An investigation into the viability of LibraryThing for promotional and user engagement purposes in libraries

Structured abstract: Purpose: LibraryThing is a Web 2.0 tool allowing users to catalogue books using data drawn from sources such as Amazon and the Library of Congress and has facilities such as tagging and interest groups. This study evaluates whether LibraryThing is a valuable tool for libraries to use for promotional and user engagement purposes. Methodology: This study used a sequential mixed methods 3 phase design: (1) the identification of LibraryThing features for user engagement or promotional purposes, (2) exploratory semi-structured interviews (3) a questionnaire. Findings: Several uses of LibraryThing for promotional and user engagement purposes were identified. The most popular reason libraries used LibraryThing was to promote the library or library stock, with most respondents using it specifically to highlight collections of books. Monitoring of patron usage was low and many respondents had not received any feedback. LibraryThing was commonly reported as being easy to use, remotely accessible, and having low cost, whilst its main drawbacks were the 200 book limit for free accounts, and it being a third-party site. The majority of respondents felt LibraryThing was a useful tool for libraries. Practical implications: LibraryThing has most value as a promotional tool for libraries. Libraries should actively monitor patron usage of their LibraryThing account or request user feedback to ensure that LibraryThing provides a truly valuable service for their library. Orginality : There is little research on the value of LibraryThing for libraries, or librarians perceptions of LibraryThing as a Web 2.0 tool.

User's manual

'Typeform dialogues', as originally planned for publication, was an interactive CD-based screen interface presenting a comparative survey of typeform history and description. The CD was to be held inside a printed book that included two essays and a User’s Manual. Although 'Typeform dialogues' (CD+book) was not completed as planned, a PDF file was published containing the User’s Manual, together with background information about the interface and the project it was part of. The User's Manual presents all interface sections and features (using screen grabs) and explains their editorial rationale, design, and function.

Ozonolysis of methyl oleate monolayers at the air–water interface: oxidation kinetics, reaction products and atmospheric implications

Ozonolysis of methyl oleate monolayers at the air–water interface results in surprisingly rapid loss of material through cleavage of the C[double bond, length as m-dash]C bond and evaporation/dissolution of reaction products. We determine using neutron reflectometry a rate coefficient of (5.7 ± 0.9) × 10−10 cm2 molecule−1 s−1 and an uptake coefficient of [similar]3 × 10−5 for the oxidation of a methyl ester monolayer: the atmospheric lifetime is [similar]10 min. We obtained direct experimental evidence that <2% of organic material remains at the surface on atmospheric timescales. Therefore known long atmospheric residence times of unsaturated fatty acids suggest that these molecules cannot be present at the interface throughout their ageing cycle, i.e. the reported atmospheric longevity is likely to be attributed to presence in the bulk and viscosity-limited reactive loss. Possible reaction products were characterized by ellipsometry and uncertainties in the atmospheric fate of organic surfactants such as oleic acid and its methyl ester are discussed. Our results suggest that a minor change to the structure of the molecule (fatty acid vs. its methyl ester) considerably impacts on reactivity and fate of the organic film.

Effect of instructive visual stimuli on neurofeedback training for motor imagery-based braincomputer interface

Event-related desynchronization (ERD) of the electroencephalogram (EEG) from the motor cortex is associated with execution, observation, and mental imagery of motor tasks. Generation of ERD by motor imagery (MI) has been widely used for brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) linked to neuroprosthetics and other motor assistance devices. Control of MI-based BCIs can be acquired by neurofeedback training to reliably induce MI-associated ERD. To develop more effective training conditions, we investigated the effect of static and dynamic visual representations of target movements (a picture of forearms or a video clip of hand grasping movements) during the BCI training. After 4 consecutive training days, the group that performed MI while viewing the video showed significant improvement in generating MI-associated ERD compared with the group that viewed the static image. This result suggests that passively observing the target movement during MI would improve the associated mental imagery and enhance MI-based BCIs skills.

