This thesis evaluates a novel methodology for the user testing of digitally mediated human-animal interactions. The proposed method includes the structural analysis of video observations following a Grounded Theory approach. Complemented with more subjective human observations, this methodology aims to initiate a more informed iterative design and research process in which the animal’s experience with a playful artefact is analysed and reflected upon. The research involves the user testing of a prototype for an independently developed tablet game designed for cats and humans. With a focus on the user experience of the cat, the data analysis of this study results in new insights in the behaviour of the cat while interacting with the game. These outcomes are subsequently concluded in the form of design iterations that can help to improve the prototype. This study demonstrates how a new methodology can provide an initial focus on the perceptions and experience of the animal and lead to valuable insights that can advance the design of a digital artefact intended for animal use. Further research in this new area of interaction design can benefit from this study by expanding the theoretical framework and methodologies to different contexts and settings with the integration of playful technological artefacts and other animals that are known to engage in natural play.

While digital mediation can facilitate some aspects of communication, such as increasing scope and access to communicative possibilities, those gains are overwhelmed by the challenges of digital mediation to support empathy.The ubiquity of our digital existence throughout much of the developed world has, in a relatively short time, had a profound impact on human communication. Time spent online and in front of a screen has increased exponentially during the last three decades. This has led to a great deal of interpersonal communication becoming digitally mediated. From luddites to web developers, users of digitally mediated communication (DMC) often find it necessary to participate in discourse that utilizes these technologies. In this project, I assess user experiences with DMC on interpersonal discourse to gain insight into user perceptions of empathic communication in the form of Short Message Service (SMS) text messaging. I employ survey and interviews protocols on a sampling of undergraduate students on one campus of a regional community college. While some think that DMC opens new spaces for social connections, others believe that DMC has a negative impact on our social relations by challenging empathetic connections between interlocutors. I hypothesize that empirical evidence will support this second view. Results of this investigation may be used to determine the conditions under which empathy is diminished in DMC and help us consider improved protocols for employing this ever-expanding mode of interpersonal communication. This study is unique in that it attempts to evaluate empathy, a concept that is challenging to define, describe, and measure. Hence, questions used in the survey paid attention to perceptions of empathy and survey takers' sentiments regarding the expression of empathy in text-messaging.

The purpose of this study was to determine the test-retest reliability of digitally recorded word recognition materials. Word recognition testing is included in a complete audiological evaluation to measure an individual's ability to discriminate what they hear. A phonetically balanced list of 50 monosyllabic words was presented to each participant at four different sensation levels (SL) using the American Speech Language Hearing Association recommended protocol for word recognition score testing. Each participant took a 10 minute break before the test was readministered. Participants included 40 subjects with varying levels of hearing loss, from normal hearing to severe hearing loss. The test and retest scores of all participants were analyzed to estimate the test-retest reliability to be .65 at 10 dB SL, .87 at 20 dB SL, .88 at 30 dB SL, and .95 at 40 dB SL. It was concluded that the word lists have strong test-retest reliability at 20, 30, and 40 dB SL and that the reliability increases as the presentation level increases.

This thesis is an evaluation of the campaign [The digitally curious] that is part of the regional marketing campaign Futurum.kom. Its purpose was to strengthen the library's role in society. The campaign includes Regionbibliotek Kalmar, Länsbibliotek Sydost and also 25 public libraries in Kronoberg, Kalmar and Blekinge. The campaign [The digitally curious] is one of several cluster campaigns targeting their marketing to a specific audience and aims to promote awareness of what libraries have to offer and provide information on digital media and services. The target group for the campaign is a man between 45-65 years old, who is interested in digital technology. The campaign ran from September 19 to October 2, 2011, and included digital activities. The thesis addresses these questions: What has the campaign [The digitally curious] for overall goals and how relevant were they? What was the audience for [The digitally curious] and did they reach it? What marketing channels did the library use and why them? To what extent did the librarians perceive that the objectives of the campaign were achieved? How did the public value the digital activities in the public library and how did they perceive the cluster campaigns, [The digitally curious], message. The method used in the thesis was case studies, which included a survey of the public, interviews with librarians and document analysis. Our study revealed that there is a need in society for digital activities to bridge the digital divide. The marketing campaign received positive feedback but the target group did not come to the extent that was desired. It was also revealed that to be successful in marketing and to work on bridging the digital divide, collaboration is a useful method.

