Uppsatsen syftar till att beskriva, analysera och förstå kött- och charkindustrins koncentration i Slakthusområdet i Stockholm och vad området innebär för dess företag. Uppsatsen är en fallstudie och bygger på 18 intervjuer med representanter från företag, föreningar och förvaltningar i, och med anknytning till, Slakthusområdet. Vidare bygger den på teorier om agglomerationer och kluster. Utvecklingen av området kopplas till två drivkrafter i form av Stockholms stad och tillgången på råvaror och specialiserade lokaler. Slakthusområdet har kommit att bli ett nav eller en knutpunkt för kött, chark och andra livsmedelsprodukter.

This master thesis is an attempt to study the joint-use solutions between the public library and the public preschool in the local district Kristineberg in the community of Borås. The two main questions are; what kind of joint-use library is the activity at Kristineberg? What kind of advantages and disadvantages do the actors experience from the joint-use activity at Kristineberg? The analysis is based upon the interviews with eight informants with different connections to the joint-use library and public preschool. I also use documental analysis and literature studies. Relevant theories, such as Andersson´s and Skot-Hansen´s analysis of the role of the public library and Bundys, Imhoff´s and Dornseif´s theories about joint-use libraries are presented and later used in the analysis.

Multi-branch companies are facing many challenges in order to become successful. Competitive advantages can be gained through a unified strong brand, standardised products and economies of scale. This normally calls for centralisation. On the contrary is decentralisation, which is said to improve work motivation and local market orientation, which are also competitive advantages. The focus of this thesis is to study how local branch managers want their companies to be structured in accordance with this dilemma.

Abstract: After their introduction, technical systems designed for Situational Awareness have changed the possibilities on the battlefield. Today, Swedish tanks use a system known as the TCCS. This system offers many advantages to a tank platoon, but does it also bring disadvantages? This essay examines pros and cons with the TCCS. To find these the author uses a Swedish Armed Forces analyze model in a comparative study.

Today's unsustainable resource use is influenced by many factors. One key factor isproduction methods and patterns. Trough change of production patterns enterprises can bepart of the solution to a more sustainable society. This case study has analyzed environmentalperformance of the printer company Edita Västra Aros Ltd (EVA), who has gained awards forits environmental work, and what driving forces they have had during this work. The survey isbased on a qualitative method and the collected data consists of documents and staffinterviews, which have been analyzed with content analysis.

During the autumn 2009, a 15 hp degree project was accomplished. The objective of the study was to describe different equipment alternatives, suitable for fresh market apple harvest. A field study was conducted during the harvest period to evaluate the efficiency (kg / person/ hour), using the different equipment. Four different systems are described in the study; Pick-ing-bag, Picking-train, Pluk-O-Trak and the Conveyor Harvester. The information about the systems is based on interviews with growers together with previous studies.

Today's unsustainable resource use is influenced by many factors. One key factor isproduction methods and patterns. Trough change of production patterns enterprises can bepart of the solution to a more sustainable society. This case study has analyzed environmentalperformance of the printer company Edita Västra Aros Ltd (EVA), who has gained awards forits environmental work, and what driving forces they have had during this work. The survey isbased on a qualitative method and the collected data consists of documents and staffinterviews, which have been analyzed with content analysis.

The Swedish market for vehicle inspection is re-regulated since June 2010. More than four years after the re-regulation there are eight companies in the market. Two of these companies are a result of the former monopolist's owners divided the business among themselves. The remaining six companies have entered the market through acquisitions or by building up their business from scratch, these are known as new entrants in the study. The competition has developed slowly and the former monopolist still has the highest market share.

The purpose of this thesis was to study the importance of virtual communities for independent record companies. It also aims to examine how these companies use virtual communities in their marketing activities and how to gain competitive advantages by working with virtual communities. A case study based on interviews was conducted with managers from two independent record companies, Music Is My Girlfriend Recordings and B&B Records. Our study has shown that virtual communities are important for independent record companies as tools for finding and addressing the right target market. Useful information about the members of these communities can easily be gathered with the use of the various search options that are available.

