This paper examines what it is like to be an assistant director. The play, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was adapted from a book by Mark Hadden that is structured as if the main character was the writer. The stage production reworks that concept and turns it into a “play within a play”. The story is about a boy named Christopher, his broken family and his struggle with autism. When the director, Cara Harker first approached me about being an assistant director, I struggled with anxiety and not feeling like I had a real place in the show. After some time working with the director, I found my place in the production and learned a lot about directing.

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At night, the visibility is reduced and the demands on the driver increase. A safety system that enables the driver to discover warmer objects in the surroundings when the visibility are reduced, such as the Vision Enhancement System (VES) contributes to safer night-time driving. Since the benefits of this system are established, it is of interest to investigate different design aspects. The VES display has in earlier studies been positioned in front of the driver but different display positions such as peripheral placement should be evaluated. The present simulator study is an investigation of the effects of different display positions inside the car. Two different display positions were investigated, in front of the driver and to the right of the driver. When driving with a display positioned to the right, the driver will have to divide his attention between the road scene and the display by turning his head or he might be able to use peripheral vision. It was hypothesised that there would be significant differences in driving performance between the two display positions in favour of the display position above the steering wheel. The results were measured in driving performance as well as opinions from the participants. Results show that there were some significant differences and several tendencies of better driving performance when driving with the display in front of the driver. The participants also rated this display as being better positioned and effecting the driving in a more positive way than the display to the right. It was therefore concluded that that the most preferred display position is in front of the driver.

This thesis delves into the creative process of creating characters for the play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. The characters that were created include: Mrs. Shears, Woman on Train, and Voice One. This thesis highlights the creative process through methods of research that dissect the authors, story, autism, and the actor’s experience throughout the rehearsal process. Sources such as interviews with autism consultants and family members of those with autism added useful information towards the creation of the characters. Research on the performance aspect was centered around the exploration of a character’s past through diagrams and analysis worksheets that are included later pages of this thesis. These combined aspects come together to create a unique set of characters that tell a story of autism and communication that is not typically told.

Building on a growing body of research linking an opportunity framework to drops in acquisitive crime and most recently, acquisitive violence, the present thesis extends this framework to the downward trajectory of nighttime economy violence in England and Wales, during the phenomenon of the crime drop. Using secondary data analysis of the Crime Survey for England and Wales, the rate of stranger and acquaintance violence within the night-time economy is found to have halved between 1995 and 2011/12; mirroring the dramatic declines experienced by other crime types within England and Wales, and more widely across other westernised countries. Disaggregating this overarching trend by offence and victim characteristics reveals a reduction in alcohol-fuelled, common assaults between young males, occurring in and around the drinking venues of the night-time economy, and during weekends, to be the main driver of the drop. Boden, Fergusson and Horwood (2013) argue that to date there is limited knowledge surrounding the nature of alcohol-related violence. The present research explores the nexus between alcohol and violence through a situational lens. The opportunistic nature of night-time economy violence is identified through offenders' choice of tools (weapons) and selection of targets, as well as the clustering of violence along certain spatial, temporal, and individual, dimensions. The opportunity structure of night-time economy violence is established using multivariate modelling techniques designed to isolate the role of opportunity in assault-victimisation, and resultant severity, from the personal characteristics of the actors involved. Measures of a 'risky lifestyle', characterised by an increase in routine activities that take respondents away from the safety of the home, are found to be the strongest predictors of assault victimisation-risk across every available sweep of the survey. A significant shift in population lifestyle - namely a significant net decline in routine engagement with the drinking venues of the night-time economy, as well as a shift in the gender and age composition of drinking venue patronage - co-varies with the decline in night-time economy violence. However, residual effects of respondents' socio-demographic characteristics on victimisation-risk, after mediating for differences in lifestyle, presents violent victimisation in the night-time economy as a result of a process by which personal traits interact with criminogenic environments. Personal characteristics, however, are weaker in their prediction of offence severity in the night-time economy. Rather, the present research supports a collection of research identifying the context of violence to be the strongest predictor of violent dispute escalation (Brennan, Moore & Shepherd, 2010; Marcus and Reio, 2002).

