User Expectations and Experiences of Mobile Augmented Reality Services

Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR) as an emerging field of technology has the potential to engender services that demonstrate novel aspects like enriching the reality with digital information, location-based interaction, and tangible user interfaces. The early visions of MAR anticipated it to revolutionize the way of accessing and interacting with information in mobile contexts. However, one hindrance in this path is the lack of research understanding of the subjective user experience (UX) resulting from, e.g., the novel interaction metaphors and the mixing of realities that MAR embodies. What is more, little is known about users’ expectations of the futuristic concept of MAR and the experiences it could evoke. Because of the increasing importance of UX as a quality attribute in products and services, there is a need to understand the characteristics and expectations of UX in specific emerging fields like MAR. The goal of this thesis research is twofold: (1) to understand potential users’ expectations with regard to UX of future MAR services and (2) to understand the actual UX of the recent first-generation MAR applications like Junaio and Layar. By understanding the scope of expectations and experience that can take place in the field of MAR, it is possible to help the design and engineering of AR-based services to consider also the experiential aspirations of potential end users. This compound thesis belongs to the research field of Human-Computer Interaction. It contains four studies, in which altogether 401 persons participated in either interviews or online surveys. The empirical findings on expected and actual experiences are reported in six publications. The theoretical contribution is mostly conceptual, culminating to a framework that describes the facets of UX and categories of meaningful experiences in MAR. Based on the empirical findings and the framework, the practical contribution is concretized in the form of (1) design implications and (2) subjective evaluation measures to help designing future MAR services with an experience-oriented approach. According to the results, potential users (early adopters) expected MAR services to create a great extent of pleasurable experiences, such as empowerment, surprise, awareness, liveliness, playfulness, tangibility, collectivity, inspiration and creativity. Furthermore, the expectations were attributed to a variety of service components, also relating to other ubiquitous computing aspects (e.g., the augmentation as an output, proactive functionalities, and embedding of digital content to the reality). This implies that emerging technological concepts like MAR are perceived in very diverse ways and that people’s expectations of them consist largely of general needs and desires. The existing first-generation MAR applications, however, seem generally not to fulfill the expectations, showing a much narrower extent of actualized experience characteristics. This experiential gap, as well as the narrower extent of functionalities in current applications, contains much potential with regard to pursuing a rich and pleasurable UX in future design of MAR services. The empirical results, conceptualizations and practical implications can be utilized and built on in academic research as well as in development of MAR. The novelty and complexity of both MAR and UX as concepts elicit an extensive breadth of aspects to be studied in detail in future research and development – regarding both MAR as a field of technology and UX as a field of theory

Approaches to capitation and risk adjustment in health care: an international survey

This report is a survey of current capitation methods in health care finance in developed countries. It was commissioned as part of the fundamental review by UK Ministers of the formula used to allocate health care finance to local areas in England, being carried out under the auspices of the Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation (ACRA). The study was commissioned in February 1999 and completed in May 1999. It was informed by a review of published literature and an extensive network of contacts in government departments and academic institutions. A capitation can be defined as the amount of health service funds to be assigned to a person for the service in question, for the time period in question, subject to any national budget constraints. In effect, a capitation system puts a “price” on the head of every citizen. Capitations are usually varied according to an individual’s personal and social characteristics, using a process known as risk adjustment. In most nations, the intention is that the risk-adjusted capitation should represent an unbiased estimate of the expected costs of the citizen to the health care plan over the chosen time period (typically one year). There is an element of capitation funding in the health care systems of almost all developed countries. Capitation is seen as an important mechanism for securing both equity and efficiency objectives. The review examined capitation schemes in 19 countries and concentrated on major strategic risk adjustment schemes implemented at the national or regional level. It identified two broad approaches to setting capitations, which we term matrix methods and index methods. The fundamental difficulties affecting both approaches are a lack of suitable data and the problem of disentangling needs effects from supply effects on health care utilization. Almost all schemes rely on analysis of empirical data, and various analytic methods have been used for setting capitations. Numerous need and cost factors have been used in setting capitations. However, the choice has usually been determined more by data availability than a compelling link to health care expenditure needs. The review concluded that there were elements of many schemes that may be of relevance to the review of methods currently used in England, and which deserve further investigation. However, until improvements in data availability are in place, it is difficult to envisage major enhancements to methods currently in use.capitation

Creativity and Information Systems: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation of Creativity in IS

