I denna undersökning så var avsikten att se ifall spelare tilltalar NPC-kompanjoner i dialoger på olika sätt beroende på vilket kön de har, samt huruvida detta kan påverka dialogerna i digitala spel. För detta så skapades en artefakt innehållande två spelsekvenser. Dessa spelsekvenser bestod av en dialog som i scenario, dialogval och text var identiska med varandra. Den skillnaden som fanns vara att den ena spelsekvensen hade en kvinnlig NPC-kompanjon som spelaren höll sin dialog med och den andra spelsekvensen hade en manlig NPC-kompanjon att a dialogen med. Av de val som man som spelare hade att välja mellan var ett kvinnligt kodat, ett manligt kodat och ett neutralt kodat, detta för att kunna observera vilka val spelaren gör och sedan kunna se ifall valen de gjorde överensstämde med de val som var kodade för den karaktären. När undersökningen var klar så visade det sig att spelare snarare utgick från situationer och hur de uppfattar karaktärers personlighet snarare än vilket kön de hade.

Several applied sciences model system dynamics with networks. Since networks often contain thousands or millions of nodes and links, researchers have developed methods that reveal and high- light their essential structures. One such method developed by researchers in IceLab uses information theory to compress descrip- tions of network flows with memory based on paths rather than links and identify hierarchically nested modules with long flow persistence times. However, current visualization tools for navigat- ing and exploring nested modules build on obsolete software that requires plugins and cannot handle such memory networks. Drawing from ideas in cartography, this thesis presents a pow- erful visualization method that enables researchers to analyze and explore modular decompositions of any network. The resulting application uses an efficient graph layout algorithm adapted with a simulation based on information flow. Like in a topographic map, zooming into the map successively reveals more detailed commu- nity structures and network features in a continuous fashion.

Background. Modern game applications pressures hardware to its limits, and affects how graphics hardware and APIs are designed. In games, rendering geometry plays a vital role, and the implementation of optimization techniques, such as view frustum culling, is generally necessary to meet the quality expected by the customers. Failing to optimize a game application can potentially lead to higher system requirements or less quality in terms of visual effects and content. Many optimization techniques, and studies of the performance of such techniques exist. However, no research was found where the utilization of computational resources in the GPU, in state-of-the-art games, was analyzed. Objectives. The aim of this thesis was to investigate the potential problem of commercial game applications wasting computational resources. Specifically, the focus was set on the triangle data processed in the geometry stage of the graphics pipeline, and the amount of triangles discarded through clipping. Methods. The objectives were met by conducting a case study and an empirical data analysis of the amount triangles and entire draw calls that were discarded through clipping, as well as the vertex data size and the time spent on processing these triangles, in eight games. The data was collected using Triangelplockaren, a tool which collects the triangle data that reaches the rasterizer stage. This data was then analyzed and discussed through relational findings in the results. Results. The results produced consisted of 30 captures of benchmark and gameplay sessions. The average of each captured session was used to make observations and to draw conclusions. Conclusions. This study showed evidence of noteworthy amounts of data being processed in the GPU which is discarded through clipping later in the graphics pipeline. This was seen in all of the game applications included in this study. While it was impossible to draw conclusions regarding the direct impact on performance, it was safe to say that the performance relative to the geometry processed was significant in each of the analyzed cases, and in many cases extreme.

Background. Many video games make use of particle effects to portray magic abilities known as spells. Different spells may have large variation in behaviour and colour. Aside from their different appearance, the spells often deal a different amount of damage. Objectives. The aim of this paper is to evaluate how velocity, scale, and direction, as well as the colour orange and blue affect the expected damage of a projectile-like spell.Methods. A perceptual experiment with a 2AFC was conducted where participants compared various spells with different values of velocity, scale, direction, and colour. The participants were asked to select the spell that they expect to deal the most damage. Results. Scale had a larger impact on the expected damage of a spell than velocity. The largest and fastest spells with an added sinus based direction in the x-axis were expected to cause the most damage. However, the difference between these spells and the largest and fastest spells without the added direction was not found to be statistically significant. The orange spells were rated as more damage causing in all cases compared to the blue spells. The difference between the blue and orange preference in two of these cases were however not large enough to be statistically significant. Conclusions. The results showed that the visual attributes of a particle-based spell affect its perceived damage with the scale having a greater impact than velocity and orange being the colour most often associated with higher damage. The effect of an added direction could not be evaluated due the result from the direction spells not being statistically significant.

