The aim of this study was to investigate what farmers and animal owners view is on the animal welfare inspections done by the County Administrative Board. The study was delimitated to Västernorrlands county and to official animal welfare controls. The study was conducted using an inquiry and a telephone interview questionnaire. The inquiry was sent to 100 farmers and animal owners. The reply rate was 40 % and the result confirms similar observations as in by several other studies within Europe. Farmers and animal owners thought that high competence of the inspectors was very important. Some wished that the inspectors would have some practical experience to have a better understanding and knowledge. They also wanted that the inspectors would see the big picture instead of focusing on the standard, like the standard for measurement. Overall the main result from this study shows that the farmers and animal owners are pleased with the animal welfare inspections of the County Administrative Board and consider them important. The result also showed that if the farmer or animal owner have had a follow-up control their rating was lower in the inquiry.

The main goal of this study was to do a heuristic evaluation of the information architecture (IA) of the recently redesigned academic library website of the University of Pretoria and to provide recommendations for improvement if necessary. The main problem that is addressed by this study is that there is no comprehensive list of heuristics for the purpose of evaluating the IA of academic library websites. This study used various methods to address this problem and achieve the main goal. A literature review resulted in a set of integrated usability heuristics that can be used to do a heuristic evaluation of the IA of academic library websites. The set was created based on an integration of existing usability principles from authorities in the field of usability. The integrated set of existing principles was made applicable to academic library websites through the addition of sub-criteria based on a review of twenty related studies. A multiple-case study method was used for the heuristic evaluation of the library websites of the top three universities in South Africa, i.e., University of Cape Town, University of the Witwatersrand, and Stellenbosch University. The results of the multiple-case study method were used to further adapt the list of principles. The heuristic evaluation method was used in each of the case studies as a data collection method. Another case study was done, using the same method and revised heuristics, to evaluate the usability of the library website of the University of Pretoria and to provide recommendations. The main outcomes of this study is a list of heuristics that can be used for the heuristic evaluation of the IA of academic library websites, as well as a list of recommendations for the improvement of the newly redesigned library website of the University of Pretoria. The list of heuristics is not limited to academic library websites, however, as it can be adapted and reused for the heuristic evaluation of other types of websites. / Dissertation (MIS)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / Information Science / MIS / Unrestricted

The wind industry is growing rapidly and especially in Europe, offshore wind power has become a serious business with approximately 22 GW installed in 2019. However, for the industry to become even more competitive, costs must be reduced. Especially the Operation and Maintenance (O&M) costs present a challenge to developers and operators. In order to achieve cost savings during the operational phase, the factors influencing the maintenance operations should be identified. This Thesis focuses on the factors influencing the offshore wind turbine foundation maintenance operations. The aim of the Thesis is to identify these factors and their attributes, as well as rank them according to their importance. First, a literature review was conducted to establish the theoretical background for this study. In order to do so, maintenance strategies, offshore wind turbine foundations and the scope of foundation maintenance were described in detail. After that, the factors influencing the maintenance for offshore wind turbine foundations were collected from literature, personal experience, and input from industry experts. Following that, a two-step study with seven industry experts was conducted to validate these factors and their attributes as a first step before then ranking all the attributes by their importance. The experts were asked to rank each attribute by assigning a number from 1-5 where: very high influence (5), high influence (4), medium influence (3), low influence (2) and no influence (1). Since the maintenance differs for the subsea and the above water part of the foundation, the participants had to rank each attribute twice, once for the subsea part and once for the part above water. After the results were analyzed, it can be concluded that the Quality Health Safety Environment (QHSE) was ranked as the most important, followed by technology and standards & guidelines. The environment factor was ranked as the least important before the geographical location and cost factors.

