University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of English

This thesis analyzes the relationship between upper extremity musculoskeletal disorders and longtime computer usage. Firstly / maastricht upper extremity questionnaire is applied to Financial Control and Information Technology Departments of Turk Telekom. Results are analyzed by using spss 16.0 tool by conduction of ordinal logistic regression analysis to determine the significance between work environment and postural information and upper extremity musculoskeletal complaints. Then / development of a new tool, namely PACU (postural analysis of computer users), takes place aiming to determine the factors of disorders, by mainly focusing on work-related neck and upper limb disorders, for long time computer users of Financial Control and Information Technology Departments of Turk Telekom. Results of the PACU are analyzed by using the methods of correlation, chi square goodness of fit test, factor analysis, and ordinal logistic regression.

Le design industriel prend en compte l'usage et l'expérience de l'utilisateur (Contexte) pour proposer un concept de produit (fonctionnalités, forme, esthétique, usage, etc.), sur la base d'un problème " mal défini " ou " mal structuré ". L'éco‐conception identifie des variantes, pour maîtriser les impacts environnementaux, sur de nouveaux produits ou propose des pistes d'amélioration de produits existants. Les démarches d'éco‐conception répondent à des enjeux propres à l'entreprise (image, finance, mobilisation en interne, réduction de son impact) mais elles permettent rarement l'intégration et l'apport des autres compétences du projet. Notre hypothèse est que l'approche, les méthodologies et outils de l'éco‐conception ne correspondent pas aux modes de faire de l'activité de design. La compétence design est supposée véhiculer les valeurs d'usage et la vision du contexte produit nécessaire au développement efficient des produits. Aujourd'hui, les designers explorent les actions environnementales. Toutefois, le design ne s'implique pas encore réellement dans la prise en compte des aspects environnementaux (seconde hypothèse). Le designer ne dispose pas d'outils permettant d'évaluer et ses actions de prise en compte de l'environnement ne sont pas reconnues. L'observation et l'analyse de démarches d'éco‐conception, menées par 26 entreprises, montre l'absence majoritaire de prise en compte de l'utilisateur. Cela nous permet de valider notre première hypothèse. Notre troisième hypothèse est que la présence du design au sein de démarche d'éco‐conception permettrait d'intégrer les valeurs d'usage. L'intégration des valeurs d'usage apporterait une plus grande différenciation du produit, et une plus grande homogénéité des actions menées au sein de l'entreprise. Des démarches intégrant l'activité de design résultent des avancées innovantes qui dépassent la simple mise en conformité pour plus d'anticipation. Les démarches sont plus prospectives. Une expérimentation " Cradle to Cradle Design© " dans les entreprises, ou les designers étaient chefs de projet, nous a permis de valider cette troisième hypothèse. On constate la capacité du design à changer le paradigme économique et le business modèle de l'entreprise, et à mobiliser tous les acteurs et compétences du projet sur des sujets innovants vers des problématiques court, moyen et long terme. Cela nous conduit à définir notre question de recherche : Comment permettre l'implication des designers dans les projets de développement de produits et services écoresponsables, dans l'objectif de réintégrer la valeur d'usage ? Avant de pouvoir intégrer les aspects environnementaux dans sa démarche, le designer industriel doit acquérir les compétences environnementales nécessaires à sa présence et son action au sein des démarches de développement de produits. Pour cela, nous proposons une méthodologie d'orientation au design Responsable (MOD‐R) permettant de déterminer les actions d'écodesign, de faire appel à des outils spécifiques à sa fonction et lui permettre d'apporter une réponse responsable. Notre méthode considère que les actions d'écodesign " progressent " : elles s'intéressent au contexte du projet pour finalement aborder le bien ou le service. Elles sont rassemblées autour de trois stratégies que sont le style de vie, la consommation et le bien (ou service). À partir de connaissances et d'objectifs environnementaux, elle met en oeuvre une activité d'écodesign. Elle intègre aux différentes étapes de l'activité et aux outils du design des actions ou des compléments. Le résultat de l'activité d'écodesign permet d'accroître ses propres connaissances en environnement ou, si le résultat n'est pas en conformité avec la demande, de réévaluer ses objectifs initiaux. Enfin, deux designers indépendants, missionné par une entreprise de l'agroalimentaire sur un projet d'emballage pour yaourt, ont suivi et permis de valider la méthodologie Mod‐R.

