In order to respond to a more complex community planning with increased cooperation and public participation, a common language and a common model to be used as a base for the communication process is needed. The thesis behind this dissertation for a master's degree is that a virtual 3D planning portal would respond to this need. Why and how are explained and described through studies of communication- and perception theory as well as technology and recent research. The introduction concludes that a broad participation and a transparence towards underlying information are important foundations for the coming work with the model. The first four chapters of the theory part show the benefits of using natural signs in our mixed cultural society, instead of the more arbitrary symbols. Using visual landscapes for storing information is motivated by the flexibility of our visual memory and its ability to understand complex connections.

Internet is used today as a traditional medium for information exchange and social interaction. One of these is virtual meeting places where people meet and exchange information, socialize and exchange knowledge with each other. The group has chosen to examine the factors affecting the use of web forums, one of the virtual meeting places that exist on the Internet today. And look at how people use the web forum today in the current situation and how to design a web forum.A survey was conducted to find out how people look at web forums today, 80 people participated, and they got to talk about what they think about different web forums regarding how and why the use these them. Guidelines on how a web forum should be designed were also developed.

This paper explores the emic use of ?Internet trolls" and trolling behaviour in one specific Internet community. The findings are compared with, and put in relations to the conventional definition of Internet-trolls as individuals who deliberately, typically anonymously, antagonize other users of online common spaces.A forum dealing with matters of relationship issues in the Swedish online community Message Board of Familjeliv.se, was the subject of field-work that provided the basic empirical material for the research; three comparable threads on the subject of infidelity. These could all be said to contain suspected trolling, and such suspicions were also ascribed participants throughout the discussions. The analysis was undertaken mainly in terms of quality of narrative, performance and interaction.A comparative method and a genre analysis out of a holistic and functionalistic perspective is used to shed some light on how forum participants organize themselves and steer narratives towards desired outcomes.

In today's society, the internet is an important part of everyday life. Over recent years the number of electronic services has increased markedly. Communities such as Facebook, consume more of people's time than 5-10 years ago. How can public authorities benefit from these communities or are the municipalities not ready for this? The municipalities determine how their resources should be allocated based on the municipality's needs.

The writer has attempted to discuss the distinction between the necessary and the contingent. It begins with a criticism against the possibility for a so-called ?a possible worlds realism? to give a ?philosophical explanation? of this distinction. The writer argues that this is impossible, since it requires that a notion of this distinction be already accepted (more precisely that the necessity of such a theory is already accepted).After this specific criticism, the writer intends to show that this is a more general problem that follows any explanation of the contingent/necessary distinction.The writer then discusses the counter-argument that the requirements placed on these explanations are set to high, therefore the writer shows in theory the problem can be solved and sketches a more specific way how to explain and show the basis for this distinction..

Virtual communities are a phenomenon that is becoming more common as the information technology comes with in reach for the general public. This report will bring the theories and construction of a virtual community together. The purpose of this report is to describe the different theories that have emerged from the research within this field and to examine the work procedures that have been used during the development of a site for a MDA-community. The MDA-website is a homepage on the Internet that was developed to bring the students closer together. The report describes the work of the project group, why the website was not completed and at the end the theories are looked at on the basis of the construction of the website..

Sammanfattning Titel Visualiseringsmediernas betydelse vid försäljning av nyproducerade bostäder ? En studie av modeller i Virtual Reality och fullskala. Författare Jennifer During Helena Fällås Syfte Denna uppsats syftar till att utreda om modeller i Virtual Reality och fullskala kompletterar befintliga visualiseringsmedier i försäljningen av nyproducerade bostäder, genom att dessa stödtjänster skapar ökad förståelse för bostadens utformning och därmed ökar nyttan för kunden. Vidare syftar uppsatsen till att utreda hur projektsäljare och privatpersoner ställer sig till användandet av denna typ av modeller samt om kvaliteten på företagets tjänster därmed kan anses öka. Metod Uppsatsen är framarbetad både med en kvalitativ och med en kvantitativ metod. Genom att göra djupintervjuer med projektsäljare på Peab Region Bostad samt med sakkunniga personer inom områdena för Virtual Reality och modeller i fullskala, har intervjupersonernas kunskaper och inställningar kunnat inhämtas.