Ett problem inom klädindustrin är att kläder kasseras på grund av att defekter uppstår. Defekter på kläder granskas oftast under produktionen men inte lika ofta efter användning. Denna studie fyller delvis detta gap då karaktär, placering och klassificering av defekter undersöks på kasserade arbetsbyxor. Studien har fokuserat på defekter som klassats som mycket allvarliga, vilket visat att defekterna främst uppstår i form av hål på tyg på framsidan och därefter som nötning vid grenen. Det utvecklades lösningar för de två vanligaste förekommande defekterna som klassificeras som mycket allvarliga. Gällande defekter med hål på framsidan utvecklades en åtgärd i form av ett informationsblad med skötselråd och förslag på ändring av material. För att minska uppkomsten av defekten nötning i grenen skapades olika konstruktionslösningar i form av två olika grenkilar och en justering av grensömmen. För att validera resultatet skapades en enkät som personer inom textilbranschen svarade på. Angående lösningarna för tyghål framkom det av enkätsvaren att endast materialbyte eller det i kombination med informationsblad om skötsel skulle kunna minska uppkomsten av defekten. Av enkäten framkom även att grenkilarna var den lösning som respondenterna ansåg var mest effektiv för att lösa problemet med nötning i grenen. / An existing problem in the clothing industry are garments discarded due to defects. These defects are usually examined in production and not as often after the garments have been worn. This study fills this gap partially by investigating the nature, placement and classification of defects on discarded working trousers. The compiled data showed that the most common critical defects were fabric holes at the front and abrasion at the crotch. After identifying the most common critical defects solutions were developed. Regarding the fabric holes two solutions were created, one was an information sheet on how to handle the garment and another one was a suggestion of change of fabric. Suggested solutions for critical abrasion at the crotch were two different gussets and adjustment of the back rise curve. A survey was conducted to validate and receive comments from the textile industry on the studies results. Regarding the fabric holes, the survey showed that change of fabric as a separate solution or in combination with information about the maintenance of the trousers were the most effective solutions. The survey also showed that gussets were the solutions that was considered the most effective in solving the problem of abrasion at the crotch.

Implementeringen av tablets ämnade för inspektioner inom drift och underhåll av vägar har studerats och utvärderats med målet att fördjupa kunskaperna inom drift- och underhållsbranschen och skapa effektivare arbetsmetoder som gynnar alla byggprocessens parter.  Examensarbetet är utfört hos Peab på deras anläggningskontor i Sundsvall och implementeringen har ägt rum på deras driftområde Sundsvall som består av cirka 122 mil statlig väg där Trafikverket är beställare. Genom litteraturstudier, tester av tableten och deltagande observationer så har tabletens användbarhet och utvecklingspotential analyserats och slutsatser har dragits för att ge Peab feedback på deras innovation med ett antal förbättringsförslag. Utvärderingen blev ej fullständig då Peab inte hann införa tabletsen inom vägdriften innan de 10 veckorna för examensarbetet var avslutade. Att använda tabletsen inom vägdriften kommer att effektivisera inspektionerna med dels digital dokumenthantering och det viktiga införande av GPS positionering  i de fordon som utför inspektionerna. Detta kommer bli mycket smidigare än den tidigare arbetsmetodiken där i stort sett alla processer innefattande mycket onödigt pappersarbete. Peab rekommenderas fortsätta att se utvecklingsmöjligheter med tabletsen inom andra områden av vägdriften samt fullfölja utvecklingen av tableten för att få en användbar produkt. / The implementation of tablets within road maintenance has been studied and evaluated with the goal of deepening knowledge in the road maintenance industry and create new methods of working that benefits every part of the construction process. The degree project has been conducted at Peab on their site office in Sundsvall where the operation area of the implementation has been. It contains about 1220 kilometers of state roads where Trafikverket are the client. Through literature studies, tests and participant observations of the tablets usability and development has been analyzed and conclusions has been made to give Peab feedback and suggestions for improvement. The evaluation wasn’t completed because of the fact that Peab didn’t finish the development of tablet within my ten weeks of work there. Use of tablets in road maintenance will increase efficiency of the inspections with the handling of documents digitally, and the important implementation of GPS positioning in the vehicles who conducts the inspections. It will be a lot more flexible than the previous methods where almost every part of the process included a lot of unnecessary paperwork. Peab are recommended to keep looking for possibilities for development of tablets within other areas of road maintenance to get a complete and productive product.

