User-Centered Context-Aware Mobile Applications―The Next Generation of Personal Mobile Computing

Context-aware mobile applications are systems that can sense clues about the situational environment and enable appropriate mechanisms of interaction between end users and systems, making mobile devices more intelligent, adaptive, and personalized. In order to better understand such systems and the potentials and barriers of their development and practical use, this paper provides a state-of-the-art overview of this emerging field. Unlike previous literature reviews that mainly focus on technological aspects of such systems, we examine this field mainly from application and research methodology perspectives. We will present major types of current context-aware mobile applications, and discuss research methodologies used in existing studies and their limitations, and highlight potential future research

Through the Printing Press: An Account of Open Practices in the Swedish Newspaper Industry

Organizational practices that foster a dialogic relationship between organizations and their constituent customers have created an arena for inbound and outbound innovation. At the nexus of this development occurring in the media industries, these flows are carried by various forms of digital, social media and an increasing digital presence in the form of dynamic websites with varying degrees of interactive capabilities. In this paper, we posit that the newspaper industry is torn between indifference and cautious apprehension caused by the difficulty in marrying the journalism profession’s carefully guarded gatekeeping practices with the revolving doors of open innovation. Gatekeeping has emerged as a fiercely defended cornerstone for the industry and the profession of journalism itself is not enough to distinguish amateurs from professionals; for the segregation between professionals and amateurs to carry weight rather than being reduced to a hollow title, the segregation needs a practice that explicitly enforces gatekeeping—where actions speak louder than titles. Against this backdrop, we pursue the following research question: Why has IT-enabled open innovation become such a contentious issue in the context of the newspaper industry? Combining contextual in-situ ethnographic interviews and observation with an industry-wide content analysis of Swedish newspaper websites, we present an in-depth view of what IT-enabled open innovation means in the context of the newspaper industry. Results show that the process of legitimization inscribed by a particularly charged information technology—the printing press—continues to exert great influence in what constitutes open practice in the newspaper industry

Contextual mobile adaptation

Ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) involves systems that attempt to fit in with users’ context and interaction. Researchers agree that system adaptation is a key issue in ubicomp because it can be hard to predict changes in contexts, needs and uses. Even with the best planning, it is impossible to foresee all uses of software at the design stage. In order for software to continue to be helpful and appropriate it should, ideally, be as dynamic as the environment in which it operates. Changes in user requirements, contexts of use and system resources mean software should also adapt to better support these changes. An area in which adaptation is clearly lacking is in ubicomp systems, especially those designed for mobile devices. By improving techniques and infrastructure to support adaptation it is possible for ubicomp systems to not only sense and adapt to the environments they are running in, but also retrieve and install new functionality so as to better support the dynamic context and needs of users in such environments. Dynamic adaptation of software refers to the act of changing the structure of some part of a software system as it executes, without stopping or restarting it. One of the core goals of this thesis is to discover if such adaptation is feasible, useful and appropriate in the mobile environment, and how designers can create more adaptive and flexible ubicomp systems and associated user experiences. Through a detailed study of existing literature and experience of several early systems, this thesis presents design issues and requirements for adaptive ubicomp systems. This thesis presents the Domino framework, and demonstrates that a mobile collaborative software adaptation framework is achievable. This system can recommend future adaptations based on a history of use. The framework demonstrates that wireless network connections between mobile devices can be used to transport usage logs and software components, with such connections made either in chance encounters or in designed multi–user interactions. Another aim of the thesis is to discover if users can comprehend and smoothly interact with systems that are adapting. To evaluate Domino, a multiplayer game called Castles has been developed, in which game buildings are in fact software modules that are recommended and transferred between players. This evaluation showed that people are comfortable receiving semi–automated software recommendations; these complement traditional recommendation methods such as word of mouth and online forums, with the system’s support freeing users to discuss more in–depth aspects of the system, such as tactics and strategies for use, rather than forcing them to discover, acquire and integrate software by themselves

The Pacific Historian, Volume 24, Number 2 (1980)

The purpose of The Pacific Historian was to promote, through research and study, an interpretation of life in the Western United States, especially California. The articles dealt with social, cultural, political, and economic aspects of Western regional history.https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/pac-historian/1124/thumbnail.jp

An Investigation into Consumer-Brand Relationships

An emerging perspective in marketing theoiy and practice is to consider consumers entering a range of metaphorical relationships with brands. This supersedes the concept of brand loyalty because it takes into account brand portfolios with which consumers enter relationships and does not restrict loyalty to a single brand. This thesis will build on the limited work into metaphorical brand relationships. The role of relationship marketing in building or jeopardizing relationships will be investigated. Combining the three literature streams of branding, relationship marketing and interpersonal relationship psychology provides insight into consumer behaviour. This enables brand and relationship marketing strategies to be better matched to consumers' needs. A central argument in the thesis states that to fully understand the relationship, both consumers and brands require investigation. A consumer-brand relationship theoretical model is proposed. The model consists of four elements; the consumer; the brand; the relationship and finally the context. The consumer and the brand elements are deconstructed further. On the brand side organisational culture and strategy are thought to contribute towards relationship marketing approaches and direct brand strategy. Brand strategy, positioning and personality determine the actions of the brand as a relationship partner. Consumer behaviour was attributed to their socialisation and lifestyle, self-concept and attachment style. Attachment style is the area of personality that determines behaviour within interpersonal relationships. The consumer brand relationship model was investigated through five research hypotheses. Two service industries within a case study research design were used to test the hypotheses. Although the broad consumer brand relationship model was supported, attachment style was not found to influence the quality of brand level relationships. The form of relationship marketing strategy on the other hand was found to determine the quality of relationships