To be able to operate in the world around us, we need to store visual information for further processing. Since we are able to memorize a vast array of visual scenes (photographs of the outside world), it is still an open question of how we represent these scenes in memory. Research shows that perception and memory for visual scenes is a complex problem that requires contribution from many subfields of vision science. In this work we focused on the visual scene memory on the creation of perceptual prototypes. Using convolutional neural networks, we defined the similarity of scenes in the scene space, which we used in two experiments. In the first experiment, we validated this space using a paradigm for detecting an odd scene. In the second experiment, using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm, we verified the creation of false memories and thus visual prototypes. The results show that people intuitively understand the scene space (Experiment 1) and that a visual prototype is created even in the case of the complex stimuli such as scenes. The results have wide application either for machine evaluation of image similarities or for visual memory research.

Treatment for lymphoma with alkylating therapy is known to increase the risk of secondary malignancies such as Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML), although the risk is not fully understood. This study investigates the characteristics of AML that arise after lymphoma treatment in contrastto AML cases without a prior lymphoma. The study population consists of 115 individuals identified from the Swedish lymphoma register (SLR) with a diagnosis in the quality register for AML between 2000-2019, matched 1:1 to lymphoma-free comparators. A hierarchical clusteranalysis with Gower’s similarity measure and the k-prototypes clustering algorithm are employed to separately identify subgroups of those with a lymphoma history and the matched comparators. The survival of lymphoma patients is compared between subgroups in a Cox regression model. The findings suggests a two-cluster partition achieved by the hierarchical method for patients with a lymphoma history as well as for lymphoma-free patients (average Silhouette 0.853 and0.842, respectively). Both partitions completely separates patients with genetic information from those without. For AML patients with a preceding lymphoma, a subgroup defined by the hierarchical two-cluster partition is associated with an increased mortality rate (HR 2.40). A three-cluster partition achieved by the k-prototypes algorithm could be more clinically relevant, however only one subgroup is associated with increased mortality (HR 2.73).

One of the primary reasons many college students with disabilities, and more specifically college student veterans with disabilities, do not seek support services is due to the stigma associated with disability, especially cognitive and mental health disabilities. The purpose of the present study was to explore how public university faculty in the state of Illinois perceive a college student veteran with the concurrent disabilities of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI). This information was gleaned by means of a mixed-method, online survey. Through iterative, comparative, qualitative analysis, characteristics used to describe college student veterans with the PTSD and TBI were classified into six emergent prototypes. These prototypes included (1) the mature independent student; (2) the American hero; (3) the special needs student; (4) the isolated student; (5) the volatile student; and (6) the wounded warrior. Secondary analyses quantitatively examined the relationship between contact with a student veteran and the proportion of positive responses given for each participant as well as the relationship between contact with a student veteran and the proportion of negative responses given for each participant. Pearson correlation analysis indicated no significant relationship between prior contact factor scores and the proportion of positive responses given by faculty r(269) = .032, p = .597 nor was there a significant relationship detected between prior contact factor scores and the proportion of negative responses given by faculty r(269) = -.020, p= .745. Tertiary analysis examined the proportion of positive to negative perceptions by faculty. Overall, faculty responses were more negative than positive. Implications for best practices at the administration level as well as for faculty and students were discussed. Limitations to the study were also discussed.

Although the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution grants American citizenship to any person born or naturalized in this country, subjective perceptions of who belongs in the country are driven by default assumptions that the prototypical American is White. This belief that Whites are somehow more American than members of other ethnic groups lies in sharp contrast to the widespread endorsement of multiculturalism in everyday life. Two studies provide evidence that these race-based beliefs about the prototypical American can produce discriminatory behavior against ethnic minorities in domains where patriotism is relevant, but not in domains where patriotism is irrelevant. Study 1 demonstrated that the more participants believe that the prototypical American is White, the less willing they are to hire highly qualified Asian Americans in national security jobs where patriotism is essential. Additionally, this effect was partially mediated by doubts about Asian Americans’ loyalty to thee country. Study 2 replicated and extended these findings by demonstrating that the more participants believe that the prototypical American is White, the less willing they are to hire highly qualified Asian Americans in national security jobs, but not in private business jobs where patriotism is irrelevant. Together, these studies demonstrate how race-based beliefs about the prototypical American can lead to discriminatory behavior against ethnic minorities, particularly in domains where national loyalty is important.

