| 1. |
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| 2. |
- Ayas, Ebru, 1977-
(author)
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Engineering Feelings of Quality
- 2008
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- There is an increasing emphasis on developing systematical research approaches for design of products that appeal to people’s emotions and values. This thesis proposes methodological developments for investigating people’s subjective emotional needs and values towards quality and explores interactions of related physical design attributes for product design.The overall aim of the licentiate thesis is to gain an understanding on Affective engineering of products through exploring the concept of quality feeling and to develop methodological approaches for this. Quality feeling can be described as a holistic concept considering individuals’ perceptions, expectations, experiences, physical and psychological expressions for a product or service. Affective Engineering methodology aims at translating human psychological processes, such as feelings and emotions, into appropriate product design attributes, such as size, shape, and surface characteristics.The thesis presents three methodological approaches when evaluating products for affective engineering and one approach for an interactive product design support system development.The first study presented deals with feelings of quality for reach truck operator’s cabin components. Components that would convey to give a higher total quality feeling were identified and improvement opportunities were prioritized. The second study presented is based on developing an interactive affective design and decision support system software for design of the steering wheel from drivers’ individual and shared preferences. In the third study affective values arising from judgments for important feelings of quality is the study basis. The author presents research on identifying interactions of design attributes for affective values in waiting areas of primary health care services.Further, a new approach for applying Affective Engineering in design of complex contexts is proposed.The proposed approach aims to handle contexts where feelings and design attributes have complex interactions for products and services that give almost an infinite number of design alternatives that are difficult to handle in traditional Kansei Engineering studies. With this thesis also an interactive product design and decision support system software is developed for steering wheel design and proposed for educational and industrial use. The proposed system works based on linking product design attributes to human feelings by applying Genetic algorithms and provides potential basis for future product development and improvements.This thesis has also contributed with affective design recommendations applicable for vehicle cabins and waiting areas in primary health care. Moreover, a number of existing methods in Affective Engineering have been tested and methodological experience is drawn, including advantages, disadvantages and limitations of using these methods.
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| 3. |
- Olstam, Johan, 1979-
(author)
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A model for simulation and generation of surrounding vehicles in driving simulators
- 2005
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Driving simulators are used to conduct experiments on for example driver behavior, road design, and vehicle characteristics. The results of the experiments often depend on the traffic conditions. One example is the evaluation of cellular phones and how they affect driving behavior. It is clear that the ability to use phones when driving depends on traffic intensity and composition, and that realistic experiments in driving simulators therefore has to include surrounding traffic.This thesis describes a model that generates and simulates surrounding vehicles for a driving simulator. The proposed model generates a traffic stream, corresponding to a given target flow and simulates realistic interactions between vehicles. The model is built on established techniques for time-driven microscopic simulation of traffic and uses an approach of only simulating the closest neighborhood of the driving simulator vehicle. In our model this closest neighborhood is divided into one inner region and two outer regions. Vehicles in the inner region are simulated according to advanced behavioral models while vehicles in the outer regions are updated according to a less time-consuming model. The presented work includes a new framework for generating and simulating vehicles within a moving area. It also includes the development of enhanced models for car-following and overtaking and a simple mesoscopic traffic model.The developed model has been integrated and tested within the VTI Driving simulator III. A driving simulator experiment has been performed in order to check if the participants observe the behavior of the simulated vehicles as realistic or not. The results were promising but they also indicated that enhancements could be made. The model has also been validated on the number of vehicles that catches up with the driving simulator vehicle and vice versa. The agreement is good for active and passive catch-ups on rural roads and for passive catch-ups on freeways, but less good for active catch-ups on freeways.
