Purpose: To examine whether there is an interest in a public showroom for Swedish consumers and fashion e-retailers and how it could benefit them. Design/methodology/approach: Qualitative interviews with two Swedish fashion e-retailers were conducted in order to understand if there was an interest in a public showroom amongst the chosen companies. A survey with 200 participants was carried out with students from the Swedish School of Textiles, to get an understanding of their e-shopping behavior. Findings: It was found that there is an interest in implementing a public showroom. According to the survey results, a majority were in favor of trying on a product before purchasing it. The fashion e-retailers that were interviewed thought that it would be of interest if it would function more as a temporary pop-up solution. Practical implications: The findings are of relevance for fashion e-retailers that are potentially interested in an additional marketing and communication channel for their internal brands. Originality/value: As there was no research regarding Swedish fashion e-retailers attitude towards a public showroom, this thesis contributes with new findings to the academics. Furthermore, it can be used as a guideline to fashion e-retailers in the event of opening of a public showroom. / Program: Master Programme in Fashion Management

The retail industry is in a motion of fascinating developments, it can be currently alleged that it is one of the most innovating fields within research. Online retailing in particular has experienced major changes in recent years. However, these developments are slowing down as online retailing is entering a mature state. Online fashion companies now have to consider new strategies to further evolve their businesses. Innovative Online companies have taken action towards a multi-channel sales distribution strategy, some have even gone as far as adopting an omni-channel approach. With that statement, this study attempts to add different insights to the topic by focusing on the issue of online expanding offline from a company point of view. Empirical data included company and industry specialist interviews as well as a questionnaire that was used for pre-research and developing propositions. This resulted in three findings that involved both advantages and disadvantages in Online fashion retailers evolving offline. Firstly, whether or not an Online fashion company should expand offline depends entirely on the ambition level and type of company interviewed. Secondly, it can be concluded that Online fashion companies have the desire to keep their current business model, though they cannot continue with the same strategy in the long run. Lastly, if an offline presence is established, a traditional expansion strategy cannot be used, but innovative concepts are required (mixed realities). If this strategy is taken seriously, expanding offline could be the solution to reach a higher level of online retailing and company success. / Program: Master Programme in Fashion Management

Escalating energy and environmental issues are driving researchers and industries throughout the world to study gas separation. Being common toxic gases, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) must be removed from the atmosphere. When compared to the conventional adsorption process, e.g. packed bed to separate VOC, the adsorbent hollow fibre has exhibited advantages in low-pressure drop, easy operation and lower capital cost with high adsorption performance. This research investigates the optimisation and development of single and multi-channel adsorbent hollow fibres to improve the mechanical properties, flexibility, adsorbent loading and enhance adsorption capacity. These fibres are made up of an adsorbent (13X zeolite, HiSiv 1000 zeolite powder and HiSiv 3000 zeolite powder) held together with a polymer (polyethersulfone) binder through wet/wet spinning followed by a phase inversion process. Single adsorbent hollow fibres were optimised by changing the ratio of adsorbent to the polymer, the viscosity of polymer/adsorbent/solvent mixtures, the pre-treatment temperature and by adding a pore former. This optimal recipe of polymer/adsorbent/solvent mixtures was then used to fabricate tri-lobe and hexagonal multi-channel adsorbent hollow fibre. The adsorption performance and mechanical properties of these multi-channel fibres were compared to those of the single adsorbent hollow fibres. Dynamic adsorption challenges were carried out using n-butane as the VOC model gas to provide breakthrough curves using a flame ionisation detector (FID) hydrocarbon analyser. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to characterise the surface and porous structures of the different adsorbent hollow fibres formation. Adsorption isotherm experiments were also used to measure the surface area of adsorbent hollow fibres. In order to understand the transport mechanism of gases through adsorbent hollow fibres, single and multi-channel fibres were modelled using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) using COMSOL software 5.2, thus enabling the prediction of breakthrough time and mass transfer for the new geometries of adsorbent hollow fibre.

