<p>Many analog systems need a stable power supply voltage that does not vary with temperature and time in order to operate properly. In a battery operated system the battery voltage is not stable, e.g. it decreases with decreasing temperature and with ageing. In that case a voltage regulator must be used, that regulates the battery voltage and generates a stable supply voltage to power other circuitry. </p><p>In this thesis a voltage regulator to be used in a battery operated system has been designed which meets the given specification of stability and power capabilities. A voltage reference, which is a commonly used devise in analog circuits, was also designed. The role of a reference voltage in an electrical system is the same as for a tuning fork in a musical ensemble; to set a standard to which other voltages are compared. </p><p>A functionality to detect when the lifetime of the battery is about to run out was also developed.</p>

Reference is the relation held to obtain between an expression and what a speaker or thinker intends the expression to represent. Reference is a component of interpretation, the process of giving terms, sentences, and thoughts semantic content. An example of reference in a formal context involves the natural numbers, where each one can be taken to have a corresponding set-theoretic counterpart as its referent. In an informal context reference is exemplified by the relation between a name and the specific name-bearer when a speaker or thinker utters or has the name in mind. Recent debates over reference have concerned the mechanism of reference: How is it that we can refer? In informal contexts, externalists see the reference relation as explicable in terms of the salient causal relations involved in the naming of a thing, or a class of things, and the ensuing causal chains leading to a term’s use. Opponents of this view—internalists—see the reference relation as being conceptually direct, and they take the external approach to rely on untenable metaphysical assumptions about the world’s structure. Moreover, some internalists take the permutability—i.e. the consistent reinterpretation—of certain referential schemes to confound the externalist picture of reference. In this thesis I focus on the reference of theoretical terms in science, and I argue for an externalist treatment of natural kinds and other theoretical elements. Along the way I offer a defense of the externalist’s pre-theoretic metaphysical assumptions and emphasize their central role in the interpretation of scientific languages. The externalist approach acknowledges the necessary constraints on reference-fixing that account for the schemes we employ, and this, I argue, confounds the permutation strategy.

This two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Sciences aims to investigate and put the services of 118100 Svar På Allt (SPA, an SMS mobile question and answer service) and Fråga biblioteket (FB, a library operated e-mail reference service) into the context of the reference encounter. Questions sent to SPA and their subsequent answers are analysed, and part of these questions are forwarded to FB for comparative studies. Both of the formats are compared to the reference encounter as a whole. The framing of the question originates in the assumption that there may be a need for further negotiation of the questions submitted to the aforementioned formats. Do SPA and FB constitute formats different enough from the reference encounter to imply that the question at hand already has gone through the apropiate negotiations? These compressed and asynchronous reference services are not only compared to the synchronous reference, but are also examined as reference services in their own right. How does the e-mail reference and the SMS services fare against each other and the “regular” reference encounter? Findings in the analysis are subjected to appliable INSU theories, especially Robert S. Taylors thoughts on question negotitation and Nicholas Belkins et al regarding anomalous states of knowledge. Further major contributors are Marie L. Radford concerning the reference encounter and Reijo Savolainen on everyday information practices. The study found several occasions where a personal, or at least synchronous, reference encounter would have been decidedly more helpful than that of the electronic services. However, the larger majority of the questions analysed turned out to be completed in formulation for the compressed, asynchronous format. The e-mails of FB can to some extent work as an intermediary service since it is more allowing lengthwise than SPA and gives more of an opportunity to redirect towards more exhaustive sources.

The aim of this master’s thesis is to examine the virtual reference service Ask the Library [Bibblan svarar] from a postmodern perspective. Ask the Library is a Swedish online reference service that is run by the country’s public libraries. The postmodern theories of Jean-François Lyotard are used to study how information is managed and transmitted within the service. From this point-of-view three aspects of the reference service are studied; how the information is affected by the virtual environment, the librarian’s role within the service and finally how the content of the service is managed. The methods for extracting data are a blend of qualitative interviews and online observations. The data is then analyzed from a theoretical viewpoint. The result shows that there are several postmodern tendencies in Ask the Library. Namely the service shows a number of indications toward plurality. This can be related to Lyotard’s theory of the downfall of the grand narratives since postmodern theories celebrate the idea of plurality and diversity. Ask the Library is complex and dynamic in the sense that it adapts its services to the users. In addition to a multilingual service, Ask the Library also offers the users reference help in the form of social network sites like Facebook and Twitter. This makes the service more varied but also deeply complex. The reference service also emphasizes on the librarian’s individual competence and promotes personal knowledge and expertise. In Lyotard’s postmodern theories there is a rejection of absolute and objective truths and this falls in line with the subjectivity that the reference service celebrates. Ask the Library has two different agendas; providing qualitative reference service to the users and also promoting the librarians and their skills. The information, or content, in the service is still organized and under examination by the librarians. Critique of the sources is an important skill for a librarian within Ask the Library to have. These traditional ideas of objective truth are balanced with the new virtual environment that often promotes collective construction of information and knowledge. This study is a two years master’s thesis in the academic field library and information science.