Distributed system development is a common occurrence in today?s technological and global world. Because the consequences of its geographically distributed nature it creates barriers between people that affects their communication and collaboration efforts in the distributed context. Despite a lot of technological breakthroughs over the last decades and the occurrence of video-conference applications and other tools for communication and collaboration, cultural and geographical issues have so far not yet been completely resolved. In this study I have made a literature study over distributed system development to form a set of central factors that affects the distributed development process.

The purpose of this essay is to draw attention to a rather new phenomena, virtual bullying amongst young people. Bullying has been known for a long time but today, bullying has found new ways of expression. New technology, which includes the Internet and cell phones, has given the bullies new weapons to use in their bullying.The study I have done has been qualitative and contained interviews. Represents from two communities, Playahead and LunarStorm, and two organisations, BRIS and Friends, all together five persons (two persons from LunarStorm) have been interviewed and had the opportunity to tell me their view on virtual bullying.The results show that young people see the new technologies as a valuable prolongation of their reality that they won?t give up if they don?t need to.

This essay concerns the fantastic and its position in narration. The fantastic's defintion is based on Martin Horstkotte's defintion in The Postmodern Fantastic and the essay focuses on the noncontextual aspects such as the clash between two incompatible fictional worlds and the absence created. Instead of the ordinary identification of the established fictional world with realism and our reality it is suggested that both of the colliding fictional worlds are fictive and that the established one not necessarily need to be realistic. Exampels on how the fantastic takes place on the syntagmatic level in a narration is drawn from the short story ?Samvetets fantasi? by Clas Livijn when analysed with Peter Brooks' closurebased narratology theory in Reading for the Plot.

Ofta sker planeringsarbete i en tvådimensionell miljö, där man går miste om både djup och närvarokänsla. Därför är det intressant att undersöka ifall möjligheten att själv effektivt navigera sig runt i en tredimensionell miljö med hjälp av virtual reality-teknik har något värde för planeringsprocessen, där utställningsansvariga på museer är målgruppen. För att undersöka detta modellerades virtuella rum, skript skapades för utplacering, borttagning samt val av objekt. Dessa integrerades med en spelmotor och Oculus Rift, varpå användaren själv kan ?kliva in i? en virtuell miljö presenterad tredimensionellt och som reagerar på huvudrörelser, tangentbord och mus.

The purpose of this study has been to examine online travel magazines as an information source and as a virtual service scape. The traditional travel magazines are facing a change due to the technological development and the web has become an important platform for both customers and companies. The virtual service scape opens new opportunities for interaction and we found a great interest in examining which possibilities and limitations travel magazines are facing. This study is based on a qualitative approach because we wanted to gain a deeper understanding and a complete picture of our chosen subject. We have completed six interviews; three of them were consultants, one publishing director, one editor and a research student.

Virtual communities are a phenomenon that is becoming more common as the information technology comes with in reach for the general public. This report will bring the theories and construction of a virtual community together. The purpose of this report is to describe the different theories that have emerged from the research within this field and to examine the work procedures that have been used during the development of a site for a MDA-community. The MDA-website is a homepage on the Internet that was developed to bring the students closer together. The report describes the work of the project group, why the website was not completed and at the end the theories are looked at on the basis of the construction of the website..

This essay concerns the fantastic and its position in narration. The fantastic's defintion is based on Martin Horstkotte's defintion in The Postmodern Fantastic and the essay focuses on the noncontextual aspects such as the clash between two incompatible fictional worlds and the absence created. Instead of the ordinary identification of the established fictional world with realism and our reality it is suggested that both of the colliding fictional worlds are fictive and that the established one not necessarily need to be realistic. Exampels on how the fantastic takes place on the syntagmatic level in a narration is drawn from the short story ?Samvetets fantasi? by Clas Livijn when analysed with Peter Brooks' closurebased narratology theory in Reading for the Plot.

The competitive nature of the automotive industry has always implied a necessity to improve product development concerning time-to-market, cost and product quality. As capacity of computer-aided engineering (CAE) tools has evolved, so has the strive for simulation-driven design. Virtual durability testing using full vehicle models is one of many challenges posed in front of vehicle manufacturers when computer simulations are given a key role in product development.This thesis has been initiated as a preliminary step towards implementing dynamic virtual durability testing in the development of buses and coaches at Scania. The objective has been to assess the predictability of a full vehicle coach model and to what level of precision structural loads can be predicted. Previously performed proving ground testing of a Scania Touring coach has been the basis for the modelling and simulations in this thesis.A virtual model of the Scania Touring coach has been created in multi-body simulation software package MSC.Adams.