Be productive. Since the industrial revolution, managers have had an almost singular focus on equipping employees with productivity tools in productivity-supportive environments. Information technologies—systems designed to increase productivity—entered the marketplace in the 1980\u27s and were initially credited with the subsequent boom. Eventually, innovation was shown to be the primary spark, and the managerial focus shifted. Increasingly, the imperative is: be creative. This dissertation investigates how a technology environment designed to be fast and mechanistic influences the slow and organic act of creativity. Creativity—the production of novel and useful solutions—can be an elusive subject and has a varied history within Information Systems (IS) research so the first essay is devoted to conducting an historical analysis of creativity research across several domains and developing a holistic, technologically-aware framework for researching creativity in modern organizations. IS literature published in the Senior Scholar\u27s journals is then mapped to the proposed framework as a means of identifying unexplored regions of the creativity phenomenon. This essay concludes with a discussion of future directions for creativity research within IS. The second essay integrates task-technology fit and conservation of resources theory and employs an experimental design to explore the task of being creative with an IS. Borrowing from fine arts research, the concept of IS Mastery is introduced as a resource which, when deployed efficiently, acts to conserve resources and enhance performance on cognitively demanding creative tasks. The third essay investigates an expectedly strong but unexpectedly negative relationship between technology fit and creative performance. This finding launches an exploration into alternate study designs, theoretical models and performance measures as we search for the true nature of the relationship between creativity and technology fit. The essay concludes with an updated map of the technology-to-performance chain. These essays contribute to IS research by creating a technology-aware creativity framework for motivating and positioning future research, by showing that the IS is neither a neutral nor frictionless collaborator in creative tasks and by exposing the inhibiting effects of a well-fitting technology for creative performance

TURBULENCE IN INDUSTRIAL POPULATIONS: THE CASE OF THE ITALIAN GRAPHIC PAPER INDUSTRY

Significant and persistent flows of entry and exit, that is, turbulence, are a common feature of most industries, across countries and over time. By means of a new database for the Italian graphic papermaking industry between 1964 and 2004, this research inquires into the extent and character of entry and exit in an industry where innovation in products and processes has been incremental and largely predictable and, therefore, unlikely to be the main driving force of firm turbulence. The first part of the thesis deals with methodological issues concerning compilation of the thesis’ database, which records, annually, plants’ and firms’ major demographic events, attributes and proprietary linkages, thus allowing comparison between the dynamics of plants and firms throughout the reference period. Special attention was given to avoid measurement distortions that would have risen from using business register administrative files. The second part focuses on what factors are more likely to affect survival prospects of plants and firms. Using logistical analysis, econometric results confirm that plant exit has been determined by efficiency of its equipment, diversification strategy of the proprietary firm and, unexpectedly, its organizational history. Using survival analysis, econometric results reveal that the risk of exit for firms is lowered by pursuit of external growth strategies (acquisition of plants), concentration of production into graphic paper and being equipped with modern machinery. The third part examines the effects of firm turbulence on the evolution of concentration in the industry. The data show that acquisitions have been an important source of turnover among the leading companies and that a significant portion of the leading companies has been relatively new. The analysis also indicates that at least some turbulence has led to instability of market shares among the leading firms

The Cross-Cultural Adjustment of Hotel Expatriates in Malaysia the Mediating Effects of Comunication and Interaction

Despite the abundance of research in the area of expatriation, the growth of hotel industry and the increase in the number of people serving abroad in the industry, there remains a relative lack of empirical research investigating the mediating effects of variables such as communication and interaction on expatriate adjustment. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to investigate the mediating effects of communication and interaction in the adjustment of hotel expatriates in Malaysia. The study also investigates differences in the patterns of adjustment between organizational expatriates (OEs) and self-initiated expatriates (SIEs). Besides, relationships between individual, organizational and nonwork factors and expatriate adjustment are determined and the most influential predictors of expatriate adjustment are also identified. The U-Curve Theory and Social Learning Theory guided this thesis, which used a survey to measure the attitudes and opinions of the 203 respondents comprised of expatriates working in the Malaysian hotel industry. Multiple statistical tests were used to analyze data and ensure the reliability and validity of the instruments. Results revealed that communication and interaction partially mediated the relationships between individual, organizational and nonwork variables and expatriate adjustment. The results also showed that OEs and SIEs in the hotel industry did not differ significantly in their adjustment but there were significant differences in the pattern of adjustment of expatriates from different regions. Previous international experience, social support and family adjustment showed significant positive relationships with expatriate adjustment. Meanwhile, social support and family adjustment were the most influential predictors of expatriate adjustment. The findings are significant for the industry and also contributed to new empirical findings to the literature on expatriation and cross-cultural adjustment

Social Belonging and Built Space: Using Contact, Contention, and Common Conditions to Create Multicultural and Multifaith Shared-Space in a Repurposed Aurora, Colorado, Church

Global patterns of human displacement and migration are diversifying the user base of urban churches. This change produces new settings of cross-cultural encounter and adaptation of social space. This study examines the transition of a Lutheran church into a multifaith and multicultural community center. In Aurora, Colorado, a majority-minority city, the facility offers vital support for immigrants, refugees, and low-income community members while maintaining links with [previous] congregants. Using ethnographic methods, I explore the cultural dimensions of repurposed space for a diverse constituency. Discussed herein are the ways in which the physical space is interpreted, how contention and divergent experiences aid in the construction of shared-space, and the place of commonality in a diverse setting. Using these findings, this paper offers suggestions and strategies for accommodating religious and social diversity in globalizing cities