Face Detection and Facial Feature Localization for multi-pose faces and complex backgroundimages

The objective of this thesis work, is to propose an algorithm to detect the faces in a digital image with complex background. A lot of work has already been done in the area of face detection, but drawback of some face detection algorithms is the lack of ability to detect faces with closed eyes and open mouth. Thus facial features form an important basis for detection. The current thesis work focuses on detection of faces based on facial objects. The procedure is composed of three different phases: segmentation phase, filtering phase and localization phase. In segmentation phase, the algorithm utilizes color segmentation to isolate human skin color based on its chrominance properties. In filtering phase, Minkowski addition based object removal (Morphological operations) has been used to remove the non-skin regions. In the last phase, Image Processing and Computer Vision methods have been used to find the existence of facial components in the skin regions.This method is effective on detecting a face region with closed eyes, open mouth and a half profile face. The experiment’s results demonstrated that the detection accuracy is around 85.4% and the detection speed is faster when compared to neural network method and other techniques.

Svensklärares arbete : om villkor för gymnasieskolans svenskämne

The aim of this didactic study is to understand the terms of work, education and teaching of Swedish in a period round 2000. The research questions focus on how teachers at upper secondary school in conversations describe and construct their work, values in society and school, structures of power and relation to time. With the help of tools related to story and storytelling, and by connecting the empirical material to a late modern society, I caninterpret and understand the description of their work. With the help of Pierre Bourdieu’s theory I can see how values, power and relation to time are expressed in different ways when teachers of Swedish talk about their work and education.The results show that when teacher talk about work in school is it related to ideals in a global economy. Decentralization and individualization get new meanings when those words are placed in school environment and activity. Effectiveness, flexibility and individualization are words related to economy and they seem to have an effect on education and subjects of Swedish. I can also understand teachers’ work when it is related to power and values on the educational field. I can see how a diffuse power acts on the field and how harmony is a dominant value and a term that influences teachers’ work. New terms also form new identities related to teaching. New terms form new subjects of Swedish that in time and practice will form newhabitus connected to subjects. I call it ämneskonceptionella habitus.

Energy Efficiency through Thermal Energy Storage : Possibilities for the Swedish Building Stock

The need for heating and cooling in buildings constitutes a considerable part of the total energy use in a country and reducing this need is of outmost importance in order to reach national and international goals for reducing energy use and emissions. One important way of reaching these goals is to increase the proportion of renewable energy used for heating and cooling of buildings. Perhaps the largest obstacle with this is the often occurring mismatch between the availability of renewable energy and the need for heating or cooling, hindering this energy to be used directly. This is one of the problems that can be solved by using thermal energy storage (TES) in order to save the heat or cold from when it is available to when it is needed. This thesis is focusing on the combination of TES techniques and buildings to achieve increased energy efficiency for heating and cooling. Various techniques used for TES as well as the combination of TES in buildings have been investigated and summarized through an extensive literature review. A survey of the Swedish building stock was also performed in order to define building types common in Sweden. Within the scope of this thesis, the survey resulted in the selection of three building types, two single family houses and one office building, out of which the two residential buildings were used in a simulation case study of passive TES with increased thermal mass (both sensible and latent). The second case study presented in the thesis is an evaluation of an existing seasonal borehole storage of solar heat for a residential community. In this case, real measurement data was used in the evaluation and in comparisons with earlier evaluations. The literature reviews showed that using TES opens up potential for reduced energy demand and reduced peak heating and cooling loads as well as possibilities for an increased share of renewable energy to cover the energy demand. By using passive storage through increased thermal mass of a building it is also possible to reduce variations in the indoor temperature and especially reduce excess temperatures during warm periods, which could result in avoiding active cooling in a building that would otherwise need it. The analysis of the combination of TES and building types confirmed that TES has a significant potential for increased energy efficiency in buildings but also highlighted the fact that there is still much research required before some of the technologies can become commercially available. In the simulation case study it was concluded that only a small reduction in heating demand is possible with increased thermal mass, but that the time with indoor temperatures above 24 °C can be reduced by up to 20%. The case study of the borehole storage system showed that although the storage system worked as planned, heat losses in the rest of the system as well as some problems with the system operation resulted in a lower solar fraction than projected. The work presented within this thesis has shown that TES is already used successfully for many building applications (e.g. domestic hot water stores and water tanks for storing solar heat) but that there still is much potential in further use of TES. There are, however, barriers such as a need for more research for some storage technologies as well as storage materials, especially phase change material storage and thermochemical storage.

Vår bästa tid är nu? : Om tidsuppfattning och politisk självförståelse

Our best time is now? On conception of time and political self-understanding This study regards time as a horizon for action and argues that conception of time has great implication for political self-understanding. In the study, the modern conception of time, with its orientation towards the future, is contrasted with the late modern conception of time, which is characterized by a de-legitimization of utopian thinking and by an orientation towards the present. Political action is changing, from a transformation of the present into the future, to a management of the present. In this situation the future is not perceived as something qualitatively different than present, but is, as Helga Nowotny puts it, reduced to an ‘extended present’. Or, to speak with Luhmann, the future is a ‘present future’ where only one ‘future present’ is conceivable. The future is in that sense increasingly closed. The paper argues that the current pragmatization of politics is partly due to changes in temporal representations, and suggests that more attention should be given to temporal semantics in political analysis.

En översikt av vilka faktorer som har samband med patientens upplevelse av kontinuitet i vården : En litteraturstudie

Forskning visar på att patienter önskar kontinuitet, då de upplever att det bidrar till känslan av trygghet och närhet. Det ger sjuksköterskan möjlighet att lära känna personen och en möjlighet att bättre följa upp gjorda åtgärder. Syfte Syftet med denna studie var att beskriva vilka faktorer som har samband med patientens upplevelse av kontinuitet i vården. Metod Studien har genomförts som en litteraturstudie. Resultat Resultatet visade att det var viktigt för kontinuiteten att de fick träffa en sjuksköterska som de kände sedan tidigare och att det var samma sjuksköterska vid alla vårdtillfällen. Det var även viktigt att sjuksköterskan de träffade var uppdaterad på deras medicinska historia. En viktig faktor som höjde kontinuiteten var om patienten hade en kronisk sjukdom, då de patienterna oftare kräver regelbunden uppföljning med fler besök hos vården. Patienterna upplevde större kontinuitet om vården utfördes av sjuksköterska istället för av andra vårdgivare Sjuksköterskorna var mer anpassningsbara, flexibla och tog sig mer tid med patienten. Slutsats Studien visar att kontinuitet är något som patienter upplever som viktigt när de möter vården men det saknas forskning om hur vården ska organiseras, för att kontinuiteten ska upplevas bättre ur ett patientperspektiv, balanserat mot organisationens behov av att spara tid och pengar.