How does consumer behaviour change? Examples from energy conservation

A global consumer society is rapidly overshooting ecological limits, there is a dire need to find new ways to change consumer behaviour. Yet history knows few succesful examples of reducing consumption. However, since the 1970s, there is a long legacy of work on energy conservation, which we use to identify three key factors that influence consumer behaviour: consumer awareness, contextual factors and community. Drawing on evidence from a European research project called CHANGING BEHAVIOUR, we discuss where previous efforts to change energy behaviour have succeeded in making a difference. We highlight ways in which sociotechnical systems shaping consumption can be changed and emerging ways in which consumers can join forces to achieve greater power and reach. This analysis has implications for attempts to build a more sustainable consumer society, including, but not limited to, the need to reduce primary energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions

PRIMA — Privacy research through the perspective of a multidisciplinary mash up

Based on a summary description of privacy protection research within three fields of inquiry, viz. social sciences, legal science, and computer and systems sciences, we discuss multidisciplinary approaches with regard to the difficulties and the risks that they entail as well as their possible advantages. The latter include the identification of relevant perspectives of privacy, increased expressiveness in the formulation of research goals, opportunities for improved research methods, and a boost in the utility of invested research efforts

How Social Media Changes User-Centred Design - Cumulative and Strategic User Involvement with Respect to Developer–User Social Distance

The aim of user-centred, participatory, and lead-user design approaches is to raise the quality of products and services through methods that aid developers in user involvement. In the lite-rature, the design context is often assumed to be 'one-off projects', which limits the applicabi-lity of the guidelines for further service design after market launch. Other challenges concern-ing social media include ambiguities in the role of informal engagement, the abstraction pro-cesses between millions of users and working user categories, and criteria for involving users. This study investigated user involvement strategies and practices in the construction of a so-cial media service. The research questions were (1) how do users' actions in and around social media shape its design after market launch, (2) how do social media developers' user involve-ment practices evolve over time, and (3) how does user categorisation change with social me-dia? This thesis adopted an exploratory case study approach and the data was collected during 2003–2010. While the study is grounded in usability research and human–computer interac-tion, the theoretical and methodological framework leaned on science and technology studies. The site of investigation was one of the world's largest social game and online communities for teenagers, Habbo Hotel, operated by Sulake Corporation. The data was gathered from devel-opers and users through a multi-method approach, using traditional qualitative and quantita-tive methods as well as online data sources. While this study offers unique insight into the in-teraction between a particular social media company and its users, the implications go beyond the studied target group and games to social media in general. The key findings demonstrate how collaboration and feedback loops between developers and users change over time. In particular, this study highlights the effects of changes in the target group, the broad variety of applied user involvement methods, rhythms in development, and users' contributions after market launch. The author developed two concepts, 'developer–user social distance' and 'content creation capacity', to help designers and researchers communicate previously neglected dimensions of user involvement. Results from analysis of the accumula-tion of user knowledge in the development organisation criticise assumptions in the literature on when and how designers categorise users as well as the functions of these user categories in the design process. The results further suggest that guidelines and other advice on user involve-ment should be uncoupled from the assumption of stable and orderly project phases. This case contributes to user-centred design guidelines, process guidance for user involvement, and re-search on social media development and developer–user collaboration.Genom att inkludera användare i designprocessen kan systemutvecklare höja kvaliteten på produkter och tjänster. I de främsta metoderna på området, användarcentrerad och deltagande design samt engagemang av "lead-users", utgår man ofta ifrån att designprocessen gäller enskilda projekt, vilket begränsar tillämpningen av metoderna för fortsatt tjänstedesign efter marknadslansering. Vidare utmaningar inom sociala media är oklarheter kring informellt engagemang, praktiska abstraktioner av miljoner användare samt kriterier för användarmedverkan. I denna studie undersöktes strategier för användarmedverkan och praxis i konstruktionen av sociala media. Frågeställningen var (1) hur användares aktiviteter i och kring sociala media formar dess design efter marknadslansering, (2) hur användarmedverkan utvecklas över tid och (3) hur användarkategorisering förändras i och med sociala media. Avhandlingen är en undersökande fallstudie och materialet sammanställdes under 2003-2010. Medan studien är förankrad i forskningsområdet människa–datorinteraktion och begreppet användbarhet, utgår den teoretiska referensramen också från samhällsvetenskapliga teknik- och vetenskapsstudier. Platsen för undersökningen var en av världens största sociala spel och mötesplats på nätet för tonåringar, Habbo Hotel, som drivs av Sulake Corporation. Uppgifterna samlades in från utvecklare och användare genom olika metodansatser. Både traditionella kvalitativa och kvantitativa metoder samt källor på nätet användes. Trots att fallstudien ger en unik insyn i interaktionen mellan ett specifikt företag och dess användare inom sociala media, går implikationerna längre än till den undersökta målgruppen och spel, dvs. till sociala media i allmänhet. De viktigaste resultaten påvisar hur samarbete och feedback mellan utvecklare och användare förändras över tid. I synnerhet belyses effekterna av förändringar i målgruppen, bredden i tillämpningen av metoder för användarmedverkan, rytmer i utvecklingsprocessen samt användarnas insatser. Författaren utvecklade två begrepp, "socialt avstånd mellan utvecklare och användare" och "kapacitet att skapa innehåll", för att hjälpa utvecklare och forskare att kommunicera tidigare försummade dimensioner inom användarmedverkan. Resultaten från analysen av hur kunskapen om användare byggs upp kritiserar ogrundade premisser gällande när och hur utvecklare kategoriserar användarna samt användarkategoriernas funktion i designprocessen. Resultaten påvisar också att riktlinjer och rekommendationer om användarmedverkan bör utvecklas utan premisser om stabila och välordnade projektfaser. Denna fallstudie bidrar till riktlinjer inom användarcentrerad design, processvägledning för användarmedverkan, forskning om utveckling av sociala media och samarbete mellan utvecklare och användare