The maintenance of infrastructure is critical to the well-being of society. This work focuses on a novel method for inspecting the exterior of dams using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in an automated fashion. The UAVs are equipped with optical sensors capturing still images. The resulting images are used to generate three-dimensional (3D) models using Structure from Motion (SfM) computer software. The SfM models are then used to inspect the exterior of the dam. As typical dam inspections entail completing a checklist of inspection items with varied degrees of precision (e.g. a concrete spillway may be finely inspected for cracking or joint deterioration while the general stability and water-tightness of a large embankment may be observed from a distance), a targeted inspection is also needed for the UAV method. In conjunction with the work presented in this thesis, a novel algorithm was developed which uses camera view planning across multiple proximity levels to generate a set of camera poses (positions and orientations) which can be collected in an autonomous UAV flight that facilitates generation of SfM models having tiered model quality for targeted inspection of infrastructure features. In this thesis, this novel algorithm and accompanying mobile application (referred to together as the novel advanced autonomous method) were field validated at Tibble Fork Dam, UT. The advanced autonomous method was compared to two other common image acquisition methods—basic autonomous and manual piloted—based on the SfM models produced from the collected image sets. The advanced autonomous method was found to produce models having tiered quality needed for efficient targeted inspection (25% and 50% higher resolution in medium and high priority target areas). The advanced autonomous method was found to produce models having on average 38% higher precise point accuracy (1.3cm) and 53% tighter surface reproducibility (for repeat inspections) (1.9cm) than basic autonomous and manual piloted image acquisition methods. The advanced autonomous method required on average 167% longer flight time and 38% fewer images than the other two methods, resulting in increased field time but decreased processing load. Additionally, viability of the advanced autonomous method for practical dam inspection was assessed through a case study inspection of Tibble Fork Dam using the collected SfM model and corresponding still images. The SfM model and corresponding images were found fully adequate for performing 94% of the inspection tasks and partially adequate for the remaining tasks. In consideration of this and other practical implementation factors such as time and safety, the method appears highly viable as an alternate to or supplement with traditional on-foot visual exterior inspection of dams such as Tibble Fork Dam. Suggestions for future work include adjustments to the optimization framework to improve field efficiency, development of a framework for cooperative inspection using UAV swarms, and development of a more automated workflow that would allow fully-remote dam inspections.

This thesis was done i cooperation with SKB Clab in Oskarshamn and studies use of sonic waves for detecting voids and irregularities in the weld joints of copper capsules used for long term storage of radioactive waste. Since these could pose material failure and thereby risk radioactive contamination of ground water it is very important to find means of quality control before storage.  During the welding procedure changes occur to the integrity of the material. The homogenous metal – in this case copper – is distorted and voids appear in and around the welded volume. A non-destructive inspection method is needed to make sure that the metal holds for the strains of long term storage. These strains are not completely known at the moment and therefore the goal of this thesis is mainly to add another tool of inspection for future studies. The tests are done using ultrasonic mapping of the welded volume. This is achieved by sending ultrasonic pulse through test samples – welded copper pieces – and recording its reflection. The recorded signals are gathered in data matrices and processed using several different signal processing methods in search of irregularities and voids. To enhance the understanding of the results a graphical user interface (GUI) is developed that allows users to visualize the results.  The welded pieces, the ultrasonic mapping and its resulting data sets were delivered to this thesis and the scope of the thesis is to develop the GUI and apply known signal processing methods to the data set.  It is shown that the irregularities do appear and that ultrasonic detection and use of the processing method is useful for quality control of the material. Further field studies are needed to identify maximum number, size and perhaps shapes of irregularities that can be within tolerance levels of the storage project.

