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The ambitions to fund excellent researchers and path-breaking research unite a whole family of funding instruments ranging from Centres of Excellence to individual grants. While instruments aimed at funding excellence share a number of commonalities, there are important subsidiary features which determine their overall efficacy. The paper uses a case study of the Swedish Distinguished Professor Grant (DPG) to investigate the role of subsidiary features in enabling conditions associated with path-breaking research. Interviews were conducted with DPG recipients, to develop an "affordance analysis" identifying how features of the instrument enabled certain researcher actions and opportunities. Results suggest that while long duration and large funds are central to research excellence, the way in which subsidiary features such as reporting, planning and content requirements are structured affect the level of risk-taking. In terms of policy, the paper offers specific and general suggestions for the design of excellence funding instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe demands on public space are manifold, and are likely to increase due to the densification of cities and diversification of societies. How can we better understand public space, and plan spaces that accommodate a wider range of users and activities? This paper discusses the concept of affordances and operationalizes it for public space research. Affordances are possibilities for action that users can engage in when in an environment or using an artefact. Studying public space through the lens of affordances is a relational approach that can serve as a planning and design tool or as a means of evaluating public space in post-occupancy studies. We address three questions regarding affordances in public space: who produces them, what and how do they afford, and to whom? We then present a typology of five affordances, empirically grounded by interviews and observations in three public squares in Zurich, Switzerland: expected, extended, secondary, intentionally shaped and unintentionally shaped affordances. By examining representative artefacts, we show that affordances may be created intentionally by different actors but also emerge unintentionally from relations between human beings, artefacts and the environment. They all shape the way in which public space is used, and by whom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a branch of online live broadcasting, the development of game live broadcasting is also getting faster and faster. Based on the theory of affordance-psychological outcome-behavioral (A-P-B), this paper introduces three gamification elements of user activity visibility, user level visibility and purchase effect visibility, and three user-perceived experience values of perceived hedonic value, perceived cognitive value and perceived social value to establish the model. After collecting data through questionnaires, an empirical analysis based on partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was carried out using SPSS and SmartPLS data analysis methods to explore the influencing factors of viewers’ re-purchase behaviors in game live broadcasting from the perspective of the visibility of gamification elements. The results of this study show that in game live broadcasting, there is a certain influence between the visibility of gamification elements and the perceived value of users, and that the visibility of user activity, the visibility of purchasing effects, and the visibility of user level all have a significant positive effect on the perceived value of the user experience. This study enriches the literature on the business aspects of game live broadcasting and consumer behavior and has a certain significance in guiding live broadcasting business scenarios to improve the re-purchasing behavior of live broadcast viewers.