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In today’s platform economy, the postal industry has been disrupted with emerging technologies and changing consumer needs. While the physical letter volumes continue to decrease, postal operators seek new sources of customer value through digital innovations. Digital mailbox is an example of a multisided platform that creates value by connecting two or more customer groups and facilitating interaction or transactions between them. In order to successfully attract both supply and demand to these platforms, the platform provider needs to understand both sides of the market The purpose of this study was to increase the understanding of the needs and expectations of the biggest consumer group of the future, Generation Z, regarding their interaction with different sectors in the Finnish society. Furthermore, the research aim was to shed light on the possible implications that these needs and expectations would have on platform providers. The context for the study was Finland. The study was conducted as a case study for PostNord, a communications and logistics supplier in the Nordics. A qualitative research design included conducting 12 semi-structured interviews with Generation Z representatives, born between 1995 and 2001. Additionally, a mirroring workshop with industry experts was conducted in order to include the perspective of the case company. The results were analysed using a thematic analysis method. The findings of this study show that Generation Z’s choice for device and channels is contextual, depending on the importance and urgency of the matter. Gen Z prefers to receive their communication on one platform instead of many, and often on mobile application. This generational cohort has high expectations regarding the speed of the communication. They expect fast responses that also enable a meaningful dialogue, yet on their own terms. The findings indicate that Gen Z values the human element even in digital communication. They want to receive information that is not only relevant to them, but arrives on the right time and comes from a competent, familiar source. These findings have implications on not only PostNord as a platform provider, but all the potential ecosystem partners. / I dagens plattformsekonomi har postbranschen behövt hantera ny teknik och förändrade konsumentbehov. Medan volymen av fysiska brev fortsätter att minska, söker postoperatörer nya källor till kundvärde genom digitala innovationer. En digital brevlåda är ett exempel på en flersidig plattform som skapar värde genom att ansluta två eller fler kundgrupper, samt underlättar interaktioner eller transaktioner mellan dem. För att framgångsrikt locka både utbud och efterfrågan till dessa plattformar, behöver plattformsleverantörer förstå båda sidor av marknaden. Syftet med denna studie var att öka förståelsen för behov och förväntningar hos framtidens största konsumentgrupp, Generation Z, angående deras interaktion med olika sektorer i det finska samhället. Vidare var målet med forskningen att belysa möjliga konsekvenser som dessa behov och förväntningar skulle ha på plattformsleverantörer. Sammanhanget för studien var Finland. Studien genomfördes som en fallstudie för PostNord, en kommunikationsoch logistikleverantör i Norden. Under en kvalitativ forskningsdesign genomfördes 12 halvstrukturerade intervjuer med Generation Zrepresentanter, födda mellan 1995 och 2001, dessutom genomfördes en workshop med branschexperter för att inkludera fallföretagets perspektiv. Resultaten analyserades med hjälp av en tematisk analysmetod.Resultaten av denna studie visar att Generation Zs val för enhet och kanaler är kontextuell, beroende på hur viktigt och brådskande det är. Generation Z föredrar att ta emot kommunikation på en specifik plattform i stället för många, och ofta på mobilapplikation. Denna kohort har höga förväntningar på kommunikationshastigheten, de förvänta sig snabba svar som också möjliggör en meningsfull dialog, men ändå på deras egna villkor. Resultaten tyder på att Generation Z värderar det mänskliga elementet även i digital kommunikation. De vill ha information som inte bara är relevant för dem, men kommer under rätt tid och från en kompetent, välkänd källa. Dessa resultat har inte bara konsekvenser för PostNord somplattformsleverantör, men alla potentiella partners i ekosystemet.

