In this Bachelor Thesis (20 p.), we present the history and development of "Intelligent Houses", and most important- explore some of the future possibilities in this area. The project has been carried out through an interdisciplinary cooperation between three different educations at the Blekinge Institute of Technology. By conducting a dialogue with various Actors with different professions, we have been trying to identify needs within the concept of "Intelligent Houses", were the end user is not only the tenant or homeowner. Through Participatory Design methods, such as a Future Workshop, we have brought the users together to discuss their own and each others needs and hindrances in their respective work practice, and how intelligent house technology could improve their work conditions. We have also been testing a highly sophisticated CO/CO2/Moisture/Temperature/Enthalpy multi-sensor & controller, originally developed for regulating indoor climate systems.

The main purpose is to illuminate how a company links certain values to its brand in an effort to achieve a competitive position. We have done this by studying the government owned company Svenska Spel and its entrance on the netpokermarket. With Corporate Social Responsibility as a guidance for the company they wanted to offer Swedish gamblers an alternative to the, often morally dubious, international Actors. Our thesis has taken an internal (corporate) as well as an external (consumer) perspective on the result of this strive. Our conclusions are that although Svenska Spel is successfully integrating social responsibility into their netpokerbusiness, they are facing a difficulty in making the consumer fully appreciate it.

This paper presents the results of a workplace study of two smaller companies in the design industry. The core issue has been to investigate the companies use of technical tools and to what extent social praxis influence the daily work. The methods used are based on a qualitative analysis of interviews and observations. Various kind of work procedures, such as verbal and computerized, have been identified, but the most important occurrence was how spontaneous conversations between employees required certain flexibility, since the Actors repeatedly were required to change focus and quickly perceive different information. For that reason, a thesis has been defined regarding how the use of spontaneous communication put an indirect need of a flexible working environment and also how this lead to more significant participation and exchange of information, as well as more awareness at the companies..

Shopping for groceries often means that, as consumers, we travel to the grocery store ourselves, by ear, bike or on foot. At the store we pick out the groceries that we want, go the register and pay for them. During the last couple of years consumers in Sweden have been given the opportunity to let someone else select and transport the groceries to their home instead, so called home shopping. As this report is being written, the possibility to buy groceries this way is somewhat limited, but many forecasters believe that in the near future it will increase immensely. Because of the large volumes of groceries that are being transported, there is great transport work being done in the supply chain.

This work is meant to contribute to the research of adaptation studies by focusing on a special case: the transformation of a fictional diary into a movie. In order to sustain the form of the literary source the adaptation to movie requires certain strategies. Först of all, the diary genre is characterized by a one-dimensional narration. Second, diaries only supply a few written dialogues, hence this "void" has to be compensated and filled by media specific measures. Third, the investigated diary is a story of individualization and emancipation of a single woman.

Background: Increasing globalization makes companies more influenced than before by Actors and fActors in their environment. For some this has lead to a more dynamic and complicated business context. Therefore it is of strategic importance to understand what is currently going on as well as to have a general idea of what the future brings. Purpose: To contribute to a deeper understanding of how a corporate management can perceive its business environment and how it affects he gathering of business information from a strategic perspective. Realisation: In-depth interviews were conducted with all four members of the management in the studied company, Volvo Competence Center in Skovde, Sweden.

This paper investigates strategic opportunities for film festivals in a digital film business, with emphasis on Göteborg international film festival and the Swedish film industry. Using a theoretical framework of strategy analysis, the film value chain is examined with special regards to disruptive technology, and the film festival's unique resources are linked to industry structure. It is shown that relationships between Actors and across sectors are crucial features of the film industry, and hence a network perspective is added to the theoretical framework. Barriers to entry are shown to be relatively low in all sectors except the cinema market, and it is proposed that film festival's could expand into digital distribution, taking advantage of brand strength, customer loyalty and knowledge of industry. The study adds to the mounting research on film festival practice and its significance for marketing and distribution in the film industry, and highlights the emergence of strategic openings in destabilized networks..