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| 4. |
- Karltun, Johan
(author)
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Förändringsprocessers egenskaper och utvärdering
- 1996
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Utgångspunkten i denna avhandling är att det är möjligt att med en väl utformad förändringsprocess, kunna skapa förutsättningar för både goda arbeten och en stärkt konkurrenskraft i framför allt mindre träindustrier. Tre fallstudier är genomförda, och förändringsprocesserna är i dessa fall utvärderade med syftet att skapa en bättre kunskap om hur en effektiv förändringsprocess kan utformas och styras. Vidare föreslås en metodik för att utvärdera förändringsprocesser. Företagens förmåga att använda sig av metodiskt arbete, att kunna omsätta problemlösningar till praktisk handling, enigt och entydigt ledarskapsstöd och de anställdas medverkan identifieras som viktiga faktorer för en effektiv förändringsprocess. För att uppnå fysiska arbetsmiljöförbättringar och engagemang har framför allt de anställdas medverkan och ett tillräckligt ekonomiskt handlingsutrymme stor betydelse. I förändringsarbetet har två olika typer av förändringsprocesser som inverkar på konkurrenskraft och arbetsförhållanden identifierats. Den ena avser förändringar inom gällande mål och visioner, och den är framför allt åtgärdsinriktad. Denna förändringstyp har karaktären av vardagsrationalisering, och förutsätter ofta en förbättring av arbetsförhållandena för att den ska fungera effektivt. Den har en god förmåga att framför allt ge fysiska arbetsmiljöförbättringar. Den andra typen av förändring drivs av en vision och konkretiserade mål, och kräver en helt annan planering och organisation för sitt genomförande. För att denna process ska resultera i förbättrade arbetsförhållanden krävs medvetet angivna mål som inbegriper ett så-dant syfte. Resultaten visar också att en förändringsprocess behöver utvärderas ur flera perspektiv för att man ska få en acceptabelt bra bild av hur den ska kunna styras.
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| 5. |
- Winroth, Mats
(author)
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On Manufacturing Strategies : Implementation and utilization at some Swedish manufacturing industries
- 2001
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis discusses the issue of manufacturing strategies. Many articles and books on this matter have been published during the last 30 years, the majority being focused on American or British companies. Research on the formulation and implicationof manufacturing strategies in Swedish companies, however, is limited. This thesis focuses on findings from two large-scale Swedish companies, Saab Automobile AB and Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, known for their work on manufacturingstrategies, and from 62 medium sized enterprises. The main objectives of the manufacturing system are to manufacture products that satisfy the customer as well as to give the manufacturer a good return on investment. The studies show that manufacturing strategies play an important role in these efforts and they always form the base for the specification of the manufacturing system. Furthermore, the studies show that SAAB and Ericsson work actively with manufacturing strategies. The most important factors vary, but quality, cost, delivery precision and, concerning consumer products, Time To Market (TTM) are always considered essential to the success of the company. It is also essential that the top management ofthe company recognize this importance of the strategies. Strategies are not directly used in the daily work, but the personnel work towards short-term, easily comprehensible,targets that are derived from the manufacturing strategies.To get a wider view of the situation in Swedish industry, a survey among a large number of medium sized enterprises was performed. The result showed that also these companies work with strategies, however, not as systematically as Saab and Ericsson and the strategies are not always documented and implemented. The most valued competitive priorities were quality and delivery precision/reliability. It was also shown that a majority of these companies had certified quality management or environmental management systems.
