When learning programming students need to learn a lot of different concepts and constructs which normally goes quite easily with a lot of training and repetition. As a teacher I have experienced that students despite knowing the concepts struggle with integrating them into larger programs. In Web-applications for mobile devices given to first-year web programming students I introduced a new concept of Cozy-Coding to show how experienced programmers solve problems and integrate known concepts into larger applications. 

Teaching research methodologies to graduate students is important to help them succeed in their degree programs. At Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH), research methodologies in software engineering and computer science is a critical course, as it provides the students with the skills and knowledge necessary to conduct high-quality research for their master's thesis. More importantly, this course is mandatory in most degree programs at BTH, and the students are required to successfully complete this course as a pre-requisite for their master's thesis.  Over the years, this course has been delivered using traditional teaching methods, such as lectures, assignments, readings, and feedback sessions. During the past years, as the course responsible, I observed that there had been a decline in the success rate for students in this course and a lack of student engagement. We identified that traditional teaching methods may not be the most effective way to engage students in this course. To this end, I introduced the concept of flipped classrooms and active learning classrooms (ALCs). During the ALCs, the students were asked to complete different tasks related to the concepts acquired through pre-recorded lectures and mandatory reading assignments. These tasks are done in student groups, and teachers promote open discussions between the students by problematizing the concepts. 

Ingenjörsmässighet today is a matter of being able to engineer complex and multifaceted systems, to empathize with users, clients, and stakeholders to know more (and know better) about the problems to be solved, and to judge the ‘goodness’ of proposed solutions across social, political, technological, cultural and environmental values. Challenge-Based Learning (CBL) has been promoted in recent years as a means for students to align the acquisition of disciplinary knowledge with the development of transversal competencies while working on authentic and sociotechnical societal problems. This paper aims to contribute to the CBL discussion by presenting the lessons learned related to conducting engineering design projects with a focus on issues and themes related to innovation in the cultural heritage domain. The paper describes how engineering design projects at the undergraduate level have been set up and conducted to cope with different innovation challenges related to the World Heritage Site of the city of Karlskrona in Sweden. It elaborates on how design projects with a cultural heritage theme can leverage how students learn about ‘softer’ and more intangible dimensions of ‘value’ (for products, systems and services). 

The digital market trend is rapidly expanding due to key characteristics like decentralization, accessibility, and market diversity enabled by blockchain technology. This study proposes a Predictive Analytics System to provide simplified reporting for the three most popular cryptocurrencies with varying digits, namely ADA Cardano, Ethereum, and Binance coin, for ten days to contribute to this emerging technology. Thus, this proposed system employs a data science-based framework and six highly advanced data-driven Machine learning and Deep learning algorithms: Support Vector Regressor, Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA), Facebook Prophet, Unidirectional LSTM, Bidirectional LSTM, Stacked LSTM. Moreover, the research experiments are repeated several times to achieve the best results by employing hyperparameter tuning of each algorithm. This involves selecting an appropriate kernel and suitable data normalization technique for SVR, determining ARIMA's (p, d, q) values, and optimizing the loss function values, number of neurons, hidden layers, and epochs in LSTM models. For the model validation, we utilize widely used evaluation techniques: Mean Absolute Error, Root Mean Squared Error, Mean Absolute Percentage Error, and R-squared. Results demonstrate that ARIMA outperforms the other models in all cases, accurately projecting the price variability within the actual price range. Conversely, Facebook Prophet exhibits good performance to some extent. The paper suggests that the ARIMA technique offers practical implications for market analysts, enabling them to make well-informed decisions based on accurate price projections. © 2013 IEEE.

The presented work springs from the hypothesis that the learning process can beaugmented by a course design that caters to peer learning in diversified groups. Thepresented work focuses on the assessment part of the course design as the type and designof assessments in a course greatly influence students' learning and can therefore be used tostimulate a desired behavior in students.