Mathematics is a central topic in today's education debate, including discussion of its educational quality and various teaching methods. Today basically two different teaching methods are used; one is the textbook based method, with the book in focus and the other one the laboratory method by which teaching is performed through practical applications. The purpose of this study was to examine four primary school teachers' view of these two teaching methods by means of four relevant inquiries. By interviewing the four teachers, advantages and disadvantages were highlighted and the purpose was achieved. In order to support the analysis, two theories applied; the socio-cultural perspective and the cognitive perspective.

As the number of people owning a smartphone rapidly increases so too does the opportunity for various researchers to exploit this technology. The possibility to recruit people to participate in research studies improves and with it the chance to get more diversified target groups in terms of age, socio-economic status, geographical location, etc.In this essay, I argue that the opportunities smartphones offer in terms of collecting research material is vastly underestimated in several areas, bearing in mind the advantages they present. In order to support my argument, I shall present a case study carried out in the research area of happiness ? an area where the use of smartphones has provided significant opportunities for research.In order to gather the advantages and disadvantages of this method of study from the participants? perspective, I have followed a happiness research study which is a collaboration between Umeå University and The University of Stockholm. I have interviewed the participants of this study in order to assess the advantages and opportunities that smartphones offer in research programs.Overall, the participants? opinion of this research method was generally positive and it was considered to be quite easy to participate in the study and respond to the questions asked.

An increasing number of automotive supplier companies are investing in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in order to gain cost advantages. This has happened in a rapid pace since many of these countries did not have any foreign direct investments (FDI) at the turn of the century. The problem now is for how long these countries will be able to maintain the low costs. One purpose was to create a model of country advantages for automotive supplier companies when relocating further production to CEE. This dissertation was written in cooperation with the Trelleborg Group.

Growth of small businesses is vital to the Swedish economy, and many entrepreneurs want their enterprises to grow. However, the business climate of today is more changing than ever, and attributes becoming increasingly important for companies in order to deal with this are flexibility, speed, and adaptability: characteristics normally attributed to small enterprises. As a larger organization often is associated with more rigidity as a consequence of a higher degree of formalization, entrepreneurs are hesitant to seize growth opportunities, as they fear it will have negative impact on the aforementioned competitive advantages their enterprise possesses as a small business. This simple case study of a growing small enterprise investigates the effects of organizational growth on a small business' organizational structure and through its above mentioned advantages. The study finds that avoiding formalization while growing damages the competitiveness of the firm, and concludes that a degree of formalization is a necessity to maintain the flexibility, speed and adaptability in a growing small business..

AbstractProblem-based learning (PBL) was from the beginning developed in medical school, but is today used in education in other programmes as well. Investigations about PBL have been conducted in different disciplines and there is also metastudies. In this paper, a metastudy of 8 bachelor degree papers have been conducted. The questions answered were: which methods were used to investigate PBL in primary, lower secondary and upper secondary school,which advantages were found in working according to the PBL method, which disadvantages were found in working according to the PBL method and did teachers and students views about advantages and disadvantages about PBL as a method differ and if they did, how? The results showed that mostly qualitative methods were used to investigate the PBL as a method, mostly abilities of social qualities and independence were trained in working according to PBL, a disadvantage was that working according to the PBL method was considered more resourse consuming than traditional teaching methods and teachers and students views about PBL did not differ considerably.

The purpose of this report is to analyze the advantages of using programme software to monitor masshauling instead of using the conventional method. A comparsion between different programs will also be conducted in an attempt to determine the most affordable. This report is written for NCC Construction AB to help them choose a software most fitting for future projects.The report is based upon literature such as information taken from the developers website, existing reports with similar context, interviews with sellers of the software and interviews with people working in the building sector.The result of this report shows that there are several advantages with investing in a software that helps the management of a project and that it is something that should be taken under consideration instead of the existing method. Topcon is a clear favorite following the inquiries comparisons as done, when they deliver a complete system and not only a supplement to the current approach. Scanlaser are just in the beginning of its development, and is so far only out with an early version of the software, while Topcon has been brought further in development and therefore has more features in the program.