Vårt syfte med denna uppsats är att undersöka om det kommer att ske en förskjutning mellan redovisningskonsulternas och revisorernas arbetsuppgifter i och med avskaffandet av revisionsplikten. Vi har valt en kvalitativ ansats till vår studie, där utgångspunkten främst har varit djupgående intervjuer med revisorer och redovisningskonsulter på Grant Thornton, Öhrlings PricewaterhouseCoopers, mindre revisionsbyrå, mindre redovisningsbyrå samt branschorganisation Svenska redovisningskonsulternas förbund (SRF).  Det kommer att ske en förskjutning av båda yrkesrollerna men det är ännu ovisst i vilken grad det kommer att ske. Det är i dagsläget oklart vilka alternativ till revision som kommer att komma och en intressant studie skulle vara att göra en liknande undersökning när man vet alternativen till revisionen. Denna uppsats bidrar till en ökad förståelse för yrkeskategorierna revisor/redovisningskonsult och deras nuvarande och framtida yrkesroller. Uppsatsen bidrar även till att ge en bild av den framtida konkurrensen och hur byråerna och SRF förbereder sig inför avskaffandet av revisionsplikten.

Redovisningskonsulter har tidigare inte haft en tydlig yrkesroll men den senaste tiden har förändringar skett i branschen och fler är att vänta inom en snar framtid. Studien syftar till att undersöka vad redovisningskonsulter anser om förändringarna och hur det kommer att påverka deras yrkesroll. Förändringarna studien behandlar är auktorisationen av redovisningskonsulter, slopandet av revisionsplikten och förändrade redovisningsregler. Den teoretiska referensramen ger läsaren en inblick i förändringarna och för att ta del av redovisningskonsulters åsikter har fyra personliga intervjuer genomförts. Slutsatser som kan dras är att det i nuläget är upp till redovisningskonsulten hur stor förändring den gör i sitt arbete då de har valmöjligheter inom samtliga områden som studien tagit upp. Auktorisationen är ett välkomnat initiativ som ger redovisningskonsulterna en tydligare yrkesroll medan de förändrade redovisningsreglerna inte kommer tillämpas i stor utsträckning av respondenterna i studien. Slopandet av revisionsplikten kan komma att innebära ett större ansvar för redovisningskonsulterna men även här beror det helt på valen som görs. Studien tar upp de intervjuade redovisningskonsulternas åsikter och vilka val de gjort.

<p>Redovisningskonsulter har tidigare inte haft en tydlig yrkesroll men den senaste tiden har förändringar skett i branschen och fler är att vänta inom en snar framtid. Studien syftar till att undersöka vad redovisningskonsulter anser om förändringarna och hur det kommer att påverka deras yrkesroll. Förändringarna studien behandlar är auktorisationen av redovisningskonsulter, slopandet av revisionsplikten och förändrade redovisningsregler. Den teoretiska referensramen ger läsaren en inblick i förändringarna och för att ta del av redovisningskonsulters åsikter har fyra personliga intervjuer genomförts.</p><p>Slutsatser som kan dras är att det i nuläget är upp till redovisningskonsulten hur stor förändring den gör i sitt arbete då de har valmöjligheter inom samtliga områden som studien tagit upp. Auktorisationen är ett välkomnat initiativ som ger redovisningskonsulterna en tydligare yrkesroll medan de förändrade redovisningsreglerna inte kommer tillämpas i stor utsträckning av respondenterna i studien. Slopandet av revisionsplikten kan komma att innebära ett större ansvar för redovisningskonsulterna men även här beror det helt på valen som görs. Studien tar upp de intervjuade redovisningskonsulternas åsikter och vilka val de gjort.</p>