Two, timewise parallel, engineering courses on the same topic, given on campus and atdistance respectively, are studied. The current situation and potential changes areinvestigated with the ambition of being able to provide common learning activities to harvestthe potential interaction effects originating from peer learning in diversified groups,specifically aiming to mix life-long learners with “regular” students.

As a considerable part of the students within the anticipated diversified cohort are expectedto be gainfully employed (life-long learners), learning activities are preferred to begeographically and temporally unbound. In order to fulfill this design requirement anexamination process is proposed where the student initially independently chooses a topicto research and explore. The students then share their findings with fellow students via thelearning platform. An examination process based on peer review, asynchronously via forumson the learning platform, and self-assessment is proposed to motivate and support learning.The Universal Design for Learning guidelines are considered while proposing theseactivities aiming to provide good conditions for learning and potentially increase retention inthe diversified student group.

There is a gradually spreading servitization trend that is forcing industrial manufacturing companies acting in the global market to rethink their business. Manufacturing companies that were traditionally perceived as product-centered, are today increasingly influenced by a service-oriented theory, which claims that manufacturing companies are driven to shift their business focus towards a strategy where customer-perceived value is in the spotlight, and where products are bundled with services to offer Product-Service Systems (PSS). The need to integrate several knowledge domains (i.e. product development, service development, recycling, etc.) means that industry companies need to move “downstream” knowledge from the entire lifecycle into the early phases of the PSS design process where critical decisions are made. At the same time, this raises the awareness of, and requirements for, methods and tools that support cross-disciplinary team collaboration in the process of designing these PSS solutions. Value co-creation is one strategy to address customer collaboration to develop PSS in a framework that allows different stakeholders to participate in defining design concepts and finding the optimal combination of hardware and service that supplies the desired value. Value co-creation strategy and global collaborative innovation are essential for manufacturing companies to explore new ways of designing PSS.

The thesis summarizes the research performed by the author, as an industrial Ph.D. student and director for system innovation at BIGmind Innovation. This thesis aims to study and explore the motivation for, and challenges of, working with value co-creation for PSS design by global manufacturing companies. Firstly, the empirical research determined that there are different challenges that global manufacturing companies and product development face when designing PSS. The work involves exploring value co-creation via a customer collaborative design platform and experience prototyping for product-service system design. The research shows that there is a lack of knowledge about guidelines and processes for collaboration in value co-creation. The research emphasizes that the PSS design methodologies of today neglect to specify the roles and responsibilities of the actors who co-create PSS offerings, and there is a lack of understanding of the entire process and how it is implemented in industrial practice when developing solutions.

Conclusions from this work suggest that government policies can make a fast and major impact on the demand for innovations and PSS development. Additionally, a value co-creation approach promotes large-scale user participation in the early phase of PSS design. To enhance stakeholder participation and gather feedback, experiential prototypes were utilized during the conceptual design phase of the PSS design. To support further development in the area of value co-creation, the Future Innovation Framework (FIF) is proposed as a mechanism to facilitate the adoption and use of value co-creation of PSS design. This thesis discusses the implications, opportunities, and challenges of the FIF for industrial PSS design. The thesis concludes with a discussion on the possibility of using value co-creation for PSS design in different industry domains in the future. 

In the transition to a sustainable energy system, there is an urgent need for expansion of offshore renewable energy installations. To ensure sustainable development also with respect to the marine environment, a variety of decision support tools (DSTs) are currently under development, aiming at potentially increased quality and efficiency for environmental risk assessment (EIA) of planned offshore energy installations. However, the savings potential of a DSTs is to a large extent governed by the timing of the DST development, which in turn is directly dependent on the investment rate over time. A set of development scenarios were evaluated, simulating different degrees of strategic implementation and successful utilization of the DST for offshore energy. Using the situation in Sweden as a case study, we demonstrate that a planned investment can lead to considerably lower total costs for the EIA at a national level, at the same time allowing for improved quality of the EIA in line with the ambitions in both marine spatial planning and existing goals within marine environmental management. © 2023 The Author(s)