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| 6. |
- Miciol, Frank-Gilles, 1958-
(author)
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Hur kulturen påverkar Svensk-Franska affärsrelationer : En studie av gemensamma industriella projekt mellan SAAB Aerospace i Linköping och Dassault Aviation i Paris
- 2013
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Globaliseringen av affärsrelationer har lett till att individer och företag med olika kulturell bakgrund möts i en mycket större utsträckning än vad som skedde för några decennier sedan. Svenska och franska företag dras med i den globala strömmen: de gemensamma affärsrelationerna, bilaterala projekten och mötena blir alltmer omfattande och intensivare, vilket också innebär att de kulturella skillnaderna mellan nationaliteterna blir kännbara, och de orsakar både problem och möjligheter.Det aktuella forskningsprojektet syftar till att utreda vad som kännetecknar den svenska respektive den franska affärskulturen, samt att studera vilka skillnader i dessa kulturer som påverkar gemensamma samarbetsprocesser. Studien baseras på flera fall av industriella projekt mellan SAAB Aerospace i Linköping och Dassault Aviation i Paris, där flygingenjörer utvecklar högteknologiska produkter.Två olika världar. Studien visar att svenskar respektive fransmän utvecklas i två olika världar. Även om de studerade företagen och deras ingenjörer delar samma tekniska kultur, driver de sina projekt på olika sätt, och skillnaderna kommer till uttryck ofta i samband med gemensamma beslutsprocesser, med tids- och energislukande missförstånd som följd. Besluten tas på olika nivåer, på olika sätt, vid olika tidpunkter och har olika betydelse och bindningskraft om man är i Sverige eller i Frankrike.Olikheter betyder också möjligheter. Man skall dock inte alltid betrakta dessa skillnader som ett problem. En ökad förståelse för varandras mentalitet kan leda dels till att krockar undviks, och att man kan dra fördel av skillnaderna på ett konstruktivt sätt. Den aktuella studien visar att den franska retoriska seden är väl anpassad för att hantera abstrakta frågor samt för att främja innovation. De mer konsensuella svenskarna i sin tur är svårslagna när det gäller medarbetares involvering, samt för att förverkliga idéer och visioner. Olikheter mellan den franska respektive den svenska kulturen kan då komplettera varandra och leda till synergier som kan gagna båda parterna, för ett framgångsrikt samarbete bortom våra gränser.
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| 7. |
- Persson, Sofia, 1984-
(author)
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Collaborative development of resource efficient district heating in Sweden
- 2013
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- An increased recovery of excess heat from industrial processes and thermal power generation could significantly reduce energy demands. Industrial excess heat-based district heating systems are generally considered resource efficient because they reduce the use of fossil fuels and the emissions of greenhouse gases. In addition, collaborating actors can gain financial benefits.In Sweden, although collaboration around heat supply has increased recently, the amount of excess heat that is utilized is low compared to the amount created by industrial processes. Using excess-heat recovery in district heating grids is currently one of the most cost-effective ways of providing additional heat to district heating systems.Expansion and new construction of district heating systems in new residential areas can be seen as an opportunity to further use industrial excess heat. Sweden’s local authorities can influence the development of energy systems used for new residential developments. Increased knowledge about how collaborations evolve could be used to develop strategies that could encourage the development of excess heat-based systems for district heating.This licentiate thesis examines the role of organisational collaboration when it comes to the emergence of resource efficient district heating. The thesis summarises results from three articles and investigates the preconditions for, drivers behind, and barriers to the development of excess heat-based systems for district heating in Sweden. These investigations focus on both the district heating companies’ and industries’ points of view. The thesis also discusses how Swedish spatial planning practice could improve the conditions for resource efficient district heating.Important preconditions for excess-heat collaborations to develop, from the actors’ points of view, are mainly financial. However, relationships based on trust, honesty, shared goals, information transfer, and joint problem solving are also necessary for such collaborations to evolve and develop into long-term successful excess-heat collaborations. These features are also important when it comes to the decision-making process, because knowledge gained through the participation of stakeholders is required to understand common goals and objectives and to put these into practice.As for the development of new excess heat-based district heating systems, results show that the district heating companies generally participate late in the spatial planning process. An earlier dialogue between local authority planners and district heating companies could facilitate the emergence and development of new excess heat-based district heating systems. Furthermore, to facilitate the use of excess heat-based systems, planning should also take into account any nearby industry that produces excess heat. In addition, investment subsidies could encourage the development of excess heat-based systems for district heating and provide long-term environmental benefits for collaborating actors as well as for society at large.
