Диссертационная работа посвящена проблеме привлечения детей и подростков к занятиям спортом в школе олимпийского резерва, а также привлечению людей всех возрастов к активному образу жизни. Исследование включает анализ методов творческого мышления для их дальнейшего использования в проектной части работы. В диссертации рассмотрены различные существующие дизайнерские решения в сфере спорта и проведен анализ эффективности их воздействия на целевую аудиторию. Были подведены итоги и сделаны выводы о проделанном исследовании. / The dissertation work is dedicated to the problem of attracting children and adolescents to go in for sports at the School of the Olympic reserve as well as attracting people of all ages to maintain a healthy lifestyle. The study includes an analysis of creative thinking methods for their further use in the practical design part of the work. Various existing design solutions in the field of sports are reviewed, the effectiveness of their impact on the target audience is analyzed. The results of the study were summed up and conclusions were drawn.

Bakgrund och problem: Vi lever idag i ett samhälle som till stor grad karaktäriseras av förändring och osäkerhet där snabba förändringar i den externa omgivningen tenderar att göra budgeteringen mindre användbar. Till följd av detta har budgeteringen som styrmedel varit hårt kritiserad. Trots den kritik som budgeteringen utsatts för har budgeten alltjämt än idag en viktig roll i företagets styrning. Vi finner en kunskapslucka i forskning som berör budgetering i en dagens mer dynamiska omgivning och som även inkluderar styrelsens roll i budgeteringen. Syfte: Det övergripande syftet med denna studie är att beskriva och förstå budgeteringens användning och syfte i företag som är verksamma i dagens dynamiska omgivning och som på grund av olika faktorer har svårigheter att förutse framtiden. Vidare är syftet att beskriva styrelsens roll i budgetarbetet för en mer omfattande förståelse, då hänsyn tas till hela styrkedjan. Metod: I denna studie tillämpas en kvalitativ forskningsstrategi varigenom en flerfallsstudie utförts. Studiens empiri grundas främst i semistrukturerade intervjuer med respondenter som har insikt i företagens budgetering. Slutsats: Budgetering används idag främst för att gå igenom verksamheten noggrant men används även genom att verka motiverande då delaktighet och engagemang främjas. Det ligger en större användning i den process varigenom budgeteringen sker än i budgeten som dokument. Med anledning av den dynamiska omgivning som företag verkar i och svårigheter som däri ligger att förutse framtiden finns ändå användning av budgetering om man arbetar på rätt sätt och har rätt inställning till budgeten. Styrelsen har en aktiv och betydande roll i företags budgetering, under förutsättningen att styrelsen aktivt verkar som en styrelse. I budgetarbetet har styrelsen en bestämmande roll som främst urskiljs vid budgetförutsättningar samt vid fastställande och uppföljning av budgeten. Ett extra fokus på strategirollen kan urskiljas varigenom denna roll också utmärks i budgeteringen genom kopplingen mellan budget och strategi. / Background: Today, we live in a society that is largely characterized by change and uncertainty where rapid changes in the external environment tend to make budgeting less useful. As a result, budgeting has been heavily criticized. However, despite the criticisms of budgeting, the budget still has an important role in the management of the company. We find a knowledge gap in research that concerns budgeting in today's more dynamic environment and also includes the board's role in budgeting. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to describe and understand the use and purpose of budgeting in companies that are active in today's dynamic environment and due to various factors have difficulties predicting the future. Furthermore, the purpose is to describe the role of the board in the budget work for a more comprehensive understanding, taking into account the entire control chain. Method: A qualitative research strategy is applied in this study, whereby a multiple case study is conducted. The empirical study is based primarily on semi-structured interviews with respondents who have insight into the companies’ budgeting. Conclusions: Today's budgeting is used primarily to review the business thoroughly but it is also used by acting motivating as participation and dedication are promoted. There is a greater use in the process whereby budgeting takes place than in the budget as a document. However, due to the dynamic environment that companies engage in and difficulties in anticipating the future, budgeting is still available if you work properly and have the right attitude to it. The board has an active and significant role in budgeting, provided that the board actively acts as a board. In the budget work, the board has a determining role that is primarily distinguished by budget conditions, as well as in determining and reviewing the budget. An extra focus on the strategy role can be identified, whereby this role is also distinguished in budgeting by linking budget and strategy.