Context relevant persuasive interaction and design: consideration of human factors influencing B2C persuasive interaction

The revolutions of electronic and mobile commerce have opened up unique opportunities for global marketing and business to consumer (B2C) persuasive interaction; with the aim of influencing user behavior. The success or failure of such persuasive interaction is impacted by cultural, social, and personal dimensions. Accordingly, failure to consider such dimensions risks the user forming a negative attitude towards retailer’s websites or mobile applications, which subsequently threatens customer behavior. A better understanding of human factors influencing the way people perceive B2C persuasive interaction is needed. This paper is introduces the concept of a context relevant persuasive interaction and proposes a guideline for designing relevant B2C persuasive interaction.

An optimized ERP brain–computer interface based on facial expression changes

Objective. Interferences from spatially adjacent non-target stimuli are known to evoke event-related potentials (ERPs) during non-target flashes and, therefore, lead to false positives. This phenomenon was commonly seen in visual attention-based brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) using conspicuous stimuli and is known to adversely affect the performance of BCI systems. Although users try to focus on the target stimulus, they cannot help but be affected by conspicuous changes of the stimuli (such as flashes or presenting images) which were adjacent to the target stimulus. Furthermore, subjects have reported that conspicuous stimuli made them tired and annoyed. In view of this, the aim of this study was to reduce adjacent interference, annoyance and fatigue using a new stimulus presentation pattern based upon facial expression changes. Our goal was not to design a new pattern which could evoke larger ERPs than the face pattern, but to design a new pattern which could reduce adjacent interference, annoyance and fatigue, and evoke ERPs as good as those observed during the face pattern. Approach. Positive facial expressions could be changed to negative facial expressions by minor changes to the original facial image. Although the changes are minor, the contrast is big enough to evoke strong ERPs. In this paper, a facial expression change pattern between positive and negative facial expressions was used to attempt to minimize interference effects. This was compared against two different conditions, a shuffled pattern containing the same shapes and colours as the facial expression change pattern, but without the semantic content associated with a change in expression, and a face versus no face pattern. Comparisons were made in terms of classification accuracy and information transfer rate as well as user supplied subjective measures. Main results. The results showed that interferences from adjacent stimuli, annoyance and the fatigue experienced by the subjects could be reduced significantly (p < 0.05) by using the facial expression change patterns in comparison with the face pattern. The offline results show that the classification accuracy of the facial expression change pattern was significantly better than that of the shuffled pattern (p < 0.05) and the face pattern (p < 0.05). Significance. The facial expression change pattern presented in this paper reduced interference from adjacent stimuli and decreased the fatigue and annoyance experienced by BCI users significantly (p < 0.05) compared to the face pattern.

Motor imagery-induced EEG patterns in individuals with spinal cord injury and their impact on brain–computer interface accuracy

Objective. Assimilating the diagnosis complete spinal cord injury (SCI) takes time and is not easy, as patients know that there is no ‘cure’ at the present time. Brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) can facilitate daily living. However, inter-subject variability demands measurements with potential user groups and an understanding of how they differ to healthy users BCIs are more commonly tested with. Thus, a three-class motor imagery (MI) screening (left hand, right hand, feet) was performed with a group of 10 able-bodied and 16 complete spinal-cord-injured people (paraplegics, tetraplegics) with the objective of determining what differences were present between the user groups and how they would impact upon the ability of these user groups to interact with a BCI. Approach. Electrophysiological differences between patient groups and healthy users are measured in terms of sensorimotor rhythm deflections from baseline during MI, electroencephalogram microstate scalp maps and strengths of inter-channel phase synchronization. Additionally, using a common spatial pattern algorithm and a linear discriminant analysis classifier, the classification accuracy was calculated and compared between groups. Main results. It is seen that both patient groups (tetraplegic and paraplegic) have some significant differences in event-related desynchronization strengths, exhibit significant increases in synchronization and reach significantly lower accuracies (mean (M) = 66.1%) than the group of healthy subjects (M = 85.1%). Significance. The results demonstrate significant differences in electrophysiological correlates of motor control between healthy individuals and those individuals who stand to benefit most from BCI technology (individuals with SCI). They highlight the difficulty in directly translating results from healthy subjects to participants with SCI and the challenges that, therefore, arise in providing BCIs to such individuals

