Magister Scientiae - MSc / In South Africa, Deaf people communicate with one another and the broader community by means of South African Sign Language. The majority of Deaf people who have access to a mobile phone (cell phone) use Short Message Service (SMS) to communicate and share information with hearing people, but seldom use it among themselves. It is assumed that video messaging will be more accessible to Deaf people, since their level of literacy may prevent them from making effective use of information that is disseminated via texting/SMS. The principal objective of the esearch was to explore a cost-effective and efficient mass multimedia messaging system. The intention was to adapt a successful text-based mass notification system, developed by a local nongovernmental organization (NGO), to accommodate efficient and affordable video mass messaging for Deaf people. The questions that underpin this research are: How should video- streaming mass-messaging methods be compared and evaluated to find the most suitable method to deliver an affordable and acceptable service to Deaf people? What transport vehicles should be considered: Multimedia Message Service (MMS), the web, electronic mail, or a cell phone resident push/pullapplication? Which is the most cost effective? And, finally: How does the video quality of the various transport vehicles differ in terms of the clarity of the sign language as perceived by the Deaf? The soft-systems methodology and a mixed-methods methodology were used to address the research questions. The soft-systems methodology was followed to manage the research process and the mixed-methods research methodology was followed to collect data. Data was collected by means of experiments and semi-structured interviews. A prototype for mobile phone usage was developed and evaluated with Deaf members the NGO Deaf Community of Cape Town. The technology and internet usage of the Deaf participants provided background information. The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) was used to analyse the quantitative data, and content analysis was used to analyse the documents and interviews. All of the Deaf participants used their mobile phones for SMS and the majority (81.25%) used English to type messages; however, all indicated that they would have preferred to use South Africa sign language on their mobile phones if it were available. And they were quite willing to pay between 75c and 80c per message for using such a video-messaging service.Of the transport vehicles demonstrated, most Deaf people indic indicated that they preferred to use the SMS prototype (with a web link to the video) rather than the MMS prototype with the video attached. They were, however, very concerned about the cost of using the system, as well as the quality of the sign language videos. / South Africa

The aim of this master’s thesis is to analyse methods that are used for monitoring athlete’s activities and a description of current technical solutions with a focus on heart rate and respiratory rate monitoring. The presented solution shows the possibilities of using available open source SW and HW technologies and their implementation in the design of an integrated tool for monitoring sports activities with the iOS operating system.

The goal of this diploma thesis is to prepare a marketing strategy for Telefónica O2 Czech Republic, a.s. The strategy is focused on target market and is based on questionnaire research made with respondents from target population. Strategy contains proposal of steps which could help to acquire new customers and keep recent customers. The diploma thesis also contains summary of information about the target population usable by Telefónica O2 for further analysis.

This thesis deals with a face detection on mobile phones. It especially focuses on Windows Mobile platform. The introduction is therefore devoted to this operating system and alternatives of working with the camera. The next part of the text refers to general problems of the face detection in the image considering the weak performance of the target device. Another part of this thesis is a description of the acquisition of images from the camera using DirectShow multimedia framework and creation of a custom transformation filter for the face detection. Achieved results are summarized in the conclusion. It takes a form of tests examining different mobile devices. All difficulties arising during Windows Mobile developing are also mentioned.