La tesi esta basada en l'adaptació de l'ús de codons a genomes procariotes, especialment l'adaptació de l'ús de codons a una alta expressió. Hi ha un grup de genomes procariotes, els quals estan sota una selecció traduccional, que tenen un grup de gens amb un ús de codons esbiaixat de la resta de gens del genoma i adaptats a l'abundància dels tRNA. Hem desenvolupat un nou algoritme per a avaluar si un genoma esta sota selecció traduccional i predir els gens altament expressat de tots els genomes sota selecció traduccional. Aquestes prediccions són públiques a la base de dades HEG-DB (http://genomes.urv.cat/HEG-DB), la qual s'ha publicat a la revista Nucleic Acids Research. Les prediccions de gens altament expressats s'han fet servir com a filtre en les prediccions de gens adquirits per transferència horitzontal, ja que els gens altament expressats molts cops son predits com a falsos positius en la predicció de gens adquirits. Amb les dades de la predicció de gens altament expressats, també hem desenvolupat una nova eina Bioinformàtica, anomenada OPTIMIZER (http://genomes.urv.cat/OPTIMIZER) i publicada al Nucleic Acids Research, per tal d'optimitzar l'ús de codons d'un gen per a incrementar la seva expressió en experiments d'expressió heteròloga de proteïnes. També hem estudiat un cas particular d'adaptació de l'ús de codons. El cas de l' 'amelioration', que és l'adaptació de l'ús de codons que pateix un gen inserit en un genoma hoste. Aquest cas l'hem estudiat amb els gens mitocondrials que varen saltar al genoma nuclear i varen haver d'adaptar el seu us de codons mitocondrial a l'ús de codons del genoma nuclear. Per tal d'estudiar l''amelioration', hem desenvolupat un nou índex anomenat CAI esperat (eCAI) i una nova eina Bioinformàtica anomenada CAIcal (http://genomes.urv.cat/CAIcal), que està en procés de revisió a la revista BMC Bioinformatics. Analitzant l'anàlisi de l'ús de codons dels genomes completament sequenciats vàrem realitzar una troballa que s'aparta una mica del tema central de la tesi. Vàrem veure que els genomes que estan adaptats a la (hiper)termofília tenen un patró de l'ús de codons i d'aminoàcids diferent a la resta de genomes (mesòfils). Aquest fet ens ha permès descobrir casos de guany i pèrdua (recents i antics) de la capacitat d'adaptació termofílica en genomes procariotes. Aquests resultats han donat lloc a una publicació a la revista Trends in Genetics. Durant la tesi he realitzat una estada de 4 mesos (Febrer - Juny, 2006) en el laboratori de bioinformàtica del departament de biologia de la universitat nacional d'Irlanda a Maynooth sota la supervisió del Dr James McInerney on vaig desenvolupar un nou programa per a la comparació d'arbres filogenètics anomenat TOPD/FMTS (http://genomes.urv.cat/topd) el qual està publicat a la revista Bioinformatics. / This thesis is based in codon usage adaptation in prokaryotic genomes, especially the codon usage adaptation to a high expression. In genomes under translational selection, the group of highly expressed genes has a codon usage adapted to the most abundant tRNA species. We have developed a new iterative algorithm which predicts a group of highly expressed genes in genomes under translational selection by using the Codon Adaptation Index and the group of ribosomal protein genes as a seed. We have developed a new genomic database, called HEG-DB, to store genes that are predicted as highly expressed in prokaryotic complete genomes under strong translational selection. The database is freely available at http://genomes.urv.cat/HEG-DB and it has been published in Nucleic Acids Research. The predicted highly expressed genes are used as an initial filter to reduce the number of false positives of the Horizontal Gene Transfer Database, due to highly expressed genes are usually false positive in predictions of acquired genes. We have developed a new web sever, called OPTIMIZER (http://genomes.urv.cat/OPTIMIZER), which has been published in Nucleic Acids Research, to optimize the codon usage of DNA or RNA sequences. This new web server can be used to predict and optimize the level expression of a gene in heterologous gene expression or to express new genes that confer new metabolic capabilities in a given species. We have also analyzed an especial case of codon usage adaptation, which is called 'amelioration'. The 'amelioration' is the adaptation of foreign genes to a new genome. This is the case of mitochondrial genes encoded in the human nuclear genome and originally encoded in the proto-mitochondria. To test the 'amelioration' process we have developed an expected value of CAI (eCAI) to find out whether the differences in the CAI are statistically significant or whether they are the product of biased nucleotide and/or amino acid composition and a new bioinformatics tool called CAIcal (http://genomes.urv.cat/CAIcal). We have also analyzed the evolution of thermophilic adaptation in prokaryotes and we suggest that the amino acid composition signature in thermophilic organisms is a consequence of or an adaptation to living at high temperatures, not its cause. Our findings suggest that there have been several cases where the capacity for thermophilic adaptation has been gained or lost throughout the evolution of prokaryotes. These results have been published in Trends in Genetics. During my thesis I have worked for four months in the Bioinformatics Laboratory of the Biology Department at the National University of Ireland under the supervision of Dr James O. McInerney where I developed a new software program to compare phylogenetic trees called TOPD/FMTS (http://genomes.urv.cat/topd), that has been published in Bioinformatics.

