In only two hours, the earth receives sunlight containing the amount of energy equivalent to one year’s electricity consumption of the entire population. Yet only 0.09 percent of the electricity production in Sweden 2016 came from solar energy. To increase that amount, the energy and communications company Umeå Energi offers solar panels to their customers. While doing that, they have identified a desire for their customers to monitor their electricity consumption and production at the same place – something that the service lacks today. This thesis investigates the actual needs behind why the solar customers want to know the electricity consumption and production information, in what contexts it will be accessed, and how that can be visualized to meet their needs. Starting with a literature study to understand the area, the work continues by meeting and interviewing customers to collect insights. These insights are then used as a foundation when creating and testing prototypes repeatedly together with the customers. It was found that being self-sufficient is one of the most important reasons for their solar panel customers for producing their own electricity. The prototypes that were created aimed to address that self-sufficiency need, together with visual representations of their electricity production and consumption – both historically as well as with live data.

L’objet de cette recherche réside dans l’étude de l’interaction dans des visites familières en France et en Jordanie. Il concerne plus particulièrement l’analyse des deux séquences encadrantes de l’interaction : la séquence d’ouverture et la séquence de clôture. La méthode comparative a été adoptée afin de dégager les échanges et les actes qui composent ces séquences dans les deux pays. Cette étude a montré que la plupart des actes de langages sont attestés dans les deux corpus. Ce qui change, c’est la modalité de production et le fonctionnement des actes dans l’interaction. La formulation des actes lors de l’ouverture et de la clôture reflète les valeurs sociales et le profil socio-culturel des locuteurs français etjordaniens, tels qu’ils apparaissent dans les interactions de tous les jours. / The aim of this research is to study interaction in familiar visits in France and Jordan. It focuses particularly on the two framing sequences of interaction: the opening sequence, and the closing sequence. A comparative method was adopted to describe the exchanges and acts that make up these sequences in the two countries. The study showed that most acts are used in each corpus. The differences concern the mode of production and functioning of these acts in the interaction. Their formulation in the opening and closing sequence reflects the social values and the socio-cultural profile of French and Jordanian speakers, as they appear in everyday interaction.

Le travail de recherche présenté concerne l'étude théorique des molécules LuBr et LuI qui sont considérées comme des molécules d'intérêt astrophysique. Les calculs ont été effectués en utilisant les méthodes de chimie quantique usuelles pour ce type de molécules comme les méthodes Hartree-Fock Self-Consistent Field (SCF) , Complete Active Space Self-Consistent Field (CAS-SCF) et les méthodes d'interaction de configurations multi-référence (MRCI) avec la correction de Davidson. Pour cela, la chaîne de programmes MOLPRO a été utilisée. Les courbes d'énergie potentielle ont été déterminées pour un grand nombre d'états électroniques dans un premier temps sans considérer l'interaction spin-orbite puis en l'incluant. Les constantes spectroscopiques (position d'équilibre (Re), l'énergie d'excitation (Te) et la fréquence harmonique (we) ont été déduites et comparées aux rares résultats expérimentaux disponibles dans la littérature pour ces deux molécules. / This work concerns the theoretical study of the electronic structure of two molecules of astrophysical interest, LuBr and LuI. Ab-initio methods have been used as Self-Consistent Field (SCF) method, Complete Active Space Self-Consistent Field (CAS-SCF) method and MRCI calculations including Davidson correction. Calculations have been performed through MOLPRO. Potential energy curves have been determined for numerous electronic states first without the spin-orbit coupling and afterwards with this interaction. Spectroscopic constants as equilibrium position (Re), excitation energy (Te) and harmonic frequency (we) have been deduced and compared with available experimental data for these two molecules.

