Syftet med studien har varit att skapa en uppfattning om verksamma förskollärares förhållningssätt till läroplanen med fokus på tekniken i förskolan samt att skapa en bild av rektorernas arbete för att förankra revideringarna av läroplanen hos pedagogerna. Undersökningen har begränsats till att omfatta förskollärare i en mellansvensk kommun. Bakgrunden till undersökningen är de revideringar av läroplanen för förskolan (Lpfö 98) som Skolverket arbetat fram och som fastslagits av regeringen i augusti 2010. Samtliga förskollärare i undersökningen är medvetna om att läroplanen har reviderats men inte alla vet vad revideringarna innebär. Undersökningen tyder på att revideringarna till viss del har påverkat pedagogerna till att ge teknik mer utrymme i förskolan. Minst en förskola har antagit en teknikprofil till följd av ämnets förtydligade i läroplanen.

Syftet med denna studie är att redogöra hur pedagoger i förskolan tänker runt ämnena naturvetenskap och teknik. Frågorna som undersöks är Vad anser pedagoger i förskolan att naturvetenskap och teknik är och hur kommer naturvetenskap och teknik till uttryck i förskolan. Studien har genomförts med kvalitativa intervjuer bland nio pedagoger på fe olika förskolor i tre olika kommuner. Resultaten av studien visar att pedagogerna har olika syn på vad naturvetenskap och teknik är. Beroende på pedagogernas bakgrund och utbildning varierade svaren på vad ämnena innebär. Resultaten visar också på att arbetet med naturvetenskap och teknik i förskolorna är undermåliga. Miljöerna är inte utvecklade på det sätt pedagogerna skulle vilja och de har svårt att veta hur de ska arbeta med ämnena.

Laser Doppler flowmetry (LDF) is virtually the only non-invasive technique, except for other laser speckle based techniques, that enables estimation of the microcirculatory blood flow. The technique was introduced into the field of biomedical engineering in the 1970s, and a rapid evolvement followed during the 1980s with fiber based systems and improved signal analysis. The first imaging systems were presented in the beginning of the 1990s. Conventional LDF, although unique in many aspects and elegant as a method, is accompanied by a number of limitations that may have reduced the clinical impact of the technique. The analysis model published by Bonner and Nossal in 1981, which is the basis for conventional LDF, is limited to measurements given in arbitrary and relative units, unknown and non-constant measurement volume, non-linearities at increased blood tissue fractions, and a relative average velocity estimate. In this thesis a new LDF analysis method, quantitative LDF, is presented. The method is based on recent models for light-tissue interaction, comprising the current knowledge of tissue structure and optical properties, making it fundamentally different from the Bonner and Nossal model. Furthermore and most importantly, the method eliminates or highly reduces the limitations mentioned above. Central to quantitative LDF is Monte Carlo (MC) simulations of light transport in tissue models, including multiple Doppler shifts by red blood cells (RBC). MC was used in the first proof-of-concept study where the principles of the quantitative LDF were tested using plastic flow phantoms. An optically and physiologically relevant skin model suitable for MC was then developed. MC simulations of that model as well as of homogeneous tissue relevant models were used to evaluate the measurement depth and volume of conventional LDF systems. Moreover, a variance reduction technique enabling the reduction of simulation times in orders of magnitudes for imaging based MC setups was presented. The principle of the quantitative LDF method is to solve the reverse engineering problem of matching measured and calculated Doppler power spectra at two different source-detector separations. The forward problem of calculating the Doppler power spectra from a model is solved by mixing optical Doppler spectra, based on the scattering phase functions and the velocity distribution of the RBC, from various layers in the model and for various amounts of Doppler shifts. The Doppler shift distribution is calculated based on the scattering coefficient of the RBC:s and the path length distribution of the photons in the model, where the latter is given from a few basal MC simulations. When a proper spectral matching is found, via iterative model parameters updates, the absolute measurement data are given directly from the model. The concentration is given in g RBC/100 g tissue, velocities in mm/s, and perfusion in g RBC/100 g tissue × mm/s. The RBC perfusion is separated into three velocity regions, below 1 mm/s, between 1 and 10 mm/s, and above 10 mm/s. Furthermore, the measures are given for a constant output volume of a 3 mm3 half sphere, i.e. within 1.13 mm from the light emitting fiber of the measurement probe. The quantitative LDF method was used in a study on microcirculatory changes in type 2 diabetes. It was concluded that the perfusion response to a local increase in skin temperature, a response that is reduced in diabetes, is a process involving only intermediate and high flow velocities and thus relatively large vessels in the microcirculation. The increased flow in higher velocities was expected, but could not previously be demonstrated with conventional LDF. The lack of increase in low velocity flow indicates a normal metabolic demand during heating. Furthermore, a correlation between the perfusion at low and intermediate flow velocities and diabetes duration was found. Interestingly, these correlations were opposites (negative for the low velocity region and positive for the mediate velocity region). This finding is well in line with the increased shunt flow and reduced nutritive capillary flow that has previously been observed in diabetes.