Nobel Biocare is a manufacturer within the dental implant industry whose products acts as an artificial coralroot in dental procedures. The company has high demands on their products which has led to a number of quality controls within the manufacturing process. One of these quality controls aims to inspect the colour of the product to establish whether the colour is within an acceptable range. This inspection is called colour inspection and is a manual process where the operator, piece by piece, controls the product in a light cabinet to examine the colour. To perform this process manually contributes to an inconsistent judgment because operators struggle to detect differences in nuance. This procedure entails perfectly good products to be thrown away because of the misjudgement of the colour. Not only is this process undesired when considering throwing away functional products, but it is also very time-consuming and demanding for the operator who performs the work. With this being said, Nobel Biocare sees a need to automate this process by investing in a vision system.  The purpose of this thesis is to examine the market of vision systems to find Nobel Biocare a proposal for how this process can be automated. Beyond presenting a recommended solution for the colour inspection process, the aim is to generate a foundation that Nobel can use for future implementation of vision systems.  The market research concluded that there was only one company that was able to offer a camera that can detect colour differences. This company called Cognex had multiple cameras that theoretically could solve the problem. Lack of time and the current situation with Covid-19 made it impossible to perform practical tests to validate the solution. This project should therefore be seen as a background for continuous work. / Nobel Biocare är en tillverkare av tandimplantat vars produkter fungerar som en konstgjord tandrot vid odontologiska ingrepp. Företaget och diverse lagstiftning ställer höga krav på produkterna vilket lett till att flertalet kvalitetskontroller äger rum inom tillverkningen. En av dessa kvalitetskontroller syftar till att inspektera produkternas färg för att avgöra huruvida färgen är inom godkänt intervall. Denna kontroll är idag en process där en operatör manuellt för in produkterna styckvis i ett ljusskåp för att undersöka färgen.  Att utföra färginspektionen manuellt bidrar till en inkonsekvent bedömning då operatörerna har svårt att skilja på nyansskillnader i färgen, vilket i sin tur leder till att godkända produkter kasseras i onödan. Utöver detta är den manuella hanteringen tidskrävande och påfrestande för operatören som utför arbetet. Som följd av detta ser Nobel Biocare ett behov av att automatisera denna process, vilket man vill göra med hjälp av ett visionsystem.  Detta examensarbete syftar således till att undersöka marknaden för visionsystem i hopp om att kunna rekommendera en lösning på hur färginspektionen kan komma att automatiseras. Utöver att presentera ett lösningsförslag var målet även att generera underlag som Nobel Biocare kan använda vid en framtida implementering av tekniken.   Från undersökningen av marknaden framkom det att endast ett företag kunde erbjuda ett visionsystem med förmågan att avläsa färg. Detta företag hade flertalet kameror som teoretiskt sett kan lösa problemet, inga praktiska tester kunde utföras inom ramen för examensarbetet vilket lett till att resultatet inte kan verifieras. Således resulterade detta arbete i en bakgrund för fortsatt arbete snarare än ett konkret lösningsförslag.

Background. With increased Internet usage occurring across the world journalists, dissidents and criminals have moved their operations online, and in turn, governments and law enforcement have increased their surveillance of their country’s networks. This has increased the popularity of programs masking users’ identities online such as the Tor Project. By encrypting and routing the traffic through several nodes, the users’ identity is hidden. But how are Tor users utilizing the network, and is any of it in the plain text despite the dangers of it? How has the usage of Tor changed compared to 11 years ago? Objectives. The thesis objective is to analyze captured Tor network traffic that reveals what data is sent through the network. The collected data helps draw conclusions about Tor usage and is compared with previous studies. Methods. Three Tor exit nodes are set up and operated for one week in the US, Germany, and Japan. We deploy packet sniffers performing a deep packet inspection on each traffic flow to identify attributes such as application protocol, number of bytes sent in a flow, and content-type if the traffic was sent in plain text. All stored data is anonymized. Results. The results show that 100.35 million flows were recorded, with 32.47%of them sending 4 or fewer packets in total. The most used application protocol was TLS with 55.03% of total traffic. The HTTP usage was 15.91% and 16% was unknown protocol(s). The countries receiving the most traffic were the US with over45% of all traffic, followed by the Netherlands, UK, and Germany with less than 10%of recorded traffic as its destination. The most frequently used destination ports were 443 at 49.5%, 5222 at 12.7%, 80 with 11.9%, and 25 at 9.3%.Conclusions. The experiment shows that it is possible to perform traffic analysis on the Tor network and acquire significant data. It shows that the Tor network is widely used in the world but with the US and Europe accounting for most of the traffic. As expected there has been a shift from HTTP to HTTPS traffic when compared to previous research. However, there is still unencrypted traffic on the network, where some of the traffic could be explained by automated tools like web crawlers. Tor users need to increase their awareness in what traffic they are sending through the network, as a user with malicious intent can perform the same experiment and potentially acquire unencrypted sensitive data.

