Shoplifting is a serious issue that causes loss to retail owners. However, the loss can be avoided by adding preventative measures to deter shoplifters from committing the crime. Surveillance [2] and a store's design and layout [3] are considered significant factors that could deter them. Considering that background music is a part of a store's design, this research combined surveillance and a store's design to discourage shoplifters by creating changes to the background music that could make the shoplifters feel observed. Ultimately, this research asked these questions: 1) If a change in background music could make the visitor feel observed, what are the possible design strategies? and 2) which design is preferable? In this research, eight participants watched a first-person view of a shopper going around the shop and lifting a clothing article. The participants were asked to create a sound alert that matched the lifting action, mixed with three different background music tracks. Afterwards, they were asked to hand in the documentation of their design. Apart from that, they were asked to fill in a quantitative survey evaluating all the designs (including other participants' designs) and describe the design with three keywords. This research discovered that there were three main approaches in designing the sound alert, and there were certain preferences of a design approach dependent on the type of background music. In other words, there is a correlation between the type of background music and the preferred design approach. This work also discussed its limitations and presented opportunities for future research. / Snatteri är ett allvarligt problem som orsakar förluster för butiksägare. Förlusterna kan dock undvikas genom förebyggande åtgärder för att avskräcka butikstjuvarna från att begå brottet. Övervakning [2] samt butikens design och planlösning [3] anses vara viktiga faktorer som kan avskräcka dem. Med tanke på att bakgrundsmusik är en del av en butikens design kombinerar denna forskning övervakning och butikens design för att avskräcka snattare genom att skapa förändringar i bakgrundsmusiken som kan få snattarna att känna sig observerade. Avslutningsvis ställde den här forskningen dessa frågor: 1) Om en förändring av bakgrundsmusiken kan få besökaren att känna sig observerad, vilka är då de möjliga designstrategierna? och 2) Vilken design är att föredra? I den här forskningen tittade åtta deltagare på en shoppare från hen som går runt i butiken och lyfter ett klädesplagg. Deltagarna ombads att skapa ett ljudlarm som matchade lyfthandlingen, blandat med tre olika bakgrundsmusikspår. Efteråt ombads de att lämna in dokumentationen av sin design. Dessutom ombads de att fylla i en kvantitativ enkät där de utvärderade alla konstruktioner (inklusive andra deltagares konstruktioner) och beskrev konstruktionen med tre nyckelord. Forskningen visade att det fanns tre huvudsakliga tillvägagångssätt vid utformningen av ljudvarningen, och att det fanns vissa preferenser för ett tillvägagångssätt beroende på typen av bakgrundsmusik. Med andra ord finns det en korrelation mellan typen av bakgrundsmusik och den föredragna designmetoden. I detta arbete diskuterades också dess begränsningar och presenterades möjligheter för framtida forskning.

In this paper, we describe a recent trend in the introductory computer science curriculum which advocates conceptualizing computation primarily as coordinated concurrent activities [8], [9], [10]. Consistent with this philosophy is the focus on the event-driven model of computation [7]. While one can utilize these approaches with any thread and/or event supporting object-oriented language (e.g. Java) in a desktop programming environment, they become particularly worthwhile when used in conjunction with physical robots. This paper argues the case for the benefits of this approach and provides sample exercises that illustrate the use of this pedagogy using Lego Mindstorms RCX bricks programmed in Java for use in introductory programming.

Technology is becoming pervasive and the current interfaces are not adequate for the interaction with the smart environments of the ubiquitous computing era. Recently, researchers have started to address this issue introducing the concept of natural user interface, which is mainly based on gestural interactions. Many issues are still open in this emerging domain and, in particular, there is a lack of common guidelines for coherent implementation of gestural interfaces. This research investigates gestural interactions between humans and smart environments. It proposes a novel framework for the high-level organization of the context information. The framework is conceived to provide the support for a novel approach using functional gestures to reduce the gesture ambiguity and the number of gestures in taxonomies and improve the usability. In order to validate this framework, a proof-of-concept has been developed. A prototype has been developed by implementing a novel method for the view-invariant recognition of deictic and dynamic gestures. Tests have been conducted to assess the gesture recognition accuracy and the usability of the interfaces developed following the proposed framework. The results show that the method provides optimal gesture recognition from very different view-points whilst the usability tests have yielded high scores. Further investigation on the context information has been performed tackling the problem of user status. It is intended as human activity and a technique based on an innovative application of electromyography is proposed. The tests show that the proposed technique has achieved good activity recognition accuracy. The context is treated also as system status. In ubiquitous computing, the system can adopt different paradigms: wearable, environmental and pervasive. A novel paradigm, called synergistic paradigm, is presented combining the advantages of the wearable and environmental paradigms. Moreover, it augments the interaction possibilities of the user and ensures better gesture recognition accuracy than with the other paradigms.