In February 2002 the European commission put forward a proposal for a new directive on The patentability of computer-implemented inventions, but which during my work on this essay has not been decided on yet. The directive has divided the decision-makers in the union, the commission and parliament, into two different positions regarding by which range computer-implemented inventions should be patentable. The parliament has amended the commissions proposal in a substantial way and the legal process has caused a heated debate both within the unions administration and among various interest groups both in favour of and against a patent on computer-implemented inventions. The loudest protests have come from a group that feels threatened by a possible software patent: Open Source. In this study I examine both the arguments by the decision-makers and by the lobbying for and against the proposal.

This literature review summarizes available data on infection with the parasitic roundworm, Ascaridia galli, as a cause of disease in poultry, including the consequences of a conversion to alternative production systems. Ascaridia galli has a direct life cycle with resistant eggs that survive and are easily spread in the environment, especially in systems with bedding materials where the faecal contact is high. The infection is usually subclinical but depending on the infection dose, the symptoms range from weight loss and diarrhea to mortality. Factors such as the feed composition and genetic variation among different hybrids clearly affect the establishment rate of the infection. Ascaridia galli will probably become an increasing problem, with a shift from the traditional battery cages to alternative systems where the risk of re-infection is high.

This study highlights the importance of computer technology and its impact on elder care staff's skills development in the public sector. The government presents the digital agenda within which information and communication technology today is considered to have a potential for sustainability, growth and development. According to the EU Commission, there are several important elements that should be improved to digitize the workplace. Among these are digital literacy, collaboration between agencies and increased investments in research, education and innovation. New technology can be understood in different ways by individuals, some see the computer as something positive and exciting, while others may find it hard to see the opportunities for learning and development.

In this report a systematic working procedure for risk classification of processing equipment from a maintenance point of view is described. How this system has been worked out is also an important part of the report. The classification system is adapted for use in complex processing plants. Preemraff Göteborg has been subject for the underlying study and application of the system.The system aims to give a good overview of the maintenance related risks at the plant. Furthermore, the analysis result is a good motivation for the suggested maintenance activities and as motivation for extended or decreased maintenance resources in total.

SEP Modular Armoured Tactical System is the next generation of military vehicles developedby BAE Systems Hägglunds AB. At present time, BAE Systems Hägglunds AB aredeveloping a 6-wheel electrical hybrid and a conventional 8-wheel vehicle. The questionformulation was summarized as: ?In which ways can the electrical transmission in a hybriddriveline for SEP be designed, when the surrounding fixed interfaces are kept and the unity ofcomponents within SEP is maximized??. The purpose of this master thesis was to study avariety of concepts for hybrid propulsion.

In order to counteract and to discover unethical actions within an organisation, a growing number of Swedish companies implement a so-called whistleblowing system. The purpose of our essay is to study the mindset of companies and further analyse how this mindset affects the design and quality of companies' whistleblowing systems. To do this, we have used a qualitative approach by interviewing different Swedish companies about their mindsets and systems. The study determines that there seemingly are three different categories of systems of varying quality. In this study we have chosen to call them "internal system", "external system" and "combined system".

Nowadays, a lot of resources are spent on developing systems that will make it possible forvehicles to act autonomously, and make them more effective. One of the projects that isworking on this is the Gulliver Project. Gulliver has constructed a number of miniaturevehicles equipped with various sensors, to use as a physical testbed for autonomousdriving. One big disadvantage with this method is the long iteration time that occursduring the development and testing of a new software.This project has improved this process by developing a system architecture of a virtualtestbed where it is possible to simulate autonomus vehicles that communicates throughany type of wireless network. The testbed has made it possible to simulate autonomusvehicle systems that with a reasonable margin of error, acts like the system would actin a physical test.

Virtual Communities is an increasingly common phenomenon on the Internet. Most of the Virtual Communities are operated and maintained on a non-profit basis with a direction towards entertainment. However, as more state administrated and commercial services become web-based, we believe that the number of Virtual Communities with a community-based or commercial direction will increase in a near future. In this thesis, we describe our participation in, and studies of, a number of Virtual Communities with focus on the IRC-channel ?3dfxsweden?. On the basis of our experiences, we describe the social elements that form the foundation on which the Virtual Community rely on.

