<p>The automotive field is becoming more and more complex and cars are no longer just pure mechanical artifacts. Today much more than 50 % of the functionality of a car is computerized, so, a modern car system is obviously based on mixed technologies which emphasize the need for new approaches to the design process compared to the processes of yesterday. A corresponding technology shift has been experienced in the aerospace industry starting in the late sixties and today aircraft could not fly without its computers and the pilots’ environment has turned to a so called glass cockpit with no iron-made instrumentation left. A very similar change is still going on in the automotive area.</p><p>Simulator-Based Design (SBD) refers to design, development and testing new products, systems and applications which include an operator in their operation. Simulator-Based Design has been used for decades in the aviation industry. It has been a common process in this field. SBD may be considered as a more specific application of simulation-based design, where the specific feature is a platform, the simulator itself. The simulator could consist of a generic computer environment in combination with dedicated hardware components, for instance a cockpit. This solution gives us the possibility of including the human operator in the simulation.</p><p>The name of the project is Simulator-Based Design in Practice. The purpose of this master thesis is to get a complete practice in how to use a human-in-the-loop simulator as a tool in design activities focusing on the automotive area. This application area may be seen as an example of systems where an operator is included in the operation and thus experience from the car application could be transferred to other areas like aviation or control rooms in the process industry.</p><p>During the performance of the project we have gone through the main parts of the SBD process. There are many steps to complete the whole cycle and many of them have iterative loops that connect these steps with the previous one. This process starts with a concept (product/system) and continues with a virtual prototyping stage followed by implementation, test design, human-in-the-loop simulation, data analysis, design synthesis and in the end a product/system decision. An iterative process approach makes the cycle flexible and goal oriented.</p><p>We have learnt how to use the simulator and how to perform the whole cycle of SBD. We first started getting familiar with the simulator and the ASim software and then we were trying to reduce the number of computers in the simulator and changing the network in order to find good optimization pf the computer power. The second step has been to implement a new application to the simulator. This new application is the rear mirror view and consists of a new LCD monitor and the rear view vision that must be seen in the new monitor. Finally we updated the cockpit to the new language program Action Script 3.0.</p><p>The information gathering consisted of the course Human-System interaction in the University, the introduction course to ASim software and the course of Action Script 3.0.</p>

<p>This thesis describes the function and construction of a modular event detector system. Event detectors are used for solder joint reliability testing using electronic monitoring for short duration resistance changes during accelerated ageing and temperature cycling. Collected data is mainly used to study solder joints long-term properties. The system has three different monitoring functions: transient resistance detection, statistics process monitoring and periodic monitoring. In its present performance a total number of 384 channels can be monitored continuously. However the system can be expanded in steps of 96 channels, limited only by the capacity of the computers PCI-bus. The system is built around a PC equipped with the LabVIEW 6.1 programming environment and data acquisition cards from National Instruments. The circuit boards to be monitored are connected via adapter electronics. In the case of the superior electronic-kits project, four groups of 24 circuit boards are connected to the adapter electronics. To minimise the influence of environmental noise shielded and, where possible, twined cables are used.</p>

<p>In today’s modern society with high-speed connections covering the globe people are more than ever finding themselves gazing into the cold lights of the computer screen. On the other side a strange and exciting world yet to be explored awaits. Many are those who spend hour after hour running over green hills swimming in vast blue oceans in the lands of Azeroth, the playfield in the MMORPG game World of Warcraft. In media we often read and hear alarming reports on players stuck in this virtual world, ceasing to play a part in the real world. This thesis will make an attempt as to hear what those who play the game has to say in the matter. Through interviews we’ll try to separate or combine media’s view of the game from that of those who play it.</p>

<p>Vizz3D is a powerful 3D visualization system. The current version is neither perfect nor up-to-date. Furthermore, some important features are missing. In order to keep the tool valuable it needs to be maintained. I implemented a new feature allowing to save and load the view port in the graph to control the camera position. I also improved the CPU utilization and the navigation system to solve the limitations in Vizz3D and to improve the overall performance.</p>

How can we understand the innovativeness of firms or organizations in general, and how should we assess it in terms of nontechnological innovation? My paper deals with these two questions. The “ability” of companies to adapt to new circumstances, to create new products, processes and new knowledge, has been conceptualized in many approaches. Some of them simply define a list of “(critical) success factors” or “(key) performance indica-tors”, as tools for ranking and evaluation, without any theoretical reference. Others, like the resource-based or capability-based approach(es), work with theoretical references, but are still very weak in operationalizing of what they call “capability”. My paper gives a critical description of this situation and offers a new proposal to classify and to measure the “inclination” of organizations to innovate in all dimensions. This proposal roots in pragmatistic thinking as represented in the theory of reflexive modernization and in the pragmatist version of organizational learning theory. Empirically, it has been applied merely in case studies yet. A survey project is in preparation.