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| 8. |
- Alenljung, Beatrice
(author)
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Decision-making in the Requirements Engineering Process : A Human-centred Approach
- 2005
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Complex decision-making is a prominent aspect of requirements engineering and the need for improved decision support for requirements engineers has been identified by a number of authors. A first step toward better decision support in requirements engineering is to understand decision-makers’ complex decision situations. To gain a holistic perspective of the decision situation from a decision-makers perspective, a decision situation framework has been created. The framework evolved through a literature analysis of decision support systems and decision-making theories. The decision situation of requirements engineers has been studied at Ericsson Microwave Systems and is described in this thesis. Aspects of decision situations are decision matters, decision-making activities, and decision processes. Another aspect of decision situations is the factors that affect the decision-maker. A number of interrelated factors have been identified. Each factor consists of problems and these are related to decision-making theories. The consequences of this for requirements engineering decision support, represented as a list that consists of desirable high-level characteristics, are also discussed.
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| 9. |
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| 10. |
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| 11. |
- Carlborg, Per
(author)
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Extending the Service Innovation Concept : Realization and Productivity
- 2013
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The purpose of this study is to contribute to a better understanding of service innovation by exploring realization as a part of service innovation. Service innovation can be described as something that creates value for customers through new service offerings or service processes while realization refers to the actual use or deployment of the service.My research approach is based on a multiple case study, that focuses on three international firms with origins in Sweden. Empirical material has been gathered through interviews and focus groups. A literature review that tracks the evolution of service innovation further contributes to the exploration of the service innovation concept.Innovation has traditionally been connected to new technology and new products. However the present study has found that service innovation has evolved into a multifaceted concept. Specifically, service innovation is not restricted to the development of new products and services in the shape of new offerings, it also becomes relevant to consider the actual usage of the service offerings. In order to fully understand the process of service innovation, it is important to include the usage of a service offering in the service innovation concept. This realization occurs when the service offering is introduced and used in the customer’s processes, and typically involves both the customer and the provider.This research illustrates how realization requires resources from both the provider and the customer. In general, the realization part of the service innovation process requires more participation from the customer than the development of new offerings. However, this can vary depending on the customer’s competence, intention to interact and level of commitment. Considering an active or recipient customer role and also whether the service offering is directed at the products or the customer processes, this study shows how these different service offerings will have different impacts on service innovation realization, for example, in terms of different resources being required.The extended view of the service innovation concept, includes realization, and is therefore not limited to developing new offerings. This view implies that new areas of innovation that do not necessary need to include new technology, but contribute in other ways to customer value creation must be propelled into focus. Productivity improvements in customer processes are becoming important since they help create customer value (reduced costs, improved quality, reduced down-time etc.). Empirical evidence shows how service offerings that emphasize improvements in customer processes have become more important. This thesis discusses how this view of productivity can result in important benefits for customers, as consideration is given to both customer satisfaction and the use of customer resources. In this respect, productivity becomes a part of the extended service innovation concept.Extending the service innovation concept by adding realization implies an increased emphasis on deployment, and implicitly on customer value creation. Thus, service innovation becomes critical for gaining long-term sustainable competitive advantages through service.
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| 12. |
- Hammar, Karl, 1982-
(author)
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Towards an Ontology Design Pattern Quality Model
- 2013
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The use of semantic technologies and Semantic Web ontologies in particular have enabled many recent developments in information integration, search engines, and reasoning over formalised knowledge. Ontology Design Patterns have been proposed to be useful in simplifying the development of Semantic Web ontologies by codifying and reusing modelling best practices.This thesis investigates the quality of Ontology Design Patterns. The main contribution of the thesis is a theoretically grounded and partially empirically evaluated quality model for such patterns including a set of quality characteristics, indicators, measurement methods and recommendations. The quality model is based on established theory on information system quality, conceptual model quality, and ontology evaluation. It has been tested in a case study setting and in two experiments.The main findings of this thesis are that the quality of Ontology Design Patterns can be identified, formalised and measured, and furthermore, that these qualities interact in such a way that ontology engineers using patterns need to make tradeoffs regarding which qualities they wish to prioritise. The developed model may aid them in making these choices.This work has been supported by Jönköing University.