Motor imagery induced EEG patterns in spinal cord injury patients and their impact on Brain-Computer Interface accuracy

OBJECTIVE: Assimilating the diagnosis complete spinal cord injury (SCI) takes time and is not easy, as patients know that there is no 'cure' at the present time. Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) can facilitate daily living. However, inter-subject variability demands measurements with potential user groups and an understanding of how they differ to healthy users BCIs are more commonly tested with. Thus, a three-class motor imagery (MI) screening (left hand, right hand, feet) was performed with a group of 10 able-bodied and 16 complete spinal-cord-injured people (paraplegics, tetraplegics) with the objective of determining what differences were present between the user groups and how they would impact upon the ability of these user groups to interact with a BCI. APPROACH: Electrophysiological differences between patient groups and healthy users are measured in terms of sensorimotor rhythm deflections from baseline during MI, electroencephalogram microstate scalp maps and strengths of inter-channel phase synchronization. Additionally, using a common spatial pattern algorithm and a linear discriminant analysis classifier, the classification accuracy was calculated and compared between groups. MAIN RESULTS: It is seen that both patient groups (tetraplegic and paraplegic) have some significant differences in event-related desynchronization strengths, exhibit significant increases in synchronization and reach significantly lower accuracies (mean (M) = 66.1%) than the group of healthy subjects (M = 85.1%). SIGNIFICANCE: The results demonstrate significant differences in electrophysiological correlates of motor control between healthy individuals and those individuals who stand to benefit most from BCI technology (individuals with SCI). They highlight the difficulty in directly translating results from healthy subjects to participants with SCI and the challenges that, therefore, arise in providing BCIs to such individuals.

An optimized ERP Brain-computer interface based on facial expression changes

OBJECTIVE: Interferences from spatially adjacent non-target stimuli are known to evoke event-related potentials (ERPs) during non-target flashes and, therefore, lead to false positives. This phenomenon was commonly seen in visual attention-based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) using conspicuous stimuli and is known to adversely affect the performance of BCI systems. Although users try to focus on the target stimulus, they cannot help but be affected by conspicuous changes of the stimuli (such as flashes or presenting images) which were adjacent to the target stimulus. Furthermore, subjects have reported that conspicuous stimuli made them tired and annoyed. In view of this, the aim of this study was to reduce adjacent interference, annoyance and fatigue using a new stimulus presentation pattern based upon facial expression changes. Our goal was not to design a new pattern which could evoke larger ERPs than the face pattern, but to design a new pattern which could reduce adjacent interference, annoyance and fatigue, and evoke ERPs as good as those observed during the face pattern. APPROACH: Positive facial expressions could be changed to negative facial expressions by minor changes to the original facial image. Although the changes are minor, the contrast is big enough to evoke strong ERPs. In this paper, a facial expression change pattern between positive and negative facial expressions was used to attempt to minimize interference effects. This was compared against two different conditions, a shuffled pattern containing the same shapes and colours as the facial expression change pattern, but without the semantic content associated with a change in expression, and a face versus no face pattern. Comparisons were made in terms of classification accuracy and information transfer rate as well as user supplied subjective measures. MAIN RESULTS: The results showed that interferences from adjacent stimuli, annoyance and the fatigue experienced by the subjects could be reduced significantly (p < 0.05) by using the facial expression change patterns in comparison with the face pattern. The offline results show that the classification accuracy of the facial expression change pattern was significantly better than that of the shuffled pattern (p < 0.05) and the face pattern (p < 0.05). SIGNIFICANCE: The facial expression change pattern presented in this paper reduced interference from adjacent stimuli and decreased the fatigue and annoyance experienced by BCI users significantly (p < 0.05) compared to the face pattern.

