Simultaneously listening to music whilst doing other tasks has become more common with the development of mobile technology and the rise of streaming platforms, but what affect does listening to music have on task performance? There have been several theories on this both advocating for and against the effects of music. This study has two primary questions to answer. Does background noise (condition 1: no music, condition 2: music with words, condition 3: same music without words) influence reading comprehension, and does how well individuals perform on complex tasks correlate with individual differences particularly their ability to media multitask and their boredom proneness. The findings are generally in-line with the consensus of prior research that music does have a negative impact on complex tasks when compared to performing them without auditory stimuli. Although there are differences depending on what stimuli is used. A correlation was found that has not been extensively studied by prior research to my knowledge. It pertains to the relationship of media multitasking and boredom proneness. It seems like the higher an individual’s MM score is the lower their BP score will be, on average. What implications this might have for the larger attention research field needs to be further explored before any inference can be made. The ANOVA and regression results for the other variables showed no significant correlations. / Att lyssna på musik samtidigt som man utför andra uppgifter har blivit allt vanligare med utvecklingen av mobil teknik och uppkomsten av streamingplattformar, men vilken påverkan har egentligen musiklyssnande på uppgiftprestanda. Det har funnits flera teorier om detta som förespråkande för och emot effekterna av musik. Denna studie har primärt två frågor att svara på. Påverkar bakgrundsljud (villkor 1: ingen musik, villkor 2: musik med ord, villkor 3: samma musik utan ord) läsförståelsen, och finns det ett samband mellan hur bra en individ utför en komplex uppgift, och individuella skillnader, särskilt förmågan för "media multitasking" och deras "boredom proneness". Resultaten är allmänt i linje med konsensusen från tidigare forskning att musik har en negativ inverkan på komplexa uppgifter jämfört med att utföra dem utan auditivt stimuli. Även om det finns skillnader i inverkan beroende på vilka stimuli som används. En korrelation hittades som inte har undersökts noggrant genom tidigare forskning, enligt min vetskap. Det avser förhållandet mellan "media multitasking" och "boredom proneness". Det verkar som att ju högre en individs MM-poäng är desto lägre blir deras BP-poäng. Vilka konsekvenser detta kan ha för forskningsfältet i stort är svårt att säga och måste undersökas ytterligare innan någon slutsats kan göras. Resultaten från utförd ANOVA och regressionsanalys påvisade inga andra signifikanta korrelationer mellan de andra variablerna i insamlade data.

Nowadays, robots have become of high importance within the manufacturing industry, as well as programming methods have evolved to adapt to the current necessities. Due to the great number of complex concepts in Robotics, the learning curve of actual robotic software can be steep for inexperienced programmers, and previous training is required. However, training that requires the use of real robots is not always available for common users because of the difficult access to the machines. In parallel, new and more powerful Mixed Reality (MR) devices have been developed, expanding the possibilities of path planning. In this project, a MR application to support robot programming for welding purposes is developed, where the targets are placed according to a work object and a welding piece. Within this application, the user can interact with several menus and objects to program the path, which can be configured and simulated in the virtual environment with reachability checking. Paths can also be exported to the real robot, where they are conducted with accurate performance. Considering the learning process, a guide can be activated to show recommended steps, and it is possible to jog the virtual robot to comprehend robot motions. In addition, two experiments are conducted to test the spatial mapping and marker detection capabilities. Finally, the benefits, limitations, and flexibility of the application are discussed considering its impact on humans, while the user experience is evaluated with a survey for further analysis. The resulting application allows the user to generate, configure and export paths through the MR environment and test them in a real robot.

Due to a current lack of principle-driven multimodal user interface design guidelines, designers may encounter difficulties when choosing the most appropriate display modality for given users or specific tasks (e.g., verbal versus spatial tasks). The development of multimodal display guidelines from both a user and task domain perspective is thus critical to the achievement of successful human-system interaction. Specifically, there is a need to determine how to design task information presentation (e.g., via which modalities) to capitalize on an individual operator's information processing capabilities and the inherent efficiencies associated with redundant sensory information, thereby alleviating information overload. The present effort addresses this issue by proposing a theoretical framework (Architecture for Multi-Modal Optimization, AMMO) from which multimodal display design guidelines and adaptive automation strategies may be derived. The foundation of the proposed framework is based on extending, at a functional working memory (WM) level, existing information processing theories and models with the latest findings in cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and other allied sciences. The utility of AMMO lies in its ability to provide designers with strategies for directing system design, as well as dynamic adaptation strategies (i.e., multimodal mitigation strategies) in support of real-time operations. In an effort to validate specific components of AMMO, a subset of AMMO-derived multimodal design guidelines was evaluated with a simulated weapons control system multitasking environment. The results of this study demonstrated significant performance improvements in user response time and accuracy when multimodal display cues were used (i.e., auditory and tactile, individually and in combination) to augment the visual display of information, thereby distributing human information processing resources across multiple sensory and WM resources. These results provide initial empirical support for validation of the overall AMMO model and a sub-set of the principle-driven multimodal design guidelines derived from it. The empirically-validated multimodal design guidelines may be applicable to a wide range of information-intensive computer-based multitasking environments.