Many analog systems need a stable power supply voltage that does not vary with temperature and time in order to operate properly. In a battery operated system the battery voltage is not stable, e.g. it decreases with decreasing temperature and with ageing. In that case a voltage regulator must be used, that regulates the battery voltage and generates a stable supply voltage to power other circuitry. In this thesis a voltage regulator to be used in a battery operated system has been designed which meets the given specification of stability and power capabilities. A voltage reference, which is a commonly used devise in analog circuits, was also designed. The role of a reference voltage in an electrical system is the same as for a tuning fork in a musical ensemble; to set a standard to which other voltages are compared. A functionality to detect when the lifetime of the battery is about to run out was also developed.

Reference is the relation held to obtain between an expression and what a speaker or thinker intends the expression to represent. Reference is a component of interpretation, the process of giving terms, sentences, and thoughts semantic content. An example of reference in a formal context involves the natural numbers, where each one can be taken to have a corresponding set-theoretic counterpart as its referent. In an informal context reference is exemplified by the relation between a name and the specific name-bearer when a speaker or thinker utters or has the name in mind. Recent debates over reference have concerned the mechanism of reference: How is it that we can refer? In informal contexts, externalists see the reference relation as explicable in terms of the salient causal relations involved in the naming of a thing, or a class of things, and the ensuing causal chains leading to a term’s use. Opponents of this view—internalists—see the reference relation as being conceptually direct, and they take the external approach to rely on untenable metaphysical assumptions about the world’s structure. Moreover, some internalists take the permutability—i.e. the consistent reinterpretation—of certain referential schemes to confound the externalist picture of reference. In this thesis I focus on the reference of theoretical terms in science, and I argue for an externalist treatment of natural kinds and other theoretical elements. Along the way I offer a defense of the externalist’s pre-theoretic metaphysical assumptions and emphasize their central role in the interpretation of scientific languages. The externalist approach acknowledges the necessary constraints on reference-fixing that account for the schemes we employ, and this, I argue, confounds the permutation strategy.

This study examines whether reference levels change over time and the impact on individuals' risk-taking behavior. I apply expectations-based reference-dependent preferences theory to analyze whether individuals' reference levels change over time in an economic setting. The theory suggests that individuals develop reference levels based on expectations of future outcomes (Koszegi and Rabin 2006). Therefore, this study examines whether individuals' expectations affect the setting of their reference level and how possible changes in reference levels affect subsequent risk-taking behavior. This study also provides evidence on how budget-based contracts impact individual risk taking behavior in a single period setting. Prior research has used multiple theories in an attempt to explain contradictory results relating to budget target difficulty and risk-taking behaviors. This study provides more evidence to the literature by further examining the impact of budget-based contracts on individuals' risk-taking behavior. A 1 x 2 between subjects experiment was conducted over five periods. Budget target was the manipulated factor at two levels: easy and moderate. Results suggest that individuals under easy budget targets make riskier decisions. Additionally, individuals' reference levels change over time and the change in reference level is greater for those individuals who continually attain their budget target, suggesting that expectations do increase the reference level. Lastly, in the current study, changes in reference level do not have a significant impact on risky decision making.