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| 13. |
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| 14. |
- Holsmark, Rickard, 1970-
(author)
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Deadlock Free Routing in Mesh Networks on Chip with Regions
- 2009
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- There is a seemingly endless miniaturization of electronic components, which has enabled designers to build sophisticated computing structureson silicon chips. Consequently, electronic systems are continuously improving with new and more advanced functionalities. Design complexity ofthese Systems on Chip (SoC) is reduced by the use of pre-designed cores. However, several problems related to the interconnection of coresremain. Network on Chip (NoC) is a new SoC design paradigm, which targets the interconnect problems using classical network concepts. Still,SoC cores show large variance in size and functionality, whereas several NoC benefits relate to regularity and homogeneity. This thesis studies some network aspects which are characteristic to NoC systems. One is the issue of area wastage in NoC due to cores of varioussizes. We elaborate on using oversized regions in regular mesh NoC and identify several new design possibilities. Adverse effects of regions oncommunication are outlined and evaluated by simulation. Deadlock freedom is an important region issue, since it affects both the usability and performance of routing algorithms. The concept of faultyblocks, used in deadlock free fault-tolerant routing algorithms has similarities with rectangular regions. We have improved and adopted one suchalgorithm to provide deadlock free routing in NoC with regions. This work also offers a methodology for designing topology agnostic, deadlockfree, highly adaptive application specific routing algorithms. The methodology exploits information about communication among tasks of anapplication. This is used in the analysis of deadlock freedom, such that fewer deadlock preventing routing restrictions are required. A comparative study of the two proposed routing algorithms shows that the application specific algorithm gives significantly higher performance.But, the fault-tolerant algorithm may be preferred for systems requiring support for general communication. Several extensions to our work areproposed, for example in areas such as core mapping and efficient routing algorithms. The region concept can be extended for supporting reuse ofa pre-designed NoC as a component in a larger hierarchical NoC.
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| 15. |
- Khademhosseinieh, Banafsheh, 1981-
(author)
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Towards an Approach for Efficiency Evaluation of Enterprise Modeling Methods
- 2013
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Nowadays, there is a belief that organizations should keep improving different aspects of theirenterprise to remain competitive in their business segment. For this purpose, it is required to understand the current state of the enterprise, analyze and evaluate it to be able to figure out suitable change measures. To perform such a process in a systematic and structured way, receiving support from powerful tools is inevitable. Enterprise Modeling is a field that can support improvement processes by developing models to show different aspects of an enterprise. An Enterprise Modeling Method is an important support for the Enterprise Modeling. A method is comprised of different conceptual parts: Perspective, Framework,Method Component (which itself contains Procedure, Notation and Concepts), and Cooperation Principles. In an ideal modeling process, both the process and the results are of high quality. One dimension of quality which is in focus in this thesis is efficiency. The issue of efficiency evaluation in Enterprise Modeling still seems to be a rather unexploited research area.The thesis investigates three aspects of Enterprise Modeling Methods: what is the meaning of efficiency in this context, how can efficiency be evaluated and in what phases of a modeling process could efficiency be evaluated. The contribution of the thesis is an approach for evaluation of efficiency in Enterprise Modeling Methods based also on several case studies. The evaluation approach is constituted by efficiency criteria that should be met by (different parts of) a method. While a subset of these criteria always need to be fulfilled in a congruent way, fulfillment of the rest of the criteria depends on the application case. To help the user in initial evaluation of a method, a structure of driving questions is presented.