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka lärares erfarenheter av att arbeta med läsning av tryckta texter och text på skärm. Vårt teoretiska ramverk utgår från vad läsning är samt hur olika medier påverkar läsning. Studien bygger på semistrukturerade intervjuer med fyra lärare som undervisar i svenska för årskurs 7-9. Empirin analyseras enligt Braun och Clarkes (2006) tematiska analys där olika koder tillsammans bildar ett tema. Resultatet visar att en majoritet av de lärare som deltar i studien har en större vilja att använda tryckta medier än skärmar i sin undervisning då skärmar kan distrahera eleverna så att det påverkar deras läsning och läsförståelse. Resultatet visar även att bokens fysikalitet kan ha en inverkan på elevernas fokus då bokens ändamål är just läsning, medan skärmar ofta har många ändamål.

Face à la complexité des logiciels multitâches, liée aux contextes économique et concurrentiel très pressants, la portabilité des applications et la réutilisabilité des processus de déploiement sont devenues un enjeu majeur. L'ingénierie dirigée par les modèles est une approche qui aspire répondre à ces besoins en séparant les préoccupations fonctionnelles des systèmes multitâches de leurs préoccupations techniques, tout en maintenant la relation entre eux. En pratique, cela se concrétise par des transformations de modèles capables de spécialiser les modèles pour des plates-formes cibles. Actuellement, les préoccupations spécifiques à ces plates-formes sont décrites implicitement dans les transformations eux même. Par conséquence, ces transformations ne sont pas réutilisables et ne permettent pas de répondre aux besoins hétérogènes et évolutifs qui caractérisent les systèmes multitâches. Notre objectif est alors d'appliquer le principe de séparation de préoccupation au niveau même de la transformation des modèles, une démarche qui garantie la portabilité des modèles et la réutilisabilité des processus de transformation.Pour cela, cette étude propose premièrement une modélisation comportementale détaillée des plates-formes d'exécutions logicielles. Cette modélisation permet d'extraire les préoccupations spécifiques à une plate-forme de la transformation de modèle et les capturer dans un modèle détaillé indépendant et réutilisable. Dans un second temps, en se basant sur ces modèles, elle présente un processus générique de développement des systèmes concurrents multitâches. L'originalité de cette approche réside dans une véritable séparation des préoccupations entre trois acteurs à savoir le développeur des chaînes de transformation, qui spécifient une transformation de modèle générique, les fournisseurs des plates-formes qui fournissent des modèles détaillés de leurs plates-formes et le concepteur des applications multitâche qui modélise le système. A la fin de cette étude, une évaluation de cette approche permet de montrer une réduction dans le coût de déploiement des applications sur plusieurs plates-formes sans impliquer un surcoût de performance. / Given the complexity of multitasked software, linked to very pressing economic and competitive contexts, application portability and deployment process reusability has become a major issue. The model driven engineering is an approach that aspires to meet these needs by separating functional concerns of multitasking systems from their technical concerns, while maintaining the relationship between them. In practice, this takes the form of model transformations that specializes models for target platforms. Currently, concerns specific to these platforms are described implicitly in the transformations themselves. Consequently, these transformations are not reusable and do not meet the heterogeneous evolutionary needs that characterize multitasking systems. Our objective is then to apply the principle of separation of concern even at the level of transformation models, an approach that guarantees portability and reusability of models transformation process.To do this, this study provides first a detailed behavioral modeling of software execution platform. This modeling allows to extract specific concerns from model transformation and to capture them in a detailed platform model independent and reusable. In a second step, based on these models, it presents a generic process for developing concurrent systems. The originality of this approach is a true separation of concerns between three actors: the developer of transformation tool, who specifies a generic model transformation, platform providers that provide detailed models of their platforms and the multitasked system designer that models the system. At the end of this study, an evaluation of this approach shows a reduction in the cost of deploying applications on multiple platforms without incurring an additional cost of performance.

