Novel music discovery concepts: user experience and design implications

Current music consumers are facing an almost endless selection of music in online services to be accessed on-demand with a variety of devices. The focus has now shifted from providing on-demand access to massive music catalogs towards improving the user experience of the music services, providing new ways of finding relevant music from the massive online catalogs, and making music consumption a pleasurable experience. The key differentiation aspects for music services come largely from the user interface and the ways that music can be found or consumed. This thesis belongs to the fields of human-computer interation (HCI) and music information retrieval (MIR). HCI is concerned with the design, evaluation and implementation of interactive computing systems and MIR targets to broaden the understanding and usage of musical data through research, applications and tools. This thesis studies novel concepts for music discovery that are based on strong visual metaphors and stereotypes. The goal is to research the user experience (UX) of novel music discovery services and to formulate key design implications to support service development for music discovery. The research of music discovery prototypes consisted of three main phases: initial concept design phase, playful concept exploration phase, and iterative concept design phase. The thesis introduces, in total, ten prototype implementations of these novel concepts for music discovery. User evaluations of the implemented prototypes were conducted with Finnish active music listeners with both qualitative and quantitative research methods. This thesis contributes to both academic research on HCI in MIR and commercial music discovery service development. The results provide insights to user experience with different types of novel music discovery services. Five novel music discovery services using the same content-based music recommendation back-end were compared and the comparison results are reported including both first impressions and longer-term usage. Additionally, the results of the studies introduce a wide set of future directions for each music discovery approach. These future directions enable service developers to further enhance the music discovery experience within these fields. All but one of the proposed music discovery concepts work well for music discovery. The use of avatar characters and mood pictures for music discovery are the most promising ones. The results show that visual music discovery services have the potential to replace traditional music discovery services in different types of music discovery practices. The final contribution of the thesis is a set of 16 design implications for music discovery service developers

Naudat kasvavat ulkona ympäri vuoden

Lihanautojen ja hiehojen kasvatus metsätarhassa sopii parhaiten pienille lypsykarjatiloille, jotka voivat ulkokasvatuksen avulla hyödyntää navetasta vapautuvaa tilaa maidontuotannossa. Ulkotarhaus auttaa myös maatilan toiminnan kehittämisessä niin sanotun ylimenovaiheen aikana.vo

Size matters more than shape: Ingestion of primary and secondary microplastics by small predators

Experimental studies have shown how microplastics are taken up by various aquatic organisms. Most of these studies have been carried out with small ( 200 μm and ABS > 100 μm) in comparison to primary microplastic beads (90 μm). Our results show that fragments of secondary plastics may end up in the food web but only in small amounts, and that the size of the fragments more than their shape is a crucial nominator influencing the numbers of plastics ingested. Future research aiming to resolve the effects of microplastics in the ecosystems should concentrate on environmentally relevant plastics and concentrations.Peer reviewe

Microplastic concentrations, size distribution, and polymer types in the surface waters of a northern European lake

Practitioner points • Samples were taken with a manta trawl (333 μm) and a pump filtration system (300/100/20 μm) • With pump filtration, small 20–300 μm particles were more common than >300 μm particles • The average concentration of manta trawled samples was 0.27 ± 0.18 (mean ± SD) microplastics/m3 • FTIR analysis revealed PE, PP, PET, and PAN to be the most common polymersWe examined microplastic concentrations, size distributions, and polymer types in surface waters of a northern European dimictic lake. Two sampling methods, a pump sieving water onto filters with different pore sizes (20, 100, and 300 µm) and a common manta trawl (333 µm), were utilized to sample surface water from 12 sites at the vicinity of potential sources for microplastic emissions. The number and polymer types of microplastics in the samples were determined with optical microscopy and μFTIR spectroscopy. The average concentrations were 0.27 ± 0.18 (mean ± SD) microplastics/m3 in manta trawled samples and 1.8 ± 2.3 (>300 μm), 12 ± 17 (100–300 μm) and 155 ± 73 (20–100 μm) microplastics/m3 in pump filtered samples. The majority (64%) of the identified microplastics (n = 168) were fibers, and the rest were fragments. Materials were identified as polymers commonly used in consumer products, such as polyethylene, polypropylene, and polyethylene terephthalate. Microplastic concentrations were high near the discharge pipe of a wastewater treatment plant, harbors, and snow dumping site

