This bachelor's degree concerns the specification of a new programming language. This language, called Sard, is a backwards-incompatible new version of the existing language Scala. Sard, like Scala, is a high-level object-functional language. Unlike Scala, it is not very closely tied to the JVM or Java, eliminating some constraints on the language's design. Since this necessitates breaking backwards compatibility with Scala, the opportunity to disregard it is used to x some of the author's irritations with the language. This degree mostly focuses on deciding on the exact changes to Scala, and on the overall design, rather than on implementing a compiler for the language. A reason for this is that the bachelor's degree provides insuficient time to properly implement´and debug a compiler. Another is the desirability of pushing changes to the language as early into the design process as possible. Preferably, almost all changes to the language should occur before any compiler code has been written. The design eventually produced gets rid of some known issues stemming from the JVM, like null pointers, non-reified generics and single inheritance. Several features of Scala, like self-type annotations and in x syntax for methods are scrapped. Others, like pattern matching, are generalized. Some changes to the syntax are also made, particularly in the areas of closures, pattern matching and object construction. As of yet, this language has no implementation, and in future work, this must be rectified. Sard also requires calling compatibility with another programming language, but this remains to be specified. Nevertheless, Sard constitutes a promising refinement of an already great programming language, and it is hoped that Sard will x the few remaining issues with Scala's design.

The eld of Brain-computer interfaces (BCI) concerns linking together an external device with the brain of a human or an animal. By doing this the conventional use of a mouse or keyboard can be circumvented, which can greatly benefit people with different types of diseases that cause paralysis or other loss of motor control, such as Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). A BCI can also be used for cognitive training of either healthy or mentally impaired subjects to increase cognitive capabilities. In this thesis an implementation of an interface is made against such a device, the Emotiv EPOC Headset. The result is meant to be a stable basis for further study using the device. An in-depth study of the history of EEG and its current use in clinical work and research in the topics of BCI as well as Human-computer interaction (HCI) is presented. It is also examined how a user's cognitive state can improve computer applications for cognitive training. Related work concerning dffierent BCI tools and other implementations of the Emotiv EPOC is studied as well as future work. The actual implementation is described together with possible limitations to the solution.

This thesis describes the development of a source-based argumentation dialogue system in the medical domain of dementia. Its aim is to enable a physician and a computer agent to establish the presence or absence of a dementia condition or diagnoses for a specific patient. The participants take turn in making the moves in a dialogue, every move consists of an argument or a critical question (a challenge) and during the process of arguments and counterarguments an argumentation-tree, in which a winner may be declared, is constructed.The following four particular problems are formulated and solved: 1. how could an appropriate argumentation graph be designed enabling a dementia debate; 2.  how could an algorithm automatically select attacks in the argumentation graph on behalf of the computer agent using ACKTUS, a semantic web-application for modeling knowledge (1); 3a. how could the reasoning in an argumentation graph be improved by using inquiry dialogues introduced by Black & Hunter (2) to ensure a correct winner election; 3b how could it handle the mutual attack problem, and 4. how could the solutions for these issues be implemented?Through a literature study, ACKTUS review, discussions with expertise and a trial and error approach, solutions to the above problems were suggested. The design of schemes, critical questions and their relation was constructed following a source-based approach. An attack algorithm using a ranking- and a selection procedure was invented where the selection was based on likelihood of winning, degree of user-friendliness, profit, essentiality in the discussion and user preferences. A defeasible logic adapted by Black & Hunter was introduced for the arguments in the designed argumentation graph. After applying special techniques, Black & Hunter’s inquiry dialogue system were used to create dynamic arguments in a new argumentation tree, which enabled a comparison with the designed argumentation tree. This ensured the correctness of the winner election in that argumentation tree. Also an ignorance concept, where the latest attack always is considered a winner, was used to deal with the mutual attack problem. A web-based implementation of the system was accomplished.The results were evaluated regarding functionality. However, a presentation of the system to physicians with further evaluation, still remains. Limitations of the system are that it uses a subset of ACKTUS content that does not include the handling of conflicting arguments, and the mutual attack problem is limited. These issues are all subjects for further development and improvement. Another future prospect is an introduction of Artificial Intelligence algorithm/s such as CBR (Case Base Reasoning) which might improve the system’s performance.One conclusion was that even more refinements were needed before using the system in health care. Another conclusion was that the work had shown how a system for dementia could be developed using an argumentation dialogue between a computer agent and a human participant with an algorithm for automatically attacks and an improvement of reasoning ensuring the accuracy of the winner election.