Aim: This study aimed to investigate the similarities and differences related to verbal and social interaction skills between nursing students attending universities in Sweden and China, two countries with different educational systems, during the students’ first semester. Background: Nurses need a high level of interaction skills in order to interact effectively with patients and their families. Thus, practical nursing education focusing on clinical skills is essential. Method: Students at one university in Sweden and two universities in China completed the Verbal and Social Interactions for Nursing Students (VSI-NS) questionnaire. Results: The students perceived ‘Building a caring relationship’ and ‘Caring towards health and well-being’ as the most frequently occurring and important types of caring interactions. The students perceived that talking with a patient about his/her feelings and thoughts was the least frequently occurring and least important type of caring interaction. Conclusion: The students appear to understand from the initial phase of their education that the caring relationship and the patients’ health and well-being will be the major focus of their role as nurses. © 2022, Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing. All rights reserved.

Recent developments using extended reality (XR) technologies have allowed for increased use in healthcare in the last few years. This review paper explores how XR applications are utilized in home-based nursing education, in particular, to identify future challenges and opportunities. The systematic literature review evaluates relevant extracted papers based on publication information, XR technology used for education purposes, target users, and study design and evaluation, including sample size. The results show potential for using XR technologies in home-based nursing education. In particular, Virtual Reality (VR) has become quite popular and the most used to date. However, Augmented Reality (AR) has also emerged as an alternative for the future.

Competing for talents requires a conscious effort to offer an attractive workplace, which, until recently, involved increasing employee empowerment and engagement and offering opportunities for bottom-up innovation. Today, this is not sufficient, pushing tech companies to harmonize existing strategies with remote work.

Besides providing electron density profiles (EDP), GNSS Radio Occultation (GNSS-RO) measurements allow monitoring the frequency and the areas where ionospheric scintillations occur. In this work, RO measurements composing an experimental data set are processed with the back propagation (BP) method to estimate the location of sporadic E-clouds and equatorial plasma bubbles (EPB). The data set includes non-conventional measurements tracked up to 600 km (generally around 80 km), covering F-region heights, shortly before MetOp-A was decommissioned. Results indicate the combination of extended occultations and the BP method is promising for monitoring the occurrence and characterizing ionospheric irregularities in the F-region and the E-region. © 2023 International Union of Radio Science.

Aim: The aim of this scoping review was to give an overview of the usability and feasibility of smart glasses in nursing education. In addition, this study will highlight nursing students’ experiences of using smart glasses in learning situations. Background: Healthcare is becoming increasingly complex and technological and so is nursing education. Technology enhanced learning aims to enhance the teaching-learning process through use of technology, for example through smart glasses. Design and methods: A literature review using a scoping review methodology was conducted. Qualitative content analysis was performed to analyse data. 14 references were included in the analysis. References were found using the databases PubMed, SCOPUS and ERIC. Results: The analysis resulted in three categories; (1) Situations in which smart glasses have been used in nursing education, (2) Learning experiences from using smart glasses in nursing education, and (3) User experiences from using smart glasses in nursing education. Smart glasses were used in different learning situations and were in general positively evaluated by nursing students. Although, drawbacks of using smart glasses were noted which could negatively effect student learning. Conclusions: Smart glasses have been used in a variety of learning situations in nursing education and enabled new learning situations. Students found smart glasses beneficial for their learning and smart glasses motivated and engaged students in the learning situation. Although, this was both user- and situation dependent. Technical issues could cause students to lose focus and there is need for technical support to facilitate the learning curve. By learning from others’ experiences unnecessary drawbacks can be avoided. © 2023 The Authors

