Marketing implications of traditional and ICT-mediated leisure activities

This study investigates the role of traditional and information and communication technology (ICT)-mediated leisure activities in consumer behaviour. An online survey of 558 members and 1319 ex-members of an Australian DVD rental company gathered preferences for nine traditional leisure activities and seven ICT-mediated leisure activities. The results of a cluster analysis showed four clusters with significant cluster differences across leisure activities and across demographics and consumer behaviours. For practitioners, the study illustrates how profiling customers on their leisure preferences can increase advertising effectiveness, reflect loyalty and help predict customer lifetime value. For academia, the results reveal how another consumer dimension, leisure activities, relates to demographic and behavioural characteristics

User-interface to a CCTV video search system

The proliferation of CCTV surveillance systems creates a problem of how to effectively navigate and search the resulting video archive, in a variety of security scenarios. We are concerned here with a situation where a searcher must locate all occurrences of a given person or object within a specified timeframe and with constraints on which camera(s) footage is valid to search. Conventional approaches based on browsing time/camera based combinations are inadequate. We advocate using automatically detected video objects as a basis for search, linking and browsing. In this paper we present a system under development based on users interacting with detected video objects. We outline the suite of technologies needed to achieve such a system and for each we describe where we are in terms of realizing those technologies. We also present a system interface to this system, designed with user needs and user tasks in mind

Using open research practises to celebrate Team Science - A technician\u27s viewpoint

Open research practices are most often framed from an academic perspective. This talk provided a viewpoint from a technician working within a core facility. It reflected on some of the difficulties of incorporating Open Research in to practice when ‘ownership’ of data and protocols can be contested. It highlighted how we can use open research practice to celebrate the role of technicians within Team Science and help support the ‘Technician Commitment’ four target areas of technician visibility, recognition, career development and the future sustainability of technical skills and knowledge

The effects of serial correlation on the curve-of-factors growth model

textThis simulation study examined the performance of the curve-of-factors growth model when serial correlation and growth processes were present in the first-level factor structure. As previous research has shown (Ferron, Dailey, & Yi, 2002; Kwok, West, & Green, 2007; Murphy & Pituch, 2009) estimates of the fixed effects and their standard errors were unbiased when serial correlation was present in the data but unmodeled. However, variance components were estimated poorly across the examined serial correlation conditions. Two new models were also examined: one curve-of-factors model was fitted with a first-order autoregressive serial correlation parameter, and a second curve-of-factors model was fitted with first-order autoregressive and moving average serial correlation parameters. The models were developed in an effort to measure growth and serial correlation processes within the same data set. Both models fitted with serial correlation parameters were able to accurately reproduce the serial correlation parameter and approximate the true growth trajectory. However, estimates of the variance components and the standard errors of the fixed effects were problematic. The two models also produced inadmissible solutions across all conditions. Of the three models, the curve-of-factors model had the best overall performance.Educational Psycholog

Does providing pill testing at festivals increase intention to use Ecstasy?

Calls to provide sanctioned pill testing (drug checking) at music festivals has met with resistance from most Australian governments due to a concern that such services would increase use of ecstasy and other drugs. To address an important gap in current knowledge, I investigated how a pill testing service might influence intention to use ecstasy. I also drew from the Theory of Planned Behaviour to examine what determinants of behaviour predict intention to use a pill testing service. Music festival attendees (N = 247) were presented with three hypothetical pill testing scenarios: The current legal circumstance where consumers only have access to poorly reliable reagent testing kits that can be purchased online, an onsite pill testing service, and a fixed site pill testing. Results revealed that there was no significant difference in the mean scores of Intentions for participants (n = 35) who had never used ecstasy, or participants (n = 212) who had ever used ecstasy. These data provide no evidence that offering a pill testing service at a festival will result in ecstasy use by people who have never used ecstasy or lead to increased use among people with past ecstasy use. The combination of attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, gender and education level predicted intention to use a fixed site pill testing service, while only subjective norms predicted intention to use an onsite service. The Theory of Planned Behaviour works well when a person has to engage in a series of deliberate planned behaviours, but not as well when the behaviour involves a simple decision influenced by social networks and perceptions of peer support

Físchlár on a PDA: handheld user interface design to a video indexing, browsing and playback system

The Físchlár digital video system is a web-based system for recording, analysis, browsing and playback of TV programmes which currently has about 350 users. Although the user interface to the system is designed for desktop PCs with a large screen and a mouse, we are developing versions to allow the use of mobile devices to access the system to record and browse the video content. In this paper, the design of a PDA user interface to video content browsing is considered. We use a design framework we have developed previously to be able to specify various video browsing interface styles thus making it possible to design for all potential users and their various environments. We can then apply this to the particulars of the PDA's small, touch-sensitive screen and the mobile environment where it will be used. The resultant video browsing interfaces have highly interactive interfaces yet are simple, which requires relatively less visual attention and focusing, and can be comfortably used in a mobile situation to browse the available video contents. To date we have developed and tested such interfaces on a Revo PDA, and are in the process of developing others

Google online marketing challenge and research opportunities

The Google Online Marketing Challenge is an ongoing collaboration between Google and academics, to give students experiential learning. The Challenge gives student teams US$200 in AdWords, Google’s flagship advertising product, to develop online marketing campaigns for actual businesses. The end result is an engaging in-class exercise that provides students and professors with an exciting and pedagogically rigorous competition. Results from surveys at the end of the Challenge reveal positive appraisals from the three—students, businesses, and professors—main constituents; general agreement between students and instructors regarding learning outcomes; and a few points of difference between students and instructors. In addition to describing the Challenge and its outcomes, this article reviews the postparticipation questionnaires and subsequent datasets. The questionnaires and results are publicly available, and this article invites educators to mine the datasets, share their results, and offer suggestions for future iterations of the Challenge