The rise in the prevalence of the Internet has had a wide range of implications in nearly every industry. Within the music business, the turn of the millennium came with a unique, and difficult, set of challenges. While the majority of academic literature in the area focuses specifically on the aspect of file sharing within the Internet as it negatively impacts sales within the recording sector, this study aims to assess the Internet’s wider impacts on the broader music industry. In the same time that record sales have plummeted, the live music sector has thrived, potentially presenting alternative business models and opportunities. This paper will discuss a variety of recent Internet-related developments including the rise of legal digital distribution, key economic implications, general welfare effects, changes in consumer preference and social phenomena as they relate to both the recording and live entertainment sectors. I employ a time series multiple regression model to evaluate the statistical significance of the relationship between the Internet’s rise and the value of record sales. For the concert industry, I will examine recent trends and descriptive data as they relate to the Internet’s prevalence.

Bakgrund: Islam är den näst största religionen i världen och människor rör på sig mer än någonsin över landsgränser vilket ställer krav på sjuksköterskans kulturkompetens i omvårdnadsarbetet. Diabetes är en folksjukdom som har ökat globalt sett de senaste åren och därför finns det i dagens mångkulturella samhälle ett behov av att undersöka hur olika grupper upplever att det är att leva med diabetes och vilka krav detta ställer på sjuksköterskan i dennes yrkesutövning och i utvecklandet av den kulturella kompetensen. Syfte: Syftet var att undersöka muslimska personers upplevelser av att leva med diabetes. Metod: Litteraturstudien bygger på åtta vetenskapligt granskade artiklar, sex kvalitativa och två kvantitativa. Artiklarna har granskats och analyserats och lett fram till ett resultat presenterat i tre kategorier. Resultat: Resultatet visar upplevelser av att känna sig missförstådd av sjukvårdspersonal i samband med sin religionsutövning samt att patienter ibland undviker att delge vårdpersonal information om tex fasta. Det framkommer även att det finns en tilltro till alternativa behandlingsmetoder framför de som rekommenderas av vården. Diskussion: Det finns ett behov utav att öka kunskapsläget hos vårdpersonal för att kunna inge förtroende och trygghet vid transkulturell omvårdnad och rådgivning i samband med diabetesvård hos muslimska personer. / Background: Islam is the world’s second largest religion and people are traveling the globe like never before, wich places demands on the nurses culturalcompetens in the nursingprofession. Diabetes is a national disease that´s increased during the last years. In our multicultural society this leads to a need of studying different groups experiences of living with diabetes and how that effects the nurse in his/hers profession in the development of culturalcompetens. Aim: To study muslim persons experiences of living with diabetes. Metod: The literature review is based  upon eight peer reviewed articles; six qualitative and two quantitative. The articles has been reviewed and analyzed and led to a result presented in three categories. Resultat: The result tells us about experienceses about feeling missunderstod by healthcare professionals related to the faith in religion and therefore avoiding to tell the healthcare professionals about fore example fasting. It also tells us about a trist in alternative treatments over those that are recomended by the healt care. Diskussion: There is a need to increase the level of knowledge in health care professionals in order to inspire confidence and security in transcultural nursing and counseling related to diabetes care of Muslim persons.

