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.

Portable IT devices such as laptops, smart phones and computer tablets are becoming ever more ubiquitous. At the same time, the population of the Western world is growing older, with aging bringing about changes with regards to individuals' physical and mental capabilities. These facts raises important questions about how well suited these devices are for use by elderly people. This study focuses on the cognitive aspects of the devices' usability, using the concept of mental models to analyze the users' understanding of a computer tablet. It also draws upon theory of graphical user interfaces in its analyses.

The CASA-paradigm, Computers Are Social Actors, was introduced in the book "TheMedia Equation" by Reeves and Nass. One of their experiments concluded that we tend to be polite to computers in the same way as we are to people. In this study I have replicated Reeves and Nass experiment but instead of a text-based interface I have used a virtual agentin order to find out if we are polite to the agents, or still to the computer. Two experimental setups was conducted. The two setups had a common first part that was carried out on onecomputer with one agent.

This thesis examines which function the information technology may have in thechildren's library, with the example from two library computer programmes. One is anexpert system, Hedvig, which will help children to choose and to find books, and theother is a computer game, The mysterious signs, that will teach children library user education.The main question is: What conceptions do the project-leaders, the children'slibrarians and the children have concerning the function of these two programmes in thechildren's library?The study is based upon qualitative interviews with two projects-leaders, fourlibrarians, three computer programmers and twenty-eight children.The theoretical material consists of examples on other library computer programmesfor children developed in Denmark and USA, some American studies in children'sabilities to use computerized information retrieval systems, and studies concerningchildren's relations to computers.The adult's conceptions of the computer programmes are divided into categories asfollows: Democracy, aspect of sex, complement, marketing, reading promotion,development of competence, information technology development, pedagogics, adulteducational activities, compensation and armusement, pedagogics, usefulness,effectiveness and information. These categories shall be seen as the conclusions of the thesis..

Information handling has been a key issue for different companies for a long time. Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is used to transfer different business documents from one company to another. This is done in such way that the information itself is separated from how this information is stored and handled in the companies internal systems. As different companies have different systems there is a need for a standardised format for this exchange. There is a big difference between EDI-systems based on what kind of EDI-standard is used. The most common standard in Europe is EDIFACT, but with increased interest of using the Internet for business communication there is a need for a standard that is adjusted for use over the Internet.

The report aims to investigate how well a certain type of affordable embedded single board computer can hold up against today's more expensive computers in a computer system by doing various tests on a system with the specified requirements. The system has a Raspberry Pi as the single board computer which task is to control a camera based on coordinates obtained from a server as well as capture and stream a video signal on a network.The researches were conducted to check how much network traffic a single-chip computer sent in different video formats and how much CPU utilization was required. Studies were also made to ensure the accuracy of the camera control. The researches have been experimental, where several tests have been performed and analyzed.The results show that a sufficiently good accuracy can be obtained from the camera steering unit, in which two different servos have been investigated. When the video format MJPEG and H.264 are used, the single-chip computer is able to transmit a video signal up to 1280x720 at 15 fps.

Today's technology offers a variety of opportunities to interact with the interactive systems. Human-Computer Interaction in the last decade is the area of research that has contributed the most to this development. But how is this interaction perceived? The user experience is something that is formed by the interaction between human and the computer interactive systems. The objective of this thesis is to investigate how the user experience differs depending on how one interacts with a game.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate if there are environments that use some kind of central authentication system within institutions/schools. The hypothesis is that an institution not using a form of central authentication service has more need for maintenance and as such is considered a higher cost for the organization. The gathering of data has been done through interviews with technical personal at Blekinge Tekniska Högskola and Linköpings Universitet. Based on the technical background of the authors, and the system limited to discussing Windows and UNIX operating systems, a discussion and analysis of the systems working today has been done, with emphasize on the hypothesis..

The report begins with a general inventory of possible technical faults in a hydropower plant and of possible fault indicating measurements. Then an investigation is made concerning a few different faults. Based on this investigation a choice on seal box condition and water leakage is made as problem for a more thorough examination, in which it is concluded that the turbine water leakage is larger when the turbine is put into operation. The examination ultimately results in a computer alarm for faults related to the seal box. Finally a few things are mentioned about flow measurement and pressure measurement in relation to the project as a whole..

The purpose of this study was to examine if there are gender differences in computer use among the young. Our aim was to find out in what respects boys and girls differ, if at all. The main method of investigation is a literature review. We have also made a complementary empirical study in a public library. The literature studied principally covers computer use at home and in school.

The purpose is to analyze if the students have any use of their computer education at a senior high school level or if there is a demand for them to proceed studying. Does the students background have any importance or is it their own motivation that makes the student advance to higher education.In this report we ask ourselves the question, if the students have any use of the knowledge gained at senior high school in computer studies at a higher level. Do the students have any chance for employment based on their senior high school grades in computer studies after graduation?  Do the schools that follow the senior high school guidelines within programming and databases give these students an advantage towards those that have not received the same fundamental education?The method used for the survey is a group questionnaire.  The questionnaire was distributed at one and the same time and then collected to examine the results. The survey results showed that students who seek work based only on their senior high school grades, received only a temporary position for different lengths of time.

The purpose of our study is to describe and understand whether, and if so, how social workers in school and in social services construct computer gaming adolescents as a social problem. We chose social workers who encounter adolescents with different problems. We have conducted qualitative interviews with vignettes to capture the social workers' reasoning about computer gaming adolescents and how they handle this in their work. The study shows that all social workers we interviewed had encountered adolescents with troubling computer gaming habits. In the study, all agree that computer gaming becomes a problem when it leads to deviant behaviour such as not going to school, staying up all night and so on.

Human-computer interaction is central for computer assisted development. The aim was to investigate the user experience of a new (U2) compared to an old (U1) computer system, within a cognitive psychology frame of reference. Six subjects, frequently using the system, participated in the study. It was shown that the new (U2) compared to the old system (U1) enhanced and supported more the users? system related procedures/tasks.

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The purpose with my degree project is to investigate the use of computers within the daily activity in three preschools and one preschool class. I have designed a survey that I distributed to the staff. The purpose of my work is to investigate how a number of preschool teachers and children in a few preschools and one preschool class in a medium-sized Swedish town are using the computer in their activities.My study shows that the computer is frequently used, both of the children and teachers, but also together. The children in my study are using the computer to play games, listen to music, and go into the websitewww.youtube.com, but also in order to write and count.  The teachers primarily use the computer to document, check their e-mail and listen to music.