Overuse of institutional care for children in Europe

Children in institutional care are at risk of attachment disorder and developmental delay, but Europe still relies heavily on this form of care for children in adversit

Mountaineering – A Combinatory Approach for Identifying Lead Users and Other Rare Research Subjects

User innovation is common in many domains, and has been found concentrated in few individuals, lead users. Particularly with regard to a given product or service development project, such rare research subjects can be difficult and resource intensive to identify. Several alternative methods are common in the lead-user identification process, but according to dominant practitioner experience, the searches tend not to follow just one of them, but rather are inclined to involve the integration of several methods. This integration of alternative search methods has not, however, been discussed properly to date. The present state of affairs can make the lead-user identification process appear either as simple recipe following or as a mysterious process. We argue for a realistic middle ground between these extreme depictions, and propose an integrative search strategy labeled “mountaineering” towards users with the sought-after characteristics, lead userness in case of lead users. Through four principal and two supportive cases of mountaineering search, we elaborate some of the alternatives and choices in moving from one search method to another as responses to contingencies in particular searches. This elaboration of actual search experiences complements established depictions of ideal search processes and analytical comparisons between particular search methods

Bubbling Orientifolds

We investigate a class of 1/2-BPS bubbling geometries associated to orientifolds of type IIB string theory and thereby to excited states of the SO(N)/Sp(N) N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. The geometries are in correspondence with free fermions moving in a harmonic oscillator potential on the half-line. Branes wrapped on torsion cycles of these geometries are identified in the fermi fluid description. Besides being of intrinsic interest, these solutions may also occur as local geometries in flux compactifications where orientifold planes are present to ensure global charge cancellation. We comment on the extension of this procedure to M-theory orientifolds.Comment: 25 pages, 11 figures. v2: few references adde

Yersinia enterocolitica-Specific Infection by Bacteriophages TG1 and ϕR1-RT Is Dependent on Temperature-Regulated Expression of the Phage Host Receptor OmpF

Bacteriophages present huge potential both as a resource for developing novel tools for bacterial diagnostics and for use in phage therapy. This potential is also valid for bacteriophages specific for Yersinia enterocolitica. To increase our knowledge of Y. enterocolitica-specific phages, we characterized two novel yersiniophages. The genomes of the bacteriophages vB_YenM_TG1 (TG1) and vB_YenM_ϕR1-RT (ϕR1-RT), isolated from pig manure in Canada and from sewage in Finland, consist of linear double-stranded DNA of 162,101 and 168,809 bp, respectively. Their genomes comprise 262 putative coding sequences and 4 tRNA genes and share 91% overall nucleotide identity. Based on phylogenetic analyses of their whole-genome sequences and large terminase subunit protein sequences, a genus named Tg1virus within the family Myoviridae is proposed, with TG1 and ϕR1-RT (R1RT in the ICTV database) as member species. These bacteriophages exhibit a host range restricted to Y. enterocolitica and display lytic activity against the epidemiologically significant serotypes O:3, O:5,27, and O:9 at and below 25°C. Adsorption analyses of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and OmpF mutants demonstrate that these phages use both the LPS inner core heptosyl residues and the outer membrane protein OmpF as phage receptors. Based on RNA sequencing and quantitative proteomics, we also demonstrate that temperature-dependent infection is due to strong repression of OmpF at 37°C. In addition, ϕR1-RT was shown to be able to enter into a pseudolysogenic state. Together, this work provides further insight into phage-host cell interactions by highlighting the importance of understanding underlying factors which may affect the abundance of phage host receptors on the cell surface