The incidence of gastrointestinal (GI) cancers has been steadily increasing in the UK since the mid 1970’s. These include cancers of the colon and oesophagus. Colon cancers have a high incidence rate, being the fourth most common cancer in the UK for both men and women. Oesophageal cancers in comparison are much rarer, however they have a poor survival rate primarily due to a late diagnosis. The key to improving survival for these cancers and many others is to detect and remove the disease at the early stages, to prevent the cancer from advancing. At present the ‘gold standard’ for diagnosis is a biopsy followed by histopathology. This technique is invasive, time consuming and highly subjective. It is therefore important to look towards non-invasive methods for early and rapid diagnosis. Optical techniques have begun to show such promise. By probing the interactions of tissues with light, diagnostic information is able to be obtained non-invasively. Techniques such as Raman spectroscopy utilise inherent molecular vibrations to extract biochemical information from tissues. Raman spectroscopy, however, is currently fundamentally limited by long acquisition times, due to the inherently weak signals produced. Using coherent Raman techniques such as coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) and stimulated Raman scattering (SRS), the molecular vibrations are coherently driven to provide an enhancement in signal. This thesis explored spectral signatures from snap frozen oesophageal sections in the fingerprint (450 cm-1 to 1850 cm-1) and high wavenumber (2800 cm-1 to 3050 cm-1) regions using spontaneous Raman and compared with spectra from hyperspectral SRS. The diagnostic potential for each technique was assessed for four major pathology groups, normal, Barrett’s oesophagus, dysplasia and adenocarcinoma. Samples were classified using a principal component fed linear discriminant analysis (PCA-LDA) approach with a leave-one-out cross validation. Comparisons were made to haematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stained sections. Raman in the fingerprint region was found to be the most promising for diagnosis. There were minimal changes in the high wavenumber region between pathology groups which was also reflected in the SRS spectra and proved to be insufficient for classification. Further comparisons were made between spontaneous and coherent Raman techniques using frozen colon sections. The morphological and structural information available was explored using a k-means cluster analysis. Both spontaneous and coherent Raman were able to distinguish important structural features in the colon, such as the epithelial cells that form the colonic glands and surrounding connective tissue. Both are important visual markers for cancer diagnosis in the current approach. SRS demonstrated higher spatial resolution and faster acquisition times in comparison to spontaneous Raman. This work has discussed the many advantages of using coherent Raman techniques for tissue applications, but has also highlighted some of the limitations for spectral measurements, arising from the complexity of the system.

Context: Defects occurred in the SRS may cause problems in project due to implementation of poor requirements which require extra time, effort, resources and budget to complete it. Reading techniques i.e., checklist based reading (CBR) helps to guide reviewers in identifying defects in software requirement specification (SRS) during individual requirement inspections. Checklists contain potential defects/problems to look for, but often lack clear definitions with examples of the problem, and also their abstractions are different. Therefore, there is a need for identifying existing defects and classifiers and to create a consolidated version of taxonomy. Objectives: We developed taxonomy for requirement defects that are in requirement specifications and compared it with the checklist based approach. The main objective was to investigate and compare the effectiveness and efficiency of inspection techniques (checklist and taxonomy) with M.Sc. software engineering students and industry practitioners by performing a both controlled student and industry experiment. Methods: Literature review, controlled student experiment and controlled industry experiment were the research methods utilized to fulfill the objectives of this study. INSPEC and Google scholar database was used to find the articles from the literature. Controlled student experiment was conducted with the M.Sc. software engineering students and controlled industry experiment was performed with the industry practitioners to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the two treatments that are checklist and taxonomy. Results: An extensive literature review helped us to identify several types of defects with their definitions and examples. In this study, we studied various defect classifiers, checklists, requirement defects and inspection techniques and then built taxonomy for requirement defects. We evaluated whether the taxonomy performed better with respect to checklist using controlled experiments with students and practitioners. Moreover, the results of student experiment (p= 0.90 for effectiveness and p=0.10 for efficiency) and practitioner experiment (p=1.0 for effectiveness and p=0.70 for efficiency) did not show significant values with respect to effectiveness and efficiency. But because of less number of practitioners it is not possible to apply a statistical test since we also have used standard formulas to calculate effectiveness and efficiency. 2 out of the 3 reviewers using taxonomy found more defect types compared to 3 reviewers using checklist. 10-15% more defects have been found by reviewers using taxonomy. 2 out of the 3 reviewers using taxonomy are more productive (measuring in hours) compared to reviewers of checklist. Although the results are quite better than the student experiment but it is hard to claim that reviewers using taxonomy are more effective and efficient than the reviewers using checklist because of less subjects in number. The results of the post experiment questionnaire revealed that the taxonomy is easy to use and easy to understand but hard to remember while inspecting SRS than the checklist technique. Conclusions: Previously researchers created taxonomies for their own purpose or on industry demand. These taxonomies lack clear and understandable definitions. To overcome this problem, we built taxonomy with requirement defects which consists of definitions and examples. No claims are made based on student experiment because of insignificant values with respect to effectiveness and efficiency. Although the controlled industry experiment results showed that taxonomy performed slightly better than the checklist in efficiency i.e., in defect detection rate and effectiveness i.e., number of defect found. From this we can conclude that taxonomy helps guiding the reviewers to indentify defects from SRS but not quite much so it is recommended to perform a further study with practitioners in a large scale for effective results. / skarimuddin@yahoo.com, hassanshah357@gmail.com

