Bibliographic analysis of persuasive systems: techniques, methods and domains of application

This paper presents findings of our study on peer-reviewed papers published in the International Conference on Persuasive Technology from 2006 to 2010. The study indicated that out of 44 systems reviewed, 23 were reported to be successful, 2 to be unsuccessful and 19 did not specify whether or not it was successful. 56 different techniques were mentioned and it was observed that most designers use ad hoc definitions for techniques or methods used in design. Hence we propose the need for research to establish unambiguous definitions of techniques and methods in the field.

Energy Efficient Buildings with Functional Steel Cladding

The aim of the study is to develop a model for the energy balance of buildings that includes the effect from the radiation properties of interior and exterior surfaces of the building envelope. As a first step we have used ice arenas as case study objects to investigate the importance of interior low emissivity surfaces. Measurements have been done in two ice arenas in the north part of Sweden, one with lower and one with higher ceiling emissivity. The results show that the low emissivity ceiling gives a much lower radiation temperature interacting with the ice under similar conditions. The dynamic modelling of the roof in ice arenas shows a similar dependence of the roof-to-ice heat flux and the ceiling emissivity.A second part of the study focus on how to realise paints with very low thermal emissivity to be used on interior building surfaces.

Ett praktikperspektiv på hantering av mjukvarukomponenter

Avhandlingen har resulterat i en praktikteori (verksamhetsteori). En sådan teori har betydelse i det praktiska arbetet att utvärdera och utveckla verksamheter där komponentbaserad systemutveckling bedrivs. I avhandlingen presenteras hur en intern IT-verksamhet kan bedrivas för att möta nya krav på effektivitet, förändringsbarhet, kvalitet och säkerhet.

The facial affective scale as a predictor for pain unpleasantness when children undergo immunizations.

Needle fear is a common problem in children undergoing immunization. To ensure that the individual child's needs are met during a painful procedure it would be beneficial to be able to predict whether there is a need for extra support. The self-reporting instrument facial affective scale (FAS) could have potential for this purpose. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether the FAS can predict pain unpleasantness in girls undergoing immunization. Girls, aged 11-12 years, reported their expected pain unpleasantness on the FAS at least two weeks before and then experienced pain unpleasantness immediately before each vaccination. The experienced pain unpleasantness during the vaccination was also reported immediately after each immunization. The level of anxiety was similarly assessed during each vaccination and supplemented with stress measures in relation to the procedure in order to assess and evaluate concurrent validity. The results show that the FAS is valid to predict pain unpleasantness in 11-12-year-old girls who undergo immunizations and that it has the potential to be a feasible instrument to identify children who are in need of extra support to cope with immunization. In conclusion, the FAS measurement can facilitate caring interventions.

Relative durations of post-vocalic consonants in readaloud Spanish by native Swedish L2-learners

Prosody is said to be a persistent feature in foreign accents, particularly in the speech of adult learners. Native Swedish speakers have been reported to lengthen vowels in Spanish as well as post-vocalic consonants in English and German, more than native speakers of the respective languages. The aim of the present study is to examine whether native Swedish learners of Spanish produce increased postvocalic consonant durations in a reading aloud exercise. The text contains certain words that could be expected to trigger complementary consonant lengthening in native Swedish speakers. The result shows that there is no general tendency for native Swedes to lengthen post-vocalic consonants more than native speakers of Spanish in the present speech material. There are examples of longer consonant durations in the speech of the native,Swedish subjects, but it could be a coincidence. A conclusion is that the text used in the study, and probably Spanish as a language, contains few words that are ideal for triggering lengthening of post-vocalic consonants in native Swedish speakers.