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Modern vehicles have electrical architectures whose complexity grows year after year due to feature growth corresponding to customer expectations. The latest of the expectations, automation of the dynamic driving task however, is poised to bring about some of the largest changes seen so far. In one fell swoop, not only does required functionality for automated driving drastically increase the system complexity, it also removes the fall-back of the human driver who is usually relied upon to handle unanticipated failures after the fact. The need to architect thus requires a greater rigour than ever before, to maintain the level of safety that has been associated with the automotive industry. The work that is part of this thesis has been conducted, in close collaboration with our industrial partner Scania CV AB, within the Vinnova FFI funded project ARCHER. This thesis aims to provide a methodology for architecting during the concept phase of development, using industrial practices and principles including those from safety standards such as ISO 26262. The main contributions of the thesis are in two areas. The first area i.e. Part A contributes, (i) an analysis of the challenges of architecting automated driving, and serves as a motivation for the approach taken in the rest of this thesis, i.e. Part B where the contributions include, (ii) a definition of a viewpoint for functional safety according to the definitions of ISO 42010, (iii) a method to systematically extract information from legacy components and (iv) a process to use legacy information and architect in the presence of uncertainty to provide a work product, the Preliminary Architectural Assumptions (PAA), as required by ISO 26262. The contributions of Part B together comprise a methodology to architect the PAA.   A significant challenge in working with the industry is finding the right fit between idealized principles and practical utility. The methodology in Part B has been judged fit for purpose by different parts of the organization at Scania and multiple case studies have been conducted to assess its usefulness in collaboration with senior architects. The methodology was found to be conducive in both, generating the PAA of a quality that was deemed suitable to the organization and, to find inadequacies in the architecture that had not been found earlier using the previous non-systematic methods. The benefits have led to a commissioning of a prototype tool to support the methodology that has begun to be used in projects related to automation at Scania. The methodology will be refined as the projects progress towards completion using the experiences gained. A further impact of the work is seen in two patent filings that have originated from work on the case studies in Part B. Emanating from needs discovered during the application of the methods, these filed patents (with no prior publications) outline the future directions of research into reference architectures augmented with safety policies, that are safe in the presence of detectable faults and failures. To aid verification of these ideas, work has begun on identifying critical scenarios and their elements in automated driving, and a flexible simulation platform is being designed and developed at KTH to test the chosen critical scenarios. / Efterfrågan på nya funktioner leder till en ständigt ökande komplexitet i moderna fordon, speciellt i de inbyggda datorsystemen. Införande av autonoma fordon utgör inte bara det mest aktuella exemplet på detta, utan medför också en av de största förändringar som fordonsbranschen sett. Föraren, som ”back-up” för att hantera oväntade situationer och fel, finns inte längre där vid höggradig automation, och motsvarande funktioner måste realiseras i de inbyggda system vilket ger en drastisk komplexitetsökning. Detta ställer systemarkitekter för stora utmaningar för att se till att nuvarande nivå av funktionssäkerhet bibehålls. Detta forskningsarbete har utförts i nära samarbete med Scania CV AB i det Vinnova (FFI)-finansierade projektet ARCHER. Denna licentiatavhandling har som mål att ta fram en metodik för konceptutveckling av arkitekturer, förankrat i industriell praxis och principer, omfattande bl.a. de som beskrivs i funktionssäkerhetsstandards som ISO 26262. Avhandlingen presenterar resultat inom två områden. Det första området, del A, redovisar, (i) en analys av utmaningar inom arkitekturutveckling för autonoma fordon, vilket också ger en motivering för resterande del av avhandlingen. Det andra området, del B, redovisar, (ii) en definition av en ”perspektivmodell” (en s.k. ”viewpoint” enligt ISO 42010) för funktionssäkerhet, (iii) en metod för att systematiskt utvinna information från existerande komponenter, och (iv) en process som tar fram en arbetsprodukt för ISO 26262 – Preliminära Arkitektur-Antaganden (PAA). Denna process använder sig av information från existerande komponenter – resultat (iii) och förenklar hantering av avsaknad/osäker information under arkitekturarbetet. Resultaten från del B utgör tillsammans en metodik för att ta fram en PAA. En utmaning i forskning är att finna en balans mellan idealisering och praktisk tillämpbarhet. Metodiken i del B har utvärderats i flertalet industriella fallstudier på Scania i samverkan med seniora arkitekter från industrin, och har av dessa bedömts som relevant och praktiskt tillämpningsbar. Erfarenheterna visar att metodiken stödjer framtagandet av PAA’s av   lämplig kvalitet och ger ett systematiskt sätt att hantera osäkerhet under arkitekturutvecklingen. Specifikt så gjorde metoden det möjligt att identifiera komponent-felmoder där arkitekturen inte var tillräcklig för åstadkomma önskad riskreducering, begränsningar som inte hade upptäckts med tidigare metoder. Ett prototypverktyg för att stödja metodiken har utvecklats och börjat användas på Scania i projekt relaterade till autonoma fordon. Metodiken kommer sannolikt att kunna förfinas ytterligare när dessa projekt går mot sitt slut och mer erfarenheter finns tillgängliga. Arbetet i del B har vidare lett till två patentansökningar avseende koncept som framkommit genom fallstudierna. Dessa koncept relaterar till referensarkitekturer som utökats med policies för personsäkerhet (Eng. ”safety”) för att hantera detekterbara felfall, och pekar ut en riktning för framtida forskning. För att stödja verifiering av dessa koncept har arbete inletts för att identifiera kritiska scenarios för autonom körning. En flexibel simuleringsplattform håller också på att designas för att kunna testa kritiska scenarios. / Vinnova-FFI funded Project ARCHER

