Virtual Communities is an increasingly common phenomenon on the Internet. Most of the Virtual Communities are operated and maintained on a non-profit basis with a direction towards entertainment. However, as more state administrated and commercial services become web-based, we believe that the number of Virtual Communities with a community-based or commercial direction will increase in a near future. In this thesis, we describe our participation in, and studies of, a number of Virtual Communities with focus on the IRC-channel ?3dfxsweden?. On the basis of our experiences, we describe the social elements that form the foundation on which the Virtual Community rely on.

The information market is constantly changing. With new and improved information technology more people get access to more information faster. However, the number of people educated to handle information also increases. Business intelligence has for a long time been a well-known tool for companies to be competitive. Because of the increased access to information the competition between companies has intensified and more people have become aware of the advantages of business intelligence and how it can help them compete.

This thesis is about developing a design that provides improved vacuum seal between a lead coating and a plastic coating during plastic extrusion processes of cables. This report is a part of the course MSGC 17 for Bachelor Engineers in mechanical engineering.The work is performed at Nexans Norway AS in Halden where they have a production of high voltage cables for sea-, and offshore industry. A problem they face is that they do not get enough good seal at the attachment to the plastic extrusion machine. They want to achieve a vacuum between a lead coating on the cable and a plastic coating of the cable for plastic extrusion, which is something they do not achieve today. The thesis is thus to come up with a design that provides better sealing against the cable.The work involves a construction part with the phases of product development processes.

The purpose of this study is to characterize the research in the field of Knowledge Organization, during the period of 1990-2002, focusing on the subject and the epistemology of these studies. The result shows that studies concerning representation, e.g. subjects such as classification, indexing and bibliographic description, are the most frequently researched areas throughout the period. Classification was more popular in the beginning of the period, but later bibliographic description, mostly with studies on metadata, became more visible, together with a growing interest in information retrieval. The theoretical discussions in the studies focused primarily on document analysis and the organization of digital documents.

The high level of competition and the rapidly growing technology development has created new challenges for today's businesses where they are forced to deliver more customized products at a lower price and a shorter time period. This places high demands on the companies' ability to design and develop better products in a more efficient way. In addition to developing products, the design process focuses on securing long-term success for the company by developing nourishing skills. However, to achieve an effective design process the companies must improve their ability to plan as well as use their knowledge base in a more efficient manner. Toyota's product development system is a critical component for companies to address challenges that they?re facing and offers a great potential to create significant competitive advantages.

Kandidatarbetets innehåll undersöker och diskuterar frågeställningen: ?Hur påverkas narrativet i en film genom att gestalta ljudet akusmatiskt??. Med hjälp av teorier och slutsatser från filmteoretiker så som Michel Chion, David Sonnenschein och Klas Dykhoff, har vi till kortfilmen Alla ljuger skapat en ljudläggning med fokus på narrativa ljud utanför den rörliga bilden. Vårt resultat syftar till att skapa grunden till en svensk standardisering av de existerande teorier och metoder för gestaltning av akusmatiska ljud i film. The content of this bachelor thesis examines and discusses around the question: ?How does the implementation of acousmatic sounds affect the narrative of a motion picture??.

Humanity has always dreamed about a better world. These dreams has manifested themselves in the vision of Utopia - the good place, but also the non-existing place. Up until World War II man still wrote optimistic descriptions of this ideal world, and spread the idea through literature. In the aftermath of the atomic bomb and under the influence of the cold war, these publications seized to surface in literary surroundings. Despite this utopia did not die - it has only changed.

The purpose of this Bachelor?s thesis is to explore the useability of bibliometric analysis on scientists of the humanities. This is accomplished by doing a case study on philosopher Slavoj ?i?ek. The work process and the results the case study is able to produce and the limits of these results are then analysed and discussed.In the case study all scientific articles in English published 1987-2010 citing ?i?ek were analysed.

The CASA-paradigm, Computers Are Social Actors, was introduced in the book "TheMedia Equation" by Reeves and Nass. One of their experiments concluded that we tend to be polite to computers in the same way as we are to people. In this study I have replicated Reeves and Nass experiment but instead of a text-based interface I have used a virtual agentin order to find out if we are polite to the agents, or still to the computer. Two experimental setups was conducted. The two setups had a common first part that was carried out on onecomputer with one agent.

Det här examensarbetet har genomförts i samarbete med Metso Dynapac AB i Karlskrona. På deras asfaltsvältar finns idag olika modeller av körspakar. De har samma grundfunktion och bör kunna samordnas till ett gemensamt reglage. Detta ger möjligheter att använda rationell tillverkningsmetod p.g.a. volymen.

This bachelor thesis investigates the discourses on violence among pupils in a school environment. The overall aim is to gain knowledge on how it is researched, interpreted and understood. The methods employed are genealogical analysis, discourse analysis and intersectional analysis. The analyzed texts consist of research reports, articles, dissertations and government authority guidelines. The theoretical framework drawn upon is post modernistic theory, social constructivism and intersectional theory.

Sammanfattning EDI är ett välkänt och beprövat sätt för företag att automatisera sina affärsprocesser. Det är också välkänt att EDI är dyrt att både inverstera i och att använda. EDI anses också som krångligt att lära sig och att förstå. Detta har gjort att EDI aldrig riktigt har slagit igenom bland små och medelstora företag. Det internationella standardiseringsprojektet ?ebXML?, som sponsras av bland annat av UN/CEFACT och OASIS, har släppt ett ramverk för hur XML ska kunna användas för elektronisk handel, även B2B.

The initiative for this project was taken by Benteler Engineering Services, as a result of having identified areas of improvement, in designated accessible areas like the wheelchair spot onboard buses. Depending on a wheelchair to be able to move around can understandably be challenging.Public transport is a common good in today`s society, however despite the measures taken towards adjusting to accessible needs, the majority of those being disabled chose different alternatives of transportation. This is due to reasons such as the drivers' poor attitude, furthermore the limitations of the space allocated to accessible needs, as people with strollers also use these spots onboard. Also, some wheelchair users find the rides unsafe, as they could easily fall over during without the appropriate space for them onboard the buses etc. These are only a few reasons why other options are sought out, i.e.

The comprehensive purpose of this Master of Science thesis is to examine which fleetmanagement services for engineering vehicles, ?Fleetech? preferablyought to develop inorder to reach a broad market and meet the demands of contractors.Scanty explained, fleet management is the management of a company's vehicle fleet and theservices can include a range of functions such as driver management and fuel management. Inshort the thesis encompasses four sections:1.Survey of the general contractor industry: The survey has been preformed toevaluate the potential size of the market for fleet management services in the generalcontractor industry.2.Needs analysis: The needs analysis aim was to define what contractors tasks andgoals are, and to determine what functions they want and need from a system.3.The use of CAN and the technical premises: The prerequisite for developing asophisticated and generic system is that vehicle data can be accessed from the CANbuss.The use of CAN standards in construction equipment has therefore beenexamined.4.Specification: An explicit set of requirements have been set to be satisfied by a fuelmanagement service, based on CAN standard protocol J1939.Important conclusions: The use of CAN protocol standards are extensive and the prerequisitesfor developing elementary and CAN based services good. The services should be compatiblewith different manufacture?smachines.

In Sweden and in Scandinavia the amount of tree species are rather few. However many different forms of trees arise due to mutations and gives rare appearances like cut-leaved and hanging forms. In some cases these trees are interesting as cultivars and a few of them have become popular garden trees. The knowledge of the original trees and early propagation is meagre.In this study a selected group of trees were found through search of literature. Eight tree forms were chosen and investigated in situ.