The current study aimed at investigating the concepts of team situation awareness, mental models, and team processes in relation to performance in the complex, dynamic environment of breathing apparatus rescues. Data was collected during exercises at Ågesta training center through questionnaires and after action reviews. 28 firemen and 5 instructors participated in the exercises. Also, a stimulated recall interview was conducted with 2 of the firemen that had participated in one of the exercises. The different data collection methods all indicated that well-developed mental models or a high degree of pre-task knowledge affected performance in a positive way. Moreover, a multiple regression analysis showed that both pre-task knowledge and team processes significantly can predict performance. The results of the analysis of team situation awareness in relation to performance were fairly ambiguous. Therefore, further research is needed to establish the relation between these concepts in the domain at matter.

Les créatures à n-pattes, comme les quadrupèdes, les arachnides ou les reptiles, sont une partie essentielle de n’importe quelle simulation et ils participent à rendre les mondes virtuels plus crédibles et réalistes. Ces créatures à n-pattes doivent être capables de se déplacer librement vers les points d’intérêt de façon réaliste, afin d’offrir une meilleure expérience immersive aux utilisateurs. Ces animations de locomotion sont complexes en raison d’une grande variété de morphologies et de modes de déplacement. Il convient d’ajouter à cette problématique la complexité des environnements où ils naviguent. Un autre défi lors de la modélisation de tels mouvements vient de la difficulté à obtenir des données sources. Dans cette thèse nous présentons un système capable de générer de manière procédurale des animations de locomotion pour des dizaines de créatures à n-pattes, en temps réel, sans aucune donnée de mouvement préexistante. Notre système est générique et contrôlable. Il est capable d’animer des morphologies différentes, tout en adaptant les animations générées à un environnement dynamique complexe, en temps réel, ce qui donne une grande liberté de déplacement aux créatures à n-pattes simulées. De plus, notre système permet à l’utilisateur de contrôler totalement l’animation produite et donc le style de locomotion / Multi-legged characters like quadrupeds, arachnids, reptiles, etc. are an essential part of any simulation and they greatly participate in making virtual worlds more life-like. These multi-legged characters should be capable of moving freely and in a believable way in order to convey a better immersive experience for the users. But these locomotion animations are quite rich due to the complexity of the navigated environments and the variety of the animated morphologies, gaits, body sizes and proportions, etc. Another challenge when modeling such animations arises from the lack of motion data inherent to either the difficulty to obtain them or the impossibility to capture them.This thesis addresses these challenges by presenting a system capable of procedurally generating locomotion animations fordozens of multi-legged characters in real-time and without anymotion data. Our system is quite generic thanks to the chosen Procedural-Based techniques and it is capable of animating different multi-legged morphologies. On top of that, the simulated characters have more freedom while moving, as we adapt the generated animations to the dynamic complex environments in real-time. Themain focus is plausible movements that are, at the same time,believable and fully controllable. This controllability is one of the forces of our system as it gives the user the possibility to control all aspects of the generated animation thus producing the needed style of locomotion