Kanji, the Chinese characters adopted to write the Japanese language, is often mentioned as one of the most difficult aspects of mastering said language. This is especially said about people from outside the Sinosphere i.e. PRC, Taiwan, North and South Korea, Japan and Vietnam. In the following thesis 12 students studying the Japanese language at Swedish universities were interviewed about their experiences when it comes to learning and being taught about kanji. A chapter summarizing some of the research that is relevant to this thesis is also included. Topics touched upon in this and the result chapter include the desire for more structured approach to kanji learning based on breaking down the characters into elemental components, spaced repetition (SRS), mnemonics.

This thesis explored relationships (1) between composite and constituent processes of self-regulated learning (SRL) and three sport performance groups, (2) between SRL and different practice variables, and (3) whether these associations depended on an athlete’s consideration of future consequences (CFC). Athletes (N = 272; 200 males; 18-35 yrs; M practice = 13.55 hours/week) completed survey measures for SRL, weekly training including deliberate practice (DP), performance level and CFC. Higher scores in composite SRL were associated with a greater chance of belonging to an elite group, compared to a less-elite and a recreationally competitive group. Self-monitoring predicted greater likelihood of membership in less-elite and elite groups compared to the recreationally competitive group. Self-monitoring predicted greater engagement in total DP hours, and DP in supervised and unsupervised settings. Effort, self-efficacy, and planning were notable in some results, but contributions were less significant. CFC had no moderating effect, however it was correlated with SRL.