L1 Acquisition of interface properties across Portuguese dialects: modular and interdisciplinary interfaces as sources of explanation

This study investigates the child (L1) acquisition of properties at the interfaces of morphosyntax, syntax-semantics and syntax-pragmatics, by focusing on inflected infinitives in European Portuguese (EP). Three child groups were tested, 6–7-year-olds, 9–10-year-olds and 11–12-year-olds, as well as an adult control group. The data demonstrate that children as young as 6 have knowledge of the morpho-syntactic properties of inflected infinitives, although they seem at first glance to show partially insufficient knowledge of their syntax–semantic interface properties (i.e. non-obligatory control properties), differently from children aged 9 and older, who show clearer evidence of knowledge of both types of properties. However, in general, both morpho-syntactic and syntax–semantics interface properties are also accessible to 6–7-year-old children, although these children give preference to a range of interpretations partially different from the adults; in certain cases, they may not appeal to certain pragmatic inferences that permit additional interpretations to adults and older children. Crucially, our data demonstrate that EP children master the two types of properties of inflected infinitives years before Brazilian Portuguese children do (Pires and Rothman, 2009a,b), reasons for and implications of which we discuss in detail.

How Pragmatically Odd! Interface Delays and Pronominal Subject Distribution in the L2 Spanish of English Natives

Sorace (2000, 2005) has claimed that while L2 learners can easily acquire properties of L2 narrow syntax they have significant difficulty with regard to interpretation and the discourse distribution of related properties, resulting in so-called residual optionality. However, there is no consensus as to what this difficulty indicates. Is it related to an insurmountable grammatical representational deficit (in the sense of representation deficit approaches; e.g. Beck 1998, Franceschina 2001, Hawkins 2005), is it due to cross-linguistic interference, or is it just a delay due to a greater complexity involved in the acquisition of interface-conditioned properties? In this article, I explore the L2 distribution of null and overt subject pronouns of English speaking learners of L2 Spanish. While intermediate learners clearly have knowledge of the syntax of Spanish null subjects, they do not have target-like pragmatic knowledge of their distribution with overt subjects. The present data demonstrate, however, that this difficulty is overcome at highly advanced stages of L2 development, thus suggesting that properties at the syntax-pragmatics interface are not destined for inevitable fossilization.

The interface between organizational learning capability, entrepreneurial orientation, and SME growth

This paper investigates the interface between organizational learning capability, entrepreneurial orientation (EO), and small business performance. It reports on the findings from 350 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in North Cyprus operating in the services and retailing sectors. The findings indicate a positive relationship between EO and sales and market share growth, but not between EO and employment growth. There is also a positive relationship between organizational learning capability and EO. This paper contributes to the small business management literature by providing a holistic analysis of the interface between organizational learning capability, EO, and growth.

Typo-resource: developing T&L support materials through collaboration

This paper reports on a collaborative project between staff and students in the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication at the University of Reading The Partnerships in Learning and Teaching (PLanT) project here described is a direct response to student needs for better online support materials. Methodologically, the project embeds user-centred design principles within an iterative process of design development and participant research. This process has underpinned the development of a prototype for an online interface called Typo-Resource. The resulting initial prototype addresses the usability and user experience dimensions of an online learning resource, moving beyond providing tutor-identified sets of resources to a multifaceted, collaborative, and visual platform for peer learning.

Developments in the quality of treated greywater supplies for buildings, and associated user perception and acceptance

A manufactured aeration and nanofiltration MBR greywater system was tested during continuous operation at the University of Reading, to demonstrate reliability in delivery of high quality treated greywater. Its treatment performance was evaluated against British Standard criteria [BSI (Greywater Systems—Part 1 Code of Practice: BS8525-1:2010. BS Press, 2010); (Greywater Systems—Part 2 Domestic Greywater Treatment, Requirements and Methods: BS 8525-2:2011. BS Press, 2011)]. The low carbon greywater recycling technology produced excellent analytical results as well as consistency in performance. User acceptance of such reliably treated greywater was then evaluated through user perception studies. The results inform the potential supply of treated greywater to student accommodation. Out of 135 questionnaire replies, 95% demonstrated a lack of aversion in one or more attributes, to using treated, recycled greywater.