Det är viktigt med ett effektivt samarbete och en välfungerande kommunikation i dynamiska miljöer, till exempel vid släckningsarbetet av en brand. Bristande kommunikation i en sådan miljö skulle kunna få förödande konsekvenser. Denna uppsats bygger på material från studien ”Bridging Cultural Barriers to Collaborative Decision Making in On-Site Operations Coordination Centers”, där 32 svenskar samarbetade i olika lagkonstellationer med att släcka simulerade eldar i mikrovärlden C3Fire. Kommunikationsteorier visar på att personer samtalar med varandra efter en viss struktur; deras yttranden tenderar att komma i par, så kallade närhetspar. Denna studie syftade till att undersöka närhetspar i beställningssekvenser, i form av en beställning av vatten och/eller bränsle följd av en bekräftelse. Till sin hjälp hade försöksdeltagarna en datorskärm med en karta samt tillgång till ett e-postverktyg för att kommunicera inom laget. Varje person genomgick åtta spelomgångar, vilket resulterade i totalt 64 spelomgångar. De lag som lyckades släcka elden antogs ha större andel närhetspar i beställningssekvenserna, vilket innebar att de skulle bekräfta varandras beställningar mer kontinuerligt än de lag som inte lyckades släcka elden. För studiet av närhetsparen kategoriserades e-postmeddelandena från samtliga spelomgångar, för att se hur strukturen i kommunikationen såg ut. Resultatet visade på att något annat måste ha påverkat de medverkandes prestation, eftersom det inte fanns någon påtaglig skillnad i andelen närhetspar i beställningssekvenserna mellan de olika lagen. Det uppmärksammades att de inte bekräftade varandras beställningar endast genom e-postmeddelanden utan även genom direkta manipulationer. Anledningen till detta antas vara att alla lagmedlemmar blev presenterade samma information på sina datorskärmar, vilket frambringade en mer implicit kommunikation. / Efficient communication and cooperation is important in dynamic environments, for instance in fire-fighting teamwork. A lack of communication in this environment could cause devastating consequences. This Master’s thesis is based on material from ”Bridging Cultural Barriers to Collaborative Decision Making in On-Site Operations Coordination Centers”, a study where 32 Swedes collaborated in teams conducting fire-fighting exercises in the micro-world C3Fire. Communication theories propose that people talk with each other after a certain structure; their utterances tend to come in pairs, so-called adjacency pairs. The purpose of this study was to examine adjacency pairs in request sequences, in form of a request for water and/or fuel followed by a confirmation. The participants had access to a computer screen with a map together with an e-mail tool, to communicate within the team. Every person participated in eight rounds of the game, which resulted in 64 rounds of the game altogether. The teams who managed to extinguish the fire were assumed to have a larger amount of adjacency pairs in their request sequences than the teams who did not extinguish the fire. For the study of the adjacency pairs, the e-mails were categorized, to see what the structure of the communication looked like. The result showed that some other factor must have influenced the participants’ performance, since there was no obvious difference in the amount of the adjacency pairs in the request sequence between the teams. It was observed that the team members did not confirm each other’s requests just by sending e-mail, but also by direct manipulations. The reason for this is assumed to be that every member of the team was shown the same information on his computer screen, which gave rise to a more implicit communication.

5 Abstract Cognitive flexibility is an ability to adapt a behavior according to a dynamic changes in an environment. It belongs to executive functions, along with the processes of working memory, attention, motivation and others. Flexibility is important in the process of changing "stimulus-response" contingency at the time when the initial stimulus no longer leads to reward. According to the nature of the changes we can distinguish three types of cognitive flexibility: reversal learning, intradimensional set shifting and extradimensional set shifting. The processes of cognitive flexibility take place in fronto-striato-thalamic circuit with numerous connections to other brain regions, especially the limbic system. Deficit in cognitive flexibility belongs among cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia, a psychiatric illness we studied in the experimental part of this work using its analogue in rat. The aim of the experimental work was to test cognitive flexibility deficit in the rat model of schizophrenia-like behavior in the Carousel maze in four versions of task with different cognitive load. Animal model of schizophrenia was induced by acute administration of non-competitive NMDA receptor antagonist MK-801 at doses of 0.05 and 0.10 mg/kg i.p. Reversal learning was not damaged in this type of task following the...

