This thesis treats the topic of user-generated comments connected with news stories on news sites, meaning electronic word-of-mouth combined with PR. The writers have examined how different types of comments affect consumers' perception of the article and also what communication effects these comments generate in terms of attitudes, purchase intent and word-of-mouth intent. The results interesting to the news site owners, is that lots of comments and negative comments generate a negative effect by making the actual article less credible, attractive and worth reading (relative to the subsequent comments). On the positive side, serious comments imply that the news story is perceived as more interesting, than a news story followed by non-serious comments. From a brand equity perspective, the interesting results show that few comments compared to lots of comments, generate a better attitude to the brand, even though there is no difference in how positive or negative the comments are.

This project aims at investigating if the use of UML as a support to small-scale development ofan embedded system is relevant. The investigation is conducted by using UML during the initialphase of the development ofTelfafill, a filling machine by the company ?Telfafill AB?. The aimof the development of Telfafill is to separate the user interface from the control unit. In additionto this main objective, Telfafill AB would like possible changes to, and additions of,functionality of the filling machine to be investigated.Within the boundaries of this project, the development of Telfafill reached a full requirementspecification of the proposed system, and contact was made with potential external developers.No prototype construction had been started when the project ended.

In most software engineering project, users are only involved in the beginning of the project as a help to design the requirements specification but users can be involved after this phase too, but is it effective to do so? With this report we would like to investigate how effective it is to involve users after the requirements specification has been written and approved. To find out how effective it is to involve the users we try some fast and simple involvement techniques on a quite far gone project. These techniques include ethnographic studies, prototypes and surveys. We also interviewed a couple of people who work with usability and finally delivered a report with our results to them to find out if they found our result relevant.

A degree project has been carried out at Motion Control, Västerås. The degreeproject ?Grafisk Skärm för Inbyggda System? have developed a first prototype of anembedded system with a display, a graphical user interface with touchscreen andpossibilities to communicate with external units.The work initiated with surveys of critical components. A technical specification forthe desired end product was developed. With the technical specification as support,design specifications for hardware and firmware were developed.After the specifications were done, a circuit diagram was developed and a circuitboard was made.

Ocean Modules Sweden AB is a small business active in the field of underwater technology. Thecompany was contacted by the Swedish Defense Materiel Administration (FMV) in order todevelop a new system that would conform to their specific requirements. Two students at theRoyal Institute of Technology (KTH) were consulted in conjunction of this project in order to aidthe development and conceptual design of the system.The primary users of the system are the divers of the Explosive Ordnance Disposal division (EOD)- a branch of the Swedish Armed Forces. The purpose of the product was to incorporate allnecessary functions required by the EOD divers into one single system. The main functions arecommunication between the surface operator and diver, video recording, still imaging, positioning,navigation and ocean floor mapping with sonar.

This exam paper has been a collaboration between the writers and SYSteam Utvecklingspartner in Huskvarna. The assignment was about finding a need for a mobile application, making a requirement specification document with design documents and parallel to this constructing a prototype. The assignment is summarized in the following questions:? How can companies in the forest industry benefit from mobile information technology?? How can a user centered perspective be used in the process of making the requirement specification document and the design documents?? How do guidelines for usability apply to a mobile application?Three visits to companies in the forest industry were made to find a need for mobile information technology solutions. After a small analysis of the different companies? problems and conditions the decision was to use Tenhults Impregneringsverk AB in the case study.We used the FA/SIM method in our job of finding the organization needs for change and the principles of User Centered Design in the work of constructing a prototype.The result of our work is a requirement specification with design documents and a prototype.

Purpose of the thesis is to construct a tool for car wheel change. Car wheels can be heavy and hard to handle and therefore the company Movomech intends to develop a tool that makes wheel change easier. Movomech does not have any similar product and because of this the work was condition less.The intended users of the product is tire workshops and there for the work began with investigation of these. The reason of the investigation was to see how wheel change is done and how tire workshops are planed. The tire workshops? crew?s opinions were also considered and above all one important conclusion was made.

