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Abstract The workload of Verification and Validation (V&V) has increased constantly in the high technology industries. The changes in the business environment, with fast time-to-market and demands to decrease research and development costs, have increased the importance of efficient product creation process, including V&V. The significance of the V&V related know-how and testing is increasing in the high tech business environment. As a consequence, companies in the ICT sector have pressures for improving product development process and verification and validation activities. The main motive for this research arises from the fact that the research has been scarce on verification and validation from product development process perspective. This study approaches the above mentioned goal from four perspectives: current challenges and success factors, V&V maturity in different NPD phases, benchmarking automotive sector, and shifting the emphasis of NPD efforts. This dissertation is qualitative in nature and is based on interviewing experienced industrial managers, reflecting their views against scientific literature. The researcher has analysed the obtained material and made conclusions. The main implications of this doctoral dissertation can be concluded as a visible need to shift the emphasis of V&V activities to early NPD. These activities should be viewed and managed over the entire NPD process. There is a need for companies to understand the V&V maturity in different NPD phases and develop activities based on this understanding. Verification and validation activities must be seen as an integral element for successful NPD. Benchmarking other sectors may enable identifying development potential for NPD process. The automotive sector being a mature sector, has developed practices for successfully handling requirements during NPD. The role of V&V is different in different NPD phases. Set-based type V&V can provide required understanding during early product development. In addition, developing parallel technological alternatives and platforms during early NPD also support shifting the emphasis towards earlier development phases.

With the growing role the smartphone technology is gaining in our daily life the concerned voices about its negative impacts on human social skills, social interactions and mental health are getting louder. Smartphone use has become a habit not at least due to high access to different kind of rewards provided by this technology. In this thesis, a qualitative explorative study analyses two approaches, an application based and a non-application based, in their ability to deal with the subjectively perceived smartphone overuse in order to find weaknesses and advantages behind those approaches. The study design is based on behaviour change theories such as the Goal-Setting Theory, the Social Cognitive Theory, and the Cognitive Dissonance Theory and on the persuasive design strategies. The results of the five weeks long intervention study, during which eight participants tried both approaches in a within-group design setup, suggests that a combination of an application based and a non-application based intervention could be more beneficial than relying on technology alone in order to support the user with means to reduce the smartphone overuse. The results furthermore suggest that the application based approach functioned well as an eye opener and as an incentive to prepare participants to take own actions.

Twitch.tv är en växande livestreaming-plattform, främst inriktad på spel. Streamers presenterar sig själva framför en livepublik. Detta leder till nya och intressanta interaktioner. I denna studie studerar jag två Twitch.tv livestreamers för att undersöka skillnaderna i beteende baserat på den interaktion som förekommer mellan dem och deras publik. Streamers publikstorlek varierade. För att undersöka skillnaderna användes följande forskningsfråga: Hur använder två livestreamers Twitch.tv för att interagera med sin respektive publik när publikstorleken skiljer sig? För att undersöka detta utfördes över 60 timmar videoanalys samt en intervju med en av deltagarna. Den insamlade datan analyserades med Erving Goffman’s (1990) Dramaturgical-teori. Resultaten visar på skillnader i beteende (Dramatisering samt Idealisering) samt skillnader mellan de båda streaminggränssnitten (Scen och kulisser). Båda deltagarna påverkades av förväntningar från deras respektive publiker samt skapade framsidor (fronts) för att leva upp till dessa förväntningar till uppträdandets fördel. / Twitch.tv is a growing platform for game related live streaming. Streamers present themselves live in front of a live audience, where innovative interactions take place. In this study, I looked at two Twitch.tv live streamers with varying audience sizes. The study was conducted to better understand the differences in behavior based on their interaction with their audiences. The research question was as follows: How do two live streamers, one big and one small, interact with their audiences through the use of different features of Twitch.tv? To do this I conducted video analyses of over 60 hours worth of streaming data as well as one interview with one of the live streaming participants. The gathered data was analyzed using Erving Goffman’s (1990) Dramaturgical theory for studying the behaviors during the streamers performances. The results show differences in both performance behavior (Dramatization and Idealization) as well as differences in their streaming interface (Stage and Set pieces). Both streamers where affected by expectations from the audience while creating fronts to maintain these expectations for the benefit of the performance.