D. Tech. (Department of Information Technology, Faculty of Applied and Computer Sciences), Vaal University of Technology. / Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) is a significant problem that has been extensively researched in robotics. Its contribution to autonomous robot navigation has attracted researchers towards focusing on this area. In the past, various techniques have been proposed to address SLAM problem with remarkable achievements but there are several factors having the capability to degrade the effectiveness of SLAM technique. These factors include environmental noises (light intensity and shadow), dynamic environment, kidnap robot and computational cost. These problems create inconsistency that can lead to erroneous results in implementation. In the attempt of addressing these problems, a novel SLAM technique Known as DIK-SLAM was proposed. The DIK-SLAM is a SLAM technique upgraded with filtering algorithms and several re-modifications of Monte-Carlo algorithm to increase its robustness while taking into consideration the computational complexity. The morphological technique and Normalized Differences Index (NDI) are filters introduced to the novel technique to overcome shadow. The dark channel model and specular-to-diffuse are filters introduced to overcome light intensity. These filters are operating in parallel since the computational cost is a concern. The re-modified Monte-Carlo algorithm based on initial localization and grid map technique was introduced to overcome the issue of kidnap problem and dynamic environment respectively. In this study, publicly available dataset (TUM-RGBD) and a privately generated dataset from of a university in South Africa were employed for evaluation of the filtering algorithms. Experiments were carried out using Matlab simulation and were evaluated using quantitative and qualitative methods. Experimental results obtained showed an improved performance of DIK-SLAM when compared with the original Monte Carlo algorithm and another available SLAM technique in literature. The DIK-SLAM algorithm discussed in this study has the potential of improving autonomous robot navigation, path planning, and exploration while it reduces robot accident rates and human injuries.

In order for the companies to be competitive in today’s market, it is vital to adapt quickly to the market trends. The steady shift towards mass customization from mass production has been challenging many industries globally, which demands the use of digital tools and technologies in various areas to improve performance throughout the supply chain processes. One of these areas is short-term scheduling of jobs on the shop floor. Short-term scheduling of jobs plays a very vital role in many production systems. Optimisation of short-term scheduling help the companies in improving their operational Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), thus saving both money and resources. Today’s complex production systems with multiple constraints, system level interactions and the dynamic environment have challenged the traditional static scheduling approaches. These complex production systems require new scheduling approaches which can consider all the dynamics and should be capable of real-time reconfiguring in case of uncertainties in the shop floor. In this thesis, a case study was performed in a steel manufacturing company over the period of five months to validate Discrete Event Simulation (DES) as a tool for short-term scheduling of heavy plates in a dynamic environment. The challenges related to DES for short-term scheduling during model design, development and implement phases were also identified. In addition to this, the requirements to implement DES model for short-term scheduling in a dynamic environment were also discussed. Furthermore, a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) was also conducted to support the empirical findings from the case study. The idea of this study was to generate an optimal schedule by minimizing overall makespan and maximizing resource utilization using DES model. The findings from both SLR and DES model has clearly proven that DES as a digital tool is exceptional for short-term scheduling in a dynamic environment, nevertheless there are still some challenges associated which needs to be investigated further. The same model can also be used for other purposes such as analysing and identifying bottlenecks in the whole production system. / För att företagen ska vara konkurrenskraftiga på dagens marknad är det viktigt att snabbt anpassa sig till marknadstrenderna. Vägen mot mass-anpassning från massproduktion har utmanat många industrier globalt, vilket kräver användning av digitala verktyg och tekniker inom olika områden för att förbättra prestandan under hela leveranskedjans processer. Ett av dessa områden är kortsiktig schemaläggning av arbeten på fabriksgolvet. Kortsiktig schemaläggning av arbeten spelar en mycket viktig roll i många produktionssystem. Optimering av kortsiktig schemaläggning hjälper företagen att förbättra sina operativa nyckeltal, vilket sparar både pengar och resurser. Dagens komplexa produktionssystem med flera begränsningar, systemnivåinteraktioner och den dynamiska miljön har utmanat de traditionella statiska schemaläggningsmetoderna. Dessa komplexa produktionssystem kräver nya schemaläggningsmetoder som kan ta hänsyn till all dynamik och bör ha möjligheten att omkonfigurera i realtid vid osäkerheter på fabriksgolvet. I denna avhandling genomfördes en fallstudie i ett ståltillverkningsföretag under fem månader för att validera Diskret händelsestyrd simulering som verktyg för kortsiktig schemaläggning av grovplåtstillverkning i en dynamisk miljö. Utmaningarna relaterade till Diskret händelsestyrd simulering för kortsiktig schemaläggning under modellens design, utveckling och implementeringsfaser identifierades också. Utöver detta diskuteras också kraven för att implementera Diskret händelsestyrd simulering för kortsiktig schemaläggning i en dynamisk miljö. Dessutom genomfördes en systematisk litteraturstudie för att stödja de empiriska resultaten från fallstudien. Tanken med den här studien var att generera ett optimalt schema genom att minimera den totala schemalängden och maximera resursutnyttjandet med hjälp av Diskret händelsestyrd simuleringsmodellen. Resultaten från både den systematiska litteraturöversynen och Diskreta händelse simuleringsmodellen har tydligt bevisat att Diskret händelse simulering som ett digitalt verktyg är exceptionellt för kortsiktig schemaläggning i en dynamisk miljö även om det fortfarande finns några utmaningar som måste undersökas ytterligare. Samma modell kan också användas för andra ändamål som att analysera och identifiera flaskhalsar i hela produktionssystemet.