Microplastic concentrations, size distribution, and polymer types in the surface waters of a northern European lake

Practitioner points • Samples were taken with a manta trawl (333 μm) and a pump filtration system (300/100/20 μm) • With pump filtration, small 20–300 μm particles were more common than >300 μm particles • The average concentration of manta trawled samples was 0.27 ± 0.18 (mean ± SD) microplastics/m3 • FTIR analysis revealed PE, PP, PET, and PAN to be the most common polymersWe examined microplastic concentrations, size distributions, and polymer types in surface waters of a northern European dimictic lake. Two sampling methods, a pump sieving water onto filters with different pore sizes (20, 100, and 300 µm) and a common manta trawl (333 µm), were utilized to sample surface water from 12 sites at the vicinity of potential sources for microplastic emissions. The number and polymer types of microplastics in the samples were determined with optical microscopy and μFTIR spectroscopy. The average concentrations were 0.27 ± 0.18 (mean ± SD) microplastics/m3 in manta trawled samples and 1.8 ± 2.3 (>300 μm), 12 ± 17 (100–300 μm) and 155 ± 73 (20–100 μm) microplastics/m3 in pump filtered samples. The majority (64%) of the identified microplastics (n = 168) were fibers, and the rest were fragments. Materials were identified as polymers commonly used in consumer products, such as polyethylene, polypropylene, and polyethylene terephthalate. Microplastic concentrations were high near the discharge pipe of a wastewater treatment plant, harbors, and snow dumping site

Microplastics accumulate to thin layers in the stratified Baltic Sea

Highlights • Microplastic (MP) concentrations were high in halo- and thermoclines. • In stratified seawater, the water column can contain more MPs than surface water. • MPs did not sink according to the densities of virgin plastics.In the Baltic Sea, water is stratified due to differences in density and salinity. The stratification prevents water from mixing, which could affect sinking rates of microplastics in the sea. We studied the accumulation of microplastics to halocline and thermocline. We sampled water with a 100 μm plankton net from vertical transects between halo- and thermocline, and a 30 L water sampler from the end of halocline and the beginning of thermocline. Thereafter, microplastics in the whole sample volumes were analyzed with imaging Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The plankton net results showed that water column between halo- and thermoclines contained on average 0.92 ± 0.61 MP m−3 (237 ± 277 ng/m−3; mean ± SD), whereas the 30 L samples from the end of halocline and the beginning of thermocline contained 0.44 ± 0.52 MP L−1 (106 ± 209 ng L−1). Hence, microplastics are likely to accumulate to thin layers in the halocline and thermocline. The vast majority of the found microplastics were polyethylene, polypropylene and polyethylene terephthalate, which are common plastic types. We did not observe any trend between the density of microplastics and the sampling depth, probably because biofilm formation affected the sinking rates of the particles. Our results indicate the need to sample deeper water layers in addition to surface waters at least in the stratified water bodies to obtain a comprehensive overview of the abundance of microplastics in the aquatic environment

Socially Augmented Music Discovery with Collaborative Playlists and Mood Pictures

This article describes the iterative design and user evaluation of a prototype, which enables collaborative music discovery by creating playlists and associating and expanding them with mood pictures. The concept was evaluated in two field trials by a total of 45 individual users, with both trials containing 30 users and 15 of the users attending both of the trials. The results from the two field trials are presented under three main themes: socially augmented music discovery, user-generated content enhancing music discovery and social usage patterns emerging from the usage of such a system. Users formed ways to facilitate social interaction and music discovery through the playlist content they shared. Social usage patterns reveal the social activities users performed with the service in the trials. The findings can be used as design implications for mood-based music service designers.acceptedVersionPeer reviewe

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