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| 16. |
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| 17. |
- Pielaszkiewicz, Jolanta Maria, 1985-
(author)
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On the asymptotic spectral distribution of random matrices : closed form solutions using free independence
- 2013
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The spectral distribution function of random matrices is an information-carrying object widely studied within Random matrix theory. In this thesis we combine the results of the theory together with the idea of free independence introduced by Voiculescu (1985).Important theoretical part of the thesis consists of the introduction to Free probability theory, which justifies use of asymptotic freeness with respect to particular matrices as well as the use of Stieltjes and R-transform. Both transforms are presented together with their properties.The aim of thesis is to point out characterizations of those classes of the matrices, which have closed form expressions for the asymptotic spectral distribution function. We consider all matrices which can be decomposed to the sum of asymptotically free independent summands.In particular, explicit calculations are performed in order to illustrate the use of asymptotic free independence to obtain the asymptotic spectral distribution for a matrix Q and generalize Marcenko and Pastur (1967) theorem. The matrix Q is defined as where Xi is p × n matrix following a matrix normal distribution, Xi ~ Np,n(0, \sigma^2I, I).Finally, theorems pointing out classes of matrices Q which lead to closed formula for the asymptotic spectral distribution will be presented. Particularly, results for matrices with inverse Stieltjes transform, with respect to the composition, given by a ratio of polynomials of 1st and 2nd degree, are given.
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| 18. |
- Stenlund, Jörgen, 1959-
(author)
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Travelling through time : Students’ interpretation of evolutionary time in dynamic visualizations
- 2019
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Evolutionary knowledge is important to understand and address contemporary challenges such as loss of biodiversity, climate change and antibiotic resistance. An important aspect that is considered to be a threshold concept in teaching and learning about evolution is the time it involves. The history of evolution comprises several scales of magnitude, some of which are far from direct human experience and therefore difficult to understand. One way of addressing this issue is to use dynamic visualizations that represent time, for example, to facilitate teaching and learning about evolution.This thesis investigates how students’ comprehension of evolution and evolutionary time can be facilitated by visualizations in educational settings. Two different dynamic visualizations were investigated. In paper I different temporal versions of a spatio-temporal animation depicting hominin evolution were explored. The temporal information was expressed as one or several timelines along which an animated cursor moved, indicating the rate of time. Two variables, the number of timelines with different scales, and the mode of the default animated time rate (either constant throughout the animation or decreasing as the animation progressed), were combined to give four different time representations. The temporal aspects investigated were undergraduate students' ability to find events at specific times, comprehend order, comprehend concurrent events, comprehend the length of time intervals, and their ability to compare the lengths of time intervals.In paper II, perceptions and comprehension of temporal aspects in an interactive, multi-touch tabletop application, DeepTree, were investigated. This application depicts the tree of life. The focus was on the interactive aspects, especially how the zooming feature was perceived, but also on any misinterpretations associated with the interaction. The same temporal aspects listed for paper I were also implicitly investigated.The findings indicate that handling the problem of large differences in scale by altering the rate of time in the visualization can facilitate perception of certain temporal aspects while, at the same time, can hinder a correct comprehension of other temporal aspects. Findings concerning DeepTree indicate that the level of interactions varies among users, and that the zooming feature is perceived in two ways, either as a movement in time or as a movement in the metaphorical tree. Several misinterpretations were observed, for example the assumption that the zooming time in the tree corresponds to real time, that there is an implicit coherent timeline along the y-axis of the tree, and that more nodes along a branch corresponds to a longer time.The research reported in this thesis supports the claim that careful choice, and informed use of visualizations matters, and that different visualizations are best suited for different educational purposes
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| 19. |
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| 20. |
- Svedjemo, Gustaf, 1958-
(author)
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Ontology as Conceptual Schema when Modelling Historical Maps for Database Storage
- 2007