Atlas Copco Tools develops and manufactures handheld industrial tools. Heat and surface treatments are used to provide the tools with certain properties. There are no routines for the choice of treatment or for how to specify treatment on drawings. Production documents that are sent for production abroad may not be clear enough. Some treatments are known as trademarks and there are no instructions for how to specify these on drawings and in CAD-models.The purpose of this master thesis work is to create recommendations for the procedure of choosing heat and surface treatment.

This thesis describes a further development of an existing prototype named Automatic pin bone remover. The further development was requested from the Swedish consulting firm ATM AB. The request of automatic pin bone removers is high and has the potential to be a worldwide leading product.The goal with the thesis work is to further develop an existing prototype. In order to achieve the goal a pre-study of the prototype had to be made in order to define a customer demand specification. The thesis work is then continued by a function analysis which differs from a conservative one.

Kitron had wishes to be able to test and measure how disturbance affects their vehicle electronic units before they have been verified by SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden in Borås. This work started with the writing of a demand specification together with Kitron for a product PSQS, Power Supply Quality Simulator, which can generate some test pulses according to a standard for electronic units to Volvos vehicles. A design proposal was developed with the help the demand specification and was verified with the help of simulations. All electric schematics was designed with the guide of the design proposal. The pulses realized in the works of this thesis are those which Kitron experienced that they have a need to test in their own premises and which are possible to generate with the means available.

This report aims to examine the design of a passive house. The design addresses the selection ofmaterial, sizing and selection of both building services systems and building technical features suchas load-bearing framework and moisture control. Interior layout is designed for a family of twoadults and one child.A big part of the report is devoted to an in-depth comparison of three different wall constructions ofpassive house standard. The structures that have been compared are a lightweight timber structure, aheavier concrete structure and a sandwich wall of the brand Weber Leca. The report covers variousaspects such as air flow, wall thickness, the risks associated with the construction, U-value, thermalbridges, power consumption, price, and assembly costs.

This report aims to examine the design of a passive house. The design addresses the selection ofmaterial, sizing and selection of both building services systems and building technical features suchas load-bearing framework and moisture control. Interior layout is designed for a family of twoadults and one child.A big part of the report is devoted to an in-depth comparison of three different wall constructions ofpassive house standard. The structures that have been compared are a lightweight timber structure, aheavier concrete structure and a sandwich wall of the brand Weber Leca. The report covers variousaspects such as air flow, wall thickness, the risks associated with the construction, U-value, thermalbridges, power consumption, price, and assembly costs.

This report aims to examine the design of a passive house. The design addresses the selection ofmaterial, sizing and selection of both building services systems and building technical features suchas load-bearing framework and moisture control. Interior layout is designed for a family of twoadults and one child.A big part of the report is devoted to an in-depth comparison of three different wall constructions ofpassive house standard. The structures that have been compared are a lightweight timber structure, aheavier concrete structure and a sandwich wall of the brand Weber Leca. The report covers variousaspects such as air flow, wall thickness, the risks associated with the construction, U-value, thermalbridges, power consumption, price, and assembly costs.

The aim of this thesis is to examine interactivity in the context of performance-based interactive art. The questions asked are: what are the conditions of interactivity, how interactivity happens, and what artistic results it may yield. The method is an analysis based on close studies of three performance-based interactive artworks by applying theories of interactivity, audience participation, and collaboration.First, current theories are outlined, after which, the three artworks are introduced in detail. Next, the artworks are examined, thematically rather than individually, expanding on parameters such as the degree of artistic direction of the artwork, the degree of agency allowed to the spectator in their interaction with the work, and the idea of the ?passive? spectator as being ?activated? by interactive art.

In most software engineering project, users are only involved in the beginning of the project as a help to design the requirements specification but users can be involved after this phase too, but is it effective to do so? With this report we would like to investigate how effective it is to involve users after the requirements specification has been written and approved. To find out how effective it is to involve the users we try some fast and simple involvement techniques on a quite far gone project. These techniques include ethnographic studies, prototypes and surveys. We also interviewed a couple of people who work with usability and finally delivered a report with our results to them to find out if they found our result relevant. By also documenting how much time we spent involving users we will show to which degree user involvement is effective. We found out that a couple of fast techniques could get very much result in the form of usability enhancing suggestions to the developers.