Eine Graph-Visualisierung von Daten findet Einsatz in verschiedenen Domänen und erleichtert die Gewinnung von Erkenntnissen über Relationen. Viele Datensätze haben eine dynamische Natur und verändern sich über die Zeit. Dynamische Graphen kodieren die temporalen Änderungen der Objekte und ihrer Relationen. Der Vorteil der hochauflösenden Displaywand besteht darin, dass durch einen vergrößerten Darstellungsraum ein guter Überblick über die strukturellen Zusammenhänge entsteht. Der Einsatz der heutzutage sehr verbreiteten mobilen Endgeräte bietet eine lokale nutzerspezifische Darstellung für die Exploration und Manipulation der Graphen einschließlich ihrer dynamischen Komponente. Während sich viele Arbeiten auf die Analyse statischer Strukturen fokussieren, wird das Problem der Exploration und Visualisierung dynamischer Graphen vergleichsweise wenig adressiert. In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden die grundlegenden Aufgaben für die dynamischen Graphen sowie der Stand der Forschung über den interaktiven Raum der kombinierten Anwendung Displaywand und Mobilgerät untersucht. Auf dieser Basis werden die Interaktionskonzepte für die Exploration dynamischer Graphen und die Visualisierung der Änderungen erarbeitet. Der interaktive Raum bietet dabei die räumlichen Freiheitsgrade für die Gestaltung der Interaktionen. Die entstandene Konzeption dient abschließend als Grundlage für die prototypische Umsetzung in einem existierenden Projekt zur Exploration von Graphen mithilfe mobiler Endgeräte.:- Einleitung - Grundlagen und verwandte Arbeiten - Konzeption - Umsetzung - Zusammenfassung, Bewertung und Ausblick - Literaturverzeichnis / Graph visualization for data is used in various domains. It facilitates the extraction of knowledges about the relationships. Many datasets have a dynamic nature and change over time. Dynamic graphs ecode the temporal changes of objects and their relations. The advantage of the high-resolution displaywall is providing a good overview of the structural relations caused by an enlarged representation space. The use of nowadays widespread mobile devices provides a local user-specific view for the exploration of the graphs including their dynamic component. While many studies focuse on the analysis of static data structures, the issue of exploration and visualization of dynamic graphs is adressed by only a few works. This thesis investigates the basic tasks for dynamic graphs and state of research into the interaction space of combined applications of displaywall and mobile device. On this basis the interaction concepts for the exploration of dynamic graphs and the visualization of the changes are developed. The interaction space provides the spatial degrees of freedom for the design of interactions. The resulting set of concepts is the basis for the prototypical implementation in the existing project for the exploration of graphs using the mobile devices.:- Einleitung - Grundlagen und verwandte Arbeiten - Konzeption - Umsetzung - Zusammenfassung, Bewertung und Ausblick - Literaturverzeichnis

The diploma thesis focuses on the gender analysis of the contents based on the Mobility's magazine cover pages. The thesis emphasizes the identification of men and women's representations in this magazine. The Mobility magazine was published once a month from the 1999 till 2011. The analysis is conducted on the complete set of the individual cover pages and deals with an interesting development in these representations. The thesis is divided into theoretical and analytical part. The theoretical part is dedicated to media in the connection with its gender theory and power in the society. Furthermore, this part includes theories dealing with the gender representations in advertisement (Goffman, Sztompka, Indruchová). In the analytical part there is a comparison of the mentioned theories with the examined sample. The detailed description of the individual categories identified within this analysis is presented as well. The thesis focuses on the identification of the specific features observed in a given period of Mobility magazine publishing . It describes the methods of patriarchal discourse 's presentation of pictures appeared in the magazine, which is obviously intended for everybody. The analysis of the cover pages' set indicates stereotyped representation of women. In these cases the women are...

Modern technology has become an integral part of our life. Schools are often conservative, so involvement of technology in education is delayed. Most of the population own a smartphone, and while some people say that smartphones should be used in the lessons, others would prefer a complete ban on them. This work sums up strengths and weaknesses of smartphones in education based on literature and discusses some recommendations on their use. Smartphones usage in education was studied in an application which helps with basics of Russian alphabet. It was shown that majority of the users did not read license terms, preferred the same sex for application voice and tended to leave the application prematurely. A questionnaire survey on a school was used to grasp the whole topic. It was revealed that that touch devices would be welcome in education by students, and they are prepared to use their own smartphone for studying although rather at school than in their free time. Mobile phone is the preferred device for games playing and internet browsing but the most commonly used applications include social networks, communication programs and video players. It seems that the worst school results are achieved by students who use the smartphones most, but best results are not achieved by students who use the phone the least.