Systemutveckling för riskbaserad tillsyn : Hur verksamhetsanalys på praktikteoretisk grund kan användas för kravfångst

Denna studie har utförts vid en myndighet som bedriver statlig tillsyn över det svenska järnvägssystemet. När myndigheten beslutade att deras tillsyn skulle vara riskbaserad uppstod behov att se över och eventuellt förändra myndighetens verksamhetsprocesser utifrån ett riskbaserat synsätt. Arbetet med denna licentiatavhandling, som har skett i form av praktikforskning, har sin grund i två förändringsprojekt som var starkt påverkade av den bärande idén om riskbaserad tillsyn. Av denna anledning fanns ett behov att karaktärisera riskbaserad tillsyn. Detta skedde med hjälp av verksamhetsanalys på praktikteoretisk grund vars resultat formulerades i en verksamhetsteori för riskbaserad tillsyn. På ett övergripande plan handlar riskbaserad tillsyn om att integrera riskhantering i myndighetens tillsynsprocesser. Denna licentiatavhandling är skriven inom ämnet informationssystemsutveckling och det problem som undersöks är hur man kan fånga kraven på ett verksamhetsstödjande informationssystem med hjälp av en verksamhetsanalys på praktikteoretisk grund. Tesen för arbetet är att de krav som identifieras i en verksamhetsanalys på praktikteoretisk grund bör kunna användas i det fortsatta kravarbetet. Därför är spårbarhet mellan verksamhetsanalysens dokumentation och den fortsatta kravhanteringen i ett systemutvecklingsprojekt en viktig egenskap. Spårbarheten undersöks genom att två av myndighetens utvecklingsprojekt som var inriktade på att utveckla både verksamheten och nya informationssystem analyseras. Att uppnå spårbarhet är en del av tillvägagångssättet när informationssystem utvecklas. I denna licentiatavhandling beskrivs tillvägagångssättet utifrån tre metodegenskaper: arbetssätt (vilka frågor som ställs), notation (hur kraven dokumenteras) och arbetsformer (vilka tekniker för datainsamling som används). Det är alltså inte bara spårbarhet (som ingår i metodegenskapen notation) som är intressant att studera närmare utan hela tillvägagångssättet i verksamhetsanalysen. Studien har bedrivits i form av praktikforskning och det innebär att tre bidrag har producerats: 1) ett bidrag till den lokala praktiken, dvs. till myndigheten; 2) ett bidrag till den generella praktiken, dvs. till andra verksamheter som bedriver statlig tillsyn men även praktiker som arbetar med verksamhets- respektive systemutveckling inkluderas i den generella praktiken; samt 3) ett bidrag till akademin. Bidraget till den lokala praktiken är genomförandet av utvecklingsprojekten och deras resultat. Bidraget till den generella praktiken inom verksamhetsutveckling är verksamhetsanalysen som resulterar i en verksamhetsteori för riskbaserad tillsyn. Bidraget till praktiker inom systemutveckling är kravanalysen som visar hur en verksamhetsanalys på praktikteoretisk grund kan användas för att fånga krav på ett verksamhetsstödjande informationssystem. Kravanalysen öppnar även för möjligheter att söka efter krav på ett informationssystem utan att verksamhetsanalysen fokuserar informationssystemet. Bidraget till akademin består också av kravanalysen som med hjälp av fyra kravkategorier härleder spårbarhet mellan verksamhetsteorin för riskbaserad tillsyn och kravdokumentation från de studerade projekten. Det andra bidraget till akademin är ett önskvärt tillvägagångssätt för att genomföra en praktikteoretisk verksamhetsanalys för riskbaserad tillsyn.

