This study has its starting point in physical touch, and I interviewed three health workers; an osteopath, a nurse, and a midwife, about their sense of touch. The data collection method used is the qualitative research interview, with its main emphasis on Eugene Gendlin‟s Focusing (1981), to capture the informant‟s embodied sense of touch. The Constant Comparative Method from Grounded Theory by Strauss and Corbin (1990) is employed to analyse the data, supplied by the descriptive phenomenological method as developed by Giorgi (2009), and inspired by Gendlin‟s Focusing (1968; 1970; 1981). Two main themes and a core theme emerged from the data: 1) "Touch is everything" – The toucher and the touched, 2) "Touch is an art" – The space between and, 3) "It takes courage to be close" – Touch as a meeting between selves. Philosophical theory and humanistic existential counselling psychology theories are at the base of the discussion. This includes Merleau-Ponty (1945), Gendlin (1962; 1996), Buber (1970/1996), Rogers (1961/2004) and Josselson (1996). Theories on body, space, and touch, also in counselling, are represented by Gendlin (1993; 1992), Montagu (1986), Hall (1966/1990), Hunter and Struve (1998), Tune (2001) among others. The study shows that positive touch is important to the person, how touch is more than physical, that the body is more than a physiological machine, and how touch both happens within different types of space and creates a meeting between the selves that reside inside the bodies. It also shows how through providing certain empathic conditions; warmth, acceptance, listening and caring, a health worker or counsellor can ensure a good meeting that can potentially lead to a dialogical I-You meeting. This meeting, based on the empathic conditions provided by a counsellor who is also in tune with him or herself, may also lead to change in the both the counsellor‟s and the client‟s selves.

The aim of this investigation was to assess if there was a correlation between touch avoidance and hierarchical position, perceived degradation, number of years spent in jail and age amongst men at a correctional institution. In addition, a possible correlation between hierarchical position and the amount of perceived degrading treatment was also explored. In the collection of the data a questionnaire containing 27 open and closed answer alternatives was utilized. A multiple regressional analysis was conducted to find possible correlations between touch avoidance and the other underlying variables. Also an independent t-test explored the possible effects of the control variables: place of birth and girlfriend. A correlational analysis was applied to investigate the other two control variables: physical and psychological abuse during childhood. An oneway-ANOVA-test was used to investigate the possible correlation between hierarchical position and the amount of perceived degrading treatment. The results of the study showed that a high amount of degrading treatment, a low hierarchical position and the longer the time served correlated with a high degree of touch avoidance. Age proved to have no correlation with touch avoidance, which is contrary to previous research. Regarding the inmates’ hierarchical position and the amount of perceived degrading treatment, a negative correlation was found; the higher hierarchical position an inmate had, the smaller was the amount of degrading treatment he was subjected to. Keywords: Touch avoidance, hierarchies, degrading treatment, inmates, prison

Syftet med studien var att belysa faktorer som påverkar äldre, över 65 år, patienters upplevelse av beröring, dess effekter samt belysa sjuksköterskans upplevelse av att ge beröring. Metoden är en systematisk litteraturstudie, baserad på 15 vetenskapliga artiklar sökta via databaserna Cinahl, Cochrane och sökmotorn Elin@dalarna.Resultatet visade att genus, livserfarenhet, yrkeskompetens hos sjuksköterskan, relationer samt vilken del av kroppen som berördes var faktorer som styrde patientens upplevelse av beröring från sjuksköterskan.Sjuksköterskors upplevelse av att ge beröring visades genom en helhetssyn av patienten, ge bekräftelse, vårda med respekt samt kunna beröra på ett naturligt sätt. Beröring visades ha goda effekter både hos den äldre patienten och sjuksköterskan genom att relationsbanden mellan dem styrktes, minskade sömnproblemen samt lindrade smärta, stress och oro hos den äldre patienten.

ABSTRACT In recent years, the iPhone and iPad enter to the market; lead the rapid growth of the touch panel. Taiwan is the largest 3C products OEM base in the world. Therefore, many foundries have invested in the production technology and process development of touch panel, but there are too many competitiors so that the average price will be dropped in the future and the profit willdecline too. Hence, the touch panel foundries should try to face the problems of increase yields, reduce costs and robust profits. In this study, the author selected the ¡§Taiwan Touch Panel Industry¡¨ as the research object. Then, collect, collate, generalization and analysis the literature of¡§Key Successful Factors¡¨, combined with interviews of experts and AHP (Analytical Hierarchy Process) questionnaire. The AHP questionnaire is designed by selection of assessment criteria, and filled by the manufactures. According to the summarization of AHP method to make a comparative and sort weights. And base on the results to give the conclusuins and recommendations. The study proposes five dimensions and 28 key success factors and future development trends. The author finds that the importantance of each aspect as fllows: the production capacity (38.9%), innovation capability (22.2%), financial planning ability (16.4%), marketing planning capacity (11.9%), human resource management (10.6%). By analysis results, the study gives the recommendations as below: 1. The cost and experience is the motive of technology innovation and development of touch panel industry. 2. Equally emphasize of materials and technology development trends.

