant messaging is leaner than that of traditional face-to-face. Previous studies have demonstrated that the media richness of communication has effect on negotiation behavior and result. To improve the richness of the instant messaging, many instant messaging tools have provided a variety of emoticons for user. Due to the popularity of instant messaging and emoticon usage, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of emoticons on synchronous e-negotiation environment. In this study, we conducted a lab experiment to simulate synchronous negotiations. The findings reveal that emoticons have effects on negotiation process and negotiators¡¦ communication ability.

The purpose of this research project is to identify the species-level diversity and distribution of trees within the urban setting of Peel Region (Ontario, Canada) and to determine how these characteristics change as a function of land use type. To address this, alpha diversity (species richness within a community), evenness, and beta diversity (species richness between communities) were calculated for eight distinct land use types within the study area. As well, the influence that a variety of socioeconomic and urban form variables have in determining urban forest composition was examined using regression techniques. Results indicate that significant relationships exist between land use type, species richness and overall tree abundance. Variables reflecting wealth and urban form are also shown to significantly influence tree abundance. The results of this study address issues pertaining to the adaptation, conservation, and management of the region’s urban tree species.

The purpose of this research project is to identify the species-level diversity and distribution of trees within the urban setting of Peel Region (Ontario, Canada) and to determine how these characteristics change as a function of land use type. To address this, alpha diversity (species richness within a community), evenness, and beta diversity (species richness between communities) were calculated for eight distinct land use types within the study area. As well, the influence that a variety of socioeconomic and urban form variables have in determining urban forest composition was examined using regression techniques. Results indicate that significant relationships exist between land use type, species richness and overall tree abundance. Variables reflecting wealth and urban form are also shown to significantly influence tree abundance. The results of this study address issues pertaining to the adaptation, conservation, and management of the region’s urban tree species.