Systematic quality work in preschool – How preschool teachers thinking and working with systematic quality work   The purpose of this study was to investigate how Swedish preschool teachers thinking and working with systematic quality work. All Swedish preschools are required to work systematically with quality. This involves several steps that follow each other in a specific order. It includes following up, documenting and evaluating preschool activities. The study is based on the theory of quality by Donabedian and Sheridan’s adaption of it for preschool. The sample consists of 6 preschools teachers’ interviews in a small town in the middle of Sweden. Individual and semi-structured interviews were used. The meaning given to systematic quality work in preschool is presented under three themes: system quality, process quality and result quality. The results reveal the positive thinking of Swedish preschool teachers’ about systematic quality work and the need for education in this area.

Report (M.I.S.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1993. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 93-105). Also available via the Internet.

Terrestrial free-space optical (FSO) communications is an emerging low-cost, licensefree and high-bandwidth access solution for a number of applications including the “last mile” access network. However, for a transmission range from a few meter to longer than 1 km, a number of atmospheric phenomena, such as rain, haze, fog, snow, scintillation and pointing errors become a major performance limiting factors in FSO systems resulting in link deterioration and ultimately complete link failure. Relay-assisted technique is capable of mitigating the signal fading and maintain acceptable performance levels. In this thesis, a two-way relay (TWR) channel technique is adopted to increase system spectral efficiency, which in turn boosts the network throughput. This is achieved by using a physical layer network coding (PNC) technique, where network coding (NC) is applied at the physical layer. It takes advantage of the superimposition of the electromagnetic waves, and embraces the interference, which was typically deemed as harmful, by performing the exclusive-OR mapping of both users’ information at the relay. Therefore, the main contribution of this thesis is to study the design of the TWR-FSO communication system that embraces PNC technique for the full utilization of network resources based on the binary phase shift keying (BPSK) modulation. Moreover, error control coding (ECC) in conjunction with interleaving can be employed in FSO communications to combat turbulence-induced fading, which can enhance the performance of the proposed TWR-FSO PNC system. A comparative study between convolutional code (CC) and bit-interleave coded modulation with iterative decoding (BICM-ID) code are carried out. The result shows that the BICM-ID code outperforms the CC for TWR-FSO based PNC over strong turbulence regime by ~10dB of SNR to achieve a BER of 10-4 . However, the number of users that can be simultaneously transmitted to the relay is considered the main constraint in PNC system. Therefore, to overcome this challenge, a new scheme that integrates the iterative multiuser detection (I-MUD) technique with the PNC system over RF and FSO links are introduced as another achievement. The results show that the I-MUD offers improved performance about 8, and 22dB of SNR to get a BER of 10-4 over RF and FSO channels, respectively, for number of simultaneously users equal to 14 with respect to TWR-PNC system.

Performance and documentation have a complex historical relationship, based around perceived binaries of ephemerality and endurance, liveness and fixedness, originality and representation. This thesis explores this relationship and the ontological perspectives which underpin it, but moves beyond this by building on those contemporary theories which consider the potential of the performance documentation in relation to the performance moment, and the expanded, continuing performance artwork. Using the example of Tate as a contemporary art museum which has a history of creating and collecting performance documentation, this research engages the lens of value as an analytic tool through which to understand the positions and purposes of performance documentation in the contemporary art museum. Rather than attempting to measure the amount of value a performance document is perceived to have in economic terms, the intention here is to understand the nuanced types of value those within the museum apply to the performance document, based on an understanding of valuations as subjective, context-dependent, pluralistic and changeable. This thesis will explore both the museum’s creation of performance documents, tracing the variety of practices across Tate’s numerous departments, and how those within the museum approach acquiring, conserving, and displaying existing performance documents. Six case studies will be used to explore how different models of temporality, materiality, and authorship impact on the actions individuals and departments within Tate have taken around the creation, collection, and use of performance documents, and will explore what these indicate about the multiple, changeable types of value a performance document is perceived to have. The thesis will end by proposing how these findings around value and valuation can feed back into strategies and practices which are being developed at Tate to provide centralised, reflexive, mobile and easily accessible documentation of those live art works in the museum collection.

What kind of software documentation a systems needs and how much documentation that is necessary are questions that has a lot of different answers depending on a number of variables. Traditional software development methodologies claims that software needs a lot of documentation and more agile approaches claims that it is better to write less documentation since most documentation is never used. According to studies a ratio of 11% of software projects costs are spent on documentation alone. The purpose of this study is to create a cost efficient software documentation strategy for an existing web system with a focus on deciding what information are relevant to document in order to keep a high ROI. This study was conducted as a single case study and made in collaboration with a company. The data collection was done by interviewing key people working in the system and doing participants observations. The result shows that information documented in a high level is what is most needed. Artifacts relevant to document are the source code, requirements of updates, functional tests, high-level architecture, reference manual and an end-user manual. The result also shows that new processes need to be implemented for the documentation strategy to be efficient. Recommendation for further research is to create a method of how to calculate the ROI for software documentation based on a number of organizational variables. / <p>Validerat; 20160615 (global_studentproject_submitter)</p>

IST is a company that develops software for the education sector. The company's growth has led to inconsistency in its software suite, negatively impacting user and developer experience. User interface components such as buttons and forms vary in design and implementation across their services, making it challenging for users to navigate and for developers to maintain. To improve this, IST has started a project to switch to a different front-end architecture, known as micro-frontend, which will need to be accompanied by technical documentation. This project is referred to as ‘CommonUI’. Reading and contributing to documentation, especially for software, is indicated by existing literature to be perceived unappealing by developers. This thesis aims to explore developers' attitudes toward documentation and proposes Developer Experience-oriented features. The method process involves a literature review, semi-structured interviews and identifying themes using thematic analysis. The findings reject the hypothesis that developers find documentation unappealing, indicating that most developers view engaging with documentation positively, motivated by altruism. Key themes identified from the interviews include the need for examples, up-to-date, concise text, and easily findable documentation. Proposed features to improve the Developer Experience include interactive component examples, integration of documentation with design specifications, dynamic presentation of code from source files, mechanisms for user feedback, text limitations, and enhanced search functionality.