Submitted by Andressa dos Santos Mogno null (andressasmogno@gmail.com) on 2017-10-16T23:26:45Z No. of bitstreams: 1 A AUTORREFERÊNCIA E A REFERÊNCIA DE TERCEIRA PESSOA NA FALA DE UMA CRIANÇA MONOLÍNGUE_Repositório.pdf: 652963 bytes, checksum: f2ffef46994c01dde8ade1f7cb0508b1 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Monique Sasaki (sayumi_sasaki@hotmail.com) on 2017-10-18T18:54:06Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 mogno_ad_me_arafcl.pdf: 652963 bytes, checksum: f2ffef46994c01dde8ade1f7cb0508b1 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-10-18T18:54:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 mogno_ad_me_arafcl.pdf: 652963 bytes, checksum: f2ffef46994c01dde8ade1f7cb0508b1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-08-31 / Esta pesquisa reflete sobre como a criança, entre dois e três anos de idade, faz a autorreferência e a referência de terceira pessoa, a partir de uma perspectiva dialógicodiscursiva (BAKHTIN, 2011; BRUNER, 1984, 2004, 2007). Observamos os elementos que a criança usa em seu discurso com a função referencial - desde os sintagmas nominais e verbais, que já assumem essa função na gramática adulta, como os elementos que passaram a exercer, para a criança, o valor referencial. Nossa pesquisa se detém em analisar a autorreferência e a referência de terceira pessoa na produção oral de uma criança monolíngue de português brasileiro (denominada, neste trabalho, de G.), que foi filmada em contexto naturalístico. Nosso corpus é formado por cinco sessões de aproximadamente 1 hora de duração cada. Essas sessões foram transcritas a partir do programa computacional CLAN e das normas CHAT (MACWHINNEY, 2000). Devido ao nosso objetivo e à nossa perspectiva teórica, esta pesquisa é de cunho qualitativo. Os resultados obtidos nesta dissertação mostram a importância do formato jogo e das brincadeiras, que integram o gênero conversa, em que a criança e seu interlocutor estão inseridos, assim como nos direcionam para questões de multimodalidade, que exerceram um papel central para a aquisição e o uso dos elementos referenciais por G.. Paralelamente, os resultados indicam que, na idade observada, a criança já é capaz de fazer e de entender as referências de primeira e de terceira pessoas, ajustando seus enunciados em prol da situação comunicativa em que se encontra. / This research aims to reflect upon the way the child (aged between two and three years) refers to themselves and to a third person, according to a dialogical-discursive theoretical framework (BAKHTIN, 2011; BRUNER, 1984, 2004, 2007). We observe the referential elements used by the child in their discourse – since the nominal and verbal syntagma, which already have this referential function in the adult grammar, as well as the elements that acquire a referential function within the child’s discourse. Our research analyses the self-references and the references to a third person in the speech of a monolingual child who speaks Brazilian Portuguese (named here as G.), filmed in a naturalistic context. Our data is composed by five filmed sessions of about one hour each. This data was transcribed according to the computer program CLAN and the CHAT norms (MACWHINNEY, 2000). According to our aim and our theoretical framework, this research is a qualitative work. Our results show the importance of the game format and the fun moments, which integrate the conversation genre into which the child and their interlocutor is inserted, and the multimodality issues of language, that play a central part in the acquisition and use of referential elements by G.. In addition, the results indicate that the child – at the ages we observe – is able to both elaborate and comprehend the references of first and third person, adjusting their speech in order to fit the communicative situation they are participating in.

The aim of this paper is to examine the translation of a political and historical text on the French-African relations from French into Swedish, focusing on the translation of cultural reference and metaphor. The African context is relatively unknown to Swedish readers. This and other factors mean that some expressions and phenomena mentioned in the source text will need explanation in the translated text. This type of text also contains a large number of metaphors that may have to be adapted to the target text context.The analysis in this paper has been made using the author’s own translation of an extract of the essay book ”La France en Afrique – Cinq siècles de présence: vérités et mensonges” by Jean-Paul Gourévitch. A number of works dedicated to the translation of metaphors and cultural reference have been studied and theories applied to the translation of this particular source text.The main results of the study are firstly that Ogden &amp; Richards triangle of reference will be particularly helpful to the translator when dealing with the issues of cultural reference and metaphor. Secondly, Vermeer’s skopos theory helps the translator make the text relevant and adapted to the reader’s needs. Thirdly, the target text structure is of importance.

In this diploma thesis there is elaborated design of low-voltage power supply block using I3T25 technology. The theoretical part describes the basic structures used in the design, using CMOS and bipolar devices. Furthermore, the properties and the analysis used in the evaluation are described. In the design part there is an elaborated design of individual parts, including voltage references, current references, DAC converter, operational amplifier. In the last part, the power supply block is subjected to simulations for verification of temperature compensated output variables and analyzed circuit functionality.