With more and more integration of analog and RF circuits in scaled CMOS technologies, process variation is playing a critical role which makes it difficult to achieve all the performance specifications across all the process corners. Moreover, at scaled technology nodes, due to lower voltage and current handling capabilities of the devices, they suffer from reliability issues that reduce the overall lifetime of the system. Finally, traditional static style of designing analog and RF circuits does not result in optimal performance of the system. A new design paradigm is emerging toward digitally assisted analog and RF circuits and systems aiming to leverage digital correction and calibration techniques to detect and compensate for the manufacturing imperfections and improve the analog and RF performance offering a high level of integration. The objective of the proposed research is to design digital friendly and performance tunable adaptive analog/RF circuits and systems with digital enhancement techniques for higher performance, better process variation tolerance, and more reliable operation and developing strategy for testing the proposed adaptive systems. An adaptation framework is developed for process variation tolerant RF systems which has two parts – optimized test stimulus driven diagnosis of individual modules and power optimal system level tuning. Another direct tuning approach is developed and demonstrated on a carbon nanotube based analog circuit. An adaptive switched mode power amplifier is designed which is more digital-intensive in nature and has higher efficiency, improved reliability and better process resiliency. Finally, a testing strategy for adaptive RF systems is shown which reduces test time and test cost compared to traditional testing.

Using content analysis, researchers reviewed literature to identify the meanings attached to and methods used for measuring learner-content interaction in digitally augmented learning experience. Digitally augmented learning experiences are defined in this dissertation as situations where a learner interacts with content delivered using a computer. Examples include online learning using a desktop, laptop, or mobile device, classroom use of a device to interact with content such as a digital textbook, computer simulation, augmented or virtual reality, smart watch or phone, or other similar educational activities. These activities can be delivered directly from a digital device, over a wireless connection, or via the internet. Digitally augmented learning experiences can be web-based, cloud-based, or loaded on a device; streamed or downloaded; fully online, or part of a classroom experience, such as a blended-learning situation. Current discourse surrounding learner-content interaction in digitally augmented learning environments showed themes of label, theory, measurement, types of content, pedagogy, and looking forward. The label theme describes the use of the term as a research variable or other use where no context was given. Theory includes mentions of Moore's transactional distance (1973) or list of interaction types (1989), Anderson's Equivalency Theorem (2003), and other related educational theories. The measurement theme included all mentions of how learner-content interaction was evaluated, measured, or quantified. Types of content included descriptions of specific content learners interacted with, such as textbooks, online text, discussion boards, simulations, assignments, and assessments. Pedagogy included mentions of student learning, knowledge construction, and understanding that did not include mention of a specific learning theory. The looking forward theme includes suggestions for researchers and practitioners surrounding learner-content interaction. This dissertation discusses strengths and weaknesses of current tools used to measure learner-content interaction in digitally augmented learning experiences. Based on the strengths and weaknesses found in current measurement tools an integrated measurement tool was developed and evaluated for content validity.

The climate and ecological emergency (CEE) is depicted as far in space and time to the (yet) unaffected human through politics not acting according to it as well as media not doing the topic justice. No experiences or experiences only through media depiction are created which the human bases its reality on. This is not only problematic but also mediates a distorted reality of not being and feeling affected by the CEE. (Climate) activism can be seen as a counter-perspective of politics. Extinction Rebellion (XR) – a decentralized movement – mostly aims for polarization, actions in the physical space, and disruptions. Decentral XR groups practice close-making of the CEE through different strategies and affect-mediations in the public space. Nevertheless, like most climate activist actions, it also deals with the dilemma of media depictions. The reach of the action within the public space as an affect-mediation is lesser than the reach through the media translation. If most humans are negatively affected through the media reach, what happens if affect-mediations are executed in the coded infrastructure(s) that surrounds the humans? As human entanglements with the coded infrastructure(s) can be seen as a body-mind-life extension, I aim with this work to intervene in it. By proposing to seed digitally induced disruptions as affect-mediations in the human entanglements with coded infrastructures(s) surrounding them, the work is aiming to practice close-making and enhance the notion of feeling affected. The approach was explored by mapping out the coded infrastructure(s) of the author, making it public through two workshops as well as setting up affect-mediation prototypes. By empowering local (XR) activist groups to explore and generate disruptive ideas based on my proposal, the research question emerged: How can local activist (Extinction Rebellion) groups be empowered to create affect-mediations and therefore affecting bodily experiences with the CEE through executing digitally induced disruptions to support their local demands? While conceptualizing a platform for XR as the Design Project – incorporating and digitally translating the workshop as well as other elements – the concept aims to host a collective pool of digitally induced disruption actions and approaches.