A significant part of the software development effort is spent on detecting deviations between software implementations and specifications, and subsequently locating the sources of such errors. This thesis illustrates that is possible to identify a significant number of errors during static analysis of declarative object-oriented equation-based modeling languages that are typically used for system modeling and simulation. Detecting anomalies in the source code without actually solving the underlying system of equations provides a significant advantage: a modeling error can be corrected before trying to get the model compiled or embarking on a computationally expensive symbolic or numerical solution process. The overall objective of this work is to demonstrate that debugging based on static analysis techniques can considerably improve the error location and error correcting process when modeling with equation-based languages. A new method is proposed for debugging of over- and under-constrained systems of equations. The improved approach described in this thesis is to perform the debugging process on the flattened intermediate form of the source code and to use filtering criteria generated from program annotations and from the translation rules. Each time when an error is detected in the intermediate code and the error fixing solution is elaborated, the debugger queries for the original source code before presenting any information to the user. In this way, the user is exposed to the original language source code and not burdened with additional information from the translation process or required to inspect the intermediate code. We present the design and implementation of debugging kernel prototypes, tightly integrated with the core of the optimizer module of a Modelica compiler, including details of the novel framework required for automatic debugging of equation-based languages. This thesis establishes that structural static analysis performed on the underlying system of equations from object-oriented mathematical models can effectively be used to statically debug real Modelica programs. Most of our conclusions developed in this thesis are also valid for other equation-based modeling languages. / <p>Report code: LiU-Tek-Lic-2002:37.</p>

Near Field Communication (NFC) är en trådlös kommunikationsteknik för korta avstånd, vanligast med cirka 10 cm vilket medför en säkrare förbindelse. NFC är en relativt ung teknologi som är billig att implementera samt användarvänlig. NFC är lämpad främst för mobiltelefoner där en bred implementering av applikationer är möjlig. Tekniken medför snabbare och enklare utbyte av information genom att ställa enheter sida vid sida. I dagsläget används tekniken mest i Asien. I Europa har ingen stor satsning påbörjats än, men den är på väg. I framtiden förväntas det att NFC kommer att finnas i de flesta mobiltelefoner.Denna uppsats behandlar praktisk implementering av en ”verktygslåda” med NFC teknologi. Målet är att skapa en ”verktygslåda” med olika komponenter. ”verktygslådan” är tänkt att användas som grundskelett för implementering av NFC applikationer och för experiment med de olika komponenterna. Hårdvarukomponenterna består av mobiltelefon, tagg, RFID läsarmodul och mikroprocessor. Programvarukomponenterna består av ett antal kodexempel.Vårt arbete har resulterat i tre prototyper som tillsammans utgör ”verktygslådan”. I prototyperna sker kommunikation mellan en kombination av komponenter i ”verktygslådan”: mobiltelefon och tagg, läsare och tagg samt läsare och mobiltelefon. / Near Field Communication (NFC) is a contactless short distance (approximately 10 centimeters) communication technology, which conveys a more secure connection. NFC is a relatively young technology which is cheap to implement, and user-friendly. NFC is directed to mainly cellphones, where opportunities for implementation of applications are wide. The technology conveys a faster and easier exchange of information, by putting units side by side. At present, the technology is used mostly in Asia. In Europe, no major effort has begun yet, but is expected to. NFC is expected to exist in a majority of cellphones, in the future.This essay treats practical implementation of a “toolbox” with the NFC technology. The goal was to make a “toolbox” with different components. The “toolbox” is intended as a base for implementing NFC applications and for experimenting with the different components. The hardware components are: cellphone, a tag, a RFID module and a microprocessor. The program components consist of a number of code examples.Our work has resulted in three prototypes which together constitute a “toolbox”. The prototypes communicate between any combinations of the components in the “toolbox”: cellphone with tag, reader with tag and reader with cellphone.