For interactive simulations using a physics engine, a fixed time step is often necessary in order to maintain real-time performance. Furthermore, collisions between the simulated geometric objects have to be detected by solving a computational problem called collision detection. In its discrete formulation, the geometric configurations of the bodies are evaluated at each simulation time step, whereas its continuous variant also considers the bodies’ motion in betweenthe time steps. A fixed simulation time step can lead to missed collisions if only discrete collision detection is performed. This problem arises especially when simulating thin objects such as wires, chains, or ropes for applications like heavy lifting or anchor handling. In order to be able to simulate wires interacting with each other in real-time simulations, continuous collision detection is therefore necessary.An existing simulation model for wires, chains, and ropes using adaptive wire resolution has been augmented using continuous collision detection. This addition has been integrated into the physics engine AGX Dynamics. Issues in existing methods for continuous collision detection of moving line segments caused by co-linearity and co-planarity have been identified, classified and addressed. Using this augmented approach to continuous collision detection allows for alarger fixed simulation step size compared to discrete collision detection, and thus decreases the total run time by up to 58.22% in relevant scenarios.

Contained in this paper is Caries, a comparative relationship visualizer. The systemoperates on tweets and attempts to find named entities and map the relationshipbetween them.The biggest contribution this system makes to the academic community is its uniqueapplication area where it could be used as a form of recommendation system forcustomers. It can also be used as a form of analysis tool for marketing expertsto see what kind of named entities are being compared with each other on socialmedia. These marketing experts can then act on the information to benefit thebusiness. The paper shows that this system is viable, but there is still room forimprovement. Several suggestions for future work is offered, which could likelyincrease the performance of the system significantly.

This report is the result of a project work carried out at Karlstad University in conjunctionwith the local consulting firm Camatec where most of the work has been performed.The work can be classified as a classic engineering work with supportive theories andcalculations which in this context is relevant.The engineering project has focused on developing new standards for a conveyor that is usedin the Värmland paper industry where large rolls of paper are produced. A conveyor can takeits appearance in many different forms but in this thesis it has been an exemplary look and ithas also become modulatable with a central section, a drive end and a turning end.The construction work has been build under CAD programs such as Pro Engineer, drawingshave been created and costings have been analyzed. Strength calculations have been made andcooperation from several different companies have erected to explore different solutions andideas for a modern and sustainable conveyor.

Based on initial interviews with music teachers at Årstra SpecialSchool, Uppsala, it was found that each child in a music playing session has different preferences of type and sound of a musical instrument. However, most of them have combined cognitive and physical impairments, preventing them from playing the instrument that theymight like.Starting from this idea, we developed a music application using virtual instruments, so that various types of instruments and sound can be used during a single music playing session. As an input device, we used aKinect sensor developed by Microsoft, i.e., a camera based sensor thatdetects human gestures. Our application used this Kinect sensor capability to allow users to control and play the sound by just movingtheir arms in the air. Our study has shown promising results of this applicatio, such as the positive response from the participant towards the application and the ability to change the sound of an instrument to match the participant's preference easily. However there are still some things to consider before releasing it as a consumer product, for instance bettercalibration and accuracy.

Large enterprises have diverse applications for different needs which is utilized over different number of applications. These applications cannot communicate with eachother frequently as it leads to slower productivity. The information needs to be exchanged in the organization for their seamless working so it is a major factor to consider this need of utilizing the information among different applications to run theprocess efficiently. In addition to this, there is also a need to represent this data thatis generated through this web service into a web application so that thedata can be clearly visualize in graphical format. Therefore, this research focuses on building a web service for an external application usage and representing that data into visualization format. It also involves using the Scania IT guidelines and thereference architecture for this implementation of web service.

Satellite link is a type of an unreliable network that is vulnerable to interferences such as disruptive foreign signals on the same frequencies, weather conditions, area coverage but mainly the distance from a satellite dish to the satellite itself. Some infrastructures, such as cruise ships, strongly rely on satellite internet and in the same time their applications require reliable data exchange with the shore-side serves. The unstable connection between two end points result in data loss due to high latency which causes dropped packets drops. This paper proposes solutions on software level to these problems.

As more intermittent, decentralized production and consumption sources are connected to power grids, new demands are put on operators in control rooms managing the grids. Managing the grids from a tele-operation perspective, operators are dependent on communication channels connecting them with the grids. As the information flows from communication channels are reflected by changes in the grid, they are getting more challenging to manage and be situation aware of. In this thesis, a user interface concept for communicating dynamic information flows in a situation awareness supportive way is developed and evaluated in terms of providing convenient pathways to information and supporting understanding of a situation. The concept was developed through an outsetting field study and a design process guided by design rationale. Findings indicate that the concept supports situation awareness in providing convenient pathways to information, and for supporting understanding of a situation both slight improvement and slight decline in situation awareness is seen. In conclusion, the concept provides a promising alternative in giving short cuts to information and in aggregation, but much less decisively, it also integrates information in a way that supports understanding of a situation.