Software developers, maintainers, and testers rely on documentation to understandthe code they are working with. However, software documentation is perceivedas a waste of effort because it is usually outdated. How documentation evolvesthrough a set of releases may show whether there is any relationship between timeand quality. The results could help future developers and managers to improvethe quality of their documentation and decrease the time developers use to analyzecode. Previous studies showed that documentation used to be scarce and low inquality, thus, this research has investigated different variables to check if the qualityof the documentation changes over time. Therefore, we have created a tool thatwould extract and calculate the quality of the comments in code blocks, classes,and methods. The results have agreed with the previous studies. The quality of thedocumentation is affected to some extent through the releases, with a tendency todecrease.

During software development various forms of software documentation can be produced to make the software easier to understand and maintain after the software have been developed. One of these forms of software documentation is code comments, which is a form of software documentation that is produced to make source code easier to read and maintain. Although code comments make the code easier to read and maintain, code comments can become outdated and inconsistent with their corresponding code. Outdated and inconsistent code comments increase the probability for future bugs and when these comments are encountered, developers could lose the confidence for all other comments. In order to reduce the amount of outdated and inconsistent code comments, a program named the comment validator is presented in this study. The comment validator provides developers with the opportunity to manually validate code comments by segmenting code into three segments of code that needs to be manually validated: classes, methods and properties. The comment validator identifies when code segments have been modified after validation, therefore indicating that the code segments corresponding code comments could be outdated and inconsistent. The comment validator were evaluated through functional testing and through a field study in order to test that the comment validator could reduce the amount of outdated and inconsistent code comments. The evaluation showed that the comment validator did remove outdated and inconsistent code comments when it were used according to the description presented in this study, therefore providing a new way to reduce the amount of outdated and inconsistent code comments in software development projects.

This thesis explores how digital representations of geography and Geographic Information (GI) may be described, and how these descriptions facilitate the use of the resources they depict. More specifically, it critically examines existing geospatial documentation practices and aims to identify opportunities for refinement therein, whether when used to signpost those data assets documented, for managing and maintaining information assets, or to assist in resource interpretation and discrimination. Documentation of GI can therefore facilitate its utilisation; it can be reasonably expected that by refining documentation practices, GI hold the potential for being better exploited. The underpinning theme connecting the individual papers of the thesis is one of multi-granular documentation. GI may be recorded at varying degrees of granularity, and yet traditional documentation efforts have predominantly focussed on a solitary level (that of the geospatial data layer). Developing documentation practices to account for other granularities permits the description of GI at different levels of detail and can further assist in realising its potential through better discovery, interpretation and use. One of the aims of the current work is to establish the merit of such multi-granular practices. Over the course of four research papers and a short research article, proprietary as well as open source software approaches are accordingly presented and provide proof-of-concept and conceptual solutions that aim to enhance GI utilisation through improved documentation practices. Presented in the context of an existing body of research, the proposed approaches focus on the technological infrastructure supporting data discovery, the automation of documentation processes and the implications of describing geospatial information resources of varying granularity. Each paper successively contributes to the notion that geospatial resources are potentially better exploited when documentation practices account for the multi-granular aspects of GI, and the varying ways in which such documentation may be used. In establishing the merit of multi-granular documentation, it is nevertheless recognised in the current work that instituting a comprehensive documentation strategy at several granularities may be unrealistic for some geospatial applications. Pragmatically, the level of effort required would be excessive, making universal adoption impractical. Considering however the ever-expanding volumes of geospatial data gathered and the demand for ways of managing and maintaining the usefulness of potentially unwieldy repositories, improved documentation practices are required. A system of hierarchical documentation, of self-documenting information, would provide for information discovery and retrieval from such expanding resource pools at multiple granularities, improve the accessibility of GI and ultimately, its utilisation.

This research examines diasporic transformations and the construction of belongings through new technologies of communication by looking at young Kurdish diasporas in Sweden and the UK. It argues that the diaspora concept needs to be reconceptualised in light of digital information and communication technologies and in relation to the imagined community. Empirical evidence from Kurdish diasporas has drawn attention to some missing gaps in the literature. The research asks what it means to be a Kurd in diaspora and what role new media and online communities have in the renegotiation and construction of belongings. By engaging with post-colonial and feminist studies, I unpick fixed categories of identity, belongings and home, and I argue for performativities of those belongings. Based on a year-long ethnographic online study supplemented by offline face-to-face interviews with young Kurds in these locations, and with additional reference to homeland- based Kurds, the research presents three main empirical chapters based on themes derived from the online community’s concerns, and focuses on Swedish, British, and Kurdish forums. The chapters discuss gender and religious tensions; cultural elements and historical suffering; and political engagements in homeland and settlement countries. A fourth chapter takes a step back from online and offline material and examines the comparative approach between the two diasporas, diasporic and homeland Kurds, in both offline and online environments. Against the background of such a close-up comparative study, this research argues for a reconsideration of diasporic formations that are currently fixed between homeland and settlement country, and it presents new perspectives on these that relates to new definitional positions in diasporic formations that have significant implications for the concept of the imagined community.