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Sweden has an enormous treasure in its vast number of large-scale historical maps from a period of 400 years made for different purposes, that we call map series. The maps are also very time and regional dependent with respect to their concepts. A large scanning project by Lantmäteriverket will make most of these maps available as raster images. In many disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, like history, human geography and archaeology, historical maps are of great importance as a source of information. They are used frequently in different studies for a variety of problems. A full and systematic analyse of this material from a database perspective has so far not been conducted. During the last decade or two, it has been more and more common to use data from historical maps in GIS-analysis. In this thesis a novel approach to model these maps is tested. The method is based on the modelling of each map series as its own ontology, thus focusing on the unique concepts of each map series. The scope of this work is a map series covering the province of Gotland produced during the period 1693-1705. These maps have extensive text descriptions concerned with different aspects of the mapped features. Via a code marking system they are attached to the maps. In this thesis a semantic analysis and an ontology over all the concepts found in the maps and text descriptions are presented. In our project we model the maps as close to the original structure as possible with a very data oriented view. Furthermore; we demonstrate how this ontology can be used as a conceptual schema for a logical E/R database schema. The Ontology is described in terms of the Protégé meta-model and the E/R schema in UML. The mapping between the two is a set of elementary rules, which are easy for a human to comprehend, but hard to automate. The E/R schema is implemented in a demonstration system. Examples of some different applications which are feasibly to perform by the system are presented. These examples go beyond the traditional use of historical maps in GIS today
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| 21. |
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| 22. |
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| 23. |
- Ahlström, Christer, 1977-
(author)
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Processing of the Phonocardiographic Signal : methods for the intelligent stethoscope
- 2006
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Phonocardiographic signals contain bioacoustic information reflecting the operation of the heart. Normally there are two heart sounds, and additional sounds indicate disease. If a third heart sound is present it could be a sign of heart failure whereas a murmur indicates defective valves or an orifice in the septal wall. The primary aim of this thesis is to use signal processing tools to improve the diagnostic value of this information. More specifically, three different methods have been developed:• A nonlinear change detection method has been applied to automatically detect heart sounds. The first and the second heart sounds can be found using recurrence times of the first kind while the third heart sound can be found using recurrence times of the second kind. Most third heart sound occurrences were detected (98 %), but the amount of false extra detections was rather high (7 % of the heart cycles).• Heart sounds obscure the interpretation of lung sounds. A new method based on nonlinear prediction has been developed to remove this undesired disturbance. High similarity was obtained when comparing actual lung sounds with lung sounds after removal of heart sounds.• Analysis methods such as Shannon energy, wavelets and recurrence quantification analysis were used to extract information from the phonocardiographic signal. The most prominent features, determined by a feature selection method, were used to create a new feature set for heart murmur classification. The classification result was 86 % when separating patients with aortic stenosis, mitral insufficiency and physiological murmurs.The derived methods give reasonable results, and they all provide a step forward in the quest for an intelligent stethoscope, a universal phonocardiography tool able to enhance auscultation by improving sound quality, emphasizing abnormal events in the heart cycle and distinguishing different heart murmurs.
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| 24. |
- Ahlström, Petter, 1970-
(author)
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Affärsstrategier för seniorbostadsmarknaden
- 2005