Uppsatsen behandlar hur två organisationer samarbetar och koordinerar deras kooperativa arbete med hjälp av en artefakt. De två organisationerna är Marinmuseum och Turistbyrån där deras kooperativa arbete handlar om att skapa guidade turer tillsammans. Vi har jobbat mot målgruppernas målsättningar, behov och krav för att hitta det ultimata stödet för deras verksamhet. Syftet är att förmedla förståelse för hur organisationerna idag använder artefakten i deras gemensamma arbete, baserat på intervjuer och observationer. Huvudfrågorna i vår studie har varit: Hur kan vi som utvecklare kan stödja de två olika organisationernas samarbetsmöjligheter och förbättra koordinationen i det fall då de använder denna artefakt, deras pappersbaserade bokningslista som primär informationsplats? Hur kan denna artefakt ersättas utan att tappa dess koordinations och interaktions förmågor samt flexibilitet? Studien har visat att den pappersbaserade artefakten, deras bokningslista, innefattar många positiva egenskaper som vid digitalisering måste tas hänsyn till.

Many organizations utilize decision support systems in order to handle different tasks and tosupport the decision-making process. Decision support system is a broad term used to referto several different types of systems. These types of systems can handle a wide range ofoperations within the organization. Consequently this will have an impact on differentoperations within the organization. The main aim of this study was to create a betterunderstanding regarding the impact of decision support systems on the various operationswithin the City Council's procurement units which in turn will increase effectiveness.

In this project, we are studying the material flow and the information flow of sample materials and the appurtenant report of deviation for the purpose to be able to suggest better solutions. The sample material, which is to be analysed, is to be continuously taken from the production flow. The purpose is to navigate the process by the results found by the analysis. Because of this, it's very important that both methods of analysis are ensured and that the sample material is representative for the production flow. However, even more importantly, is that activities and transportations, combined with both flows, must perform in a quick and correct way in order to maintain or improve Höganäs AB's competitive strength.According to reports are about 20 products per day not available, for loading, at the time of delivery.

The task to this thesis has been to create an application, Katana-databas 1.0, for analysing c-code. The generated output gets stored in a data structure which content in the end of the program run gets written in a textfile which gets used by Katana. It's a tool for reverse engineering, developed by Johan Kraft at Mälardalens institute.Katana-databas has got the following limitations. (1) It can only handle preprocessed files, meaning it doesn't contain any rows beginning with "#". (2) Only complete files can be handled.

Driveability analysis of terrain data offers an important technique for decision support for all kinds of movements in the terrain. The work described in this report uses a high resolution digital terrain model generated from the laser radar data and further processed by the Category Viewer program, and information from the Real Estate Map. Properties of features found in a filtering process are calculated and compared with a set of rules in a knowledge base to get a driveability cost. This cost is then visualized in a graphical user interface. An evaluation of what driveability is and what it is affected by is performed, and a general cost function is developed, which can be used even if not all relevant information is available.

This thesis work is the last part of the Master of Science education inmechanical engineering at KTH, Stockholm.The aim of this project was the development of a Multi-zone modelfor NOxformation in Diesel engines. Because of the stringent emissionlegislations, great effort is made to decrease the fuel consumption and theharmful emissions of internal combustion engines. Computer simulationsplay a decisive role in this context because they substitute the expensiveand time-consuming laboratory tests.The model is based on a multi-zone approach and uses the wellknownExtended Zeldovich Mechanism which gives a relation to calculatethe NO formation rate using the concentration of different gas speciesinvolved in the process.All the most important phenomena involved in the Diesel combustionhave been modelled. A special attention is then paid to the equilibriumconcentration calculation; this is a significant part of the model whichstrongly influences the following steps.A Simulink model has also been developed. This second version isbased on the previous model and it is made especially to allow theconnection with other external softwares, GT-power in this case.

In this Bachelor thesis I explore sound and room as elements in design of user interfaces, both theoretical and practical in a specific application domain, to identify some of the advantages and disadvantage associated with these elements. As application domain I studied email clients and their usage at home amongst students at Blekinge Institute of Technology. In the study I found an activity, which seems to be highly distributed in the physical room where the user is located. The activity was notification of email and could take place in an arbitrary location of the home. I then augmented this activity with ideas from my theoretical assumption about room and sound. The result was a rule-based agent for notification of email, which primarily uses sound as interaction style..