This thesis is an extension of a football simulator made in a previous project, where we also made different visualizations and simulators based on football data. The goal is to create a football simulator based on a modified Markov chain process, where two teams can be chosen, to simulate entire football matches play-by-play. To validate our model, we compare simulated data with the provided data from Opta. Several adjustments are made to make the simulation as realistic as possible. After conducting a few experiments to compare simulated data with real data before and after adjustments, we conclude that the model may not be adequately accurate to reflect real life matches.

Data sets with missing values are a pervasive problem within medical research. Building lifetime prediction models based solely upon complete-case data can bias the results, so imputation is preferred over listwise deletion. In this thesis, artificial neural networks (ANNs) are used as a prediction model on simulated data with which to compare various imputation approaches. The construction and optimization of ANNs is discussed in detail, and some guidelines are presented for activation functions, number of hidden layers and other tunable parameters. For the simulated data, binary lifetime prediction at five years was examined. The ANNs here performed best with tanh activation, binary cross-entropy loss with softmax output and three hidden layers of between 15 and 25 nodes. The imputation methods examined are random, mean, missing forest, multivariate imputation by chained equations (MICE), pooled MICE with imputed target and pooled MICE with non-imputed target. Random and mean imputation performed poorly compared to the others and were used as a baseline comparison case. The other algorithms all performed well up to 50% missingness. There were no statistical differences between these methods below 30% missingness, however missing forest had the best performance above this amount. It is therefore the recommendation of this thesis that the missing forest algorithm is used to impute missing data when constructing ANNs to predict breast cancer patient survival at the five-year mark.

Parking a vehicle can often lead to frustration, air pollution and congestion due to limited availability of parking spaces. With increasing population density this problem can certainly increase unless addressed. Parking lots occupy large areas of scarce land resource therefore it is necessary to identify the driving behaviour in a parking lot to improve it further. This Paper tries study the driving behaviour in the parking lot and for this endeavours it conducted direct observation in three parking lots and used GPS data that was collected prior to this study by the University of Dalarna. To evaluate the driving behaviour in the parking lot direct observation was conducted to obtain overall indices of the parking lot vehicles movement. The parking route taken by the driver was compared with the optimal path to identify the driving behaviour in parking lot in terms of distance. The collected data was evaluated, filtered and analysed to identify the route, the distance and the time the vehicle takes to find a parking space. The outcome of the study shows that driving behaviour in the parking lots varies significantly among the parking user where most of the observed vehicles took unnecessary long time to complete their parking. The study shows that 56% of the 430 observed vehicles demonstrated inefficient driving behaviour as they took long driving path rather the than the optimal path. The study trace this behaviour to two factors, first, the absent of parking guidance in the parking lots and the second is the selectivity of the drivers when choosing the parking space. The study also shows that the ability of GPS data to identify the driving behaviour in the parking lots varies based on the time interval and the type of the device that is being used. The small the time interval the more accurate the GPS data in detecting the driving behaviour in the parking lots.

