This thesis is dedicated to the active research topic of generic Visual Object Categorization(VOC), which can be widely used in many applications such as videoindexation and retrieval, video monitoring, security access control, automobile drivingsupport etc. Due to many realistic difficulties, it is still considered to be one ofthe most challenging problems in computer vision and pattern recognition. In thiscontext, we have proposed in this thesis our contributions, especially concerning thetwo main components of the methods addressing VOC problems, namely featureselection and image representation.Firstly, an Embedded Sequential Forward feature Selection algorithm (ESFS)has been proposed for VOC. Its aim is to select the most discriminant features forobtaining a good performance for the categorization. It is mainly based on thecommonly used sub-optimal search method Sequential Forward Selection (SFS),which relies on the simple principle to add incrementally most relevant features.However, ESFS not only adds incrementally most relevant features in each stepbut also merges them in an embedded way thanks to the concept of combinedmass functions from the evidence theory which also offers the benefit of obtaining acomputational cost much lower than the one of original SFS.Secondly, we have proposed novel image representations to model the visualcontent of an image, namely Polynomial Modeling and Statistical Measures basedImage Representation, called PMIR and SMIR respectively. They allow to overcomethe main drawback of the popular "bag of features" method which is the difficultyto fix the optimal size of the visual vocabulary. They have been tested along withour proposed region based features and SIFT. Two different fusion strategies, earlyand late, have also been considered to merge information from different "channels"represented by the different types of features.Thirdly, we have proposed two approaches for VOC relying on sparse representation,including a reconstructive method (R_SROC) as well as a reconstructiveand discriminative one (RD_SROC). Indeed, sparse representation model has beenoriginally used in signal processing as a powerful tool for acquiring, representingand compressing the high-dimensional signals. Thus, we have proposed to adaptthese interesting principles to the VOC problem. R_SROC relies on the intuitiveassumption that an image can be represented by a linear combination of trainingimages from the same category. Therefore, the sparse representations of images arefirst computed through solving the ℓ1 norm minimization problem and then usedas new feature vectors for images to be classified by traditional classifiers such asSVM. To improve the discrimination ability of the sparse representation to betterfit the classification problem, we have also proposed RD_SROC which includes adiscrimination term, such as Fisher discrimination measure or the output of a SVMclassifier, to the standard sparse representation objective function in order to learna reconstructive and discriminative dictionary. Moreover, we have also proposedChapter 0. Abstractto combine the reconstructive and discriminative dictionary and the adapted purereconstructive dictionary for a given category so that the discrimination power canfurther be increased.The efficiency of all the methods proposed in this thesis has been evaluated onpopular image datasets including SIMPLIcity, Caltech101 and Pascal2007.

Detta projektet handlar om att ge Återbruksbyn i Växjö en grafisk identitet och profil. Återbruksbyn är ett arbete startat av Växjö kommun och kooperativet Macken som handlar om att bygga en mötesplats för oss som vill byta, köpa, sälja, skänka och återbruka begagnade saker i stället för att slänga dem. Det är en plats som kommer fokusera på cirkulär ekonomi och introducera detta system som ett alternativ till det vi har i dagsläget. Min roll och syftet med detta projekt har varit att analysera verksamheten och skapa en logotyp med tillhörande grafisk profil där de äkta värderingarna visas och representeras på ett korrekt sätt. Detta är min process. / This project is about creating a graphic identity and profile for Återbruksbyn, Växjö. Återbruksbyn is a project created by Växjö municipality and the cooperative Macken, and it is about building a central space and meeting point for people who want to buy, sell, exchange, give away and reuse old products instead of throwing them away. It is a place that focuses on circular economy and wants to introduce this alternative system to the people of Växjö. My role and purpose with this project has been to analyse Återbruksbyn and its values, and through that, create a graphic identity that reflects these values and goals. This is my process.