Live cell imaging can be used to study dynamic cellular systems at single cell resolution. In heterogeneous cell populations, analyzing cell properties at the single cell level reduces the generalization of results caused by population-based assays. This thesis details the implementation of live cell imaging and single cell tracking to characterize heterogeneous cell systems undergoing dynamic processes over multiple generations. This approach enables the consideration of both spatial and temporal variables as well as the mapping of cell phenotype trajectories along their generational lineages. Cell-, lineage-, and colony-level properties are used as descriptors of the underlying molecular mechanisms that they are produced by. These may be unexpected, emergent properties that can not be predicted or completely characterized at the molecular level. Analysis of these properties can reveal and characterize the properties and processes of dynamic, heterogeneous cell systems. Live cell imaging culture strategies were developed to enable characterization of both two- and three-dimensional cell systems. Computational modeling was performed to evaluate the conditions imposed by a confined imaging chamber that enables single cell resolution imaging of monolayer and multilayer cell systems. Imaging chamber dimensions and cell colony/aggregate sizes were calculated that would prevent the introduction of metabolite transport limitations and allow for stable, long term imaging. Methods for single cell tracking and analysis were also developed, which produces a database detailing the tracked, observed and extracted properties of every cell and colony, while maintaining the lineage structure of the data. Visualizations such as lineages, histograms and scatter plots were implemented to enable interactive data analysis and querying. These methods were used to characterize heterogeneity in two separate cell systems: human islet of Langerhans-derived progenitor cells, and human embryonic stem cells. Islet-derived progenitors are an expandable source of cells with potential for treatment of diabetes. Here, it was shown that there is an unequal contribution of islets to the progenitor derivation process. Islet-derived progenitors consist of two distinct sub-populations of cells that were distinguished by morphological identification during live cell image analysis. These sub-populations possess unique proliferation profiles and appear to exist in a dynamic state with each other. Three-dimensional tracking of islet progenitor derivation was implemented, but suffered from a lack of resolution to capture the dynamic nature of the transformation process. However, entire islets were imaged and tracked successfully under maintenance conditions, suggesting that this system may be useful for other cell types. These results highlight that live cell imaging and cell tracking may not be suitable for all cell systems and that inclusion of other analytical information, such as immunocytochemistry, would improve the power of cell tracking analysis. Human embryonic stem cell cultures were studied using live cell imaging to identify the mechanisms by which they differentiate to produce supportive niche cells. Cell tracking, morphology scoring and lineage analysis revealed a previously unappreciated level of heterogeneity within human embryonic stem cell colonies. The results show that a sub-population of human embryonic stem cells exist that are precursors to niche cell differentiation. However, these cells exist in a dynamic equilibrium with self-renewing stem cells, which is dependant on the presence of existing local niche cells. Sub-optimal niche conditions leads to the production of niche differentiation-competent cells and, significantly, considerable cell death. The effect of cell death is the clonal selection of self-renewing cells that contribute to colony expansion. Overall, these results highlight the importance of the co-transfer of existing niche cells and the dynamic balance that regulates human embryonic stem cell self-renewal and differentiation. This thesis displays the utility of live cell imaging, cell tracking and cell, colony and lineage analysis for studying dynamic heterogeneous systems. Furthermore, it highlight the fact that cell-, lineage- and colony-level analysis can uncover previously unappreciated heterogeneity and unknown sub-populations of cells. The system does not rely on characterization at the molecular level, but uses higher order measures to generalize them. However, future incorporation of cell, lineage and colony information with molecular-level information may results in analytical power not possible from either level alone. Such systems will be valuable tools in the growing fields of stem cell biology and systems biology.

Live cell imaging can be used to study dynamic cellular systems at single cell resolution. In heterogeneous cell populations, analyzing cell properties at the single cell level reduces the generalization of results caused by population-based assays. This thesis details the implementation of live cell imaging and single cell tracking to characterize heterogeneous cell systems undergoing dynamic processes over multiple generations. This approach enables the consideration of both spatial and temporal variables as well as the mapping of cell phenotype trajectories along their generational lineages. Cell-, lineage-, and colony-level properties are used as descriptors of the underlying molecular mechanisms that they are produced by. These may be unexpected, emergent properties that can not be predicted or completely characterized at the molecular level. Analysis of these properties can reveal and characterize the properties and processes of dynamic, heterogeneous cell systems. Live cell imaging culture strategies were developed to enable characterization of both two- and three-dimensional cell systems. Computational modeling was performed to evaluate the conditions imposed by a confined imaging chamber that enables single cell resolution imaging of monolayer and multilayer cell systems. Imaging chamber dimensions and cell colony/aggregate sizes were calculated that would prevent the introduction of metabolite transport limitations and allow for stable, long term imaging. Methods for single cell tracking and analysis were also developed, which produces a database detailing the tracked, observed and extracted properties of every cell and colony, while maintaining the lineage structure of the data. Visualizations such as lineages, histograms and scatter plots were implemented to enable interactive data analysis and querying. These methods were used to characterize heterogeneity in two separate cell systems: human islet of Langerhans-derived progenitor cells, and human embryonic stem cells. Islet-derived progenitors are an expandable source of cells with potential for treatment of diabetes. Here, it was shown that there is an unequal contribution of islets to the progenitor derivation process. Islet-derived progenitors consist of two distinct sub-populations of cells that were distinguished by morphological identification during live cell image analysis. These sub-populations possess unique proliferation profiles and appear to exist in a dynamic state with each other. Three-dimensional tracking of islet progenitor derivation was implemented, but suffered from a lack of resolution to capture the dynamic nature of the transformation process. However, entire islets were imaged and tracked successfully under maintenance conditions, suggesting that this system may be useful for other cell types. These results highlight that live cell imaging and cell tracking may not be suitable for all cell systems and that inclusion of other analytical information, such as immunocytochemistry, would improve the power of cell tracking analysis. Human embryonic stem cell cultures were studied using live cell imaging to identify the mechanisms by which they differentiate to produce supportive niche cells. Cell tracking, morphology scoring and lineage analysis revealed a previously unappreciated level of heterogeneity within human embryonic stem cell colonies. The results show that a sub-population of human embryonic stem cells exist that are precursors to niche cell differentiation. However, these cells exist in a dynamic equilibrium with self-renewing stem cells, which is dependant on the presence of existing local niche cells. Sub-optimal niche conditions leads to the production of niche differentiation-competent cells and, significantly, considerable cell death. The effect of cell death is the clonal selection of self-renewing cells that contribute to colony expansion. Overall, these results highlight the importance of the co-transfer of existing niche cells and the dynamic balance that regulates human embryonic stem cell self-renewal and differentiation. This thesis displays the utility of live cell imaging, cell tracking and cell, colony and lineage analysis for studying dynamic heterogeneous systems. Furthermore, it highlight the fact that cell-, lineage- and colony-level analysis can uncover previously unappreciated heterogeneity and unknown sub-populations of cells. The system does not rely on characterization at the molecular level, but uses higher order measures to generalize them. However, future incorporation of cell, lineage and colony information with molecular-level information may results in analytical power not possible from either level alone. Such systems will be valuable tools in the growing fields of stem cell biology and systems biology.

