The diploma thesis deals with the tax aspects of repairs and technical evaluation of tangible fixed assets, as well as aspects of creation of reserves for repair of tangible assets. The aim of the thesis is to identify problem areas of legal regulation in relation to this area and to propose their solution. The first part of the thesis summarizes the current legal regulations of the investigated area in the Czech Republic. Summary is followed by a case study based on a real tax audit, which demonstrates problem areas of legal regulation. The conclusion of the case study is the comparison of the different options of the additional tax liability and its accessories. In the last part of the thesis are analyzed problematic places of legal regulation, based on a case study, and their solution is proposed.

The paperless office is a concept that has been around for decades. The concept concerns digital technology replacing paper as a medium within the office, but so far a completely paperless office has yet to be achieved. In this study, we have reviewed previous research in order to understand potential reasons for this. We interviewed local offices, to find out how they used paper around the office, and information about what properties a replacement might need. The research questions that guided us through our study were: In what way do local offices store and index data? What themes can we find in their practices that help us further the paperless office? Can we use our findings to create a concept design? Using the information we gathered we designed a conceptual prototype styled after a common binder, to associate the mental models used when working with paper, and imbuing it with digital technology.

This thesis explores how an Android application that is used in combination with tangible appcessories is capable of facilitating a learning experience for visually impaired students within the specific domain of geometry. This study’s approach illustrates how using an application in combination with a physical appcessory can provide information concerning geometry to the visually impaired. An application, called Invisible Tangible Geometry (ITG), was programmed using Android in conjunction with a 3D printed model. This thesis describes the application, the physical appcessory, as well as early stage user studies. The application enables visually impaired users to explore simple geometric forms displayed on a tablet through sound and vibrotactile feedback. A physical appcessory, that can be manipulated to adopt several forms and is dynamic, is used in addition. Its shape is sensed by the tablet adds an additional tactile layer to the application and experience. Within the thesis a methodological framework, as well as a user-centered design approach was applied. An expert interview and three user engagements with visually impaired individuals serve as early validations of the project and ideas and provide feedback that directs design and development of future work. Current avenues for the future work will include additional interaction modes in the application. For example, the ability to digitize real world forms, and improving the robustness of the tangible appcessory. The plan, for future development, is to establish an autonomous functioning application that enables the visually impaired to be able to explore, participate and interact with geometry smoothly and without the need of aid from others. The correlation of application and appcessory will allow for anything between a quick glance, through feeling the model, and gaining detailed information, by using the application. The application enhances provided information through the use of a model and enriched digital feedback.

This paper presents a new way of thinking about designing personalized artefacts for dyads (a group of two people) in long-distance relationships, whether they are family members, close friends or romantic couples. In this paper I am presenting the idea of a playful, yet useful tangible design for people who are often not able to see their loved ones in person. I strive to ideate a highly personalized and meaningful design through a Do It Yourself (DIY) activity for users, which will give them a chance to personalize the product according to their own needs. For this research, littleBits electronics have been used as a prototyping and DIY material. They allow you to create and connect two devices together and use them for different purposes. User testing with two close friends who live in different countries has been conducted. They received three different half-way done prototypes that they could choose from to build. The results showed that the idea of DIY artefact for presence in absence is worth researching, since the activity creates a meaningful shared experience which adds a bigger value to the device.

Designing tangible objects for children’s development andlearning has been a common theme in the HCI community.However, studies involving designing of tangibles fortoddlers’ hedonic interaction and play experiences havebeen few. This paper explores how toddlers (between oneand three years old) behave when interacting with tangibleplay objects in the context of open-ended play. The aim ofthis study was to explore how the integration ofmultisensory stimuli and multimodal feedback in tangibleobjects can affect toddlers’ play, behaviors and engagementin the context of open-ended play. Furthermore, two playobjects called Sound Cubes were developed and used in aninteraction study conducted at a preschool in Stockholm.The results presented in this paper suggest that the openendedplay objects provided toddlers with opportunity formultiple manipulations that lead to interesting interactions.Moreover, multimodal feedback and multisensory stimulicreated a positive affect on toddlers’ engagement in play.

This project aims to make 3D modeling easy through the use of augmented reality. Black and white markers are used to augment the virtual objects. Detection of these is done with help from ARToolKit, developed at University of Washington. The model is represented by voxels, and visualised through the marching cubes algorithm. Two physical tools are available to edit the model; one for adding and one for removing volume. Thus the application is similar to sculpting or drawing in 3D. Thee resulting application is both easy to use and cheap in that it does not require expensive equipment.

The Tswaing Meteorite Crater, formed 220 000 years ago, on the farm of Zoutpan, (or also known as the Pretoria Saltpan), had been a topographic and geological riddle for a long period of time. The gathering of salt from the crater was its main attraction for many groups that flocked to the crater, which later became an important beacon of infrastructure, becoming the largest producer of Soda and Salt in the Transvaal in the early 1900’s. Knowledge is an intangible quality of the cultural landscape and its history which can be lost in the blink of an eye if it is not preserved, commemorated and conserved for future generations. Through the investigation of Inclusive Design and the application of its principles, the narrative which is Tswaing, can be made accessible to all by revealing the concealed narrative of the place, tangible and intangible, through time. The afterthought or lack of design for disabled individuals can be seen in many projects. By ensuring accessibility is part of the design process from the onset of the project, valuable resources are not needlessly wasted later. As a result the cultural landscape and its secrets can be uncovered and shared with all. / Dissertation ML(Prof )--University of Pretoria, 2014 / gm2014 / Architecture / ML(Prof) / Unrestricted