Olika spel har olika val för spelare vad gäller spelkaraktärer. I en del spel får spelare välja mellan karaktärer med definierade utseenden, egenskaper och roller. En typ av dessa spelkaraktärer kallas hjältar, vilka är skapade speciellt för ett spel eller också är de redan kända från annan media så som filmer. Online multiplayer skjutspel är en kategori av spel som kan innehålla hjältar, där spelare tävlar mot andra spelare. Detta projekt har utforskat hur olika hjältar från olika online multiplayer karaktärsbaserade skjutspel spelas. Målet var att undersöka hur expertspelare väljer och spelar olika hjältar i dessa spel genom att titta på varför spelare valde olika hjältar, deras beteende med dem och vilka strategier de använde. I projektet utfördes två speltest på två olika karaktärsbaserade online multiplayer skjutspel, en studie inkluderade intervjuer.    Studierna resulterade i olika aspekter som visades påverka deltagarnas val av hjälte och val av strategier. Dessa aspekter inkluderade interna aspekter så som deltagarnas preferenser och förväntningar, och externa aspekter så som speldesignerna och andra spelare. Det visade sig att för att göra meningsfulla beslut i spelen så krävdes en viss kunskap av spelen och dess hjältar. Strategier var också beroende av hur hjältarna var designade och deras funktioner. Det visades också att deltagarna tog olika beslutsvägar. Antingen så valde deltagarna först en hjälte att spela med och anpassade därefter strategierna till den valda hjälten, eller så valde deltagarna en hjälte med en strategi i åtanke. De olika beslutsvägarna markerade olika behov hos spelarna angående speldesign. Om valet av hjälte var det första så var kraven på speldesign att få en bild utav hjältens karaktär, om istället valet av strategi var det första så var kraven på speldesign mer om att få information om funktionaliteten hos hjältarna. / Heroes are a category of game characters that have a defined set of abilities and predefined roles. Depending on game, the heroes have different functionalities and roles, and are either created for the game and its lore, or are already known from other medias. Heroes occur in different types of games, including online multiplayer shooter games where players compete online in teams against other players. The following project has focused on exploring how different kinds of heroes, in different online multiplayer character-based shooter games, are played. The aim of the project was to investigate how expert players chose and played heroes in online multiplayer shooter games by looking at reasons behind hero choices, player behavior and used strategies when playing different heroes. Two playtest studies have been carried out on two different online multiplayer character-based shooter games, one study including interviews.  The result of the studies demonstrated that hero choice and strategy choice was affected by different aspects including internal factors such as player preferences and expectations, as well as external factors such as game design and other players. It was found knowledge of the game and its heroes to some extent were needed to make meaningful decisions in the game. Strategies used and behaviors with the heroes were dependent on the design of the heroes. Furthermore, it was found that participants took different decision paths, either first choosing hero and thereafter adjusting the strategy to the chosen hero, or choosing a hero with a strategy already in mind. Choosing hero first, participants were affected by internal and external factors. Choosing strategy first, the influencing aspect were only internal. These paths highlighted different player needs in game design. If choosing hero first the player needs concerned understanding the hero as a character, and if choosing strategy first the player needs concerned getting information about the functionality of the heroes.

Abstract The main motive for this research arises from the fact that the research has been scarce on verification and validation (V&V) activities from the management viewpoint, even though V&V has been covered from the technical viewpoint. There was a clear need for studying the management aspects due to the development of the information and communications technology (ICT) sector, and increased significance of V&V activities. ICT has developed into a turbulent, high clock-speed sector and the importance of V&V activities has increased significantly. As a consequence, companies in the ICT sector require ideas for improving their verification and validation activities from the product development management viewpoint. This study approaches the above mentioned goal from four perspectives: current V&V management challenges, organisational and V&V maturities, benchmarking another sector, and uncertainty during new product development (NPD). This dissertation is qualitative in nature and is based on interviewing experienced industrial managers, reflecting their views against scientific literature. The researcher has analysed the obtained material and made conclusions. The main implications of this doctoral dissertation can be concluded as a need to overcome the current tendency to organise through functional silos, and low maturity of V&V activities. Verification and validation activities should be viewed and managed over the entire NPD process. This requires new means for cross-functional integration. The maturity of the overall management system needs to be adequate to enable higher efficiency and effectiveness of V&V activities. There are pressures to shift the emphasis of V&V to early NPD and simultaneously delay decision-making in NPD projects to a stage where enough information is available. Understanding enhancing V&V methods are a potential way to advance towards these goals.

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Základním tématem této práce je pojetí problematiky geografických informačních systémů (GIS) z pohledu jejich využití jako komunikačního prostředku v prostředí WWW. Důraz je kladen na řešení nenáročná na náklady. Cílem práce je přinést teoretické informace nutné k uchopení problematiky, ale také poskytnout řešení konkrétního informačního systému v podmínkách realitní kanceláře podnikající na českém trhu. V první části (kapitoly 2 a 3) se práce zaměřuje na zprostředkování základních vlastností a principů GIS získaných studiem odborných materiálů. Popsány jsou jak obecné principy využití GIS, tak také některá specifika jejich nasazení v podmínkách České republiky. V druhé části (kapitoly 4 až 7) autor na základě získaných znalostí popisuje tvorbu konkrétního GIS řešení vyhovujícího definici předmětu práce. Výsledkem práce je potvrzení předpokladu, že existují a jsou široce dostupné prostředky umožňující implementaci GIS při udržení nízkých nákladů.

Práce upozorňuje na problematiku komunikace v projektovém řízení, poukazuje na hlavní principy jejího řízení v projektech, představuje reálný přístup projektových manažerů k projektové komunikaci a navrhuje rozšíření metodiky MMDIS ŘÍP o oblast řízení komunikace.

This diploma paper deals with measurement and management of corporate ICT costs and benefits. The main objective is to propose a set of metrics and dimensions, which can be used to measure performance of corporate ICT. Other objectives are: analyze ICT cost and benefits, describe methods of their management, introduce ValIT framework as an approach to acquiring benefits from IT investment. In order to meet all these objectives the paper is divided into three parts. In the first part basic principles of corporate IT economics and management are described. The second part is dedicated directly to ICT costs and benefits, and methods of their management. In the last part, ValIT and my set of metrics and dimensions are introduced. The main benefit of this work consists of the proposal of metrics and dimensions for corporate ICT performance measurement, and ICT costs and benefits detailed analysis.