Le recyclage des déchets plastiques issus des déchets d'équipements électriques et électroniques (D3E) est devenu un enjeu majeur de nos sociétés afin de limiter leur impact environnemental. Le recyclage mécanique apparaît aujourd’hui comme une solution mature industriellement et adaptée pour produire de matières premières de recyclage (MPR). L’objectif de cette thèse est la compatibilisation de mélange de plastiques issus de la filière de tri des D3E en vue de leur valorisation par recyclage mécanique. La caractérisation des mélanges D3E par des analyses FT-IR, fluorescence-X, ATG et DSC a montré qu’il s’agissait de mélanges complexes contenant majoritairement des polymères styréniques et des polyoléfines et de faible pourcentage de PVC, PMMA, PC… Ces mélanges, mis en œuvre, présentent des propriétés mécaniques très faibles par rapport aux polymères techniques et de commodité. Ces résultats ont démontré la nécessité d’une compatibilisation de ces D3E en vue de leur transformation en MPR. Au vu de la complexité des mélanges, la compatibilisation in situ à l’aide de réactions radicalaires est apparue particulièrement prometteuse. Une première approche a consisté à générer les radicaux par irradiation puis, en deuxième approche, par ajout d’amorceurs chimiques. Ces deux approches n’ont pas produit d’améliorations significatives des propriétés. Suite à ces résultats, des essais de compatibilisation par ajout de copolymères ont été entrepris, conduisant à une amélioration importante des propriétés mécaniques. La réalisation de prototypes techniques, à partir de MPR compatibilisés, a été validée et permet de démontrer leur potentiel technique. / The recycling of the plastics from waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) has attracted great attention recently for environmental reasons. Mechanical recycling has emerged as the most economical, as well as the most energetic and ecologically efficient option. The aim of this work is the mechanical recycling of WEEE mixed plastic waste (MPW) streams. First, MPW composition has been evaluated by FT-IR and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopies, and ATG and DSC analyses. MPW are complex blend composed of thermoplastics, mainly styrenic polymers (ABS, HIPS, PS) and polyolefins. The remaining were other thermoplastics as PVC, PE, PMMA, PC…. After processing, these mixtures show very low mechanical properties compared to commodity and engineering thermoplastics. These results demonstrated that compatibilization is necessary to transform these D3E into secondary raw materials (SRM). In situ compatibilization using radical reactions appeared to be an attractive solution. Two pathways have been studied to generate the radicals, firstly, by electron beam radiation and, secondly, by adding chemical initiators. These two approaches didn’t show any substantial improvement in mechanical properties. Following these results, compatibilization by addition of reactive and non-reactive commercial copolymers were undertaken, leading to a significant improvement in mechanical properties. The production of technical prototypes and 3D printing wires from compatibilized SRM has been validated and allows considering an industrial development.

This study is a software usability design case about information presentation in a software dash­board. The dashboard is supposed to present system information about an enterprise resource planning system. The study aims to evaluate if the intended users of the dash­board prefer a list-based or an object-based presentation of the information and why. It also investigates if the possi­bility to get familiar with the prototype affects the evaluation’s result. The study was performed using parallel prototypes and evaluation with users. The use of parallel prototypes is a rather unexplored area. Likewise, little research has been done in the area of how user experience changes over time. Two prototypes were created, presenting the same information in two different design solutions, one list-based, and one object-based. The prototypes were evaluated with ten presumptive users, with respect to usability. The evaluation consisted of two parts, one quantitative and one qualita­tive. Half of the respondents got a chance to get familiar with the list-based prototype, and half the object-based prototype, after which they evaluated both sequentially. The result of the evaluation showed that seven out of ten respondents preferred the list-based prototype. The two primary reasons were that they are more used to the list-based concept from their work, and that the list-based prototype presented all information about an application at once. In the object-based prototype the user had to make a request for each type of information, which opened up in a new pop-up window. The primary reason that three of the ten respondents preferred the object-based prototype was that it had a more modern look, and gave a cleaner impression since it only presented the information the respondent was interested in at each point in time. The result also implied that the possibility to get familiar with the prototype by testing it for a couple of days affected the result. Eight out of ten respondents preferred the prototype they got familiar to, and the only ones that liked or preferred the object-based prototype were those who had gotten familiar with it.   The results of the study support the results of the existing research done by Dow et al. (2010) on the use of parallel prototypes, i.e. creating several prototypes in parallel, and conform with the results of the research of Karapanos et al. (2009) on how user experience changes over time. Some other interesting information that emerged from the study was that all but one of the respondents thought that the prototype they got familiar with had an acceptable level of usability. The study also validated that all respondents are positive to use a dashboard in their work, and that the presented information was enough for a first version of the dashboard. It also validated that the different groups of users would use the dashboard differently, and therefore are in need of slightly different information.