Le processus de composition des services Web joue un rôle important dans la réalisation des architectures orientées services (SOA). Dans les environnements dynamiques dans lesquels des informations con-textuelles changent souvent, le processus de composition est souvent affec-té pendant les phases de conception et d’exécution. Ce processus devrait par conséquence être en mesure de s'adapter aux changements en temps de conception et exécution. A présent, les architectures orientées services et les mécanismes automatiques de composition de services Web ne parviennent pas à faire face aux changements continus et imprévisibles. Construire des architectures orientées services qui s'adaptent aux changements dans des environnements dynamiques révèle un défi pour les processus de com-position de services Web. En outre, les processus de composition actuelles offrent un support limité pour les utilisateurs professionnels de spécifier leurs exigences métier afin générer automatiquement les processus métiers (services Web composites). Par cela, l'écart entre les exigences fonction-nelles et non-fonctionnelles au niveau métier et les exigences techniques liées aux mécanismes de composition de services Web augmentent la com-plexité du développement d'applications ou de processus métier adaptés aux environnements dynamiques. Pour remédier à ces défis, nous introduisons le concept de rési-lience appliqué à l'informatique orientée services (nommé SOC résilient) afin de construire des applications et processus métier dynamiques en res-pectant les exigences métier dans des environnements dynamiques. La SOA résilient est conçue comme un ensemble de modèles qui affectent, et sont affectées par, d’autres modèles. Dans cette thèse, nos contributions, qui se concentrent en particulier sur le modèle d’exigence de composition et le modèle de composition des services Web, composent trois parties princi-pales: tout d'abord le modèle de d’exigence est modélisé aux trois niveaux, i.e., métier, capacité, et règle. Particulièrement, le modèle de d’exigence métier offre aux utilisateurs un langage structuré à base de langage naturelle pour spécifier les processus métier; d'autre part, un processus de trans-formation dérive par transformation un modèle d’exigence de composition à base de règles. Chaque règle représente un ensemble de contraintes multi-objectives concernant différentes variables liées au processus de composi-tion et à son environnement dynamique. Troisièmement, une approche ad-hoc de composition des services Web a été développée pour construire de services composites sans plans de composition prédéfinis dans des environ-nements dynamiques. L’approche de transformation de modèle-à-modèle génère les règles qui sont récursivement utilisées pour modifier ces modèles et ensuite replanifiés une composition ad-hoc de services Web. / Due to the distributed and asynchronous nature of Web services, the Web service composition process plays an important role in achieving SOC. In dynamic environments by which contextual information such as Web service properties and composition requirements often change, the composition process is thus affected and, consequently, should be able to adapt composite applications to changes at design time and runtime. Un-fortunately, current Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Web service composition approaches lack of the ability to deal with continuous and un-predictable changes. Building resilient service-oriented architectures that are adaptable to endogenous and exogenous changes in dynamic environments reveal a drastic challenge to current composition processes. In addition, current composition processes provide a limited support for business users to specify their requirements in business languages to automatically compose business processes (i.e., composite services). By such, the gap be-tween business requirements and composition requirements related to Web services increases the complexity of developing adaptable SOA-based ap-plications and processes in dynamic environments. To overcome these challenges, we introduce the concept of Resili-ent Service-Oriented Computing (rSOC) to construct resilient SOA-based applications driven by business requirements in dynamic environments. To this end, the resilient SOA is defined as a set of models that affect and are affected by each other, and relies on a model-to-model transformation ap-proach to ensure SOA adaptability and evolution. In this thesis, we particu-larly focus on two models: a three-level composition requirement model and a Web service composition model, to establish the foundation for a re-silient SOA as follows: firstly, composition requirements are modeled in three levels, i.e., business-centric, capability-focused and rule-driven. Par-ticularly the business-centric requirement model provides