Background: Female representation on boards is an ongoing debate. The European Parliament voted in November 2013 in favour of a proposal that it should be at least 40 percent women on company boards by 2020. Jens Spendrup, president of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, was interviewed on Swedish Radio in February 2014 and stated that there are not enough qualified women to recruit to the company boards. The listed companies in Sweden only have 22 percent of women in their company boards and given Jens Spendrup’s statement should they have difficulty reaching up to 40 percent by 2020. Nevertheless, the state-owned companies has shown that it is possible with a female representation of 50 percent. The question then is what the private companies are doing wrong? Aim: The study aims to investigate the recruitment process within listed companies and state-owned companies in Sweden to see if it affects the representation of women on corporate boards. This study intends to explain why female representation is so low in the private sector relative to the state sector. Methodology: The study is qualitative in nature where empirical data is primarily collected through interviews with representatives that have insight in the recruitment process in each sector. Theory and empirical data were alternately collected which implies an iterative approach. Conclusion: We have distinguished organizational differences in the recruitment process, which is crucial for female representation. Time and resources have been identified as key parameters and age as well as experience affects the selection of candidates. We also discovered that normative regulations do not work in the private sector and therefor there is a need for a mandatory regulation. / Bakgrund: Den kvinnliga representationen i bolagsstyrelser är en aktuell debatt. Europaparlamentet röstade i november 2013 ja till ett förslag att det ska vara minst 40 procent kvinnor i bolagsstyrelser senast år 2020. Jens Spendrup, ordförande i Svenskt Näringsliv, uttalade sig i Sveriges Radio i februari 2014 om att det inte finns tillräckligt med kompetenta kvinnor att rekrytera till bolagsstyrelser, vilket blev väldigt uppmärksammat i media. Som synes pågår debatten både nationellt och internationellt. Börsbolagen i Sverige har 22 procent kvinnor i sina bolagsstyrelser och med tanke på Jens Spendrups uttalande borde de ha svårt att nå 40 procent till år 2020. Dock har de statligt helägda bolagen visat att det är möjligt och har en kvinnlig representation på 50 procent. Frågan är då vad de privata bolagen gör för fel? Syfte: Studiens syfte är att undersöka rekryteringsprocessen inom börsbolag och statligt helägda bolag i Sverige för att se om den påverkar den kvinnliga representationen i bolagsstyrelserna. Denna studie ämnar att förklara varför kvinnlig representation är så låg inom den privata sektorn i förhållande till den statliga sektorn. Metod: Studien är av kvalitativ karaktär där empirin främst är insamlad genom intervjuer med representanter som har insyn i rekryteringsprocessen inom respektive sektor. Teori och empiri insamlades växelvis vilket innebär en iterativ ansats. Slutsats: Vi har i studien urskilt organisatoriska skillnader i rekryteringsprocessen vilket är avgörande för den kvinnliga representationen. Tid och resurser har identifierats som viktiga parametrar samt att ålder och erfarenhet spelar en viktig roll vid urvalet av kandidater. Vi konstaterar även att normativa regelverk inte fungerar på privat sektor och därmed finns behov av tvingande regelverk.

The aim of this thesis is to examine expressions of power and racism in news reporting about the district of Rinkeby, Sweden, in two major Swedish newspapers. News articles are examined using Norman Fairclough’s three-dimensional model for critical discourse analysis. The discourse theory has also been complemented with theories of media in relation to power, ideology and racism. The study has shown that news reporting about Rinkeby largely focused on stereotypical subjects such as violence, social problems and crime. Through repeated othering and negative representations of Rinkeby and its residents, the news media can be said to both create and reproduce structures of power and racism in a broader societal context.

The aim of this study is, from a norm-critical approach, to find, investigate and analyse human representation in the visual culture of one preschool in order to understand if the children enrolled are represented or not. The research questions are: In what ways is there imagery of human representations in images and materials designed for play? What skin-colors and origins are dominant in the data collected? We carried out a qualitative study in the form of visual ethnography. This method allowed us to use a combination of different data collection tools such as photography and ethnographic field notes to collect our data. The photographs we took of images and material used for play, was then analysed through semiotic picture analysis. The focus was to see which skin-color and origin that was dominant in the photographs of human representations. The result of the study, show that human representation is found in many variations such as, books, board games, puzzles and materials for educational use. The study also show that the vast majority of representations, displayed people of white skin and Swedish origin. In discussing these results we argued that the selected preschool is imbued by the norm of whiteness that is also dominant in the Swedish society. From a postcolonial perspective, we find that this norm and its underlying assumption of racial differences forms part of a historically rooted structural system of values that has evolved in Sweden during hundreds of years. The impact these results have in a preschool context is that children don’t have the same opportunity to identification through the visual culture at the preschool. We conclude that this can, in the long run, create problems since representation or lack of representation is linked to marginalization of whole social groups due to not having the same requisites to take on for example positions of power. We have a strong believe that if the topic of human representation can be enlightened in preschools and schools, teachers can work towards offering all children the same potential for positive identification in preschool.