Tangible interfaces and mixed-reality environments have potential to bring together the advantages of physical and virtual environments to improve children’s learning and enjoyment. However, there are too few controlled experiments that investigate whether interacting with physical objects in the real world accompanied by interactive feedback may actually improve student learning compared to flat-screen interaction. Furthermore, we do not have a sufficient empirical basis for understanding how a mixed-reality environment should be designed to maximize learning and enjoyment for children. I created EarthShake, a mixed-reality game bridging physical and virtual worlds via a Kinect depth-camera and a specialized computer vision algorithm to help children learn physics. I have conducted three controlled experiments with EarthShake that have identified features that are more and less important to student learning and enjoyment. The first experiment examined the effect of observing physical phenomena and collaboration (pairs versus solo), while the second experiment replicated the effect of observing physical phenomena while also testing whether adding simple physical control, such as shaking a tablet, improves learning and enjoyment. The experiments revealed that observing physical phenomena in the context of a mixed-reality game leads to significantly more learning (5 times more) and enjoyment compared to equivalent screen-only versions, while adding simple physical control or changing group size (solo or pairs) do not have significant effects. Furthermore, gesture analysis provides insight as to why experiencing physical phenomena may enhance learning. My thesis work further investigates what features of a mixed-reality system yield better learning and enjoyment, especially in the context of limited experimental results from other mixed-reality learning research. Most mixed-reality environments, including tangible interfaces (where users manipulate physical objects to create an interactive output), currently emphasize open-ended exploration and problem solving, and are claimed to be most effective when used in a discovery-learning mode with minimal guidance. I investigated how critical to learning and enjoyment interactive guidance and feedback is (e.g. predict/observe/explain prompting structure with interactive feedback), in the context of EarthShake. In a third experiment, I compared the learning and enjoyment outcomes of children interacting with a version of EarthShake that supports guided-discovery, another version that supports exploration in discovery-learning mode, and a version that is a combination of both guideddiscovery and exploration. The results of the experiment reveals that Guided-discovery and Combined conditions where children are exposed to the guided discovery activities with the predict-observe-explain cycle with interactive feedback yield better explanation and reasoning. Thus, having guided-discovery in a mixed-reality environment helps with formulating explanation theories in children’s minds. However, the results also suggest that, children are able to activate explanatory theory in action better when the guided discovery activities are combined with exploratory activities in the mixed-reality system. Adding exploration to guided-discovery activities, not only fosters better learning of the balance/physics principles, but also better application of those principles in a hands-on, constructive problem-solving task. My dissertation contributes to the literatures on the effects of physical observation and mixed-reality interaction on students’ science learning outcomes in learning technologies. Specifically, I have shown that a mixed-reality system (i.e., combining physical and virtual environments) can lead to superior learning and enjoyment outcomes than screen-only alternatives, based on different measures. My work also contributes to the literature of exploration and guided-discovery learning, by demonstrating that having guided-discovery activities in a mixed-reality setting can improve children’s fundamental principle learning by helping them formulate explanations. It also shows that combining an engineering approach with scientific thinking practice (by combining exploration and guided-discovery activities) can lead to better engineering outcomes such as transferring to constructive hands-on activities in the real world. Lastly, my work aims to make a contribution from the design perspective by creating a new mixed-reality educational system that bridges physical and virtual environments to improve children’s learning and enjoyment in a collaborative way, fostering productive dialogue and scientific curiosity in museum and school settings, through an iterative design methodology to ensure effective learning and enjoyment outcomes in these settings.

Home-based rehabilitation has evolved in recent years as a cost-effective and convenient alternative to traditional clinical rehabilitation. Researchers have developed various types of sensors-based rehabilitation systems that incorporate Virtual Reality games aimed to offer the patient an entertaining and beneficial training experience from the comfort of home. This has consequently created the need to design reliable assessment and adaptation mechanisms that are able to measure and analyze the patient's performance and condition, and to accordingly make proper adjustments that conform to the abilities of the patient during the training. In this dissertation, we introduce our context-based adaptive home-based rehabilitation framework (CAHR) that offers the patients a rehabilitation environment that can adapt based on their physical, physiological, and psychological context, while taking into consideration the environmental conditions that may hinder their progress. CAHR is a generic framework that can be implemented to fit any of the upper or lower extremity rehabilitation. However, in this dissertation, we base our modeling and analysis mainly on the wrist. In CAHR, the physical condition of the patient is assessed by a fuzzy logic-based mechanism that uses the various kinematics captured during the training to provide a quantified value which reflects the Quality of Physical Performance of the patient. The rehabilitation task adaptation is achieved based on a special algorithm that defines how the physical training, psychophysiological responses, and environmental conditions must be manipulated in order to match the desired performance target parameters set by the therapist. The simulation results have shown that the proposed adaptation engine can properly adjust the rehabilitation environment based on different simulated performance behavior that might be produced by a patient. In addition, training with a special game that has been designed based on the developed framework has shown improvement in the physical capabilities of two patients suffering from upper extremity impairments.

This work deals with accounting entries of intangible and tangible fixed assets in accordance with Czech Accounting Standards and Law of income tax. A part of this work there is concretely determination of fixed assets, its acquisition, underdepreciation, retirement, and also concept definition of technical improvement of fixed assets. In conclusion there is an example which shows how to account fixed assets in manufacturing company and how fixed assets affect tax base of company.