Coherent Raman microscopy (CRM) is a powerful nonlinear optical imaging technique based on contrast via Raman active molecular vibrations. CRM has been used in domains ranging from biology to medicine to geology in order to provide quick, sensitive, chemical-specific, and label-free 3D sectioning of samples. The Raman contrast is usually obtained by combining two ultrashort pulse input beams, known as Pump and Stokes, whose frequency difference is adjusted to the Raman vibrational frequency of interest. CRM can be used in conjunction with other imaging modalities such as second harmonic generation, fluorescence, and third harmonic generation microscopy, resulting in a multimodal imaging technique that can capture a massive amount of data. Two fundamental elements are crucial in CRM. First, a laser source which is broadband, stable, rapidly tunable, and low in noise. Second, a strategy for image analysis that can handle denoising and material classification issues in the relatively large datasets obtained by CRM techniques. Stimulated Raman Scattering (SRS) microscopy is a subset of CRM techniques, and this thesis is devoted entirely to it. Although Raman imaging based on a single vibrational resonance can be useful, non-resonant background signals and overlapping bands in SRS can impair contrast and chemical specificity. Tuning over the Raman spectrum is therefore crucial for target identification, which necessitates the use of a broadband and easily tunable laser source. Although supercontinuum generation in a nonlinear fibre could provide extended tunability, it is typically not viable for some CRM techniques, specifically in SRS microscopy. Signal acquisition schemes in SRS microscopy are focused primarily on detecting a tiny modulation transfer between the Pump and Stokes input laser beams. As a result, very low noise source is required. The primary and most important component in hyperspectral SRS microscopy is a low-noise broadband laser source. The second problem in SRS microscopy is poor signal-to-noise (SNR) ratios in some situations, which can be caused by low target-molecule concentrations in the sample and/or scattering losses in deep-tissue imaging, as examples. Furthermore, in some SRS imaging applications (e.g., in vivo), fast imaging, low input laser power or short integration time is required to prevent sample photodamage, typically resulting in low contrast (low SNR) images. Low SNR images also typically suffer from poorly resolved spectral features. Various de-noising techniques have been used to date in image improvement. However, to enable averaging, these often require either previous knowledge of the noise source or numerous images of the same field of view (under better observing conditions), which may result in the image having lower spatial-spectral resolution. Sample segmentation or converting a 2D hyperspectral image to a chemical concentration map, is also a critical issue in SRS microscopy. Raman vibrational bands in heterogeneous samples are likely to overlap, necessitating the use of chemometrics to separate and segment them. We will address the aforementioned issues in SRS microscopy in this thesis. To begin, we demonstrate that a supercontinuum light source based on all normal dispersion (ANDi) fibres generates a stable broadband output with very low incremental source noise. The ANDi fibre output's noise power spectral density was evaluated, and its applicability in hyperspectral SRS microscopy applications was shown. This demonstrates the potential of ANDi fibre sources for broadband SRS imaging as well as their ease of implementation. Second, we demonstrate a deep learning neural net model and unsupervised machine-learning algorithm for rapid and automated de-noising and segmentation of SRS images based on a ten-layer convolutional autoencoder: UHRED (Unsupervised Hyperspectral Resolution Enhancement and De-noising). UHRED is trained in an unsupervised manner using only a single (“one-shot”) hyperspectral image, with no requirements for training on high quality (ground truth) labelled data sets or images.

Shock is one of the environmental tests that a spacecraft must pass before being cleared for launch. Shock testing poses a challenging data acquisition issue and careful selection of equipment is crucial to creating a successful shock test facility. Cal Poly’s CubeSat programs can currently perform all environmental testing other than shock themselves, so a quality shock table would be useful. Previous groups of students had developed a shock table, and this paper details the improvement and characterization of that shock table’s behavior. Several adjustable parameters were tested and documented to discover trends in the shock table’s response to an impact from a pendulum hammer. Then a test meant to mimic an actual shock test was performed. The CubeSat program provided a component to be tested and a requirement to be met. The nominal requirement is proprietary and cannot be given here, and additional stipulations included the test data being within a given tolerance band and at least 50% of the test data having a larger magnitude than the nominal requirement. The requirement needed to be met in all three of the component’s axes. The component was mounted to the shock table and acceleration data was collected and analyzed. A successful test was conducted in one axis, which was the result of impacting the large face of the aluminum shock table plate. The tests in the other two axes, conducted with impacts to the side of the aluminum plate, failed to meet the requirement. A finite element model of the table was developed and correlated to the test data. A new way of attaching the test component to the table was developed that would allow for testing in all three axes to be performed with impacts to the large face of the aluminum plate. A dynamic finite element analysis was performed, and the results indicate that this new attachment method should allow the requirement to be met in all three axes. The shock table is currently fully operational and can be used for testing and teaching purposes. With the implementation of the new attachment method, it is believed that the CubeSat program’s requirements can be met as well.

The development of autonomous robots has made a significant progress and first personal robots for common use start to appear. To use this robots, we need to develop applications and user interfaces to interact with them. The goal of this project is to make a universal interface for robot remote control. This work focuses on robots based on the ROS platform. This gives the final application a potential of use on other robotic projetcs running on ROS. The designed remote interface accomplishes two main purposes. The first is to show important data in a context of a 3D scene to help user understand the state of the controlled robot. And the second goal is to allow the user execute some basic manipulation with the robot. The final application was successfully adapted and tested on experimental robots Care-O-Bot and Turtlebot.