Digital Exhaustion in relation to Video Games – The Consumer Perspective

This thesis regards exhaustion of copyright’s distribution right in intangible transfers of video games. It analyses whether, under the current law of the European Union, the phenomenon of digital exhaustion, especially in relation to games exists. The thesis analyses the consumers’ position in the market for copyright protected goods. It uses video games market as an example of the wider phenomenon of the effect of latest technological developments on consumers. The research conducted for the thesis is mostly legal dogmatic, although also comparative analysis, law and economics and law and technology methods are utilised. The thesis evaluates the effects of the most recent case law of the European Court of Justice to analyse the current state of digital exhaustion. In the analysis of effects that the existence of digital exhaustion has, the thesis uses the consumers’ point of view. The thesis introduces the current state of technology in the field of video games from a legal perspective. Furthermore the thesis analyses the effects on consumers of a scenario that no digital exhaustion exists in the future. Such scenario under the recent European case law at the moment seems realistic. The conclusion of my research is most importantly that the consumer position in the market for digital goods has deteriorated and that the probable exclusion of the exhaustion for digital goods is another piece of evidence of this development. Most importantly however, the state of affairs where no certainty prevails on whether digital exhaustion exists, creates injustice from the consumers’ point of view. Accordingly, acts by EU legislators of the Court of Justice of the European Union are required to clarify the issue.

Development of a Control System for a Tele Operated Mobile Robot

Mobile robots are capable of performing spatial displacement motions in different environments. This motions can be calculated based on sensorial data (autonomous robot) or given by an operator (tele operated robot). This thesis is focused on the latter providing the control architecture which bridges the tele operator and the robot’s locomotion system and end effectors. Such a task might prove overwhelming in cases where the robot comprises a wide variety of sensors and actuators hence a relatively new option was selected: Robot Operating System (ROS). The control system of a new robot will be sketched and tested in a simulation model using ROS together with Gazebo in order to determine the viability of such a system. The simulated model will be based on the projected shape and main features of the real machine. A stability analysis will be performed first theoretically and afterwards using the developed model. This thesis concluded that both the physical properties and the control architecture are feasible and stable settling up the ground for further work with the same robot.

Design of traction transmission and suspension systems for an omni-directional mobile robot

This project aims to design and manufacture a mobile robot with two Universal Robot UR10 mainly used indoors. In order to obtain omni-directional maneuverability, the mobile robot is constructed with Mecanum wheels. The Mecanum wheel can move in any direction with a series of rollers attached to itself. These rollers are angled at 45º about the hub’s circumference. This type of wheels can be used in both driving and steering with their any-direction property. This paper is focused on the design of traction system and suspension system, and the velocity control of Mecanum wheels in the close-loop control system. The mechanical design includes selection of bearing housing, couplers which are act as connection between shafts, motor parts, and other needed components. The 3D design software SolidWorks is utilized to assemble all the components in order to get correct tolerance. The driving shaft is designed based on assembled structure via the software as well. The design of suspension system is to compensate the assembly error of Mecanum wheels to guarantee the stability of the robot. The control system of motor drivers is realized through the Robot Operating System (ROS) on Ubuntu Linux. The purpose of inverse kinematics is to obtain the relationship among the movements of all Mecanum wheels. Via programming and interacting with the computer, the robot could move with required speed and direction.

Chassis frame design of a mobile platform equipped with robotic arms

The overall objective of the thesis is to design a robot chassis frame which is a bearing structure of a vehicle supporting all mechanical components and providing structure and stability. Various techniques and scientific principles were used to design a chassis frame.Design principles were applied throughout the process. By using Solid-Works software,virtual models was made for chassis frame. Chassis frame of overall dimension 1597* 800*950 mm3 was designed. Center of mass lieson 1/3 of the length from front wheel at height 338mm in the symmetry plane. Overall weight of the chassis frame is 80.12kg. Manufacturing drawing is also provided. Additionally,structural analysis was done in FEMAP which gives the busting result for chassis design by taking into consideration stress and deflection on different kind of loading resembling real life case. On the basis of simulated result, selected material was verified. Resulting design is expected to perform its intended function without failure. As a suggestion for further research, additional fatigue analysis and proper dynamic analysis can be conducted to make the study more robust.

Mobile applications, solution for sustainable agriculture? - Study of mAgriculture services in Kenya

During the recent years, mobile services have spread to many different sectors, including education, health and agriculture, while changing the practices in those fields. Agriculture sector is under pressure to fill the ever-crowing food demand, while suffering from lack of agriculture resources (such as water and soil) and climate change, as well as figuring how to involve young people in the agriculture sector, in order to replace aging farmers. These issues create a need to bring new sustainable solutions to the agriculture sector. This is the demand, which mobile agriculture, mAgriculture, services are trying to answer. This thesis will examine the mAgriculture services in the Kenyan market. The thesis will provide an overview of the currently available mAgriculture services, their outcome and issues with which they are struggling. The thesis will also present recommendations on how to improve currently existing services and processes behind them. Secondly, thesis will provide four ideas for new services, which would answer for the needs of the farmers. Suitable business models, regarding the new services, are also covered. The thesis focuses with the young farmers as a target group, but findings are also applicable with other potential target groups as well.