Context information brings new opportunities for efficient and effective applications and services on mobile devices. Many existing work exploit the context dependency of mobile usage for specific applications, and show significant, quantified, performance gains by utilizing context. In order to be practical, such works often pay careful attention to the energy and processing costs of context awareness while attempting to maintain reasonable accuracy. These works also have to deal with the challenges of multiple sources of context, which can lead to a sparse training data set. Even with the abundance of such work, quantifying context-dependency and the relationship between context-dependency and performance achievements remains an open problem, and solutions to manage the and challenges of context awareness remain ad-hoc. To this end, this dissertation methodologically quantifies and measures the context dependency of three principal types of mobile usage in a methodological, application agnostic yet practical manner. The three usages are the websites the user visits, the phone numbers they call, and the apps they use, either built-in or obtained by the user from the App Store . While this dissertation measures the context dependency of these three principal types of mobile usage, its methodology can be readily extended to other context-dependent mobile usage and system resources. This dissertation further presents SmartContext, a framework to systematically optimize the energy cost of context awareness by selecting among different context sources, while satisfying the system designer’s cost-accuracy tradeoffs. Finally, this thesis investigates the collective effect of social context on mobile usage, by separating and comparing LiveLab users based on their socioeconomic groups. The analysis and findings are based on usage and context traces collected in real-life settings from 24 iPhone users over a period of one year. This dissertation presents findings regarding the context dependency of three principal types of mobile usage; visited websites, phone calls, and app usage. The methodology and lessons presented here can be readily extended to other forms of context and context-dependent usage and resources. They guide the development of context aware systems, and highlight the challenges and expectations regarding the context dependency of mobile usage.