Twenty-first century Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) are no longer used for implementing simple “glue logic” functions. They have become complex arrays of reconfigurable logic resources and memories as well as highly optimised functional blocks, capable of implementing large systems on a single chip. Moreover, Dynamic Partial Reconfiguration (DPR) capability permits to adjust some logic resources on the chip at runtime, whilst the rest are still performing active computations. During the last few years, DPR has become a hot research topic with the objective of building more reliable, efficient and powerful electronic systems. For instance, DPR can be used to mitigate spontaneously occurring bit upsets provoked by radiation, or to jiggle around the FPGA resources which progressively get damaged as the silicon ages. Moreover, DPR is the enabling technology for a new computing paradigm which combines computation in time and space. In Reconfigurable Computing (RC), a battery of computation-specific circuits (“hardware tasks”) are swapped in and out of the FPGA on demand to hold a continuous stream of input operands, computation and output results. Multitasking, adaptation and specialisation are key properties in RC, as multiple swappable tasks can run concurrently at different positions on chip, each with custom data-paths for efficient execution of specific computations. As a result, considerable computational throughput can be achieved even at low clock frequencies. However, DPR penetration in the commercial market is still testimonial, mainly due to the lack of suitable high-level design tools to exploit this technology. Indeed, currently, special skills are required to successfully develop a dynamically reconfigurable application. In light of the above, this thesis aims at bridging the gap between high-level application and low-level DPR technology. Its main objective is to develop Operating System (OS)-like support for high-level software-centric application developers in order to exploit the benefits brought about by DPR technology, without having to deal with the complex low-level hardware details. The developed solution in this thesis is named as R3TOS, which stands for Reliable Reconfigurable Real-Time Operating System. R3TOS defines a flexible infrastructure for reliably executing reconfigurable hardware-based applications under real-time constraints. In R3TOS, the hardware tasks are scheduled in order to meet their computation deadlines and allocated to non-damaged resources, keeping the system fault-free at all times. In addition, R3TOS envisages a computing framework whereby both hardware and software tasks coexist in a seamless manner, allowing the user to access the advanced computation capabilities of modern reconfigurable hardware from a software “look and feel” environment. This thesis covers all of the design and implementation aspects of R3TOS. The thesis proposes a novel EDF-based scheduling algorithm, two novel task allocation heuristics (EAC and EVC) and a novel task allocation strategy (called Snake), addressing many RC-related particularities as well as technological constraints imposed by current FPGA technology. Empirical results show that these approaches improve on the state of the art. Besides, the thesis describes a novel way to harness the internal reconfiguration mechanism of modern FPGAs to performinter-task communications and synchronisation regardless of the physical location of tasks on-chip. This paves the way for implementing more sophisticated RC solutions which were only possible in theory in the past. The thesis illustrates R3TOS through a proof-of-concept prototype with two demonstrator applications: (1) dependability oriented control of the power chain of a railway traction vehicle, and (2) datastreaming oriented Software Defined Radio (SDR).

This thesis is a collection of six papers and a cover paper reporting an exploration of how to strike a balance between individual task execution and work articulation in Computer-supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). The interest in this theme is motivated by an increased reliance of IT-supported cooperative work arrangements in modern organizations, the fragmented layout of work for multitasking individuals and reports on various forms of overload, increased level of stress and anxiety experienced by workers active in these organizations. Modern organizations are increasingly reliant on IT-supported cooperative work arrangements for doing work. Cooperators are not only expected to execute assigned tasks, but also to engage in work articulation. This is a term used to describe the process of rich and frequent interaction needed for securing that the contributions of cooperators are executed in such a way that the overall goal is reached. As cooperators typically are involved in several work formations in parallel, they need to find a balance between individual work and work articulation in relation to several work formations. The challenge of finding a balance in cooperative work has only to a limited extent been addressed in CSCW and there are few successful designs available for this purpose. The scope of this thesis is to develop an understanding of the challenges faced and strategies deployed by cooperators and work formations for striking a balance in work. The purpose is therefore to explore how multitasking individuals manage to find a balance between task execution and articulation work in computer-supported cooperative work, what challenges they face in the process, and how IT should be designed to support them. To reach this purpose several instances of cooperative work in different contexts have been closely studied. The main conclusions of this thesis are that cooperators are constantly struggling for a balance in work through making frequent switches between work formations, individual task execution and work articulation, sometimes through making switches in the technology that is used. Strategies for finding this balance are developed in relation to the specific context of a cooperative activity as cooperators ‘design’ their use of IT, structures, procedures and norms. It is further concluded that for avoiding overloads of interaction, cooperators show and estimate availability through reliance on various sources of shared information, that social (e.g. interpersonal relation) and contextual factors (e.g. location) are considered when establishing interaction, that cooperators when searching for interaction with others are influenced by their estimated availability, competence and willingness to assist, but also by network maintenance efforts (i.e. an ambition to avoid overloading and underutilizing other cooperators). Finally, it is concluded that norms are important for finding a balance in work as they reduce the interaction needed for work articulation. The main contributions of this thesis are rich descriptions of four cooperative work formations, the challenges they face and the strategies they apply, redefined theoretical concepts (i.e. availability management, interruption, multitasking) and extended understanding of interaction search behavior and ways to achieve high levels of informal interaction across distance. This work also provides some practical contributions in the form of implications for designers of supportive IT and implications for cooperators active in modern organizations.

