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Syfte och frågeställningar: Studiens syfte är att studera hur seniorer upplever användandet av e-tjänster för att få förståelse för hur digitala tjänster används i seniorers vardag. -      Hur kan seniorers upplevelser av e-tjänster i vardagen förstås utifrån domesticeringsteorins processer?  -      Hur kan seniorer som mottagare förstås av digitala tjänsters utmaningar och potential utifrån Rogers teori om innovationsspridning?    Metod och material: En kvalitativ studie med fokusgruppsintervjuer för insamling av empiri.  Huvudresultat: Resultatet visade att seniorerna upplever e-tjänster som bekväma, tidsbesparande och underlättar vardagen. Ett enkelt sätt att få och tillgå information igenom samt kommunicera. Utmaningar var när tekniken upplevdes svår samt att bryta traditioner och vanor de trivdes med. Resultatet visar också att det måste finns intresse för e-tjänsten hos seniorerna och att tekniken uppfyller ett behov. Tekniken och e-tjänster ingår till stora delar i seniorers vardag men vilka e-tjänster de använde skilde sig emellan individerna.

<p>Hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) is an annual crop used to produce a wide range of products including foods, beverages, nutritional supplements, fabrics, and textiles. Hemp has long been conflated with marijuana and has not been grown in the United States for decades. Due to recent legislation, the legal restrictions on growing hemp seem likely to be lifted. However, although interest is high, industrial hemp has not been grown in the U.S. for nearly 80 years and research on virtually all aspects of hemp production in the U.S. is in its infancy. We lack fundamental knowledge regarding cultivar performance, interactions with pests, particularly weeds, and nutrient requirements. Research is needed to address this knowledge gap and potential production issues as well as to determine the attitudes, perceptions and concerns of farmers regarding the potential adoption of this “new” crop. Importantly, research should be conducted before the crop becomes widely available so that farmers can make informed decisions and avoid costly mistakes. My dissertation consists of four chapters. In Chapter 1, I examine the literature for weed management in hemp production and identify research gaps. In Chapter 2, I investigate the complex legal framework that surrounds Cannabisand the resulting complications for hemp production. In Chapter 3, I present research conducted to determine the attitudes, perceptions, interests and concerns of organic farmers regarding the reintroduction and potential adoption of hemp was completed through survey research. Finally, in the fourth chapter, I present research conducted to characterize the growth and phenology of industrial hemp cultivars and identify cultivars suitable for growing conditions in the Midwest, and to determine the effect of delayed planting on the phenology and growth of seed and fiber hemp varieties in the Midwest.</p><p>Weed control and weed management in industrial hemp production is a surprisingly understudied field. Few peer-reviewed field studies on hemp exist on any subject and in particular, weed control and weed management is understudied. Specifically, only three studies designed to address a weed management issues exist in the literature dating back to 1900. Most commodity crops have extensive literature discussing weed management, and such an extensive gap in the hemp literature suggests that research needs to be conducted to determine the impacts of weeds on hemp production. Discrepancies among state laws and current federal drug legislation have created a convoluted, confusing, and impractical framework currently surrounds hemp production in the U.S. The building of pesticide regulation and product safety systems that are specific to the many end uses of Cannabis have yet to occur in the U.S. Interactions between producers, state and federal government, and third-party testing laboratories need to be facilitated to build regulation systems along with educational programs to train growers appropriate best management. Organic farmers are generally considered less risk adverse than the general farming population and often considered early adopters of technology. I surveyed organic farmers in seven Midwestern states and found that 98.5% of the respondents were generally open to new technologies, but that demographics variables explained little of the variation for respondents’ level of innovativeness as well as their openness to hemp.The respondents were generally open to hemp production (88.2% agreed with the statement that they were open to trying hemp production on their farm) and found that attributes of hemp production that conferred relative advantage and were compatible with existing systems were important. Delayed planting of hemp generally reduced the onset and duration of female flowering and the time to seed formation but the magnitude of these effects varied among cultivars. Seed, stalk, and total above ground dry weight yields varied across cultivar and planting date which may have been impacted by inconsistent stand densities stemming from heavy rainfall and wet soils. Results from this dissertation suggest that hemp is an understudied crop in the U.S., but that interest in its production among organic farmers exists. Field results support the importance of both planting date and cultivar for hemp phenology discussed in previous literature and so research needs to be conducted to explore best hemp production practices in the U.S.<br></p><p></p>