Chacha20 is a widely used stream cipher known for using permutation functions to enhance resistance against cryptanalysis. Although the existing literature highlights its strengths, it is worth further exploring its potential susceptibility to differential attacks. This paper proposes an Extended Chacha20 (EChacha20) stream cipher, which offers a slight improvement of Chacha20. It incorporates enhanced Quarter Round Functions QR-F with 32-bit input words and Add , Rotate , and XOR (ARX) operations on 16, 12, 8, 7, 4, and 2 constants. Using these improved QR-Fs , we expect EChacha20 to be more secure and effective against attacks than Chacha20. The threat model leveraged in this paper considers attacker assumptions based on the Bellare-Rogaway Model (B-RM) and the Chosen Plaintext Attack (CPA) to assess the potential security weaknesses. Then, the study analyzes the EChacha20 cipher using the NIST Statistical Test Suite (NSTS) and demonstrates its effectiveness against differential cryptanalysis. A differential attack addresses this challenge, where the study comprehensively analyses the differences between original and flipped bits. The NSTS has been used to statistically analyze the outcome for uniformity and evaluate the randomness of generating sequences of tests considering 1000 tests based on a range of [{0,1}]. Uniformity is evaluated based on the p-values test against a battery of passing sequences, and 100% is achieved from Runs and Serial (2): Test 1 , respectively. The performance evaluation metrics leveraged include encryption speed, decryption speed, and memory usage. Based on the test conducted, it has been observed that with increased QR-F , EChacha20 maintains a good balance in speed although slightly higher than Chacha20; however, with also slightly high memory usage compared to Chacha20. Despite that, a comparative study has been conducted against state-of-the-art studies, and the outcome has been reported to show the significance of the current study. Ultimately, the outcome indicates that the EChacha20 cipher has improved QR-F and security properties compared to Chacha20 and may provide a more robust encryption solution for various applications. © 2023 The Authors.

The recent advances in immersive technologies have been essential in the development of a wide range of novel standalone and networked immersive media applications. The concepts of virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality relate to different compositions of real and computer-generated virtual objects. In this context, 360° video streaming has become increasingly popular offering improved immersive experiences when viewed on a head-mounted display (HMD). An important component in the development of novel immersive media systems are subjective tests in which participants assess the quality of experience of representative test stimuli. In this paper, the annotated ACR360 dataset is presented which is publicly available on GitHub. The ACR360 dataset contains a wide range of psychophysical and psychophysiological data that was collected in Subjective tests on 360° video quality. The test stimuli were shown on an HMD and rated according to the absolute category rating (ACR) and modified ACR (MACR) methods. To support an easy exploration and utilization of the ACR360 dataset by the research community, its structure on GitHub is described and a comprehensive illustration of analysis options are provided for each data category. The ACR360 dataset may be used for conducting meta-analysis in combination with other datasets to improve precision and to pursue research questions that cannot be answered by an individual study. © 2023 IEEE.

Robust principal component analysis (RPCA) has been widely used for processing and interpreting high-dimensional data in different applications such as data classification, face recognition, video analytics, and recommendation system design. However, the advancement of multisensor-based technologies and the emergence of large data sets have highlighted the limitations of traditional matrix-based models, which have paved the way for higher-order extensions such as tensor RPCA (TRPCA) techniques. These signal separation techniques can be useful for ground scene estimation (GSE) in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery. GSE estimates the clutter-plus-noise content in the scene, and therefore, change detection (CD) methods can benefit, reducing the number of false alarms (FA). This paper presents two new GSE methods for SAR imagery based on robust PCA techniques. The first proposed method uses the RPCA via Principal Component Pursuit (PCP) to obtain the GSE-RPCA. The second method uses TRPCA via New Tensor Nuclear Norm (TNN) to obtain the GSE-TRPCA. The methodology allows the GSE to be obtained through a generalized regularization parameter. The alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) algorithm is utilized to solve both optimization problems. Experimental results are evaluated considering real SAR imagery from two data sets acquired with the CARABAS II and ALOS PALSAR systems, respectively. Additionally, the proposed techniques were evaluated under several input characteristics, e.g., eight-image stacks and image pairs. Both GSE techniques are more robust to outliers and missing data when compared to existing solutions found in the literature. Finally, GSE-TRPCA achieved a minimum-square error performance of 0.0018 for some of the evaluated scenarios. 