Silence in the communicative process is often viewed as the background to speech patterns, or it is not viewed at all. Yet cultural and ethnic teachings concerning the importance of silence, as well as appropriate uses of silence in communication, aftect communicative processes in classroom contexts, and can thus affect teaching and learning processes as well. In this study, silence in intercultural communication is the main focus. This is a study about the meanings of silence in multi-ethnic classrooms of older adults, as well as a study of signs and signals for breaking silence which are used by participants in classroom contexts when they wish to speak. A search of the literature revealed minimal information concerning meanings of silences in classroom contexts and no information concerning meanings of silence, nor about signs and signals for breaking silence in multi-ethnic classrooms of older adults. Therefore, this qualitative research project was designed to answer some questions about these intercultural communicative issues, which are vital aspects of teaching and learning processes. The two main research questions were: 1) what are the meanings of silence in multi-ethnic classrooms of older adults? 2) what are the signs and signals for breaking silence in multi-ethnic classrooms of older adults? A multiple case study approach was used with seven adults (four women and three men) whose ages ranged from 65 to 82 years and who were from the countries of Nigeria, Cuba, Greece, China, India, England, and Canada. These case studies were supported by a triangulated methodological approach which used three qualitative research methodologies in order to enhance the depth of understanding concerning the research questions of the study. These three methodologies were: ethnographies of communication; ethnomethodology; and interactional analysis of discourse. Saville-Troike’s (1985) categories of silences were used as an initial conceptual framework for analyzing and organizing the data which were gathered from five different sources. This conceptual framework was then adjusted in order to accommodate the various sub-categories and themes which emerged from the data of this study. The five sources of data were: transcription of a video of the participants in their classroom; transcriptions of audio tapes of stimulated recall interviews with individual participants; researcher observations; first focus group discussion; and second focus group discussion (where participants made additions and corrections to tentative findings that were presented to them by the researcher). In order to avoid stereotyping or unwarranted generalizations concerning various ethnic or cultural groups, and in order to respect the communicative differences within cultural and ethnic groups, meanings of silence were not categorized according to culture, but rather, were categorized into communicative themes across cultures. As well, a metaphor of a “patchwork quilt” was used throughout this inquiry as a vehicle for the creative enhancement of insights, organization, connections, and descriptions of the research process. The findings of this study revealed a large variety of meanings of silence as well as a number of signs and signals for breaking silence. These were organized into the following categories: 1) institutionally-determined silences which included locations, rituals, hierarchical / structural, and silence taboos; 2) group-determined silences which included normative and symbolic silences; 3) individually-determined / negotiated silences which included, interactive, socio-contextual, psycholinguistic, sociocultural, psychological, sociophysical, noninteractive, contemplative and reflective silences; and 4) signs and signals for breaking silence which included verbal, nonverbal, and combined verbal and nonverbal signs and signals. Various recommendations, which were inspired by the participants’ contributions concerning silences, were made in order to promote possibilities of improved, and refined intercultural communication in classroom contexts. These communicative approaches, in turn, may enhance improved teaching and learning processes. / Graduate

Improving communication between people and computer applications is a major concern of Human–Computer Interaction. One possible way of improving such communication is to capitalise on the way human beings use speech and gesture in a complementary manner, exploiting the redundancy of information between the input modes of a system. Redundant data input entered into a computer system through multiple modes, provides considerable scope for the resolution of error and ambiguity in the input message.

info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The basic objective of this paper is to compare two entropy formulae used as objective functions in spatial intreraction modelling. This is carried out by comparing some attributes of the interaction models derived from both of them. The comparison results in the design of the third formula, which, however, represents a slight modification of one of them. (author's abstract) / Series: Discussion Papers of the Institute for Economic Geography and GIScience

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The purpose of the research described within this thesis is to provide information that can be used to improve the quality of programs and the productivity of the software industry. To fulfil this purpose, the thesis is concerned with the order in which software engineers construct solutions to software problems, the factors that influence the order in which software engineers construct solutions, and the effectiveness of constructing a solution in a particular order. Control strategies describe the order in which solutions are constructed. Four empirical studies investigating control strategies were undertaken to answer the concerns of the thesis. The aim of the first two studies was to observe the global control strategies employed by software engineers. The two studies collected verbal reports and keystroke behaviour of software engineers using Prolog and C. The results showed that software engineers used a combination of Top-Down control strategies to solve a software problem. A Children-First Top-Down control strategy was used during the initial stages of solving a complex sub-problem, while a Depth-First Top-Down control strategy was used to solve simple sub-problems. Occasionally software engineers diverged from a Top-Down control strategy. There were eight types of divergences (such as working pursuing pre-requisites) that frequently occurred within the context of six different activities (such as making alternations to a solution). The third study investigated the choice of local control strategies that supplement global control strategies. When software engineers were presented with a series of subproblems to complete, they chose to complete the four sub-problems in the order that they were presented. The software engineers did not choose to pursue the series of sub-problems in any alternative order, such as the order of Easiest-First, or AnalogiesFirst. The fourth study investigated the environmental factors that influence the software engineers' choice of global control strategies. The study also investigated whether software engineers using the Breadth-First control strategy produced better results than software engineers using alternative control strategies. Three different text editors were produced to determine under what circumstance software engineers would use the Breadth-First control strategy. The editors also recorded the behaviour of the software engineers. The software engineers would only use the Breadth-First control strategy when the text editor forced them to follow the Breadth-First control strategy. However, the performance of the software engineers was better when they were forced to use the Breadth-First control strategy than when they used their preferred control strategies.

Testing a software is important to maintain the quality of the application. There are many ways of testing functionality of an application but not so many for testing the interface. When reusing CSS is a common approach, one change in the CSS can cause many visual changes on the interface. Not testing these changes, visual errors might occur which can decrease the quality of the application. Also, not knowing where the change is affecting, fear-driven development, i.e. the developers feels fear when changing code, can arise for the developers. In this thesis, a pre-study was made to investigate if any current feardriven development existed among developers. Then a visual regression testing tool was created, using a rapid prototyping process, to help the developers testing the interface during the evolving process of the application. The tool’s primary purpose is to show images of the visual changes that have occurred for the developers and as a result, the fear-driven development can decrease for the developers and the quality can be improved. The tool was implemented using AngularJS, NodeJS and ResembleJS and was tested on UI developers. The developers got a case where they had made CSS changes and then wanted to see how the changes affected the site they were working on. All of the developers felt, often or sometimes, fear when changing code. After using the tool, their feelings of fear-driven development was decreased and they all saw the tool as helpful when finding visual errors that might occur when CSS or web components are changed.