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Den demografiska utvecklingen i Sverige går mot en befolkningssammansättning med allt högre medelålder. Enligt svenska befolkningsprognoser kommer nästan var fjärde svensk år 2025 att vara över 65 år. Den äldre andelen av befolkningen utgör en välbeställd grupp med relativt stora realekonomiska tillgångar. Attitydundersökningar på morgondagens pensionärer talar för att denna grupp ställer högre krav på boendeutformning, kringservice, vård och omsorg än tidigare generationer. Flera studier visar på en ökad betalningsvilja och betalningsförmåga för alternativa service- och boendeformer. Samtidigt försöker olika marknadsaktörer att positionera ett produkt- och tjänsteutbud inom en bostadsmarknadens nischer, här definierad som seniorbostadsmarknaden. På seniorbostadsmarknaden har ett särskilt segment identifierats där utöver seniorboende även service-, vård- och omsorgsrelaterade kringtjänster bjuds ut. Mot den bakgrunden har avhandlingens problemställning formulerats enligt följande: vad skapar en stark marknadsposition för en aktör på seniorbostadsmarknaden med integrerad service, vård och omsorg?Utgångspunkten har varit ett sannolikt scenario där privata initiativ i allt större utsträckning kommer att bidra till framtida boendelösningar riktade till samhällets seniora och äldrebefolkningsgrupper. Syftet med avhandlingen har varit dels att identifiera de framgångsfaktorer som kan antas ligger till grund för en stark marknadsposition, dels att skapa en typologi över olika affärsstrategier. Genom en branschanalys har det i avhandlingen påvisats att seniorbostadsmarknaden är en nischmarknad med marginell omfattning. Avhandlingens empiriska undersökning har designats som en fältstudie. Fältstudien har i sin tur bl.a. genomförts i form av en förstudie och en intervjustudie. Intervjustudien ägde rum under hösten 2004 med platsbesök och intervjuer av verksamhetsföreträdare för elva utvalda fallstudieorganisationer. Utifrån ett antal i förhand uppställda kriterier har marknadsaktörernas framgångsfaktorer identifierats. Den bearbetnings- och analysmodell som konstruerats för detta syfte och som använts för att analysera fältstudiens empiri är baserad på studier inom strategiområdet. Modellen har bl.a. inspirerats av forskare som Miles & Snow (1978), Porter (1980) och Gupta & Govindarajan (1984). Vidare bygger den på antagandena om resursers och kompetensers betydelse för strategiformuleringen. Service management, och då särskilt tjänsters sammansättning, är ett annat område som beaktas. Analysmodellen har byggts upp kring fem dimensioner: omgivning, strategi, resurser, tjänstekoncept och konkurrens. De identifierade framgångsfaktorerna har baserats på intervjustudiens två mest framgångsrika aktörer. Resultatet har formulerats i ett antal strategiska vägval vilka kan sammanfattas i begreppen: differentiering, fokus, integration, samverkan, kontroll, verksamhetsutveckling, kärnkompetens och resurser. I avhandlingen påvisas att aktörer som bedriver framgångsrik verksamhet på seniorbostadsmarknaden till stora delar följer det Porter (1980) definierat som en differentieringsstrategi med fokus. Avhandlingen har också utmynnat i en affärsstrategisk typologi för seniorbostadsmarknaden. Dessa tentativa slutsatser har formulerats i fyra strategiska idealtyper: förvaltare, konceptbyggare, entreprenörer och idealister.
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- Ahsan, Naveed, 1974-
(author)
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Programmable and Tunable Circuits for Flexible RF Front Ends
- 2008
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Most of today’s microwave circuits are designed for specific function and specialneed. There is a growing trend to have flexible and reconfigurable circuits. Circuitsthat can be digitally programmed to achieve various functions based on specific needs. Realization of high frequency circuit blocks that can be dynamically reconfigured toachieve the desired performance seems to be challenging. However, with recentadvances in many areas of technology these demands can now be met.Two concepts have been investigated in this thesis. The initial part presents thefeasibility of a flexible and programmable circuit (PROMFA) that can be utilized formultifunctional systems operating at microwave frequencies. Design details andPROMFA implementation is presented. This concept is based on an array of genericcells, which consists of a matrix of analog building blocks that can be dynamicallyreconfigured. Either each matrix element can be programmed independently or severalelements can be programmed collectively to achieve a specific function. The PROMFA circuit can therefore realize more complex functions, such as filters oroscillators. Realization of a flexible RF circuit based on generic cells is a new concept.In order to validate the idea, a test chip has been fabricated in a 0.2μm GaAs process, ED02AH from OMMICTM. Simulated and measured results are presented along withsome key applications like implementation of a widely tunable band pass filter and anactive corporate feed network.The later part of the thesis covers the design and implementation of tunable andwideband highly linear LNAs that can be very useful for multistandard terminals suchas software defined radio (SDR). One of the key components in the design of a flexibleradio is low noise amplifier (LNA). Considering a multimode and multiband radiofront end, the LNA must provide adequate performance within a large frequency band.Optimization of LNA performance for a single frequency band is not suitable for thisapplication. There are two possible solutions for multiband and multimode radio frontends (a) Narrowband tunable LNAs (b) Wideband highly linear LNAs. A dual bandtunable LNA MMIC has been fabricated in 0.2μm GaAs process. A self tuningtechnique has also been proposed for the optimization of this LNA. This thesis alsopresents the design of a novel highly linear current mode LNA that can be used forwideband RF front ends for multistandard applications. Technology process for thiscircuit is 90nm CMOS.
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