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T15:47:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 RodrigoSLSR.pdf: 1278461 bytes, checksum: ac21fe12bc1ce120cf688ba59e4bf754 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006-05-19 / This work presents the concept, design and implementation of a MP-SoC platform, named STORM (MP-SoC DirecTory-Based PlatfORM). Currently the platform is composed of the following modules: SPARC V8 processor, GPOP processor, Cache module, Memory module, Directory module and two different modles of Network-on-Chip, NoCX4 and Obese Tree. All modules were implemented using SystemC, simulated and validated, individually or in group. The modules description is presented in details. For programming the platform in C it was implemented a SPARC assembler, fully compatible with gcc s generated assembly code. For the parallel programming it was implemented a library for mutex managing, using the due assembler s support. A total of 10 simulations of increasing complexity are presented for the validation of the presented concepts. The simulations include real parallel applications, such as matrix multiplication, Mergesort, KMP, Motion Estimation and DCT 2D / Este trabalho apresenta o conceito, desenvolvimento e implementa??o de uma plataforma MP-SoC, batizada STORM (MP-SoC DirecTory-Based PlatfORM). A plataforma atualmente ? composta pelos seguintes m?dulos: processador SPARC V8, processador GPOP, m?dulo de Cache, m?dulo de Mem?ria, m?dulo de Diret?rio e dois diferentes modelos de Network-on-Chip, a NoCX4 e a ?rvore Obesa. Todos os m?dulos foram implementados usando a linguagem SystemC, simulados e validados, tanto separadamente quanto em conjunto. A descri??o dos m?dulos ? apresentada em detalhes. Para a programa??o da plataforma usando C foi implementado um montador SPARC, totalmente compat?vel com o c?digo assembly gerado pelo compilador gcc. Para a programa??o concorrente foi implementada uma biblioteca de fun??es para gerenciamento de mutexes, com o devido suporte por parte do montador. S?o apresentadas 10 simula??es do sistema, de complexidade crescente, para valida??o de todos os conceitos apresentados. As simula??es incluem aplica??es paralelas reais, como a multiplica??o de matrizes, Mergesort, KMP, Estima??o de Movimento e DCT 2D

Network-on-chip (NoC) based multi-processor systems-on-chip (MPSoCs) are promising candidates for future multi-processor embedded platforms, which are expected to be composed of hundreds of heterogeneous processing elements (PEs) to potentially provide high performances. However, together with the performances, the systems complexity will increase, and new high level design techniques will be needed to efficiently model, simulate, debug and synthesize them. System-level design (SLD) is considered to be the next frontier in electronic design automation (EDA). It enables the description of embedded systems in terms of abstract functions and interconnected blocks. A promising complementary approach to SLD is the use of models of computation (MoCs) to formally describe the execution semantics of functions and blocks through a set of rules. However, also when this formalization is used, there is no clear way to synthesize system-level models into software (SW) and hardware (HW) towards a NoC-based MPSoC implementation, i.e., there is a lack of system design automation (SDA) techniques to rapidly synthesize and prototype system-level models onto heterogeneous NoC-based MPSoCs. In addition, many of the proposed solutions require large overhead in terms of SW components and memory requirements, resulting in complex and customized multi-processor platforms. In order to tackle the problem, a novel model-based SDA flow has been developed as part of the thesis. It starts from a system-level specification, where functions execute according to the synchronous MoC, and then it can rapidly prototype the system onto an FPGA configured as an heterogeneous NoC-based MPSoC. In the first part of the thesis the HeartBeat model is proposed as a model-based technique which fills the abstraction gap between the abstract system-level representation and its implementation on the multiprocessor prototype. Then details are provided to describe how this technique is automated to rapidly prototype the modeled system on a flexible platform, permitting to adjust the system specification until the designer is satisfied with the results. Finally, the proposed SDA technique is improved defining a methodology to automatically explore possible design alternatives for the modeled system to be implemented on a heterogeneous NoC-based MPSoC. The goal of the exploration is to find an implementation satisfying the designer's requirements, which can be integrated in the proposed SDA flow. Through the proposed SDA flow, the designer is relieved from implementation details and the design time of systems targeting heterogeneous NoC-based MPSoCs on FPGA is significantly reduced. In addition, it reduces possible design errors proposing a completely automated technique for fast prototyping. Compared to other SDA flows, the proposed technique targets a bare-metal solution, avoiding the use of an operating system (OS). This reduces the memory requirements on the FPGA platform comparing to related work targeting MPSoC on FPGA. At the same time, the performance (throughput) of the modeled applications can be increased when the number of processors of the target platform is increased. This is shown through a wide set of case studies implemented on FPGA. / <p>QC 20140609</p>

This report is the result of a conducted Minor Field Study (MFS), to the greatestextent funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency(SIDA), in an attempt to design a system for evaluating smaller solar power systems indeveloping countries. The study was to the greater part conducted in Nairobi, Kenyain close collaboration with the University of Nairobi. The aim was to develop asystem that would use easily available components and keep the costs to a minimum,yet deliver adequate performance. The system would measure certain parameters of asolar power system and also relevant environmental data in order to evaluate theperformance of the system. Due to the specific competence of the collaboratinggroup at the University of Nairobi, a Kinetis Freescale K64-microcontroller with anARM-Cortex processor was selected as the core of the design. Components wereselected, schematics were drawn, a circuit board was designed and manufactured andsoftware was written. After 12 weeks a somewhat satisfying proof-of-concept wasreached at the end of the field study in Kenya. The project however proved howdifficult it is to go from first idea to a functional proof-of-concept during a limitedtimeframe, and also in an East-African country. The final proof-of-concept was testedat Mpala Research Centre in Kenya and despite containing some flaws proved that itwould indeed be possible to design a working system on the principles discussed inthis report. The system is open-source, so anyone may use and modify it.