The presidency of the European Union (EU) is one of the most important institutional Actors for the improvement of democracy and equality between the member states. To hold a presidency is a big task and for many countries a tough challenge. What makes a presidency successful? The purpose of the thesis is to examine this question using Ole Elgströms? ?four properties for defining a successful presidency? as the theoretical background. This thesis will employ a comparative framework of four countries, using size and age (age understood as ?time being an EU Member State?) as the defining fActors.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how municipalities handle planning of megaprojects. The term megaproject here refers to a large project in terms of time, space, investments, numbers of agents etc. With an increasing importance of the phenomena the need of discussing the role local politics could take in this process is important.How do municipalities handle the difficulties that come with megaprojects and what roles do they take in their work with megaprojects? These empirical questions are tested on a case where the municipality of Lund works with the megaproject European Spallation Source (ESS). A theoretical question discusses the megaproject in the light of governance and government, and structures the analysis around these two important terms.Different parts of the municipality handle there part of the planning from there own logic.

AbstractIn this thesis I will discuss the relationship between the European Union and the regions of Europe. The development of the European Union has meant that many decisions are taken in Bruxelles. Many Actors participate in the policyprocess ranging from national goverment to policynetworks of different kinds. An emerging actor has been the regions of Europe. Their influence on the policyprocess have grown and today almost all of them are represented in Bruxelles through Region Offices.

The aim of the thesis is to highlight external fActors to explain why the EMU was created. The external factor considered here is the monetary policy of the United States, which often conflicted with European interests. The statistical data in the thesis, as well as previous research, show that even though the EU economically in many ways had become an equal partner of the US during the second half of the 20th century, the union still faced US influence and dependence.The results of the thesis can be explained with neorealist theories on power measured as an actor's distribution of capabilities and balancing of power. An actor that is equipped with the world's leading currency is more independent from others. Other Actors, on the other hand, become increasingly dependent on the major currency and the policy of its owner.

The aim of this thesis is to describe and analyse the development of libraries on Tjörn, an island on the Swedish west coast. I have divided the thesis in two parts, one in which I will describe the libraries development between the years 1873 to 1952 in the municipality of Stenkyrka and one in which I will describe the libraries development between the years 1976 and 1985 in the municipality of Tjörn. The study is mainly based on written materials and a theoretic model will also be used in which I apply three fActors, society, the libraries economy and individual Actors on the library activity. The libraries in Stenkyrka during the early period were dependent of public grant from the state for their survival and the libraries were undeveloped. The society around them was poor and hardly any money or assistants came from the municipality.

This paper investigates, through an actor-network theory perspective, how the recreation area Lo?vsta-Kyrkhamn-Riddersvik northwest of Stockholm has developed from being a dumping site into becoming a nature reserve. This investigation also tries to describe and explain which values that have been promoted in the area by the local voluntary associations and companies. Lo?vsta-Kyrkhamn-Riddersvik has been inhabited for more than 3000 years, originally with farming as the most important business.

AbstractThis essay discusses the negotiation of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the process that led up to a signed agreement. The CTBT forbids all nuclear weapon test explosions and all other types of nuclear explosions. The purpose of the study was to distinguish the critical steps of the negotiations that resulted in the success of the CTBT. Based on these insights, my intention was to identify relevant events and Actors in the process around the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT), which has been on the nuclear disarmament agenda for over a decade. Furthermore, my ambition was that the examination of the CTBT negotiation would give me some clarity in what the next step would be to get the FMCT back on track.

The cost of construction projects have increased during the past few years. Different Actors in the construction industry work together to advocate various measures to mitigate these cost increases. One of these measures is to try to improve the efficiency in the phase of production. By striving for a kind of standardization with a constant quest for improvement, the productivity can increase while the costs of production fall.For this thesis has a case study been conducted at the construction company JM AB which is seeking this. They call the approach structured production and have implemented various measures to achieve a more productive output.Based on information from reconciliations, the cost and the spent hours of craftsmen have been analyzed at the company where the case study took place.