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-29T14:23:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Marcio Carneiro dos Santos.pdf: 13468296 bytes, checksum: ba0aa41f643f1555600334a06c82c741 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-04-29 / As the experience of what we call watching TV replicates in different screens and displays, dematerializes to move away from its traditional technical support, while it extends or expands from hybridizations and new possibilities, we face the challenge to continue thinking about watching TV and media in general, driven, among other reasons, by the increasing centrality of the media in the world in which we live. To anchor this study on technological change and its impact on the ontological essence of what was considered before as clear and precise , we choose the case of the deployment of the Brazilian Digital Terrestrial Television process - SBTVD -T , in particular from its technical characteristic that legislation and scholars decided to call interactivity and, in simplified form, is the possibility that , in a broadcast television system, along with the transmission of audio and video, a data stream in the form of software can be added, small programs called interactive applications that can be accessed by the viewer . Despite its innovative potential, interactivity in broadcast television in Brazil, as a technological solution, faces several difficulties for its diffusion. In this research, by using a systemic approach and methodology of Van Dijk who analyses similar processes in terms of technology, content, uses and appropriations, property, governance and business models, we propose to examine this scenario. By conducting a critical analysis from the assumptions above, we have identified the conflict between the agendas of the involved groups and the distance imposed to audiovisual professionals, craftsmen producing content, that have few participation in a process driven primarily by engineers and software developers. Within this framework, we ve translated the theoretical trajectory in an applied path to the development of an authoring solution for creating interactive applications in standard SBTVD -T focused on non-programmers. The tool, called T - Autor, has had its registration with INPI and nowadays is undergoing testing in actual production environments / À medida que a experiência do que chamamos de assistir TV se replica em telas e displays diversos, se desmaterializa ao se afastar do seu suporte técnico tradicional, ao mesmo tempo em que se amplia ou expande a partir de novas hibridizações e possibilidades; encaramos o desafio de continuar pensando sobre ela e os meios de comunicação de forma geral, impelidos, entre outros motivos, por uma centralidade cada vez maior da mídia no mundo em que vivemos. Para ancorar esse estudo sobre transformações tecnológicas e seu impacto ontológico na própria essência do que antes considerávamos como claro e preciso, escolhemos o caso do processo de implantação do Sistema Brasileiro de Televisão Digital Terrestre SBTVD-T, em especial a partir da sua característica técnica que legislação e academia decidiram chamar de interatividade e que, de forma simplificada, consiste na possibilidade de, num sistema de televisão aberta, junto com o a transmissão de áudio e vídeo, acrescentarmos um fluxo de dados, na forma de software, ou seja, pequenos programas ou aplicações interativas que podem ser acessadas pelo telespectador. Apesar do seu potencial inovador, a interatividade em TV aberta no Brasil, enquanto solução tecnológica enfrenta diversas dificuldades para sua difusão. Nesse trabalho utilizando uma abordagem sistêmica e a metodologia de Van Dijk que observa processos semelhantes em termos de tecnologia, conteúdo, usos e apropriações, propriedade, governança e modelos de negócio, nos propomos a analisar esse cenário. Fazendo uma análise crítica das premissas acima, identificamos o conflito entre as agendas dos grupos envolvidos e o distanciamento a que foram submetidos os profissionais do audiovisual, artífices da produção de conteúdo, que pouco participaram de um processo guiado basicamente por engenheiros e desenvolvedores de software. A partir desse quadro, traduzimos o percurso teórico da tese numa vertente aplicada, com o desenvolvimento de uma solução de autoria para criação de aplicações de interatividade no padrão do SBTVD-T focada em não programadores. A ferramenta, denominada T-Autor, já teve seu registro efetivado junto ao INPI e hoje se encontra em fase de testes em ambientes reais de produção