This qualitative study examined fifteen organizational members across four international technology companies to discover how they behave and manage daily interactions in a virtual environment within a geographically distributed team. Using a grounded theory methodology, an extensive analysis of the interview data was conducted. Three core themes emerged that focus on the individuals’ attempts to manage impressions in an environment that demands multicommunication. The themes of time stacking, participation predications and performance are discussed in detail using the theoretical lens of impression management. / text

This work presents a scalable solution to automate game-testing. Traditionally, game-testing has been performed by either human players or scripted Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents. While the first produces the most reliable results, the process of organizing testing sessions is time consuming. On the other hand, scripted AI dramatically speeds up the process, however, the insights it provides are far less useful: these agents’ behaviors are highly predictable. The presented solution takes the best of both worlds: the automation of scripted AI, and the richness of human testing by framing the problem within the Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) paradigm. Reinforcement Learning (RL) agents are trained to adapt to any unseen level and present customizable human personality traits: such as aggressiveness, greed, fear, etc. This is achieved exploring the problem from a multi-task RL setting. Each personality trait is understood as a different task which can be linearly combined by the proposed algorithm. Furthermore, since Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) have been used to model the agent’s policies, the solution is highly adaptable and scalable. This thesis reviews the state of the art in both automatic game-testing and RL, and proposes a solution to the above-mentioned problem. Finally, promising results are obtained evaluating the solution on two different environments: a simple environment used to quantify the quality of the designed algorithm, and a generic game environment useful to show-case its applicability. In particular, results show that the designed agent is able to perform good on game levels never seen before. In addition, the agent can display any convex combination of the trained behaviors. Furthermore, its performance is as good as if it had been specifically trained on that particular combination. / Detta arbete presenterar en skalbar lösning för att automatisera speltestning. Traditionellt har speltestning utförts av antingen mänskliga spelare eller förprogrammerade agenter. Även om det förstanämnda ger de mest tillförlitliga resultaten är processen tidskrävande. Å andra sidan påskyndar förprogrammerade agenter processen dramatiskt, men de insikter som de ger är mycket mindre användbara: dessa agenters beteenden är mycket förutsägbara. Den presenterade lösningen använder det bästa av två världar: automatiseringsmöjligheten från förprogrammerade agenter samt möjligheten att simulera djupet av mänskliga tester genom att inrama problemet inom paradigmet Djup Förstärkningsinlärning. En agent baserad på förstärkningsinlärning tränas i att anpassa sig till tidigare osedda spelmiljöer och presenterar anpassningsbara mänskliga personlighetsdrag: som aggressivitet, girighet, rädsla... Eftersom Artificiella Neurala Nätverk (ANNs) har använts för att modellera agentens policyer är lösningen potentiellt mycket anpassnings- och skalbar. Denna rapport granskar först den senaste forskningen inom både automatisk speltestning och förstärkningsinlärning. Senare presenteras en lösning för ovan nämnda problem. Slutligen evalueras lösningen i två olika miljöer med lovande resultat. Den första miljön används för att kvantifiera kvaliteten på den designade algoritmen. Den andra är en generisk spelmiljö som är användbar för att påvisa lösningens tillämplighet.

Streaming video services have been ingrained into everyday life among Swedish teens, and the media content is often considered to benefit English language learners. The present study aims to verify that elevated English language proficiency and avid consumption of online streaming media appear synchronously in upper secondary school students. This is done by gauging online streaming media habits in students enrolled in a Swedish upper secondary school using a questionnaire, and then employing Pearson correlations to investigate the strength of the relationship between this data and student scores on a provided test of receptive vocabulary. Some attention is given to the effect of subtitle language choice on the viewer, as well as giving a brief summary of extramural English. The results are that there were found to be mostly weak correlations of low significance between test scores and online streaming media-use. The discussion links the predominantly weak correlations and significance values to previous studies about frequent multitasking occurring while participants are watching audiovisual media at home. Some space is given to a suggestion on how to adapt the present methodology to upper secondary schools to enable active teachers to explore how their English learners consume audiovisual streaming media and how this may relate to language proficiency. The study concludes that more research is needed to form a more accurate view of the relationship between watching online streaming audiovisual media and improved English language proficiency, and that further investigations should be of greater magnitude and breadth in both sampling as well as what demographic data is gathered.