Aktivitetsarmband, bärbara enheter i grunden avsedda för loggande och mätning av fysisk aktivitet, är ett av många exempel på uppkopplade enheter som på kort tid har blivit en del av det vardagliga livet för en betydande andel av det svenska folket. Säkerheten kring dessa produkter varierar kraftigt och något sätt för den enskilda individen att avgöra vilken produkt som är säker att använda finns inte. Det huvudsakliga syfte med studien är att öka förståelsens kring konsumenters bild och uppfattning kopplat till aktivitetsarmband och den integritetsproblematik insamling, sammanställning och presentation av denna typ av personlig information innebär. De frågeställningar som studien behandlar fokuserar på huruvida en oro för integriteten kopplat till användandet av aktivitetsarmband kan identifieras bland konsumenter. Vidare ställs frågan om det finns något som tyder på skillnader i synen på användande av aktivitetsarmband sett från ett integritetsperspektiv. Denna studie behandlar även frågan hur konsumenter ställer sig till att betala mer för ett aktivitetsarmband som sett från ett integritetsperspektiv är att anse som säkrare. Studien bygger på en kombination utav kvantitativ och kvalitativ metod där en enkätundersökning har genomförts vilken sedan kompletterats med semi-strukturerade intervjuer. Avsikten med denna studie är inte att redogöra för den faktiska allmänna uppfattningen eller att besvara eller säkerställa hur framtagna ställda frågeställningar förhåller sig till den allmänna uppfattningen. Denna studie fokuserar på en för produkten intressant kategori individer och studiens syfte är endast att undersöka huruvida en oro för den personliga integriteten kan identifieras inom denna population. Avsikten med studiens resultat är snarare att det skall kunna utgöra grund för beslut om behov av vidare mer omfattande undersökningar. Denna studie ger i förhållande till dess undersöknings omfattning tydliga indikationer på en allmän oro bland konsumenter kopplat till användandet av aktivitetsarmband. Studien visar även indikationer på ett bland konsumenter utbrett intresse för produkter med en högre säkerhetsnivå. Studiens resultat pekar på ett tydligt behov av vidare studier inom området.

Denna undersökning utforskar en designteknik som kan kallas dubbeldesign. Tekniken går ut på att en mekanik i ett spel har flera syften. Målet är att mäta vilken skillnad på spelupplevelsen användning av tekniken har. De delar av spelupplevelsen som undersöks är flow och positive affect. Värden för flow och positive affect tas ut genom att testare spelar en prototyp i två versioner och svarar på frågor. Ena versionen av spelet använder dubbeldesign till stor grad medan den andra inte använder tekniken alls. Resultat visar att både flow och positive affect var högre för versionen som inte använder dubbeldesign. En stark koppling hittades mellan användning av spelets mekaniker och resultatet. De som använde många av en versions mekaniker hade generellt en bättre spelupplevelse i den versionen. Att personer väljer att inte använda ett spels mekaniker som är påverkade av dubbeldesign kan bero på förståelsebrist eller en vilja att spara på resurser.

Quantum computing is a young but intriguing field of science. It combines quantum mechanics with information theory and computer science to potentially solve certain formerly computationally expensive tasks more efficiently. Classical computers are based on bits that can take on the value zero or one. The values are distinguished by voltage differences in transistors. Quantum computers are instead based on quantum bits, or qubits, that are represented physically by something that exhibits quantum properties, like for example electrons. Qubits also take on the value zero or one, which could correspond to spin up and spin down of an electron. However, qubits can also be in a superposition state between the quantum states corresponding to the value zero and one. This property is what causes quantum computers to be able to outperform classical computers at certain tasks. One of these tasks is searching through an unstructured database. Whereas a classical computer in the worst case has to search through the whole database in order to find the sought element, i.e. the computation time is proportional to the size of the problem, it can be shown that a quantum computer can find the solution in a time proportional to the square root of the size of the problem. This report aims to illustrate the advantages of quantum computing by explicitly solving the classical Windows game Minesweeper, which can be reduced to a problem resembling the unstructured database search problem. It is shown that solving Minesweeper with a quantum algorithm gives a quadratic speedup compared to solving it with a classical algorithm. The report also covers introductory material to quantum mechanics, quantum gates, the particular quantum algorithm Grover's algorithm and complexity classes, which is necessary to grasp in order to understand how Minesweeper can be solved on a quantum computer.