Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 2003. / Title from title page screen (viewed Sept. 25, 2003). Thesis advisor: Dr. Russell L. French. Document formatted into pages (x, 223 p. : ill. (some col.)). Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 136-146).

Thesis (doctoral)--Göteborg University, 2002.

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This dissertation responds to a recent zeitgeist and climate of controversy surrounding issues of "virtuality" and "simulation" Such terms are treated as problematic and essentially contested when framed in reference to notions of a fixed observable "reality" rather than considered in terms of socially constructed facts, relationships and identities. The concept of the "virtual stage" advanced in this thesis, refers to the current historical moment in communications technology development as well as to the dramaturgical perspective which informs the theoretical approach and argument. / In this dissertation, virtual reality is treated not as a single technology or corpus of machines, but following conventions established in recent telepresence research as an experience which can obtain in varying degrees by means of a host of communications media. / Several complementary approaches are proposed and examined as a provisional framework for the study of emerging contemporary discourses of virtuality. Issues of virtuality are discussed from the perspective of historical cases which invite comparison and suggest a palimpsest of earlier technological modes of communication within contemporary situations. The social construction of technology approach is introduced following recent suggestions for marrying this approach to the Canadian tradition of socio-historical study of communication technology. Finally, play and dramaturgical theory are offered as a model for understanding how community and individual identity are constructed and maintained in some forms of computer mediated communication (video games, MUDs, and IRC) while allowing for potentially plausible notions of human agency.

The purpose of this report is to analyze the advantages of using programme software to monitor masshauling instead of using the conventional method. A comparsion between different programs will also be conducted in an attempt to determine the most affordable. This report is written for NCC Construction AB to help them choose a software most fitting for future projects.The report is based upon literature such as information taken from the developers website, existing reports with similar context, interviews with sellers of the software and interviews with people working in the building sector.The result of this report shows that there are several advantages with investing in a software that helps the management of a project and that it is something that should be taken under consideration instead of the existing method. Topcon is a clear favorite following the inquiries comparisons as done, when they deliver a complete system and not only a supplement to the current approach. Scanlaser are just in the beginning of its development, and is so far only out with an early version of the software, while Topcon has been brought further in development and therefore has more features in the program. To utilize Topcon we fully recommend that the device HT-30 is used.

Thesis (MDistance Ed) -- University of South Australia, 1994

The convergence of transport, communication, computing and positioning technologies has enabled a smart car revolution. As a result, pricing of roads based on telematics technologies has gained significant attention. While there are promised benefits, systematic disclosure of precise location has the ability to impinge on privacy of a special kind, known as location privacy. The aim of this thesis is to provide technical designs that enhance the location privacy of motorists without compromising the benefits of accurate pricing. However, this research looks beyond a solely technology-based solution, For example, the ethical implications of the use of GPS data in pricing models have not been fully understood. Likewise. minimal research exists to evaluate the technical vulnerabilities that could be exploited to avoid criminal or financial penalties. To design a privacy-aware system, it is important to understand the needs of the stakeholders, most importantly the motorists. Knowledge about the anticipated privacy preferences of motorists is important in order to make reasonable predictions about their future willingness to adopt these systems. There is limited research so far Otl user perceptions regarding specific payment options in the uptake of privacy-aware systems. This thesis provides a critical privacy assessment of two mobility pricing systems, namely electronic tolls and mobility-priced insurance. As a result of this assessment. policy recommendations arc developed which could support a common approach in facilitating privacy-aware mobility-pricing strategies. This thesis also evaluates the existing and potential inferential threats and vulnerabilities to develop security and privacy recommendations for privacy-aware pricing designs for tolls and insurance. Utilising these policy recommendations and analysing user-perception with regards to the feasibility of sustaining privacy and willingness to pay for privacy, two privacy-aware mobility pricing designs have been presented which bridge the entire array of privacy interests and bring them together into a unified approach capable of sustaining legal protection as well as satisfying privacy requirements of motorists. It is maintained that it is only by social and technical analysis working in tandem that critical privacy issues in relation to location can be addressed.

Currently, reliable and appropriate medical information is difficult to find on the Internet. The potential for improvement in human health by the use of internet-based sources of information is potentially huge, as knowledge becomes more widely available, at much lower cost. Medical information has traditionally formed a large part of academic publishing. However, the increasing volume of available information, along with the demand for evidence based medicine makes Internet sources of information appear to be the only practical source of comprehensive and up-to date information. The aim of this work is to develop a system allowing groups of users to identify information that they find useful, and using those particular sources as examples develop an intelligent system that can classify new information sources in terms of their likely usefulness to such groups. Medical information sources are particularly interesting because they cover a very wide range of specialties, they require very strict quality control, and the consequence of error may be extremely serious, in addition, medical information sources are of increasing interest to the general public. This work covers the design, construction and testing of such a system and introduces two new concepts - document structure identification via information entropy and fuzzy ontology for knowledge representation. A mapping between query terms and members of ontology is usually a key part of any ontology enhanced searching tool. However many terms used in queries may be overloaded in terms of the ontology, which limits the potential use of automatic query expansion and refinement. In particular this problem affects information systems where different users are likely to expect different meanings for the same term. This thesis describes the derivation and use of a "Fuzzy Ontology" which uses fuzzy relations between components of the ontology in order to preserve a common structure. The concept is presented in the medical domain. Kolmogorov distance calculations are used to identify similarity between documents in terms of authorship, origin and topic. In addition structural measures such as paragraph tags were examined but found not to be effective in clustering documents. The thesis describes some theoretical and practical evaluation of these approaches in the context of a medical information retrieval system, designed to support ontology-based search refinement, relevance feedback and preference sharing between professional groups.