Embedded Systems Lab at Umeå University is currently part of a research project with the purpose to examine the behavior of dairy cows inside a barn. Each cow needs to be tracked with a precision of 50 cm, and since GPS-technique has poor functionality at indoor environments, an indoor positioning system needs to be developed.Embedded Systems Lab has already developed an indoor positioning system using IR-light and radio, but since this system demands extensive infrastructure and is rather expensive, an alternate positioning system using ultrasonic pulses and radio is being examined.In this report the range, beam angle and current consumption of ultrasonic transmitters- and receivers are investigated. Three different driver stages for the transmitter is tested, and two amplifier solutions for the receiver. The report also describes how the length of the transmitted ultrasonic pulse affects the received signal, accessibility of a ?shadowed? signal, and the effect of different sound frequency..

There are several methods and models within the areas of software engineering on how to proceed during a software development process. For each of these methods and models there are benefits and drawbacks, depending on how you choose to look at them. A difference of principle between the different models is that they either advocate iterative development or not. In parts of software engineering one makes use of different methods depending on which is most fitting in a specific situation. There are several methods on how to recieve more qualitative data from the end-users during the requirement collection, but the reappearing pattern is still user centric participation, which means that the user participates more actively in part of or the entire development process.

When managing the quality of a service producing industry?s products, the industry faces greater challenges than the manufacturing industries do. Today?s globalization puts further pressure on service producing companies around the world to work at their absolute maximum. So, how do service producing companies work to manage quality? In this essay the writers take a deeper look at the travel agency Ving, part of My Travel Northern Europe.

When managing the quality of a service producing industry?s products, the industry faces greater challenges than the manufacturing industries do. Today?s globalization puts further pressure on service producing companies around the world to work at their absolute maximum. So, how do service producing companies work to manage quality? In this essay the writers take a deeper look at the travel agency Ving, part of My Travel Northern Europe.

The society of consumption exposes us to a lot of information, where advertisement constitutes an extensive part. Due to its expanding, advertisement receives a natural and obvious space in our everyday life. This study aims to investigate how social and cultural values can be mediated in advertisement. The focus has been put to ideas related to health and fitness in the advertisement of power drinks. The thesis takes social constructionism as a starting point, and combines image- and critical discourse analysis in purpose to analyze the pictures.Sociology of consumption, construction of identity, lifestyle and everyday life all constitute an essential part of my analysis.

The aim of the study was to evaluate parents and course directors?experiences of the AKKTIV ComAlong-course (Augmentative and AlternativeCommunication ? Early Intervention). ComAlong targets parents of pre-schoolchildren with extensive communication difficulties and aims to give parentsknowledge about different aspects of communication, communication developmentand AAC. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used. Individualinterviews and pair-interviews with totally nine persons were performed and 54course questionnaires filled in by parents were evaluated.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how children search for and choose picture books while visiting the library together in a preschool group. How do children interact with each other and their teacher while searching for picture books? Which aspects of children's everyday lives are apparent in their choice of picture books? The theoretical frame of reference consists of Brenda Dervin's sense-making approach to information seeking and William Corsaro's sociological approach to studying children's routine activities within a peer culture. To capture children's interaction, we have observed a preschool group consisting of six 3- to 5-year olds and their teacher in a library setting during three visits. Our study shows that children's search for picture books is a social activity that involves various verbal and nonverbal strategies in order to include and exclude each other when they find a picture book that interests them.

My essay deals with a problem in our society which, in my opinion, has been neglected. Even today in 2011, the quality of schools and preschools is extremely varied. This has been a problem for a long time and not nearly enough attention has been paid to it.In my essay I have tried to understand what it is that causes these differences in quality between preschools. With help from literature and research studies I have examined what quality in preschool really means.My starting point is an account of my own experience at the preschool where I currently work and a description of a study visit I made to another preschool which operates in a very different way to the one where I work. I wanted to investigate what the consequences are for children who grow up attending preschools of different quality.

The need of knowledge revolving first-time father experiences, feelings and thoughts is extensive and insight and knowledge about his emotional life in conjunction with being a dad is equally important. The purpose with this study is to investigate how men, that recently became a first-time father, manages and experience the first time with his child. We used a narrative method and interviewed seven fathers as we conducted our qualitative interview study. All the fathers went through life changes. No one talked about sacrifices, but noted rather that their lives were to become different.

Sweden has a long and extensive wind band tradition. Today the interest for the traditional instruments is decreasing among children and teenagers. What can this be due to? Which conditions are needed for a functional wind band in the future? The purpose of this essay is to find answers to these questions and at the same time shed light on good examples, where the wind band activity works. To be able to answer the questions have I made four interviews with persons who have a big knowledge and interest about the subject.

This study investigates how consumer attitudes toward a company are affected by the company?s Corporate Social Responsibility work and their marketing efforts thereof. The Swedish fast food chain ?Max? provides the empirical setting. The theoretical framework for the study is based on Vanhamme and Grobben?s (2009) model regarding CSR?s effect on a company?s reputation, which is connected to perceptions? effect on attitude based on Fishbein and Ajzen?s (1975) theory.

This thesis was performed as assignment from Fazer Food Services. The aim was to survey which food additives that were present in the products in the quotation list of one of their suppliers to the Education and Nursing segment. The aim also was to perform a theoretical analysis of these food additives and to make recommendations which food additives are acceptable and which should be excluded from the products in the future. The recommendations are not published in this report, for more information Fazer Food Services can be contacted. Food additives which have already been approved are regarded as safe according to the safety evaluation methods available at the time of approval.

The absence of female directors on Swedish corporate boards is currently a hot topic for both politicians and business leaders all over the world. This thesis aims to discuss reasons for the scarcity of women on boards in Swedish publicly listed companies as well as what actions are taken to alter the composition of these boards. A rigorous selection of gender theories have been used together with data collected from in-depth interviews with mainly board members and nomination committees. Extensive analysis has led to findings that historical perceptions of differences between men and women linger as of today, which prevents women to reach top executive levels as well as board positions. The increasing use of headhunters has encouraged companies to look beyond male-dominated networks in an attempt to widen the range of potential board nominees.

Dyslexia is a disability faced by an extensive amount of students in the current educational system. No medical alternatives have been found to improve the cognitive processing challenges presented with dyslexia. Therefore today?s educators are required to make instructional adjustments in their schooling, to ensure dyslexic students an academic future. The purpose of this qualitative study was, firstly, to discover how teachers work with dyslexic students, and secondly, to find out which practices are being used in this field.

The purpose of this study is the reports of Peak Oil in Swedish newspapers. In otherwords, how do the news portray or describe the concept and what sources are usedwhen writing articles. With this in mind, I have studied eight published articles in threeSwedish newspapers, Dagens Nyheter, Dagens Industri and Svenska Dagbladet. To studythese articles I've used a qualitative content analysis, as a method, or more specific aCritical Discourse Analysis (CDA). This method was chosen due to it's tools to examinethe text itself and to reveal the structures, unconscious meaning and power of words.Further more I have used theories as agenda-setting (including framing and priming),ideology and newsworthiness to complement the study.The result from the content analysis shows two evident ideologies, one with aneconomic perspective and the other with an environment perspective ? with resourcelimitation in mind.