In recent years pervasive computing has enjoyed an amazing growth in both research and commercial fields. Not only have the number of available techniques and tools expanded, but the number of actual deployments has been underwhelming. With this growth however, we are also experiencing a divergence of software interfaces, languages, and techniques. This leads to an understandably confusing landscape which needlessly burdens the development of applications. It is our sincere hope that through the use of specialized interfaces, languages, and tools, we can make pervasive computing environments more approachable and efficient to software developers and thereby increase the utility and value of pervasive computing applications. In this dissertation, we present a new method for creating and managing the long-term conversations between peers in pervasive computing environments. The Application Sessions Model formally describes these conversations and specifies techniques for managing them over their lifetimes. In addition to these descriptions, this dissertation presents a prototype implementation of the model and results from its use for realistic scenarios. To address the Application Sessions Model's unique needs for resource discovery in pervasive computing environments, we also present the Evolving Tuples Model. This model is also formally defined in this dissertation and practical examples are used to clarify its features. A prototype for both sensor hardware and software simulation of this model is described along with results characterizing the behavior of the model. The models, prototypes, and evaluations of both models presented here form the basis of a new and interesting line of research into support structures for pervasive computing application development. / text

With the continuous development in computer and communications technology the use of computer aided design in design processes is becoming more commonplace. A wide range of virtual prototyping technologies are currently in development, some of which are commercially viable for use within a product design process. These virtual prototyping technologies range from graphics tablets to haptic devices. With the compression of design cycles the feasibility of using these technologies for product evaluation is becoming an ever more important consideration. This thesis begins by presenting the findings of a comprehensive literature review defining product design with a focus on product evaluation and a discussion of current virtual prototyping technologies. From the literature review it was clear that user involvement in the product evaluation process is critical. The literature review was followed by a series of interconnected studies starting with an investigation into design consultancies' access and use of prototyping technologies and their evaluation methods. Although design consultancies are already using photo-realistic renderings, animations and sometimes 3600 view CAD models for their virtual product evaluations, current virtual prototyping hardware and software is often unsatisfactory for their needs. Some emergent technologies such as haptic interfaces are currently not commonly used in industry. This study was followed by an investigation into users' psychological acceptance and physiological discomfort when using a variety of virtual prototyping tools for product evaluation compared with using physical prototypes, ranging from on-screen photo-realistic renderings to 3D 3600 view models developed using a range of design software. The third study then went on to explore the feasibility of using these virtual prototyping tools and the effect on product preference when compared to using physical prototypes. The forth study looked at the designer's requirements for current and future virtual prototyping tools, design tools and evaluation methods. In the final chapters of the thesis the relative strengths and weaknesses of these technologies were re-evaluated and a definitive set of user requirements based on the documentary evidence of the previous studies was produced. This was followed by the development of a speculative series of scenarios for the next generation of virtual prototyping technologies ranging from improvements to existing technologies through to blue sky concepts. These scenarios were then evaluated by designers and consumers to produce documentary evidence and recommendations for preferred and suitable combinations of virtual prototyping technologies. Such hardware and software will require a user interface that is intuitive, simple, easy to use and suitable for both the designers who create the virtual prototypes and the consumers who evaluate them.