Marketing a Mobile Application in a Highly Competitive Global Marketplace

The purpose of this research was to study the marketing of mobile applications. The main objective was to find out what are the most efficient ways of marketing to increase the sales for a mobile application within a highly competitive marketplace. The marketplaces, app stores, are studied from the perspective of size, ease of entry, competition and customers and their purchasing process. The study also includes research on what are some of the main marketing methods used in mobile app marketing in general. The study consists of two parts, theoretical and empirical research. Theoretical research was done by studying past scientific research on the chosen subjects. As the subject is very new, the research was also extended to other publications from the field of mobile technology. The empirical part was done through interviews and empirical experiments with a case-company, which were used to answer the main objective of this study. These experiments showed that the chosen methods of mobile app marketing, app store optimization, localization and selected social media marketing activities, created the most sales when used together. Positive results were seen also when the activities were conducted by themselves, but together they were able to push the case company to their all time best results. However the key to succeeding and hitting high positions in the app store rankings would most likely require creating a solid marketing strategy, trying out other marketing activities alongside the ones used here, without forgetting to stay on top of mobile technology trends.

Evaluation of Machine Learning Classifiers for Mobile Network Intrusion Detection Systems

Mobile malwares are increasing with the growing number of Mobile users. Mobile malwares can perform several operations which lead to cybersecurity threats such as, stealing financial or personal information, installing malicious applications, sending premium SMS, creating backdoors, keylogging and crypto-ransomware attacks. Knowing the fact that there are many illegitimate Applications available on the App stores, most of the mobile users remain careless about the security of their Mobile devices and become the potential victim of these threats. Previous studies have shown that not every antivirus is capable of detecting all the threats; due to the fact that Mobile malwares use advance techniques to avoid detection. A Network-based IDS at the operator side will bring an extra layer of security to the subscribers and can detect many advanced threats by analyzing their traffic patterns. Machine Learning(ML) will provide the ability to these systems to detect unknown threats for which signatures are not yet known. This research is focused on the evaluation of Machine Learning classifiers in Network-based Intrusion detection systems for Mobile Networks. In this study, different techniques of Network-based intrusion detection with their advantages, disadvantages and state of the art in Hybrid solutions are discussed. Finally, a ML based NIDS is proposed which will work as a subsystem, to Network-based IDS deployed by Mobile Operators, that can help in detecting unknown threats and reducing false positives. In this research, several ML classifiers were implemented and evaluated. This study is focused on Android-based malwares, as Android is the most popular OS among users, hence most targeted by cyber criminals. Supervised ML algorithms based classifiers were built using the dataset which contained the labeled instances of relevant features. These features were extracted from the traffic generated by samples of several malware families and benign applications. These classifiers were able to detect malicious traffic patterns with the TPR upto 99.6% during Cross-validation test. Also, several experiments were conducted to detect unknown malware traffic and to detect false positives. These classifiers were able to detect unknown threats with the Accuracy of 97.5%. These classifiers could be integrated with current NIDS', which use signatures, statistical or knowledge-based techniques to detect malicious traffic. Technique to integrate the output from ML classifier with traditional NIDS is discussed and proposed for future work.

Real-time simulation of multibody systems with applications for working mobile vehicles

This dissertation describes an approach for developing a real-time simulation for working mobile vehicles based on multibody modeling. The use of multibody modeling allows comprehensive description of the constrained motion of the mechanical systems involved and permits real-time solving of the equations of motion. By carefully selecting the multibody formulation method to be used, it is possible to increase the accuracy of the multibody model while at the same time solving equations of motion in real-time. In this study, a multibody procedure based on semi-recursive and augmented Lagrangian methods for real-time dynamic simulation application is studied in detail. In the semirecursive approach, a velocity transformation matrix is introduced to describe the dependent coordinates into relative (joint) coordinates, which reduces the size of the generalized coordinates. The augmented Lagrangian method is based on usage of global coordinates and, in that method, constraints are accounted using an iterative process. A multibody system can be modelled as either rigid or flexible bodies. When using flexible bodies, the system can be described using a floating frame of reference formulation. In this method, the deformation mode needed can be obtained from the finite element model. As the finite element model typically involves large number of degrees of freedom, reduced number of deformation modes can be obtained by employing model order reduction method such as Guyan reduction, Craig-Bampton method and Krylov subspace as shown in this study The constrained motion of the working mobile vehicles is actuated by the force from the hydraulic actuator. In this study, the hydraulic system is modeled using lumped fluid theory, in which the hydraulic circuit is divided into volumes. In this approach, the pressure wave propagation in the hoses and pipes is neglected. The contact modeling is divided into two stages: contact detection and contact response. Contact detection determines when and where the contact occurs, and contact response provides the force acting at the collision point. The friction between tire and ground is modelled using the LuGre friction model, which describes the frictional force between two surfaces. Typically, the equations of motion are solved in the full matrices format, where the sparsity of the matrices is not considered. Increasing the number of bodies and constraint equations leads to the system matrices becoming large and sparse in structure. To increase the computational efficiency, a technique for solution of sparse matrices is proposed in this dissertation and its implementation demonstrated. To assess the computing efficiency, augmented Lagrangian and semi-recursive methods are implemented employing a sparse matrix technique. From the numerical example, the results show that the proposed approach is applicable and produced appropriate results within the real-time period.