Skincare products were deemed as socially undesirable for men in the past days. Images of men were expected to be tough, independent, hard-boiled, whereas skincare products were too feminine for men. However, due to the metro-sexual fashion trend which advocating men to dress up themselves, men nowadays are starting to care about their outfits, appearances and facial skin condition to which women are paying attention. The market of skincare products for men in Taiwan now is rapidly growing and do not confine to only a small amount of men users. It is a widely received conscious that men need skincare products. Hence, from only a few early adopters to wide spread adopters in men population as whole, the purpose of this study is to investigate the correlations between demographic, media usages, personal characteristics, impulsive consumption behaviors and adopting stages. By using survey method, this study wants to explore whether there are any significance in demographic, media usages, personal characteristics affecting men to adopt skincare products. However, Diffusion of Innovation theory is under the premise of social learning theory, which presupposes that it is a rational decision making process for consumer when adopting innovation. The presupposition as such disregards the possibility of impulsive consumption. In addition to demographic, media usages, personal characteristics, this study takes impulsive consumption into consider as a independent variable affecting adoption. The study results is that when compared with no taking impulsive consumption into consideration, there are significances in demographic, media usages, personal characteristics affecting men to adopt skincare products after controlling impulsive consumption as a independent variable. The study results show that impulsive consumption is an indispensable variable when researching diffusion of innovations.

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The e-book reader has become one of the most popular consumer electronics goods since the Amazon Kindle first launched in the end of year 2007; it has led the trend of e-book worldwide. E-book reader not only sold very well in North America, the sales increased very fast in Asia and Europe. According to FIND (2010), the global total sales of e-book reader is 3.6 million pieces in 2009, and it increased almost 80% in 2010. This shows that the e-book reader has become more and more popular. Taiwan is the most important country of e-book reader supply chain, which not only predominate the key techniques and patent but also takes OEM / ODM orders worldwide. Despite the advantage of the hardware development, the use of e-book readers is not common in Taiwan. Therefore the purposes of this research are to explore the factors that would influence user¡¦s adaptive behavior of e-book readers. This research based on technology acceptance model (TAM), and extends with ¡§Compatibility¡¨, ¡§Observability¡¨ and ¡§Perceived complementarity¡¨ as external variables to investigate the factors influencing consumer usage of e-book reader. The analytical results are as below: 1. ¡§Compatibility¡¨ has positive significant effect on both ¡§Perceived Usefulness¡¨ and ¡§Perceived Ease of Use.¡¨ 2. ¡§Observability¡¨ has positive significant effect on both ¡§Perceived Usefulness¡¨ and ¡§Perceived Ease of Use.¡¨ 3. ¡§Perceived complementarity¡¨ has positive significant effect on both ¡§Perceived Usefulness¡¨ and ¡§Perceived Ease of Use,¡¨ but has no significant effect on¡§Behavioral Intention.¡¨ 4. Both ¡§Perceived Usefulness¡¨ and ¡§Perceived Ease of Use¡¨ have positive significant effect on¡§Behavioral Intention.¡¨

With the rapid Internet development, E-auction is also popular in recent years. In E-auction, the rating is the most effective indicator that can provide a referral for buyer and seller. In addition, buyers can use rating mechanism as feedback to respond their satisfaction after they bought goods. In the other hand, the rating of seller could reflect his transaction history before. When the positive rating is more, which means satisfied and successful transaction is more also, and represents that seller¡¦s credit accumulation. This study uses innovation diffusion model to analyze the seller¡¦s growth trend of rating, critical mass of rating by real data, classify sellers that equal to cluster analysis and discuss further. The samples are the sellers who sell t-shirt in eBay from December 1 in 2010 to January 31 in 2011. We get 8,304 sellers¡¦ data, and pick 116 of them randomly as samples, which are fit in with our research requests. This research is to answer three research questions. The first research question is to verify that growth trend of rating could fit in with diffusion of innovation, then, to analyze and discuss the growing trend and the rating accumulation. That result does verify that rating accumulation fit in with diffusion of innovation, and growing trend fit in with S-shaped curve. Furthermore, rating raise at first if it is affected by external influence, like key searching, website payment advertisement. On the contrary, the rating increases quickly for some time that the seller has good reputation if the rating is affected by internal influence, like word of mouth. The second research question is to calculate the critical mass of rating by Bass model. The result shows that the rating accelerates when it reaches critical mass between 1129 and 1402, it represents the seller accumulates considerable sale amount and customer satisfaction, and also let potential buyers more confident and promote their willingness to purchase. In addition, it can represent the sellers have enough experience and can provide the better marketing strategies when the sellers¡¦ rating reaches critical mass of rating. The third research question is to divide the sellers by cluster analysis and investigate. The result shows the diverseness between the growth trend of rating, the critical mass of rating, product price, and buyer repeated purchase. This study can provide a referral for the novice sellers, and they can develop their marketing strategy base on their characteristics of product.