A ring 𝑅 has unbounded generating number (UGN) if,for every positive integer 𝑛, there is no 𝑅-module epimorphism 𝑅𝑛 → 𝑅𝑛+1. For a ring 𝑅 = ⨁g∈𝐺 𝑅g gradedby a group 𝐺 such that the base ring 𝑅1 has UGN, weidentify several sets of conditions under which 𝑅 mustalso have UGN. The most important of these are: (1)𝐺 is amenable, and there is a positive integer 𝑟 suchthat, for every g ∈ 𝐺, 𝑅g ≅ (𝑅1)𝑖 as 𝑅1-modules for some𝑖 = 1, … , 𝑟; (2) 𝐺 is supramenable, and there is a positive integer 𝑟 such that, for every g ∈ 𝐺, 𝑅g ≅ (𝑅1)𝑖 as𝑅1-modules for some 𝑖 = 0, … , 𝑟. The pair of conditions(1) leads to three different ring-theoretic characterizations of the property of amenability for groups. We alsoconsider rings that do not have UGN; for such a ring𝑅, the smallest positive integer 𝑛 such that there is an𝑅-module epimorphism 𝑅𝑛 → 𝑅𝑛+1 is called the generating number of 𝑅, denoted gn(𝑅). If 𝑅 has UGN, then wedefine gn(𝑅) ∶= ℵ0. We describe several classes of examples of a ring 𝑅 graded by an amenable group 𝐺 such thatgn(𝑅) ≠ gn(𝑅1).

MSC 2020

16P99, 16S35, 16W50, 20F65, 43A07 (primary), 16D90 (secondary)

Context: Non-functional requirements (NFRs) (also referred to as system qualities) are essential for developing high-quality software. Notwithstanding its importance, NFR testing remains challenging, especially in terms of automation. Compared to manual verification, automated testing shows the potential to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of quality assurance, especially in the context of Continuous Integration (CI). However, studies on how companies manage automated NFR testing through CI are limited. Objective: This study examines how automated NFR testing can be enabled and supported using CI environments in software development companies. Method: We performed a multi-case study at four companies by conducting 22 semi-structured interviews with industrial practitioners. Results: Maintainability, reliability, performance, security and scalability, were found to be evaluated with automated tests in CI environments. Testing practices, quality metrics, and challenges for measuring NFRs were reported. Conclusions: This study presents an empirically derived model that shows how data produced by CI environments can be used for evaluation and monitoring of implemented NFR quality. Additionally, the manuscript presents explicit metrics, CI components, tools, and challenges that shall be considered while performing NFR testing in practice. © 2023, The Author(s).

Context: Several secondary studies have investigated the relationship between internal quality attributes, source code metrics and external quality attributes. Sometimes they have contradictory results. Objective: We synthesize evidence of the link between internal quality attributes, source code metrics and external quality attributes along with the efficacy of the prediction models used. Method: We conducted a tertiary review to identify, evaluate and synthesize secondary studies. We used several characteristics of secondary studies as indicators for the strength of evidence and considered them when synthesizing the results. Results: From 711 secondary studies, we identified 15 secondary studies that have investigated the link between source code and external quality. Our results show : (1) primarily, the focus has been on object-oriented systems, (2) maintainability and reliability are most often linked to internal quality attributes and source code metrics, with only one secondary study reporting evidence for security, (3) only a small set of complexity, coupling, and size-related source code metrics report a consistent positive link with maintainability and reliability, and (4) group method of data handling (GMDH) based prediction models have performed better than other prediction models for maintainability prediction. Conclusions: Based on our results, lines of code, coupling, complexity and the cohesion metrics from Chidamber & Kemerer (CK) metrics are good indicators of maintainability with consistent evidence from high and moderate-quality secondary studies. Similarly, four CK metrics related to coupling, complexity and cohesion are good indicators of reliability, while inheritance and certain cohesion metrics show no consistent evidence of links to maintainability and reliability. Further empirical studies are needed to explore the link between internal quality attributes, source code metrics and other external quality attributes, including functionality, portability, and usability. The results will help researchers and practitioners understand the body of knowledge on the subject and identify future research directions. © 2023 The Author(s)