Background: Bone anchored hearing system is a surgically implantable system for treatment ofindividuals with hearing loss. The Softband is intended for patients who can benefit from a boneanchored hearing system but who are not yet suitable for implant surgery.Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate whether an adhesive bone conductor, Adjoin, canbe used as an alternative to Softband.Material and Method: Twenty adult subjects with normal hearing participated in the study.Measurement of functional gain and speech intelligibility was performed with Softband and Adjoinwhich then were compared. A questionnaire was answered by the participants after the measurementsthat treated their subjective experiences with each option.Results: The objective measurements yielded no overall difference between Softband and Adjoin forthe group studied. The subjective results showed differences in the perceived comfort as well as whichof the two bone conductors that would be preferred to use in everyday life, with Adjoin being thepreferred option. No difference was detected on participants perceived gain, sound quality and speechintelligibility.Conclusion: Based on the measured results, Adjoin seems to be a suitable alternative to Softband.However, there are questions about how Adjoin works with long-term use..

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the two new phenomena; the pricing model Pay-What-You-Want (PWYW) and the launch of daily newspapers in the iPad. A quantitative study was conducted in order to examine what would happen if the PWYW-model where to be used by a daily newspaper for its iPad product, and what this would signal to consumers about the brand in terms of brand association and brand attitude. Furthermore, we have investigated which of these factors that are affecting willingness to pay in this PWYW-situation. Moreover, a secondary purpose was to test the two possible presentations of the digital newspaper in the iPad; Product and Access ? and how the results differed between these two.

This master thesis includes a description of how a number of sensors are put together in a sensor platform. It also gives a description of how localization and mapping has been performed with data collected from the sensor platform. Localization is a prerequisite for most of the tasks that can be requested from an autonomous mobile robot. In many situations the GPS signal is not available and hence an additional localization system is required. One approach is to apply localization based on landmarks extracted from the robots surrounding.

Examensarbetet har genomförts med utveckling och undersökning av signalbehandlingsalgoritmer för MEMS-gyron. Idag används många MEMS-gyron i olika elektronikprodukter. Företaget Motion Control utvecklar elektronik och inbyggd programvara och de har bland annat tagit fram MultiPos, som är en huvudmus för rörelsehindrade. MultiPos är en MEMS-gyro-baserad datormus. MEMS-gyron används för att känna av huvudrörelser som användaren gör, men det är önskvärt med en bättre signalbehandling, d.v.s.

Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka mödrars upplevelser av hur överföring mellan mor och dotter kan se ut gällande kroppsuppfattning och utseende, samt hur överföringen kunde påverkas genom medvetna val i mödrars eget förhållningssätt till sina kroppar. Tidigare forskningsresultat visade att moderns förhållningssätt till den egna kroppen i relation till kost och motion påverkade döttrarnas ätbeteende. De teoretiska utgångspunkterna var Bowlbys teorier kring anknytning, Meads den generaliserade och signifikante andre, Bourdieus begrepp hexis samt Chodorows teorier om modersfunktionen. Fem intervjuer med mödrar, i åldern 35-45 år genomfördes. Samtliga intervjuer spelades in för att senare transkriberas.

Ett program som simulerar signalbehandlingen i ett cochleaimplantat med signalbehandlingsstrategin ACE (Advanced Combined Encoder) har konstruerats. Programmets främsta syfte är att i förväg prova ut inställningar i ett cochleaimplantat och genom detta försöka förutsäga olika användares individuella inställningar. Programmet har validerats med utsignaler bearbetade av Cochlear Limited i deras egenkonstruerade Matlab-modul för forskning inom cochleaimplantat, NMT (Nucleus Matlab Toolbox). Samma insignal som använts av Cochlear Limited har processats av programmet och utsignalerna från detta jämfördes med utsignalerna från NMT. De bägge utsignalerna, producerade med samma inställningar, stämde bra överens. Komprimeringsfunktionen i programmet, som är en vital del av signalbehandlingen, visade sig stämma bra överens med NMT:s komprimeringsfunktion, sånär som på en relativ minskning av värdet vid starka insignaler. Programmet ska nu användas på Cochleaimplantat-sektionen vid Uppsala Akademiska sjukhus för att pröva ut individuella inställningar till användare av cochleaimplantat.