business users with a structured natural language to specify requirements; secondly, a two-phase requirement transformation process builds the rule-driven Web ser-vice composition requirement model from the business-centric requirement model as set of composition rules, expressing multi-objective constraints that affect the composition process and its dynamic environment; thirdly, an ad-hoc Web service composition approach is introduced to flexibly con-struct composite services without predefined composition plans. Particularly, composition rules generated in composition process may affect other model(s) in the resilient SOA, such as composition requirement model, and recursively invoke the model-to-model transformation approach to replan the ad-hoc Web service composition approach.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:31:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Eduardo Jardim Ushiro.pdf: 1661209 bytes, checksum: aff20ed0fc60e71f438b93a8135fc329 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-04-07 / The main objective of this research is to understand how resources, capabilities and business strategies for seeking competitive advantage are treated in companies that work with low differentiation products and services in dynamic environment when subjected to ruptures. As a theoretical foundation it was used the resource-based view (RBV), including the concepts of competitive advantage, value creation, generic strategies and dynamic capabilities. The chosen dynamic market was from prepaid cards for travel, loaded with foreign currency, which was impacted by government rule changes in 2011 and 2013. It was adopted an exploratory descriptive study in a qualitative methodology. The survey was conducted considering perceptions from the point of view of managers. A multiple cases study was held in which twelve executives were interviewed through a semi-structured script, in four companies (Midsize Bank, Brokerage Exchange, Exchange Bank and Retail Banking), representing for 77% of Travel Prepaid Card market share, The data was treated and analyzed based on content analysis method. It was noted that the resources had their strategic attributes modified and their relevance has changed, specifically in the cases studied. It was possible to observe a change in the way the companies manage existing resources and capabilities, incorporating new and transforming others. However, it seems that companies have not looked systematically and intentionally to their resource and capabilities base in times of sudden environment changes. It was also observed that the strategic positioning remained unchanged regardless of environmental changes. In short, the strategic management of resources and capabilities becomes more complex in dynamic environments with sudden changes. / Esta tese tem como objetivo entender de que maneira são tratados recursos, capacidades e estratégias de negócios, voltadas à busca de vantagem competitiva nas empresas que atuam com produtos e serviços de baixa diferenciação, em ambientes dinâmicos quando sujeitos a alterações repentinas. Como fundamentação teórica utilizou-se a visão baseada em recursos (VBR), incluídos os conceitos de vantagem competitiva, criação de valor, estratégias genéricas e capacidades dinâmicas. O mercado dinâmico escolhido foi o de emissores de cartões pré-pagos de viagem, carregados com moeda estrangeira, que sofreu impactos pelas alterações de regras do governo em 2011 e 2013. O trabalho adotou um estudo exploratório descritivo e utilizou a metodologia qualitativa. As percepções foram captadas do ponto de vista dos gestores. Foi realizado um estudo de casos múltiplos, em que foram entrevistados por meio de roteiro semi-estruturado com perguntas abertas, doze executivos de quatro empresas (Banco Médio Porte, Corretora de Câmbio, Banco de Câmbio e Banco de Varejo),representando 77% do volume dos negócios do mercado de cartões pré-pagos de viagem. Os dados foram tratados e analisados com base nas técnicas da análise de conteúdo. Identificou-se que os recursos tiveram os seus atributos estratégicos modificados e que a sua relevância foi alterada, especificamente nos casos estudados. Foi possível observar uma mudança na maneira com que as empresas participantes da pesquisa trataram alguns recursos e capacidades existentes, a incorporação de novos e a necessidade de transformação de outros.Entretanto, parece que as empresas não olharam de maneira sistemática e intencional para a sua base de recursos e capacidades nos momentos de alterações repentinas em seus ambientes.Observou-se também que o posicionamento estratégico neste negócio permaneceu inalterado independente das mudanças ambientais ocorridas. Em resumo, a gestão estratégica de recursos e capacidades se torna mais complexa nos ambientes dinâmicos com alterações repentinas.