This thesis addresses the problem of `efficient' broadcast in a multi-radio multi-channel multi-rate wireless mesh network (MR$^2$-MC WMN). In such a MR$^2$-MC WMN, nodes are equipped with multiple radio network interface cards, each tuned to an orthogonal channel, that can dynamically adjust transmission rate by choosing a modulation scheme appropriate for the channel conditions. We choose `broadcast latency', defined as the maximum delay between a packet's network-wide broadcast at the source and its eventual reception at all network nodes, as the `efficiency' metric of broadcast performance. The problem of constructing a broadcast forwarding structure having minimal broadcast latency is referred to as the `minimum-latency-broadcasting' (MLB) problem. While previous research for broadcast in single-radio single-rate wireless networks has highlighted the wireless medium's `\emph{wireless broadcast advantage}' (WBA); little is known regarding how the new features of MR$^2$-MC WMN may be exploited. We study in this thesis how the availability of multiple radio interfaces (tuned to orthogonal channels) at WMN nodes, and WMN's multi-rate transmission capability and WBA, might be exploited to improve the `broadcast latency' performance. We show the MLB problem for MR$^2$-MC WMN to be NP-hard, and resort to heuristics for its solution. We divide the overall problem into two sub-problems, which we address in two separate parts of this thesis. \emph{In the first part of this thesis}, the MLB problem is defined for the case of single-radio single-channel multi-rate WMNs where WMN nodes are equipped with a single radio tuned to a common channel. \emph{In the second part of this thesis}, the MLB problem is defined for MR$^2$-MC WMNs where WMN nodes are equipped with multiple radios tuned to multiple orthogonal channels. We demonstrate that broadcasting in multi-rate WMNs is significantly different to broadcasting in single-rate WMNs, and that broadcast performance in multi-rate WMNs can be significantly improved by exploiting the availability of multi-rate feature and multiple interfaces. We also present two alternative MLB broadcast frameworks and specific algorithms, centralized and distributed, for each framework that can exploit multiple interfaces at a WMN node, and the multi-rate feature and WBA of MR$^2$-MC WMN to return improved `broadcast latency' performance.

<p>The usage of Wireless Local Area Networks is increasing rapidly throughout the world. The technology today is not quality proof for the market’s demands. We want to be able to completely wireless perform our demands, such as confer via video or IP-telephony. This is what we call multimedia real-time traffic. It may be achieved over the physical infrastructure in some areas with good results. The goal of this Master’s Thesis is to analyze the possibilities and give solutions and suggestions to achieve multimedia over the wireless networks, with emphasis on the protocol Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA). </p><p>This Master’s Thesis is a theoretical study and the suggested solutions have not been tested in an actual wireless network. Instead they have been tested by computer simulation to give an indication of improvements. Basic configurations are set to the same as in the IEEE 802.11 standard. </p><p>Different methods to reach possible improvements of a WLAN are studied, analyzed and simulated. Such methods are: priority, congestion management and multi-channel protocol. Simulations results show how the priority affects the wireless network and how a multi-channel protocol improves the latency and efficiency of the network. The simulation part is concentrated to show improvements of real-time traffic, which is time sensitive. With a multi- channel protocol the network can allow more users, i.e. more traffic. Also, the network will gain improvement in stability.</p>

<p>The study aims to through a qualitative case study describe how six Swedish high-end apparel companies attributed as part of “the Swedish fashion wonder” with online distribution have been affected by six chosen factors. The six factors presented are extracted from previous studies and consist of customer relationships, intermediary relationships, pricing, costs and revenue, competitors and impact on the brand. The results show that customer relationships is an important factor that most companies value and was also the factor they presented as determining when they made the decision to go online. Costs and revenue have an effect on the companies and was something the companies had to consider after going online. Intermediary relationships are important to some extent and demand continual communications, but nothing that worried the companies. Competitors and pricing were not regarded as important, where price setting was primarily seen as a valuable tool to control and maintain intermediary relationships. Impact on the brand was regarded as an important factor when engaging online, and the positive aspects of increased brand knowledge and brand awareness were appreciated.</p>

Traditional remote sensing image classification has primarily relied on image spectral information and texture information was ignored or not fully utilized. Existing remote sensing software packages have very limited functionalities with respect to texture information extraction and utilization. This research focuses on the use of multi-scale image texture analysis techniques using Gabor filter banks and Wavelet transformations. Gabor filter banks model texture as irradiance patterns in an image over a limited range of spatial frequencies and orientations. Using Gabor filters, each image texture can be differentiated with respect to its dominant spatial frequency and orientation. Wavelet transformations are useful for decomposition of an image into a set of images based on an orthonormal basis. Dyadic transformations are applied to generate a multi-scale image pyramid which can be used for texture analysis. The analysis of texture is carried out using both artificial textures and remotely sensed image corresponding to natural scenes. This research has shown that texture can be extracted and incorporated in conventional classification algorithms to improve the accuracy of classified results. The applicability of Gabor filter banks and Wavelets is explored for classifying and segmenting remote sensing imagery for geographical applications. A qualitative and quantitative comparison between statistical texture indicators and multi-scale texture indicators has been performed. Multi-scale texture indicators derived from Gabor filter banks have been found to be very effective due to the nature of their configurability to target specific textural frequencies and orientations in an image. Wavelet transformations have been found to be effective tools in image texture analysis as they help identify the ideal scale at which texture indicators need to be measured and reduce the computation time taken to derive statistical texture indicators. A robust set of software tools for texture analysis has been developed using the popular .NET and ArcObjects. ArcObjects has been chosen as the API of choice, as these tools can be seamlessly integrated into ArcGIS. This will aid further exploration of image texture analysis by the remote sensing community.