The relational database model was defined in the 1970?s and is the dominating database type today.  The main difference between data from a relational database and a hierarchical data structure is that the relational database stores records in tables. The records have no particular order, but can include links in terms of relationships with other records. A hierarchical structure organizes data in the form of a tree structure  and  can for an example be found in organizational structures in which different levels involves different responsibilities. If the data stored in a relational database is to be presented in a hierarchically, a conversion of the data structure is required. The intention of this paper is to describe how such a conversion can be performed.  To investigate the conversion methods, case studies has been conducted on the basis of a specific organization?s hierarchical structure.

The aim of this study was to investigate whether a direct shift inpostural alignment results in changes in voice source characteristics. Ninemales with untrained voices were recorded standing in ideal posturalalignment and in the deviant postures swayback and kyphosis characterizedby extended hips and a slump back respectively. The voice source wasderived from the audio signal by inverse filtering. The parameters pulseamplitude, maximal flow declination rate, level difference between the firstand second voice source partials, closed quotient and the normalizedamplitude quotient in relation to subglottal pressure were compared betweenideal postural alignment and swayback and kyphosis respectively. Resultsindicate an impact of changed postural alignment on the voice source.Swayback posture gave significantly less pulse amplitude and maximal flowdeclination rate and significantly higher subglottal pressures thus resulting ina less effective phonation.

This Masters thesis work describes a comparison between two different methods for estimation of the down channel (base station to mobile subscriber) in Wide-band Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA). The first estimation method, Optimal Feed-forward Channel Estimation (OFCE), is a conventional method that bases the estimates on data that is known to both sender and receiver, so called pilots. The second method, Decision Directed Channel Estimation (DDCE), is an elaboration of OFCE. It also uses user data for estimation. Simulations show that DDCE, in comparison to OFCE, does not attain an improvement in signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) for high bit error rates (BER).

The relation between LIS and physical bibliography is examined primarily through an analysis of such LIS literature as applies physical bibliography in research or otherwise discusses its relevance to information studies. Quite a number of scholars are stressing the usefulness of this bibliographical tradition, even though its position in LIS agenda as a whole seems to be less established. These scholars suggest that physical bibliography presents interesting conceptual and theoretical implications for many of the central objects of study in LIS, for example, knowledge organization, information retrieval, and information seeking. It is also suggested that physical bibliography could help deepen our knowledge and understanding of the digital media ecology. Physical bibliography is foremost seen as a method for the analysis of documents, a method in which not least its terminological apparatus may be a significant tool.

The purpose of this study was to gather knowledge about the functioning of the rein tension meter and test it for future studies of match and mismatch between rider and horse. We looked specifically into the possibilities to use a rein-tension meter to determine the quality of cooperation between horse and rider. We examined whether a rider shows a specific tension pattern and also if certain patterns could be recognised for a specific horse. During the study, a manual with pictures and text was written to support the practical use of the meter. The manual describes in a simple way the first steps in the installation and use of the meter.

This study takes place within a publicly owned art producing organization and dwells on the problems of a change process that the organization was involved in. Both leaders and staff were disappointed by the way the change process had developed. The management team explained the outcome by referring to the uniqueness of working with artists who constantly put their own personal objectives before the benefit of the whole. The aim of this study is to find a complementary explanation to the one the management team provided us with; an explanation that can help in the understanding of the dynamics of a change process. Can perhaps theories on information, communication and change processes give an alternative explanation to why the change process faltered? To investigate this, we have used a qualitative single case study.

This report is a Master?s Thesis performed by Andreas Adolfsson and David Jacobsson atChalmers University of Technology. The purpose of this master?s thesis is to evaluate anew method for load-shedding, the voltage controlled underfrequency load-sheddingdeveloped by ABB. This report presents a comparison between conventionalunderfrequency load-shedding and this new method for load-shedding.

The EU has decided that it should be possible for consumers to get information about the origin of the electricity they buy. Therefore, there is a need to examine different systems for electricity disclosure. In this thesis two ways of disclosure have been studied:? Certificate system. A certificate system involves two parallel markets, one for trading electrical energy and one for trading certificates of origin.? Separated Markets.

In this Master's thesis, a direct-conversion receiver front-end has been designed in a 0.18um CMOS technology. Direct-conversion receivers (DCR) have obvious advantages over the heterodyne counterpart. Since the intermediate frequency (IF) is zero, the problem of image is circumvented. As a result, no front-end image reject filter is required and the channel selection requires only a low-pass filter, which makes it easy to integrate directly on chip. However, the DCR also suffers from several drawbacks such as extreme sensitivity to DC offsets, 1/f noise, local oscillator (LO) leakage/radiation, front-end nonlinearity and I/Q mismatch.