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.

Imagine not being able to choose who you are going to be in an intimate relationship with. It used to be like that but the situation has changed - these days we have a lot of different options available to choose for ourselves how to live our lives. We have a lot of different ways to influence how we want to live our lives and with whom we want to share them with.The aim of this study was to examine how individuals feel about their relationship and why they choose to stay in a relationship with their current partner. How do individuals in a relationship feel about aspects including for example conflicts, communication and trust? Is Anthony Giddens theory about the pure relationship applicable on relationships today? To find the answers to these questions we made a quantitative study and used a questionnaire to collect empirical data.

Problemformulering: Går det att uppnå en signifikant återkommande överavkastning samt riskjusterad överavkastning i förhållande till den svenska aktiemarknaden genom systematiskt följande av investeringsstrategin ?Dogs of the Dow??Syfte: Syftet är att undersöka huruvida teorin ?Dogs of the Dow? är applicerbar på den svenska aktiemarknaden i sökandet efter en signifikant återkommande överavkastning i förhållande till marknaden. Med detta hoppas det finnas en positiv differens av den riskjusterade överavkastningen gentemot index.Metod: Studien samlar in primärdata för empirin via SIX Trust, SIX Edge samt från Riksbankens hemsida. Sekundärdata härstammar från vetenskapliga artiklar uthämtade från främst JStor och EBSCO Host. Även studentlitteratur, tidigare studier utgör sekundärdata.

In this Bachelor thesis I explore sound and room as elements in design of user interfaces, both theoretical and practical in a specific application domain, to identify some of the advantages and disadvantage associated with these elements. As application domain I studied email clients and their usage at home amongst students at Blekinge Institute of Technology. In the study I found an activity, which seems to be highly distributed in the physical room where the user is located. The activity was notification of email and could take place in an arbitrary location of the home. I then augmented this activity with ideas from my theoretical assumption about room and sound. The result was a rule-based agent for notification of email, which primarily uses sound as interaction style..

In this essay I have chosen to explore how computers are used in preschools. The study was done as a survey. How does preschool seize the children´s culture? In today´s society ICT and computers are a big part of children´s everyday life and reflects on their upbringing.Since I am using computers as a pedagogical tool in teaching the children at my preschool, I find this topic interesting to explore.Are the teacher´s using computers for an educational purpose with the children at preschools or are they using it in other ways?Do the teachers think they have the required knowledge to computers usage in teaching the children in a pedagogical way?What is the teacher´s attitude towards computers in preschool?The essay starts with a introductorial background section where I talk about my own experiences of using computers with the children in my preschool, and then referring to the society then and now, school law, curriculum, teachers' computer skills, media situation amongst children and young people, computer use in preschools/schools and health effects. I have composed a survey based on the answers of 50 teachers in 30 different preschools and in nine different municipalities.The result of the survey is reported and concludes with a part of discussion, where the results are put up against the introductorial background section.

LSV410. Specialarbete, 15 hpHt 2011Handledare: Elisabet Engdahl.

This thesis examines trust on the web. W3C is a consortium of organisations focusing on development of standards for web publishing, and one of their projects within the semantic web track is web-based annotations. The purpose of the investigation at hand is to evaluate to what extent different factors are being considered when webbased information is judged, and whether web-based annotations could serve as a confidence-inspiring tool. The main research question was therefore: How do the informants experience Annozilla as a possible confidence-inspiring tool? The empirical material consists of a case study with eight informants.

Med tankar från pedagogen Montessori och filosoferna Platon och Baudrillard har detta arbete behandlat frågor om datorn och dess betydelse för en grafiker. Frågeställningen formulerades efter hand och lydde tillslut: ?Hur kan materia te sig i digital form?? Forskningen resulterade i en hypotes för hur digital materia skulle födas i datorn: genom att blanda två uppsättningar av data, såsom två genuppsättningar tillsammans skapar en ny organism. Under produktionen utvecklades därmed en metod för hur en grafiker ska kunna skapa tillsammans med en dator. Syftet är att ge andra grafiker ett nytt sätt att se på digital grafik.

Problem: This report concerns how the students of Södertörn högskola values physical papers. Even though technology have made it possible to digitalise documents, students today print and copy documents more then ever before. It will examine what the students finds valuable in physical papers and why they choose to print a document they just as well could read and manipulate via a computer.Method: This report consists of an empiric study, in form of a web poll and of a number of interviews. Furthermore earlier studies on the matter will be taking in consideration during the analysis.Results: The study shows that the students of Södertörns högskola values physical papers highly. The students choose to print a document since they find that it is easier to read, to make notes and that a printed document is easier to use on the move, rather then using a computer..

En virtuell organisation (VO) är resultatet av den snabba och målmedvetna utvecklingen, där exempelvis två företag kan agera som separata enheter, men arbeta tillsammans som ett företag och på så sätt blir ett virtuellt lag. Lagsamarbetet består av en grupp människor med spetskompetens. Detta arbetssätt har lett till att flera företag inom en VO kan ha tillgång till samma information, oavsett var arbetsplatsen är geografiskt lokaliserad.Undersökningen i rapporten genomfördes i intervjuform. Sex företag medverkade. Arbetet syftade till att klargöra vilka faktorer som företagen ansåg vara viktiga, då virtuella lag skapas inom en VO.

This Batchelor?s Thesis concerns 20 points at the MDA-program (People, Computers and Work) at Blekinge Institute of Technology in Ronneby, Sweden. 10 points concerns Computer Science and 10 points Human Work Science. The thesis is about the process of starting a new department of Blekingesjukhuset [Blekinge Hospital] in Karlshamn, Blekinge called Sjukvårdsrådgivningen [Health Care Advice Bureau]. The thesis starts with a description of the ethnographical methods used, followed by the process of establishing the department.

Den här rapporten är ett resultat av ett kandidatarbete på 20-poäng. Projektet som rapporten handlar om, beskriver hur utvecklingen av ett webbutikssystem åt ett flertal företag gått till. De har i sin tur köpt webbsystemet från företaget Opti Use som givit oss uppgiften. I rapporten diskuteras hur utvecklingsprocessen gått till och hur ett arbete med ett befintligt system upplevts. Rapporten beskriver även hur lösningen på uppgiften har tagit form och hur utvecklingsprocessen påverkat den.

To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the worldThese words sum up my account of social worker expertise. How does one become skillful?a master?in the profession? I answer this question by exploring how social worker proficiency can be developed and grow with the help and support of supervisors, clients and colleagues. Development through professional supervision and in the encounter with clients is an essential part of the work. I also discuss what it means to be new in the field (a novice) in relation to being experienced (a master).

Today more and more municipalities interact across a wide range of sectors. The reasons tostart interacting are varying and for those who succeed with this form of work, there arebenefits in terms of efficiency and knowledge exchanges. But are the reasons that interactalways obvious? Sweden currently has 290 municipalities of varying size and allmunicipalities have basically the same mission, to deliver services to its residents.Information technology allows municipalities to digitize much of the workload, but theintroduction of the technique is not without problems. For small municipalities, there are greatdemands to deliver reliability and support for their internal and external services.

In this thesis I'm trying to investigate how good educational computer programs work in elementary school. I delimited the study to contain one elementary school in the stages of 6 to 9. The method I used was qualitative and the approach was inductive. I interviewed four teachers and five pupils as the way to collect data for the study. The theories I used were parts from different books with authors, which have done similar studies and researches.