Augmented reality has in recent years become a topic that’s frequently discussed among business managers and marketing practitioners, due to the findings that support the technology's ability to influence consumer behavior. The technology is offering consumers exceedingly product information, a pleasurable shopping experience and a greater interactive interface. Previous research surrounding augmented reality has been with in the bounds of the makeup and furniture industry to enable these findings. Now the interest stands within how augmented reality technology can be implemented in the clothing retail industry. The purposeof this study is to map out the consumer's experience of trying out virtual clothes through mobile augmented reality and find out if the technology can facilitate consumers to completea purchase decision online during a buying process of physical clothes. The study conducted participatory observations as well as semi structed interviews with the participants,further more the empirical findings were analyzed through a thematic analyzing method. What the study discovered was that certain aspects of the technology supports previous research done on augmented reality and other aspects deviated from earlier findings. Additionally, the study found that consumers would consider clothing testing through mobile augmented reality if it was implemented by a clothing retail company. / Augmented reality har under de senaste åren blivit ett återkommande ämne bland företagsledare och marknadsförare på grund av att tidigare forskning påvisat att teknologin kan ha inflytande på konsumentbeteenden. Teknologin erbjuder konsumenter tilläggande information om produkten, en njutbar shoppingupplevelse och en interaktiv samverkan mellan individ och objekt. Tidigare forskning som behandlat augmented reality har begränsats till områdena smink- och möbelindustrin för att komma fram till dessa resultat. Det finns nu ett intresse att se hur augmented reality teknologin kan bli implementerad i klädesindustrin. Studiens syfte är att kartlägga konsumenters upplevelse av att prova virtuella kläder genom mobile augmented reality och finna svar på om det kan underlätta för konsumenten att slutföra ett köpbeslut online vid en köpprocess av fysiska kläder. Undersökningen genomförde deltagande observationer och individuella semistrukturerade intervjuer med deltagarna, vidare analyserades empirin genomen en tematisk analysmetod. Undersökengen kom fram till att vissa aspekter av teknologin stödjer tidigare forskningsresultat och andra visades vara särskiljande. Vidare fann denna forskning att konsumenter kan tänka sig använda mobile augmented reality om det implementerats av ett detaljhandelsföretag inom klädindustrin.

Using a modified still-face procedure the present study explores 3-6-month-old infants' behavioral and physiological responses to mothers' screen distractions during mother-infant interactions. In the modified phone still-face procedure the neutral face of the traditional still face procedure was replaced with mothers' texting on their mobile phones. Infants' cortisol stress responses to mothers' device use were assessed through the collection of 3 infant saliva samples. Infants' behavioral responses including facial expressions, vocalizations, gaze and self-comforting behaviors were also explored. All mother-infant interactions were videoed recorded and coded for analysis. Thirty-four mother-infant dyads participated, average ages for mothers was 29 years and 4.4 months for infants. As predicted, infants demonstrated the changes in affect associated with the still-face effect, with significant differences in positive and negative affect during the play phases and the phone still face phase. As a whole, infants did not respond with increased cortisol responses, however, when individual differences were explored 47% responded with increased stress during mothers' phone distractions. Mother's frequency and attitudes towards device use were also assessed but were unrelated to infant responses. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Body sensor networking is a rapidly growing technology. Today wearable sensors are used to measure and monitor e.g. pulse, temperature, skin conductance, heart activity, and movement (through GPS or inertial measurement units). Mobile phones can act as coordinating nodes in wireless personal area networks used in home automation, healthcare, sport and wellness e.g. to measure pulse and distance. Integration of data from multiple sources sensors (data fusion) means that data from each sensor node needs to be associated with data from other sensor nodes sampled at approximately the same time. Accurate methods for time synchronization are therefore a necessary prerequisite for reliable data fusion. This thesis studies time synchronization problems in Bluetooth piconets between multiple wireless sensor nodes connected to a mobile phone that acts as coordinating node. Three different algorithms to enable correct data fusion have been developed, implemented and evaluated. The first is a single clock solution that synchronizes multiple wireless sensor nodes based solely on the mobile phone’s clock. The other two algorithms synchronize the clocks in sensor nodes to the clock in the coordinating node. / <p>QC 20130605</p>