To be able to sleep is vital for our existence. During the process of falling asleep, many people are struggling and as an outcome, various mental health problems and sleep disorders are occurring among them. Previous studies are blaming the spreading health problems on the smartphone users for bringing their phone into their bedroom. Simultaneously, studies are showing that nocturnal smartphone usage is extremely common, with a huge spike in use during nighttime. Also, findings in studies with a different area of focus are showing that people suffering from sleep difficulties and insomnia benefits from visual stimulation and focused attention during sleep onset. This study aims to find beneficial smartphone interactions for people who are currently experiencing sleep problems. By gathering information from literature and previous studies done in the fields of insomnia, mental health problems, smartphone usage, human-computer interaction and sleep in general, the theoretical foundation of this study is laid out. To verify the previous findings and find out more about nocturnal smartphone usage, interviews and exercises with both subjective good and bad sleepers are performed. Ideas are generated and extracted through a workshop together with the collaboration partners. Visualization of the possible solution is made as a hi-fi prototype, which is later tested upon the target group of bad sleepers for three nights. In combination, the solution concept is tested together with a secondary concept through the Wizard of Oz method. The evaluation of the concepts is collected as an online form through their smartphones and the feedback from the participants is leading to a final design suggestion. This study is presenting solutions for designing for nocturnal usage, which through this study has been proven decreasing the subjective sleep onset latency among the users and in the long run will improve the user's digital well being.

This diploma thesis deals with the analysis of selected properties of horizontal road marking (HRM). In terms of anti-skid properties measurements are made to determine the longitudinal friction coefficient, the coefficient of adhesion under different conditions and skid resistance of HRM. Measurements of anti-skid properties are supplemented by measurement of retroreflection of HRM. The theoretical part describes the current state of the issue, general characteristics of horizontal road marking and quantities measured in this thesis (friction and adhesion). The practical part consists of description of used measuring devices, custom solution and results analysis. The solution consists of the description of the measured samples, their preparation, subsequent measurement and a detailed description of the method of measured data evaluation. Data analysis is based on comparison of results obtained from individual sample groups and on comparison of measured values among themselves. The thesis is supplemented with photo documentation and video footage.