Användare och utvecklare : om anveckling med kalkylprogram

I avhandlingen behandlas förutsättningar och effekter av kalkylprogramanveckling (KPA). KPA utförs av anvecklare, som fungerar både som användare och utvecklare. Anvecklare har djup verksamhetskunskap och viss verktygskunskap. Systemet, som anvecklaren utvecklar med kalkylprogram, kallas kalkylsystem. Den grundläggande forskningsfrågan i avhandlingen är: "Vilka nya möjligheter får användare att utföra arbetsuppgifter då de själva kan bygga informationssystem?" Avhandlingens syfte är att formulera en begreppsmodell över vilka förutsättningar och effekter, som gäller för kalkylprogramanveckling. Avhandlingens strategi kan sägas vara kvalitativ, hermeneutisk, abduktiv och empirinära. Fyra empiriska studier har genomförts. Empiri har i stor utsträckning styrt studier av relaterad teori. Den praktikgeneriska modellen har använts som referensmodell i avhandlingen, vilket har lett till ett synsätt, som innebär att när anvecklaren anvecklar, agerar han i minst två praktiker, utvecklarpraktiken och huvudpraktiken. Varje praktik har sin uppsättning av förutsättningar, t ex kunskap, normer och verktyg. Den integrerade karaktären på anveckling, gör interaktivitet i utvecklingsarbetet möjlig, vilket i sin tur innebär att anvecklaren snabbt kan växla mellan utveckling och användning. Ökad verktygskunskap kan innebära att anvecklaren ökar sin verksamhetskunskap. Då anvecklarens verksamhetskunskap ökar, ökar möjligheterna att analysera och ifrågasätta verksamheten. Anveckling innebär också att hänsyn kan tas till svårformaliserbara mål och normer, samt att formalisering av tyst kunskap möjliggörs. Anveckling i en miljö med lokala nätverk förenklar möjligheterna att distribuera kalkylsystem för granskning och verifiering. Kalkylsystemets transparens underlättar analys och diskussion. I avhandlingen diskuteras anveckling som ett sätt att hantera kontinuerlig omvärldsförändring på ett sätt som kan innebära omprövning av normer i verksamheten. Då anveckling betraktas som en form av systemutveckling, skiljer sig anveckling starkt från traditionell systemutveckling i och med att anveckling kännetecknas av integration, medan traditionell systemutveckling kännetecknas av specialisering. 

Wear of coated and uncoated PCBN cutting tool used in turning and milling

This licentiate thesis has the main focus on evaluation of the wear of coated and uncoated polycrystalline cubic boron nitride cutting tool used in cutting operations against hardened steel. And to exam the surface finish and integrity of the work material used. Harder work material, higher cutting speed and cost reductions result in the development of harder and more wear resistance cutting tools. Although PCBN cutting tools have been used in over 30 years, little work have been done on PVD coated PCBN cutting tools. Therefore hard turning and hard milling experiments with PVD coated and uncoated cutting tools have been performed and evaluated. The coatings used in the present study are TiSiN and TiAlN. The wear scar and surface integrity have been examined with help of several different characterization techniques, for example scanning electron microscopy and Auger electron spectroscopy.   The results showed that the PCBN cutting tools used displayed crater wear, flank wear and edge micro chipping. While the influence of the coating on the crater and flank wear was very small and the coating showed a high tendency to spalling. Scratch testing of coated PCBN showed that, the TiAlN coating resulted in major adhesive fractures. This displays the importance of understanding the effect of different types of lapping/grinding processes in the pre-treatment of hard and super hard substrate materials and the amount and type of damage that they can create. For the cutting tools used in turning, patches of a adhered layer, mainly consisting of FexOy were shown at both the crater and flank. And for the cutting tools used in milling a tribofilm consisting of SixOy covered the crater. A combination of tribochemical reactions, adhesive wear and mild abrasive wear is believed to control the flank and crater wear of the PCBN cutting tools. On a microscopic scale the difference phases of the PCBN cutting tool used in turning showed different wear characteristics. The machined surface of the work material showed a smooth surface with a Ra-value in the range of 100-200 nm for the turned surface and 100-150 nm for the milled surface. With increasing crater and flank wear in combination with edge chipping the machined surface becomes rougher and showed a higher Ra-value. For the cutting tools used in milling the tendency to micro edge chipping was significant higher when milling the tools steels showing a higher hard phase content and a lower heat conductivity resulting in higher mechanical and thermal stresses at the cutting edge.

Radiation properties of coil-coated steel in building envelope surfaces and the influence on building thermal performance