Abstract Following the increase in living standard and manufacturing techniques and capacity in Taiwan in recent years, the production and the demands for special alloy materials are expanding from their industrial application into living uses. Among innovative merchandise of Titanium techniques application in daily life uses, the one with highest level of techniques and innovative value is aquatitan techniques. Modern technology and process techniques are renewing in extremely fast speed and the speed of developing new merchandise is much faster than the acceptance of consumers, however, many of the new products may be very creative, but not always meeting he needs of consumers and end up with supply of seemingly good products find no demand at all and failed the manufacturers¡¦ expectation of big sales. Further, with rapid change of market demand of new products, it resulted in greatly shortened life cycle of new products. Hence, when the needs of consumers is not understood properly and effectively, the market will wipe such product out mercilessly. If the factors affecting the willingness of consumer in purchasing aquatitan is clearly and correctly understood and incorporate the viewpoints of consumers into the process of research and development, there will certainly marketing strategies proposed effectively for the new products to increase the purchasing inclination of consumers. In the research, we have 2 motives: one is to find out factors affecting consumers¡¦ willingness in purchasing aquatitan products and the other one is to find out the difference among types of consumers adopting aquatitan products for making up effective marketing strategies to channel the aquatitan products effectively to the whole market. The purpose of this research is to find out the consumers characteristics of different product, the effect of new product attributes in the decision of consumers in purchasing aquatitan products, and in the meantime, finding out the difference of different consumer groups in consumers characteristics and new products attributed to provide assistance to companies in marketing practices and product research and development. This research takes aquatitan neck rings as the subject of practical research and 300 questionnaires were distributed among consumers who have purchased the products of subject company. It is found that each type of adopter and store-wise consumers are having different consumer characteristics, which may be provided for the reference of subject company in deciding their future marketing strategies. Key Words: Innovative Diffusion, Consumer Characteristics, New Product Attribute, Aquatitan, Marketing Strategy

Digital inequality, or the disparity in the access and use of information and communication technologies (ICT), is one of the most critical issues in the knowledge economy. This inequality prevents under-privileged people from exploring digital opportunities to enhance their life quality. Governments, business, and the public have devoted tremendous resources to address this issue, but the results are inconclusive. Theoretical understanding, complemented with theory-based empirical assessment of the phenomenon, is essential to inform effective policy-making and interventions. This dissertation explored the key factors that lead to the inequality in the access and use of ICT, particularly the high-speed Internet, between the privileged and under-privileged. I applied a belief-based perspective to understand how distinctive beliefs concerning ICT acceptance differentially influence under-privileged and privileged people¡¦s innovation decision and behavior at different stages of the implementation process. A theoretical model that drew upon the Theory of Planned Behavior, Motivation Theory, Social Learning Theory, Diffusion of Innovation, and Trust was developed to explain how cognitive, social, behavioral, and institutional factors inform digital inequality as a whole. The conceptual model and forwarded hypotheses in the dissertation were empirically tested using data collected from a large-scale field survey. The survey investigated the adoption and usage behavior of residents in the city of LaGrange, Georgia where the city government, aiming to address digital inequality, provided high-speed Internet connection and devices to residents at no cost. A complementary case study was subsequently conducted to examine a multi-stage process model in which various barriers and facilitators may prevent or promote the progress of individuals¡¦ ICT innovation. The results of this research reveal valuable insights into the differential patterns of ICT access and usage, and the key factors that cause them, for under-privileged and privileged people. The findings, in turn, suggest a segmentation and stepwise technology implementation strategy for people with different backgrounds and at different stages of their innovation processes. This dissertation makes several notable contributions for both researchers and practitioners. First, the dissertation contributes a holistic and theoretically grounded perspective that extends beyond the technology-centered view in most digital inequality studies. It also highlights the multifaceted nature of the phenomenon. As such, this research meets the challenge set forward by notable researchers to develop theoretical models capable of revealing the complexity embedded in this issue. Second, the dissertation presents a unifying theory reflected upon adoption and diffusion of innovation. Testing theories in the context of digital inequality extends and complements our existing knowledge about these related fields. Most importantly, the empirical findings derived from the rich data set identity powerful leverage points for stimulating the adoption and use of ICT among the under-privileged. With such insights, practitioners, particularly policy-makers and service providers, can formulate effective interventions to address the problem of digital inequality.