Live performing arts are one of the most important heritages, defining the cultural identity of a society. Since live performing arts are cultural services, the process of experiencing them is pivotal in forming satisfaction on the customer side. Achieving customer satisfaction is crucial for non-profit cultural institutions operating under the Swedish cultural model. An investigation of the achieved level of customer satisfaction and a comparison to customer expectations is therefore necessary for offering cultural services, which meet customer expectations. Since service quality and hence customer satisfaction can be controlled via the elements of the services marketing mix, the authors focused on investigating the marketing mix of Programbolaget i Jönköping (PJ). The authors wish to investigate to what extent PJ’s current audiences are satisfied with the quality of the services marketing mix provided by PJ, what customers expect from it and what managerial implications can be advised to improve the service. The authors use a mixed methods approach. Quantitative data about customer satisfaction is collected via a questionnaire, which applies a five point Likert scale. Descriptive and non-parametric statistics are used in the data processing. Semi-structured interviews with PJ and customers are conducted to obtain information about the nature of PJ and customer expectations. The conclusions drawn from this study are that the overall level of satisfaction with PJs services marketing mix among PJ’s customers is satisfying, while deviations between the different elements exist, where the elements price, promotion and product score lowest. It is also found that some parameters of the marketing mix have significant levels of importance for customer groups. Customer expectations regarding the services, which scored low, were investigated through interviews. Based on the conducted statistical tests and the expectations of the customers, recommendations regarding PJ’s services are made in order to increase customer satisfaction.

De allra äldsta i samhället är människor med lång livserfarenhet och med nästan ett helt liv bakom sig. Hur resten av deras liv kommer att gestalta sig beror mycket på dem själva, deras anhöriga och på samhällets insatser. Det är av största vikt att samhället ger de insatser som gör att de allra äldsta känner sig ansvariga, självständiga och trygga. Syftet är att ta reda på vad de allra äldsta själva uppfattar är betydelsefullt för dem, när det gäller att bo kvar i sitt eget hem. Tio personer deltog i en kvalitativ intervjustudie. De allra flesta i vår studie vill fortsätta bo kvar i sitt hem och de känner sig trygga, fria och tillfreds där. De beskriver på olika sätt hur de tar ansvar för sina liv och att de gör det de kan själva, med hjälp av teknik och hjälpmedel. De får hjälp med resten av hemtjänst eller anhöriga. För våra informanter är det viktigt att vara aktiva utifrån sina egna förutsättningar. Intressanta områden att undersöka vidare kan vara hur bemötandet i vård och omsorg påverkar de allra äldstas liv och hur stöd och handledning från arbetsterapeut till omvårdnadspersonal gör skillnad. / The oldest old in our society have a long life experience. How well they can live the remaining part of their lives depends not only on themselves, but also on their relatives and societal contributions. Our society must provide a setting in which the elderly are given a sense of responsibility, independence and safety. The aim of this study was to identify the self-reported factors that are of importance for the oldest old to continue to live in their own home. Ten individuals participated in qualitative interviews. The majority of the respondents wanted to remain in their homes where they felt safe, free and peaceful. They described how they took responsibility for their lives and did what they could by themselves or with technical aid. They received help from home-help services and relatives in areas they could not manage by themselves. That they continued to be active on their own conditions was of great importance to the respondents. Interesting fields for future research would be how the interaction with health care has an influence on the lives of the oldest old, and whether support and guidance from an occupational therapist to health care personnel makes a difference.

The aim of this essay is to study and show the contents of the music repertoire that is used in live action role plays in Sweden and study how this repertoire is spread between participants in the culture of live action role playing. Four informants have been chosen and interviewed, three men and one woman of different ages from different places in Sweden. They have all been practicing live action role playing for some years. Some of the conclusions that can be drawn from this study is that the participants of this hobby culture value music that feels old and contribute to the illusion of another world and time. The music repertoire of the live action role playing culture is filled with this music that gives the participants associations in line with the illusion. That is more important than the real age of the music. Another interesting conclusion is that the participants learn and spread the melodies verbally to each other and only the texts spread on the internet.