Habilitationsschrift--Mainz. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [243]-246).

The resource based radical change from semiconductor manufacturing into the artificial plant factory is studied by understanding the resource capabilities in each industry separately. Due to lack of scientific research in the resource re-utilization process, the phenomenon is explored by studying the role of three different resources from a holistic view. By a qualitative research method, the motivating reasons for the change, the resources involved in the change, duration, and the resource based information were studied. The collected data are analysed under three different categories such as knowledge, infrastructure, and production technology. The identified problems were the unsatisfied resource capabilities, which have to be solved during the change process. As a result of the analysis, a framework is developed by combining all the three resources from a holistic view, in the change process. The framework is structured in three separate phases and inferred to support the resource re-utilization in the radical change process.

In this thesis, we develop an algorithm for detecting independent motion in real-time from 2D image sequences of arbitrarily complex 3D scenes. We discuss the necessary background information in image formation, optical flow, multiple view geometry, robust estimation, and real-time camera and scene pose estimation for constructing and understanding the operation of our algorithm. Furthermore, we provide an overview of existing independent motion detection techniques and compare them to our proposed solution. Unfortunately, the existing independent motion detection techniques were not evaluated quantitatively nor were their source code made publicly available. Therefore, it is not possible to make direct comparisons. Instead, we constructed several comparison algorithms which should have comparable performance to these previous approaches. We developed methods for quantitatively comparing independent motion detection algorithms and found that our solution had the best performance. By establishing a method for quantitatively evaluating these algorithms and publishing our results, we hope to foster better research in this area and help future investigators more quickly advance the state of the art. / text

This dissertation makes progress on the mind-body problem by examining certain key features of epistemic defeasibility, introspection, peer disagreement, and philosophical methodology. In the standard thought experiments, dualism strikes many of us as true. And absent defeaters, we should believe what strikes us as true. In the first three chapters, I discuss a variety of proposed defeaters—undercutters, rebutters, and peer disagreement—for the seeming truth of dualism, arguing that not one is successful. In the fourth chapter, I develop and defend a novel argument from the indefeasibility of certain introspective beliefs for the conclusion that persons are not complex objects like brains or bodies. This argument reveals the non-mechanistic nature of introspection. / text

Studien syftade till att undersöka hur avkodningen, för elever i avkodningssvårigheter, påverkades av en intervention med läslistor ställt mot tidigare liknande interventioner. Interventionen innefattade elever i avkodningssvårigheter som lästränade 20 tillfällen á 10 minuter med läslistor från Wendickmodellen Intensivläsning. Studien syftade också till att undersöka hur avkodningsutvecklingen för eleverna i interventionen tedde sig beroende på elevernas ålder. Därför genomfördes studien med elever från både låg- och högstadiet. Vidare syftade studien till att undersöka elevers motivation till att lästräna med läslistorna.  Studien lades upp enligt klassisk experimentell design med interventionsgrupper och kontrollgrupper från både låg- och högstadiet. Grupperna omfattade 15 elever i varje grupp vilket genererade totalt 60 elevers resultat. Studien genomfördes som en intervention med för- och eftertest samt en efterföljande intervju med eleverna i interventionsgrupperna om hur motiverade de varit till att lästräna med läslistorna. Testresultaten behandlades kvantitativt och intervjuerna utgjorde ett kvalitativt komplement till testresultaten. Interventionsgruppen på lågstadiet visade ökad avkodningsförmåga jämfört med kontrollgruppen i alla tester. Resultatet visar att interventionen med läslistorna har haft god påverkan på yngre barns avkodningsutveckling. På högstadiet ökade interventionsgruppen mer än kontrollgruppen i de flesta tester men en större ökning för interventionsgruppen än kontrollgruppen noterades särskilt vid nonsensordsläsningstest. I intervjuerna framkom att eleverna i interventionsgrupperna överlag var motiverade till att lästräna med metoden. Eleverna på lågstadiet var mer motiverade till metoden än högstadieeleverna, även om det bland högstadieeleverna inte fanns mer än någon enstaka som direkt ogillade metoden.