Abstract By the advantage of technology innovation, the New Technology-Based Firms can not only win the competitive advantage but also make a great contribution to the national economic growth. (Rickne & Jacobsson,1996¡FAutio & Yli-Renko,1998¡FAcs,1999¡FFontes & Coombs,2001)¡C The technology of touch screens originated in military use, but it has been extensively applied to consumer, commercial, and public products. Among the touch screens, the capacitive touch screens are the best and the most expensive product. There used to be a single producer in the industry. But now, there is another company with the key manufacture technology and this company is also our study case. This study used the descriptive case-study method to analyze the strategic positioning of the New Technology-Based Firm in the industry. This study suggests the ¡§Focus Strategy¡¨ to be the strategic positioning of the new technology-based Firm in the capacitive touch screens industry, including the ¡§Cost Focus Strategy¡¨ for the cost advantage of customizing sizes and the ¡§Focus Differentiation Strategy¡¨ for the customization policy.

<p>The aim of this investigation was to assess if there was a correlation between touch avoidance and hierarchical position, perceived degradation, number of years spent in jail and age amongst men at a correctional institution. In addition, a possible correlation between hierarchical position and the amount of perceived degrading treatment was also explored. In the collection of the data a questionnaire containing 27 open and closed answer alternatives was utilized. A multiple regressional analysis was conducted to find possible correlations between touch avoidance and the other underlying variables. Also an independent t-test explored the possible effects of the control variables: place of birth and girlfriend. A correlational analysis was applied to investigate the other two control variables: physical and psychological abuse during childhood. An oneway-ANOVA-test was used to investigate the possible correlation between hierarchical position and the amount of perceived degrading treatment. The results of the study showed that a high amount of degrading treatment, a low hierarchical position and the longer the time served correlated with a high degree of touch avoidance. Age proved to have no correlation with touch avoidance, which is contrary to previous research. Regarding the inmates’ hierarchical position and the amount of perceived degrading treatment, a negative correlation was found; the higher hierarchical position an inmate had, the smaller was the amount of degrading treatment he was subjected to.</p><p>Keywords: Touch avoidance, hierarchies, degrading treatment, inmates, prison</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Central Florida, 2009. / Adviser: Avelino Gonzalez. Includes bibliographical references (p. 275-288).

Thesis (M.Sc.)--York University, 2008. Graduate Programme in Computer Science and Engineering. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 80-85). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:MR38816

Gestural interfaces are user interfaces controlled by users’ gestures, such as taps, flicks and swipes, without the aid of a conventional pointing device, such as a mouse or a touchpad. The development of touch screen technology has resulted in an increasing number of inventive gestural interfaces. However, recent studies have shown that well-established interaction design principles are generally not followed, or even violated by gestural interfaces. As a result, severe usability issues start to surface: the absence of signifiers for operative gestures, the weakening of visual feedback, the inability to discover every possible actions in the interface, as well as the lack of consistency, all of which are undermining the user experience of these interfaces thus need to be addressed. Further analysis of existing gestural interfaces suggests that the sole dependence on gestural input makes interface design unnecessarily complicated, which in turn makes it challenging to establish a standard. Therefore, an approach to supplement gestures with user attention is proposed. By incorporating eye gaze as a new input modality into gestural interactions, this novel type of interfaces can interact with users in a more intelligent and natural way by collecting input that reflects the users’ interest and intention, which makes the interfaces attentive. To demonstrate the viability of this approach, a system was built to utilise eye-tracking techniques to detect visual attention of users and deliver input data to the applications on a mobile device. A paradigm for attentive gestural interfaces was introduced to provide insights into how such interfaces can be designed. A software prototype with attentive gestural interfaces was created according to the paradigm. It has been found in an experiment that the new type of interfaces helped users learn a new application faster, and modestly increased their accuracy when completing tasks. This provided evidence that attentive gestural interfaces can improve usability in terms of learnability and effectiveness This study is focused on interfaces of mobile devices whose major input mechanism is a touch screen, which are commonly seen and widely adopted. Despite the fact that eye-tracking capability is not generally available on these devices, this study demonstrates that it has great potential to facilitate interfaces that are both gestural and attentive, and it can enable new possibilities for future user interfaces. / published_or_final_version / Computer Science / Master / Master of Philosophy

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