Plan recognition is the task of inferring the possible plans an independent agent might have in mind from observing and analyzing the agents actions. Plan recognition have, among other things, practical applications within the fields of signal analysis and artificial intelligence.In 2010 Johanna Bjorklund and Lisa Kaati developed a framework for plan recognition using weighted, unranked tree automata. This paper explains how their algorithm was implemented and evaluated in the context of StarCraft II a real-time strategy computer game.

In this thesis, an implementation of the MAT algorithm for query learning is improved and tested, specifically by attempted simulation of the MAT oracle using large corpora. In order to arrive at suitable test corpora, algorithms for generating positive and negative examples in relation to regular tree languages are developed.

Many interactive products constructed today is not produced towards a specific targetaudience and how they will interact with the product. This master's thesis follows the designprocess in the development of the Let's Walk webapplication. In the designprocess has users of the webapplikation been identified, prototypes developed and an interactive version has been evaluated. The Let's Walk webapplication is a fully working system used to administrate Let's Walk, an exercise competition between companies. Experts and users have been involved to evaluate the Let's walk high-fidelity webapplication prototype. The result of the evaluation shows that involving users and experts in the designprocess is very important when finding usabilityproblems in an interface. It has lead to comments of how to develop future versions of the Let's Walk system.

Through observations, interviews, conversations and evaluation, knowledge regarding the internal invoice system at Riksbyggen was made. The knowledge made it possible to find areas where users have problems in interacting with the system and where errors made by users mostly occur. Concerns had been raised regarding the current solution preventing workers from performing their duties when their help is needed elsewhere. The results are two design proposals containing information that has been visualized and ideas of how to combine different sources of information to provide users with more knowledge. To evaluate how successful the results are a heuristic evaluation was made on the prototypes' designs.

This project is about development of virtual drums for iPhone and iPad. The project aims to provide the company Toontrack AB with a good foundation to build drumbased apps. The focus has been on getting a quick response when playing and that user interfaces should be easy to use, intuitive and customizable. The result is impressive and both audio and graphics are of excellent quality thanks to good collaboration with Toontrack, that previously has developed drum-based software. The drum kit offers a variety of articulations and even the ability to play various dynamics, although the screens are not pressure sensitive.

By adding a failure fault limit to an existing implementation of a face detection system application and a tolerance limit for detection time, a desired throughput for detected objects could be established. The aim of this thesis was to add an increased detection rate for pro le/partial faces while increasing the stability and run-time of the system. The results were obtained through an empirical analysis of test data which was compared between the implementation done for this thesis and the older implementation. The results showed an increase in detected faces (in low sized images) by 10% while also increasing the number of false-positives by 0.725 detections per average image. In large size image cases, an automatic scaling functionality was added, to decrease detection time and decrease false-negatives. The results indicated a decrease in average detection time from (old implementation) 15 seconds to 2 seconds, while still increasing positive detection with 23%, from an average of 42% to 65%. False-positives were also decreased from 5.8 to 0.2 detections per average image used in test.

The goal with this project was to achieve real-time synchronized video playback over the Internet, or in other words, that multiple clients play the same part of a video at the same time. The result shows how it is possible to build such a protocol, that gives a user experience that the video is synchronized between computers when playing a locally stored file, stream or video delivered using progressive download. This was achieved by designing, then role playing to find weaknesses, and at last implementing the protocols to see how they work in practice. By using such a protocol, it is possible to navigate and discuss around a video in for example a telephone conference, and be sure that everybody is looking on the same picture.