This exam paper has examined visual portrayals of overweight and fatness in two swedish upper secondary school textbooks, one in physical education and one in social science. The textbooks were analyzed in regard to numeral representation, interacting social categories such as gender and age, depiction in forms of activities and stereotypes and relation to context close to or far away from a swedish context. The analysis showed an underrepresentation of overweight and fat bodies in both textbooks, but the represention of overweight bodies in the textbook on physical education were nearly nil whereas in the textbook on social science there where representations of both overweight and fat bodies. Combined the both textbooks gave a representation of health and youth as not represented by overweight or fat bodies.

Klassrummen består idag av elever från olika kulturer och med olika religiösa bakgrunder. Eftersom alla elever har olika relationer till religion är det också svårt, för de lärare som undervisar i religionskunskap, att ge en rättvis bild av någons religion. Vid de tillfällena är det viktigt att vara tydlig med att religion både är något individuellt men också något kollektivt, samtidigt som det inte bör ges en stereotypiserande beskrivning av en religion eller dess utövare. Vid stereotypisering är det dessutom vanligt att sambanden mellan kultur och religion inte framgår och det finns alltid en ökad risk för diskriminering.   Flera forskare hävdar att religion bör förklaras genom olika kärnor eller dimensioner, istället för genom den traditionella sekvenseringen uppkomst, historia, texter, människosyn, och så vidare. Religionsvetaren Ninian Smart ansåg att religion kan definieras utifrån sju olika dimensioner och i denna uppsats undersöks det vilka representationer som görs av den praktisk och rituella dimensionen i kristendom- och islamkapitlen i två läroböcker. Representation är ett begrepp som enligt Stuart Hall beskriver hur något återges och med hjälp av detta begrepp undersöks det även vilka representationer som görs av genus. Resultatet visar att det är en västerländsk representation som görs av praktisk och rituell dimension och där generaliseringar är vanliga. Det är således en typ av islam som står som norm och framförallt det protestantiska inom kristendom. Eleverna förutsätts också ha större förkunskaper om kristendom än vad de förutsätts ha om islam och det är svårt att genom böckerna få en fördjupad förståelse för varför personer praktiserar religion på ett visst sätt. Angående genus är detta något som inte nämns i kristendomskapitlen medan islam har egna avsnitt som diskuterar genus. Detta görs dock aldrig med hänsyn till det socialt konstruerade könet och inte heller ur ett kulturellt perspektiv. / Classrooms of today often consist of students from different cultures with different religious backgrounds. Since all students relate differently to religion it is difficult for teachers to give a fair description of the different religions they teach. It is important for the teachers to carefully point out that religion can be both individual and collective and not to give a stereotypical picture of any religion or its performers. The risk with a stereotyped version of a religion is discrimination since it is also common not to separate culture from religion.   A number of researchers claim that religion should be explained through different focus points or dimensions instead of a more traditional presentation consisting emergence, history, texts, view of man and so on. Theology professor Ninian Smart believes that religion can be defined based on seven different dimensions, therefore this paper aims at investigating what representations are made of the practical and ritual dimension in the chapters on Islam and Christianity in two different text books. Representation is a concept, which according to Stuart Hall, describes how something is being featured and based on his definition this paper will also investigates how gender is represented in the same chapters. The result shows that a western representation is present in the practical and ritual dimensions and generalizations are common. This means that it is mainly one version of Islam that is presented together with the evangelical part of Christianity. The students are also expected to have more pre-knowledge on Christianity than on Islam and it is difficult to through these books get hold of a deeper understanding of why people practice their religion in a certain way. Gender is totally absent in the chapters on Christianity while Islam has specific sections that only focus on this perspective. Although gender is present in the Islamic sections the term is never discussed based on gender-based social structures and not through a cultural perspective.

In network design, a communication network is optimized for a given set of parameters like cost, reliability and delay. This study analyzes network design problem using Genetic Algorithms in detail and makes comparison of different approaches and representations. Encoding of a problem is one of the most crucial design choices in Genetic Algorithms. For network design problem, this study compares adjacency matrix representation with list of edges representation. Also, another problem is defining a fair fitness function that will not favor one optimization parameter to the other. Multi-objective optimization is a recommended solution for such problems. This study describes and compares some of those approaches for different combinations in network design problem.

Univ., Diss.--Uppsala, 1999. / Zsfassung in engl. Sprache.

The author's Habilitationsschrift--Freie Universität Berlin, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [1190]-1272) and indexes.