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The consumer behaviour is adapting within industries due to new technologies such as smart phones. As consumer behaviour changes so do companies by adapting their way of engaging and interacting with their customers. This provides potential to innovate new service offerings. Successfully launching new services which provide value for the customer is faced with risk of failure. To mitigate risks associated with failure, a clear understanding of the customer can aid with understanding what value a service offering should provide to be successfully adopted by the market. Due to customer experience being unique for each individual, personalization is a technique which could be used within software to improve the customer experience. Challenges could arise in terms of scarcity of data which can impact the performance negatively of a data driven algorithm. However, veracity is another aspect of data known to be associated with the potential to improve performance. Based on these two issues, this study conducted a sequential mixed methods study consisting of an etnographic study on Instagram to better understand the customer experience within nightlife. Furthermore, the netnographic study enabled the construction of a gold standard, which were used while conducting a GSDMM topic modelling experiment with the purpose to evaluate what topics required further pre-processing due to high ambiguity of the text content. Findings from the netnographic study and its implication for customer experience was discussed from the point of view of a software service offering. This study suggests software offerings within nightlife to improve customer experience during the pre-purchasing phase by considering aspects related to age, interests in atmosphere, type of activity, preferred music genres, spending time with friends or facilitating escapism. The discussed service has negligible control during the post-purchasing stage suggesting that the firm could innovate controlled touchpoints, such experiences can be related to anticipation, joy, celebration, social adventures, memory of previous nights out (stories), current music preferences or new desires occurring spontaneously. Upon adopting a service dominant logic, this study suggests that software services can facilitate the customer experience within nightlife through co-creation, since with the proper usage of data, network effects could occur between the customer and an organizer or venue within nightlife, but also between customer to customer. A future study is proposed to investigate how the coordination could be conducted through crowd-sourced based interactions where the software functions as an overseer of a multi-actor setting to provide further insights regarding how such coordination impacts the co-creation of value. / Konsumentbeteende förändras inom industrier mot bakgrund av att nya teknologier introduceras, till exempel smarttelefoner. Då konsumentbeteendet förändras, gör även företagen förändringar i hur de involverar och interagerar med kunder. Dessa förändringar ger möjligheter för att utveckla eller ta fram nya tjänster. Samtidigt finns utmaningar vid lansering av nya tjänster. För att minska riskerna vid lansering av nya tjänster kan en god förståelse av konsumenten tydliggöra vilket värde en tjänst bör erbjuda för att bemötas positivt av marknaden. Då kundupplevelse är unikt för varje person, kan individualiseringstekniker inom mjukvara tillämpas för att förbättra kundupplevelsen. Det kan däremot uppstå problem när det är bristfälligt med data som algoritmen kan använda sig av. Kvalité och valt fokus på data kan dock förbättra algoritmens prestationer. Mot bakgrund av de två redogjorda problemen, genomfördes en sekventiellt blandad metodstudie bestående av en nätnografisk studie på Instragram för att utöka förståelsen av kundupplevelsen inom nattlivet. Resultatet från nätnografistudien har därefter använts för att konstruera en guldstandard vilket tillämpades på en ämnesklassificerare vid namn GSDMM. Syftet med ämnesklassifikationsexperimenten var att förstå vilka ämnen som skrivs med en hög grad av tvetydighet och därför komma att kräva en mer gedigen förbehandling av den textbaserade informationen. För att tillägga, har insikter från nätnografistudien diskuterats och dess betydelse för kundupplevelsen utifrån en mjukvarutjänsts perspektiv. Studien tyder på att mjukvarutjänster inom nattlivet kan förbättra kundupplevelsen i förköpsstadiet genom att beakta aspekter relaterat till ålder, föredragen stämning, typ av aktivitet, föredragna musikgenrer, att vara med vänner eller framhävning av eskapism. Den diskuterade tjänsten har försumbar kontroll av kundupplevelsen i efterköpsstadiet, därför föreslås införandet av kontrollerbara interaktioner med tjänsten. Sådana upplevelser bör fokusera på att spänna förväntningar, glädje, firande, sociala äventyr, minnen från tidigare utgångar (berättelser), föredragen musik i stunden eller nya önskemål som uppstår spontant under utgången. Vid tillämpning av tjänstedominantlogik indikerar studien att mjukvarutjänster kan förbättra kundupplevelsen genom samskapande, eftersom vid korrekt användning av data, kan nätverkseffekter förekomma mellan dels kund och organisatör eller lokal inom nattlivet, men även mellan kund och kund. Fortsatta studier föreslås forska om hur samverkan kan koordineras genom crowdsource-baserade interaktioner där en mjukvarutjänst fungerar som kontrollant/moderator av en multi-aktörkonstellation. En sådan studie kan ge förståelse om hur koordinationen påverkar värdeskapandet under samverkan.

How can reimagining the way we light our cities prove to be the urban catalyst to meet targets set out in the Paris Climate Agreement? In this Master Thesis, I question how restructuring our urban lighting can provide enormous benefits for not only reducing our energy consumption and becoming more efficient societies, but also support social interaction in shaping our cities for the future. The aspects pertaining to urban lighting and its influence on our environment have been organised into economy, political and urban evolution (social) categories, as a way to dissect and appreciate lights associated role in shaping our societies. Seeking sustainable strategies to meet urgent energy targets and urban development initiatives, are no longer optional but necessary. However, even with this undisputed need for change, particularly within urban lighting, approaches taken are still very much sequestered from general understanding and lack cross-disciplinary cooperation. Extensive publications, works and teachings from lighting designers, as well as currently adopted policies from government bodies and international case studies have been considered, in order to understand current strategies adopted and their potential co-operation for a future holistic strategy in tackling climate change as well as apparent inequalities in our urban environments.