Denna undersökning syftar till att undersöka sanningshalten i medias artiklar om barns TV-tittande. För att göra det, jämfördes flera tidningsartiklar med vetenskapliga artiklar som handlar om barns tv-tittande. Endast de tidningsartiklar som hänvisar till vetenskapliga artiklar användes för denna undersökning. Resultaten visar att media ibland vinklar fakta, men överdriver riskerna med yngre barns tv-tittande i jämförelse med vad som skrivs i de vetenskapliga artiklarna. I flera fall har även de positiva effekterna tonats ned, såväl i tidningsartikeln som i den vetenskapliga artikeln. Tolv av de fjorton tidningsartiklarna i denna undersökning återberättar inte vad den vetenskapliga forskningen säger på ett sanningsenligt sätt.   För att undersöka om det finns något samband mellan medias bild av barnens TV-tittande och förskollärarnas medieanvändande delades en enkät ut till flera förskollärare. Enkätundersökningen visar att hälften av deltagarna inte svarade på om de var påverkade av medias bild eller inte. De som besvarade den frågan uppgav att de antingen inte påverkades alls eller mycket lite av medias bild, eller så svarade de, men inte på den aktuella frågan. Dessa resultat är dock osäkra på grund av det låga antalet svar på enkäten. / This study aims to investigate the truthfulness in media reports concerning children´s television viewing. Several press articles were compared with scientific articles which is about children´s television viewing. The press articles referring to scientific articles for this study were choosen. Our results show that media attend some times to angle facts but exaggerate the risks with young children´s television viewing in compared to what the scientific articles report. In several cases, the positive effects have been downsized both in the press articles and in the scientific articles. Twelve of the fourteen press articles in this study failed to retell what the scientific research says in at truthful way.   To explore if there is a relationship between media´s report in children´s television viewing and preschool teachers media usage a questionnaire were handed out to preschool teachers. The questionnaire survey shows that half of the participants did not answer whether they were influenced by the media`s image or not. Those who did answer reported that they either were not affected at all or very little of media´s image or they did answer, but not to the question at issue. These results, however, are uncertain, due to the low number of responses on the questionnaire.

Current research has pointed out that a subsidiary ́s external network, constituted by its suppliers and customers at the local market, is very important for the corporation as a whole. In this study we seek to explore if this is the case for a certain Multinational corporation through exploring the usage of its networks. More specifically how the knowledge within its networks sharing contribute to the company’s innovation development process. A number of interviews have been conducted with personnel at a Multinational corporation, General Electric Healthcare Life Sciences in Uppsala. The results have been analyzed using a theoretical frame of reference covering network theory and a subsidiary’s part in it. Our findings show that even though the external network may play a necessary part, the internal network of a large Multinational corporation is an important resource and should not be ignored.

Kitabu hiki kinaleta matumaini makubwa ya kuwawezesha wengi ku-soma juu ya lugha yao na kuamsha hamasa ya kujifunza zaidi juu ya lugha hii tukufu na lugha nyingine za kiafrika.

Literature digital library is one of the most important resources to preserve civilized asset. To provide more effective and efficient information search, many systems are equipped with a browsing interface that aims to ease the article searching task. A browsing interface is associated with a subject directory, which guides the users to identify articles that need their information need. A subject directory contains a set (or a hierarchy) of subject categories, each containing a number of similar articles. How to group articles in a literature digital library is the theme of this thesis. Previous work used either document classification or document clustering approaches to dispatching articles into a set of article clusters based on their content. We observed that articles that meet a single user¡¦s information need may not necessarily fall in a single cluster. In this thesis, we propose to make use of both Web log and article content is clustering articles. We proposed two hybrid approaches, namely document categorization based method and document clustering based method. These alternatives were compared to other content-based methods. It has been found that the document categorization based method effectively reduces the number of required click-through at the expense of slight increase of entropy that measures the content heterogeneity of each generated cluster.

The study aims to explore some antecedents to products usage and its consequences in which a series of process of experiential evaluation is involved to center on the role of customer¡¦s experiential value after using personal computer. The conceptual model in this study is to extend the Use-Diffusion Model proposed by Shih and Venkatesh (2004) by including the framework of customer value based on Holbrook (1994). The survey method was employed in this study in which questionnaire was for data collection. The total sample size of 1114 was used in statistical analysis. According to the analytical results, we not only confirm the relationships suggested in the Use-Diffusion literature but also find the mediating effect of customer experiential value. That is, the evaluation of after-use experience leads to customer experiential value that in turn affects partially the customer intention of the sequential adoption of new technology. Besides contributing to the field of consumer research, the research findings in this study may provide insightful information that, we believe, helps managers to understand their incumbent customers.