This thesis presents the development of a model for analyzing the design of an automated live-bird transfer system (LBTS) developed at Georgia Tech. One of the most fundamental tasks in the automated transferring is to design and control a grasping system that is capable of accommodating a specified range of objects without causing damage. However, unlike grasping in robotic research that focuses on dexterous manipulation of a single object, repetitive transfer of live objects in a production line requires continuous grasping at high-speed. This thesis research investigates the use of rotating fingers (capable of undergoing large deflections) to cradle live birds on a moving conveyor for subsequent handling. As compared to fingers with multiple active joints, flexible fingers have many merits, for they are lightweight and have no relative individually moving parts. Their ability to accommodate a limited range of varying sizes, shapes, and the natural reactions of some objects makes rubber fingers an attractive candidate for use as graspers in a high-speed production setting. However, the advantages of flexible fingers are seldom exploited for grasping because of the complex analysis involved in the design. In order to reduce the number of birds and hardware/software design configurations to be tested, a good understanding of the object dynamics throughout the grasping process is necessary. In this thesis, a quasi-static model has been developed for predicting the contact force between a moving object and a rotating finger. The model has been validated with the experimentally measured data and the computed results using finite element (FE) methods. Finally, an illustrative application of the validated model has been demonstrated in the design of a rotating hand used in the automated LBTS. As illustrated in the simulation results, the computed contact forces can be used as a basis for predicting potential bruises on the bird that may be caused by the rotating fingers. The analytical model presented in this paper provides a rational basis for optimizing the design of the grasping system and developing a controller for a high-speed transfer system. It is expected that the analysis presented here can be readily extended to other dynamic systems involving the use of flexible beams.

In this study, zoo visitor response to live prey feeding and jaguar response to dead fish feeding were analyzed. Four hundred visitors at Zoo Atlanta and four hundred visitors at Palm Beach Zoo were asked about their attitudes toward feeding live prey to zoo carnivores. Agreement rates were found to be high. Agreement rates at Zoo Atlanta and Palm Beach Zoo were both significantly higher for feeding live fish to penguins than at Edinburgh Zoo as reported in Ings et al. (1997). Zoo Atlanta also had a higher agreement rate for feeding live rabbits to cheetahs in view than Edinburgh Zoo. Both Zoo Atlanta and Palm Beach Zoo had lower agreement rates for feeding live insects to lizards out of view than Edinburgh Zoo. Agreement rates for visitors at Palm Beach Zoo that saw a dead fish to jaguar introduction did not differ significantly from visitors that had not seen the introduction. However, at both US Zoos, agreement rate was higher for visitors that had seen a live prey introduction at a zoo or aquarium in the past. Agreement rate was significantly greater for feeding live fish to jaguars, mice to hawks, and rabbits to cheetahs in view. For Palm Beach Zoo agreement rate was also higher for feeding live rabbits to cheetahs out of view. Stay time did not differ significantly between visitors at Palm Beach Zoo that saw and did not see a dead fish to jaguar introduction. Jaguar activity level, behavioral diversity, fecal corticoids, visibility, and percent time spent in water did not significantly differ between fish introduction and baseline.

The finite element method (FEM) has difficulty solving certain problems where adaptive mesh is needed. Motivated by two engineering problems in live-object handling project, this research focus on a new computational method called the meshless method (MLM). This method is built upon the same theoretical framework as FEM but needs no mesh. Consequently, the computation becomes more stable and the adaptive computational scheme becomes easier to develop. In this research, we investigate practical issues related to the MLM and develop an adaptive algorithm to automatically insert additional nodes and improve computational accuracy. The study has been in the context of the two engineering problems: magnetic field computation and large deformation contact. First, we investigate the effect of two discretization methods (strong-form and weak-form) in MLM for solving linear magnetic field problems. Special techniques for handling the discontinuity boundary condition at material interfaces are proposed in both discretization methods to improve the computational accuracy. Next, we develop an adaptive computational scheme in MLM that is comprised of an error estimation algorithm, a nodal insertion scheme and a numerical integration scheme. As a more general approach, this method can automatically locate the large error region around the material interface and insert nodes accordingly to reduce the error. We further extend the adaptive method to solve nonlinear large deformation contact problems. With the ability to adaptively insert nodes during the computation, the developed method is capable of using fewer nodes for initial computation and thus, effectively improves the computational efficiency. Engineering applications of the developed methods have been demonstrated by two practical engineering problems. In the first problem, the MLM has been utilized to simulate the dynamic response of a non-contact mechanical-magnetic actuator for optimizing the design of the actuator. In the second problem, the contact between the flexible finger and the live poultry product has been analyzed by using MLM. These applications show the developed method can be applied to a broad spectrum of engineering applications where an adaptive mesh is needed.