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.

AbstractThe purpose of this study is to examine how children interact with each other and what social positions they assume when using the learning pad. The social positions reffered to is the Owner, the Participant and the Spectator, defined by Ljung Djärf (2004). According to Ljung Djärf (2004), the Owner is defined as the one in control of the mouse and keyboard. The Owner is expected to be in charge of what is happening on the screen. The Participant is typically found on a chair near the computer.

This essay is a narrative analyze of the computer game Halo. The purpose of the essay is to see what function the narrative elements have in a computer game of the action genre. The analyze is done with a neo-formalistic approach according to the theory of David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson. The choice of game was based on it's positive reviews mentioning the story. The essay tries to give a picture of research in the field and researchers views on narratives and computer games.

This study investigates a method for identifying human capital and its effect on company valuation. We devise a measure for the efficiency of human capital based on the personnel cost. We include all companies listed in the financial and industry sector on Nasdaq OMX Stockholm in an attempt to examine human capital and its effect on firm valuation. Our results indicate that a higher efficiency of human capital has a positive effect on return on assets. However, we find that our measure can be interpreted in two ways; either as a firm?s level of human capital efficiency or its dependency on human capital, to achieve its net sales and revenue.

The thesis aims to examine how companies optimize the human capital from a value creation perspective. The value creation will be related to transfer of knowledge, recruitment, staff turnover and development. The thesis has a deductive approach and six qualitative interviews have been conducted. The results from the interviews will be strengthened with a quantitative data analysis of two measurements; value added per employee and human capital efficiency. The theoretical framework includes definitions of human capital.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how high school students felt that the computer helped or hindered participation and self-esteem in the learning situation and if the students experienced any differences between when they had been relatively alone in using a computer compared to when everyone had their own computer. The starting point was the national one-to-one projects made to give every student access to a personal computer and how it affected students in special educational needs and previous research. The theoretical approach was based on socioculture/activity theory and theories of self-esteem. Ten high school students in grade one at a senior high school that previously had started up a one-to-one project was interviewed. The results showed that the students primarily used the computer to write and to search the Internet, but even as a alternative or compensatory tool.

This examination work is about implementation of Cisco Systems Network Admission Control (NAC) within a leading IT-company in region of Jönköping. NAC is a technique that is used for securing the internal network from the inside. NAC can verify that the client who connects to the network has the latest antivirus updates and latest operative system hotfixes. Clients who don?t meet the criteria can be placed in quarantine VLAN where they only have access to the update servers.

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.

The thesis ?Vi fixar och trixar oss fram till att hjälpa människor? focuses on social work in the field of prostitution and human trafficking in Sweden. Through semi-structured interviews with social workers in the municipalities of Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö working with persons selling and buying sex, and through discourse analysis, the author analyses the perceptions among these social workers of the relation between human rights, prostitution and human trafficking, and the social work which they conduct.The thesis concludes that although the social workers perceive prostitution and human trafficking and social work in this field as human rights related, they are not explicitly using a human rights based approach in their work.The thesis concludes that the social workers identify several aspects that infringe on the rights of their clients in relation to the human rights principles of Universality, Non-discrimination, Accountability and Rule of law and the principle of Participation and Inclusion. They portray the human rights situation of street based sellers, especially those not being Swedish citizens and those affected by human trafficking, as severe.The thesis concludes that the social workers find several obstacles (legal as well as structural) that diminish their ability to strengthen their clients? human rights situation.

Background: Commerce over the Internet has exploded in recent years. For many companies it has become a necessity to offer their products overthe Internet. This new market ought to change the conditions for relations between customers and suppliers. Purpose: Our aim is to describe and analyse the factors that influence the relations between customers and suppliers, from a customer view, when commerce is conducted over the Internet.Delimitations: The study is limited to B2B commerce with IT-products. Methodology: The thesis is based on a study of the company IMS, their e-commerce site and organisations that buy IT-products over the Internet.Conclusion: Internet opens up new possibilities for custom designed offers.

AbstractThis study is a critical analysis of three different views on human dignity and its function in the discourse of human rights: that of Christopher McCrudden, Jürgen Habermas and Elena Namli. The three positions are interpreted, analyzed and compared in order to see which is most reasonable.The conclusion is that Habermas?s and McCrudden?s view of human rights as legal reduces human dignity to a legal concept. Namli?s perspective of human dignity as a moral principle generates a wider understanding of human dignity and its function.

The gaming market is growing and the number of people, men and women, who play computer games, is also increasing every day. In addition, computer games are also interactive media which leads to the fact that product placement in computer games attracts and is used more frequently by marketers. It is therefore important for marketers and game developers to understand how product placement in computer games affects players' attention and attitude towards the brand or product that is product placed. We therefore examine how product placement in computer games affects players' recall of and attitude towards the brand. The aim is to help companies and game developers to see the effect of product placement in computer games on players and thus product place more efficiently.

The company Sound Precision has developed a new Line Array loudspeaker system (VHA-40). When using this system, their customers need computer aid to get the best possible sound-quality and control of sound levels for the whole audience. The aim of this thesis is to develop a truly useful sound quality simulator for the VHA-40. The system will help the sound engineers to position the loudspeakers for optimal sound by simulating loudspeaker configurations and visualizing the resulting sound quality and quantity. To solve this a human-centered design (HCD) approach is taken to implement a system that is truly useful for the users, meaning that they will use it more and hence deliver better sound for the audience.

The company Sound Precision has developed a new Line Array loudspeaker system (VHA-40). When using this system, their customers need computer aid to get the best possible sound-quality and control of sound levels for the whole audience. The aim of this thesis is to develop a truly useful sound quality simulator for the VHA-40. The system will help the sound engineers to position the loudspeakers for optimal sound by simulating loudspeaker configurations and visualizing the resulting sound quality and quantity. To solve this a human-centered design (HCD) approach is taken to implement a system that is truly useful for the users, meaning that they will use it more and hence deliver better sound for the audience.