The purpose of this study was to develop digitally recorded speech audiometry materials in the Japanese language to evaluate Speech Reception Threshold (SRT) and speech discrimination. Trisyllabic words were used to evaluate the SRT and bisyllabic words were used for speech discrimination. Words were recorded by one native female talker and one native male talker who were judged as having standard Japanese dialects. Twenty native Japanese speakers between the ages of 20 and 32 were used as subjects to evaluate 69 trisyllabic words across 13 different intensity levels. The 25 trisyllabic words with the steepest psychometric function (%/dB) were selected for inclusion in the final CD. The final trisyllabic words were digitally adjusted so that the threshold of each word was equal to the mean PTA (3.42 dB HL) of all the subjects. The mean psychometric function (%/dB) at 50% for the trisyllabic words was 9.6 %/dB for the male talker and 7.7 %/dB for the female talker. The same 20 subjects were also used to evaluate 240 bisyllabic words across 10 different intensity levels. A logistic regression was used to obtain regression slopes for each of the 240 words. The 200 bisyllabic words with the steepest slope were selected for inclusion in the final CD. Four lists of 50 words each and eight half-lists of 25 words each were created from the selected bisyllabic words. A chi-square statistic revealed no significant differences among the lists or half-lists. The mean psychometric function at 50% for the bisyllabic lists and half-lists was 5.9 %/dB for the male talker and 5.2 %/dB for the female talker.

The development of digitally recorded speech audiometry materials in Mandarin Chinese has been limited to date. High quality materials proliferate in the English language and have been developed for other languages such as Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, French, Italian, Polish, and Russian. The aims of this study were to develop, digitally record, evaluate, and equate words and word lists in Mandarin Chinese to use for speech reception threshold testing and for speech discrimination testing. The words that were evaluated were chosen from a Chinese frequency usage dictionary. One native male and one native female talker recorded the words onto a compact disc. These words were then evaluated on 20 normally-hearing subjects, all of whom were natives of mainland China. Following the tests, the words and word lists were analyzed using logistic regression. For speech reception threshold testing, 24 Mandarin Chinese trisyllabic words with steep psychometric function slopes were selected. Their intensities were adjusted to match the mean subject pure-tone average of 3.0 dB HL. The mean slopes for these selected male and female trisyllabic words were 11.3 %/dB and 12.1 %/dB, respectively. For the speech discrimination testing, the 200 bisyllabic words with the steepest logistic regression slopes were divided among four psychometrically equivalent lists of 50 words each and eight half-lists of 25 words each. The intensity of each word list was digitally adjusted so that the threshold of each list was equal to the midpoint between the mean thresholds of the male and female half-lists. All lists were homogeneous with respect to audibility and psychometric function slope. Digital recordings of the psychometrically equivalent word lists are included on a compact disc.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate an updated list of digitally recorded Speech Recognition Threshold (SRT) materials for test-retest reliability. Chipman (2003) identified 33 psychometrically equated spondaic words that are frequently occurring in English today. These digitally recorded words were used to determine the SRT of 40 participants using the American Speech-Language Hearing Association guidelines. The participants were between the ages of 19 and 83 years and presented with hearing impairment ranging from normal to severe. The individual's pure-tone averages classified 16 participants with normal hearing to slight loss, 12 participants with mild loss, and 12 participants with moderate to severe hearing loss. The speech materials were presented to participants in one randomly selected ear. The SRT was measured for the same ear in both the test and retest conditions. The average SRT for the test condition was 22.7 dB HL and 22.8 dB HL in the retest condition with an improvement of 0.1 dB for retest but no significant difference was identified. Using a modified variance equation to determine test-retest reliability resulted in a 0.98, indicating almost perfect reliability. Therefore the test-retest reliability was determined to be exceptional for the new SRT words.