This research aims to investigate the application of infrared thermography (IRT) as a method of nondestructive evaluation (NDE) for the detection of defects in the rail base area. Rails have to withstand harsh conditions during their application. Therefore, defects can develop in the base area of rails due to stresses such as bending, shear, contact, and thermal stresses, fatigue, and corrosion. Such defects can cause catastrophic failures in the rails, ultimately leading to train derailments. Rail base defects due to fatigue and corrosion are difficult to detect and currently there are no reliable or practical non-destructive evaluation (NDE) methods for finding these types of defects in the revenue service. Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI) had previously conducted a research on the capability of flash IRT to detect defects in rail base area based on simulation approach. The research covered in this thesis is the continuation of the same project.In this research, three rail samples were prepared with each containing a notched-edge, side-drilled holes (SDHs), and bottom-drilled holes (BDHs). Two steel sample blocks containing BDHs and SDHs of different sizes and depths were also prepared. Preliminary IRT trials were conducted on the steel samples to obtain an optimal IRT setup configuration. The initial inspections for one of the steel samples were outsourced to Thermal Wave Imaging (TWI) where they employed Thermographic Signal Reconstruction (TSR) technique to enhance the resulting images. Additional inspections of the steel samples were performed in the Southern Illinois University-Carbondale (SIUC) facility. In case of the rail samples, the SDHs and the notched-edge reflectors could not be detected in any of the experimental trials performed in this research. In addition, two more rail samples containing BDHs were prepared to investigate the detection capabilities for three different surface conditions: painted, unpainted, and rusted. The painted surface provided a best-case scenario for inspections while the other conditions offered further insight on correlating the application to industry-like cases.A 1300 W halogen lamp was employed as the heat source for providing continuous thermal excitation for various durations. Post-processing and analysis of the resulting thermal images was performed within the acquisition software using built-in analysis tools such as temperature probes, Region of Interest (ROI) based intensity profiles, and smoothing filters. The minimum defect diameter to depth (aspect) ratio detected in preliminary trials for the steel sample blocks were 1.0 at a diameter of 4.7625 mm (0.1875 in) and 1.5 at a diameter of 3.175 mm (0.125 in). For the inspection of painted rail sample, the longest exposure times (10 sec) provided the best detection capabilities in all sets of trials. The three holes having aspect ratio greater or equal to 1.0 were indicated in the thermal response of the painted and rusted samples while only the two holes having aspect ratio greater or equal to 1.5 were indicated in the unaltered sample. Indications of reflectors were identified through qualitative graphical analysis of pixel intensity distributions obtained along a bending line profile. The results obtained from the painted sample provided a baseline for analyzing the results from the unpainted and rusted rail samples. This provided an insight on the limitations and requirements for future development. The primary takeaway is the need for an optimized heat source. Poor contrast in the resulting image for the unpainted and rusted rail samples is experienced due to both noise and lack of penetration of the heat energy. This could have been due to decreased emissivity values. Moreover, the excitation method employed in this research does not comply with current industry standards for track clearances. Therefore, exploration of alternative excitation methods is recommended.