Recent studies have shown that the optical properties of building exterior surfaces are important in terms of energy use and thermal comfort. While the majority of the studies are related to exterior surfaces, the radiation properties of interior surfaces are less thoroughly investigated. Development in the coil-coating industries has now made it possible to allocate different optical properties for both exterior and interior surfaces of steel-clad buildings. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the influence of surface radiation properties with the focus on the thermal emittance of the interior surfaces, the modeling approaches and their consequences in the context of the building energy performance and indoor thermal environment. The study consists of both numerical and experimental investigations. The experimental investigations include parallel field measurements on three similar test cabins with different interior and exterior surface radiation properties in Borlänge, Sweden, and two ice rink arenas with normal and low emissive ceiling in Luleå, Sweden. The numerical methods include comparative simulations by the use of dynamic heat flux models, Building Energy Simulation (BES), Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and a coupled model for BES and CFD. Several parametric studies and thermal performance analyses were carried out in combination with the different numerical methods. The parallel field measurements on the test cabins include the air, surface and radiation temperatures and energy use during passive and active (heating and cooling) measurements. Both measurement and comparative simulation results indicate an improvement in the indoor thermal environment when the interior surfaces have low emittance. In the ice rink arenas, surface and radiation temperature measurements indicate a considerable reduction in the ceiling-to-ice radiation by the use of low emittance surfaces, in agreement with a ceiling-toice radiation model using schematic dynamic heat flux calculations. The measurements in the test cabins indicate that the use of low emittance surfaces can increase the vertical indoor air temperature gradients depending on the time of day and outdoor conditions. This is in agreement with the transient CFD simulations having the boundary condition assigned on the exterior surfaces. The sensitivity analyses have been performed under different outdoor conditions and surface thermal radiation properties. The spatially resolved simulations indicate an increase in the air and surface temperature gradients by the use of low emittance coatings. This can allow for lower air temperature at the occupied zone during the summer. The combined effect of interior and exterior reflective coatings in terms of energy use has been investigated by the use of building energy simulation for different climates and internal heat loads. The results indicate possible energy savings by the smart choice of optical properties on interior and exterior surfaces of the building. Overall, it is concluded that the interior reflective coatings can contribute to building energy savings and improvement of the indoor thermal environment. This can be numerically investigated by the choice of appropriate models with respect to the level of detail and computational load. This thesis includes comparative simulations at different levels of detail.

Children's recall of words spoken in their first and second language : Effects of Signal-to-Noise Ratio and Reverberation Time

Speech perception runs smoothly and automatically when there is silence in the background, but when the speech signal is degraded by background noise or by reverberation, effortful cognitive processing is needed to compensate for the signal distortion. Previous research has typically investigated the effects of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and reverberation time in isolation, whilst few have looked at their interaction. In this study, we probed how reverberation time and SNR influence recall of words presented in participants' first- (L1) and second-language (L2). A total of 72 children (10 years old) participated in this study. The to-be-recalled wordlists were played back with two different reverberation times (0.3 and 1.2 s) crossed with two different SNRs (+3 dBA and +12 dBA). Children recalled fewer words when the spoken words were presented in L2 in comparison with recall of spoken words presented in L1. Words that were presented with a high SNR (+12 dBA) improved recall compared to a low SNR (+3 dBA). Reverberation time interacted with SNR to the effect that at +12 dB the shorter reverberation time improved recall, but at +3 dB it impaired recall. The effects of the physical sound variables (SNR and reverberation time) did not interact with language. © 2016 Hurtig, Keus van de Poll, Pekkola, Hygge, Ljung and Sörqvist.

Internet-Based Treatments - Experiences from Sweden. An Interview with Gerhard Andersson

Worldwide, Gerhard Andersson is one of the most influential researchers working on internet-based psychological treatments. Moreover, he is also one of the leading researchers in the field of psychologically oriented tinnitus research. He is full professor of clinical psychology at Linköping University and affiliated professor at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Section Psychiatry. Professor Andersson has been highly productive, having produced more the 300 scientific papers. During his whole career he has worked part-time with patients. Apart from his own research and clinical work, Professor Andersson has editorial responsibilities for several journals including Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Plos One, BMC Psychiatry, and Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. The interview was conducted by Professor Thomas Berger.

Global analysis of standard prolog programs

Abstract interpretation-based data-flow analysis of logic programs is, at this point, relatively well understood from the point of view of general frameworks and abstract domains. On the other hand, comparatively little attention has been given to the problems which arise when analysis of a full, practical dialect of the Prolog language is attempted, and only few solutions to these problems have been proposed to date. Existing proposals generally restrict in one way or another the classes of programs which can be analyzed. This paper attempts to fill this gap by considering a full dialect of Prolog, essentially the recent ISO standard, pointing out the problems that may arise in the analysis of such a dialect, and proposing a combination of known and novel solutions that together allow the correct analysis of arbitrary programs which use the full power of the language.

On the role of semantic approximations in validation and diagnosis of constraint logic programs

Abstract is not available.