Sleep represents a third of our life, from birth to death. Sleep allows our body and mind to rest, and breaking its structure may lead to severe physical and nervous damage. Breathing disorders, like apneas, hypopneas or RERA events, alter the recovering feature of sleep by fragmenting its structure. They usually lead to daytime sleepiness, depression, hypertension, cardiovascular disease,... In order to give the most suitable treatment to a patient, the gold standard polysomnography (PSG) is recorded in a hospital setting and the huge amount of data is visually analyzed the day after. The PSG is expensive, time-consuming for the clinicians and unpleasant for the patient. Thus, portable monitoring devices and automatic analysis methods are welcome. Four physiological parameters are required to score the three breathing disorders mentioned above: nasal airflow, oximetry, arousals and respiratory effort markers. While arousals are defined in the EEG traces, the esophageal pressure is the gold standard but invasive measure of effort. Surrogates (signals) exist for both arousal, like PAT, PTT or ECG, and effort markers, like TAM, PTT or FOT. This thesis was dedicated to a novel one, the maxillo-mandibular movements. This signal is not only able to point arousals and effort, but it has also the capability to distinguish sleep from wake as a mandibular actimeter, like the wrist actigraphy. These three features make it worth of interest. At first, the jaw movements signal essence was extracted, automatic methods 1) to point arousals, 2) to indicate periodic patterns like respiratory effort or salvo of sleep events, 3) to detect and classify apneas, hypopneas and RERA and 4) to separate sleep from wake were developed and evaluated. Then, the sleep apneas/hypopneas and the sleep/wake detectors were then improved by adding the oximetry in a first step. Finally, the nasal airflow brought its potential in both detection and classification of breathing disorders, especially to overcome the inherent classification problem between apneas and hypopneas since the jaw movements sensor is an effort sensor. All the methods developed in this thesis were applied to a huge database of 150 consecutive recordings at the Sleep Laboratory of the University of Liege for sleep apneas and hypopneas detection assessment. Moreover, an APAP device, that applies a regulated pressure throughout a nasal mask to prevent from upper airways collapse, was designed using only features computed from jaw movements in real-time, and showed similar results to the widely tested iS20i from BREAS. In conclusion, the maxillo-mandibular movements signal does bring usefull information about respiratory effort and arousals, and coupled with the nasal flow and oximetry signal provides an accurate detection and classification of sleep apneas, hypopneas and RERA. Besides, this jaw actimeter and its ad-hoc algorithm allows to distinguish sleep from wake. All in all, the jaw movements signal is a very valuable and a unique physiological signal for home sleep studies.

The continuous downscaling of CMOS technology presents advantagesand difficulties for IC design. While it allows faster, denser and more energy efficient digital circuits, it also imposes several challenges which limit the performance of analogue circuits. Concurrently, applications are continuously pushing the boundaries of power efficiency and throughput of electronic systems. Accordingly, IC design is increasingly shifting into highly digital systems with few necessary analogue components. Particularly, continuous-time (CT) sigma-delta (ΣΔ) analogue-to-digital converters (ADCs) have recently received a growing interest, covering high-resolution medium-speed requirementsor offering low power alternatives to low speed applications. However, there are still several aspects that deserve further investigation so as to enhancethe ADC’s performance and functionality. The objective of the research performed in this thesis is the investigation of digital enhancement solutions for CT ΣΔ ADCs. In particular, two aspects are considered in this work. First, highly digital techniques are investigated to minimize circuit impairments, with the objective of providing solutions with reduced analogue content. In this regard, a multi-bit CT ΣΔ modulator with reduced number of feedback levels is explored to minimize the use of linearisation techniques in the DAC. The proposed architecture is designed and validated through behavioural simulations targeting a mobile application. Additionally, a novel self-calibration technique, using test-signal injection and digital cancellation, is proposed to counteract process variations affecting single loop CT implementations. The effectiveness of the calibration technique is confirmed through corner simulations using behavioural models and shows that stability issues are minimized and that a 7 dB SNDR degradation can be avoided. The second aspect of this thesis investigates the use of high order CT modulators in incremental ΣΔ (IΣΔ) and extended-range IΣΔ ADCs, with the objective of offering low-power alternatives for low-speed high-resolution multi-channel applications. First, a 3rd order single loop CT IΣΔ ADC, targeting an 8-channel 500 Ksamples/sec rate per channel recording system for neuropotential sensors, is proposed, fabricated and tested. The proposed architecture lays the theoretical groundwork and demonstrates a competitive performance of high-order CT IΣΔ ADCs for low-power multi-channel applications. The ADC achieves 65.3 dB/64 dB SNR/SNDR and 68.2 dB dynamic range. The modulator consumes 96 μW from a 1.6 V power supply. Additionally, the use of extended range approach in CT IΣΔ ADCs is investigated,so as to reduce the required number of cycles per conversion while benefiting from the advantages of a CT implementation. The operation, influence of filter topology and impact of circuit non-idealities are first analysed using a general approach and later validated through a test-case. It was found that, by applying analogue-digital compensation in the digital domain, it is possible to minimize the noise leakage due to analogue-digital transfer function mismatches and benefit from relaxed amplifiers’ finite gain-bandwidth product and finite DC gain, allowing, as a consequence, a power conscious alternative. / QC 20120528

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