This project report shows the work around a mockup to a three-dimensional avatar-making application. An avatar-making application is a computer-based software program in which it is possible to create your own personal virtual character. The possibility to use three-dimensional avatars can in the future be essential for adding extra personal information or characteristics to social communication over the internet or over mobile phones. The problem of transforming a physical form and reconstruct it to a virtual basis has been an important problem to solve for many companies and software developers in the, for instance, virtual worlds area. Methods and ideas over making this transformation is the key throughout this project.

Recent papers and bills from the Swedish Government deal with the possibilities  of giving all Swedish citizens the possibility of their own creative actlvities in the cultural sector. This work is about where such actlvities shall be placed in order to make them obtainable  for all. As an example of creative work this work takes computer-based music-making. At the public library in Odense, Denmark there is a weil functioning sound workshop where the public gets the opportunity of making music with some assistance from the staff. This work shows  that also in Sweden  the public libraries are the most suitable  institutions  for placing studies for computer-based music-making  for the public depending  on the public libraries'  traditions in adult education.

After the tsunami disaster in December 2004 many arguments were heared that one oft the major reasons behind the poor Swedish effort connected to the evacuation and health care of the Swedish citizens in Thailand right after the incident is the Swedish model with independent government authorities. By comparing the constitution, the political decision making tradition by the ministers and the handling of the catastrophe in the tree Scandinavian countries Denmark, Norway and Finland, plus analysing the behaviour of the Swedish foreign and prime minister from a rational choose inspired individual decision making theory the research shows that there is no proof that a constitutional change in Sweden into the traditional model with government authorities controlled by the ministers alone would led to a more effective crisis handling by the government due to crises concerning Swedish citizens out states. Although the research shows that the constitution and the tradition of decision making in the government provides the basic condition of the ministers individual rational decision making.

Managers operating within the dynamic society of today are said to rely on intuition when effective and quick decisions are to be made. This skill or phenomenon has aroused an interest within the academic world of management whom has explored intuition, its relation to decision making and its influencing factors, especially in the private sector. Intuitive decision making is however not isolated solely to this sector but also involved in decision making associated to the public sector. Therefore, the aim of the thesis is to investigate whether managers at the hospital Akademiska in Uppsala involve intuition in decision making and to what extent the factors time, amount of information, individual experience and decision complexity influence the intuition.The theoretical framework includes academic research regarding how intuition and rationality affect decisions, the concept of intuition and factors influencing the intuitiveness of decision making. Furthermore the theoretical discussion explores intuition connected to leadership, negative aspects of intuitive decisions and a comparison between different factors that separates public and private sector in terms of decision making.

The starting point for this work was a discussion between my supervisor and myself during my teaching training. The discussion concerned the appropriateness of allowing students make films with sexual content. Film gives young people the opportunity to express their feelings and broaden their views. If the film then disseminates to unknown people via in-ternet, which it most likely will do, maybe it is no longer so positive. The aim of this study is to shed light on various aspects of identity and ethics that are important to keep in mind when young people in school make films.

Gender is a universal factor that is unavoidable in classroom interaction between pupils and teachers. The principle aim of this essay is to illustrate whether, during the interaction between pupil and teachers still occurs behavior that expresses a gender order. We also want to establish if the ones who attract attention from the teachers is the individual, or if teachers still on a subconscious or conscious level, think of the pupils gender and ascribes him or her some characteristics or qualities. Especially we want to bring out the pupils thoughts and sights of there is a difference on how teachers treat boys and girls. Another purpose we wanted to achieve was to illustrate how teachers work with the concept of equivalence between the sexes, according to Lpo94.Our essay is built on our studies around what teachers think on how they treat the pupils, on the basis of gender perspective.

Bakgrunden för denna studie är problematiken kring beslutsfattande. Tidigare forskning visar att en individ dagligen fattar en mängd medvetna och omedvetna beslut. Dessa beslut faller sig olika utefter vilka erfarenheter, preferenser och känslor individen har och hur detta påverkar individen vid köp av dyra sällanköpsvaror. Syftet med studien är att identifiera faktorer och personlighetstyper som influerar köparens beslut gällande dyra sällanköpsvaror..

My purpose with this study is to examine whether or how teachers are gender-conscious in preschool everyday situations. That is, if they are aware of their attitude and treatment of work on gender and what gender concept has relevance for educators. In much of the practical literature that I read, it appears that many teachers are not aware of their responses and attitudes to children based on gender aspect. I have examined how the gender work differs in the two preschools that I chosen to study.The questions that this study is based on isDoes the educators at the preschools work gender conscious in everyday situations?-Is it boys or girls who get the most attention from educators in everyday situations?What do the teachers at the preschool concept of gender?What approach have been the teachers of preschool to counteract traditional gender patterns in everyday situations?I have made ??a qualitative study where I interviewed five educators and made ??observations on the two preschools.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate to what extent municipalities in Sweden use democratic innovations to include citizens in the decision making process. Along there are three research questions:? What different forms of democracy innovations are Swedish municipalities applying in order to increase the civic participation between elections and what forms are dominant?? What potential influence in decision-making are citizens getting through these democratic innovations based on the results?? Based on the results ? in what ways is the democracy innovations used in municipalities challenging representative democracy? The method used to fulfill the purpose and answer the research questions is a web survey including 287 of 290 (in total) municipal websites. The theoretic framework includes a model which is called ?Smith?s ladder of participation? and is influenced by the research of Graham Smith and Sherry Arnstein.

The representative democracy has become weakened during the last decades. At the same time the United Nations declared at the Rio de Janeiro meeting in 1992 that environmental problems can best be solved by involvement of all concerned citizens in decision-making. The main purpose of this study has been to examine if citizens panels is a possible way to involve citizens in environmental decision-making and what the outcomes can be. Furthermore the study has investigated what the participation has contributed to environmental politics and how representative the results have been. This has been carried out by investigating the Piteåpanel in the municipality of Piteå by conducting interviews.The result of the study shows that the involvement of the citizens in the decision-making influenced the environmental politics of the municipality.

Citizens? freedom of choice has been a subject of debate in Sweden for over 30 years. This study focuses on decision making processes among patients within the Swedish healthcare system. The main conclusions are that in contrast to how patients? freedom of choice is described within governmental bills and governmental inquires and reports, patients are not following the steps included in the rational model of decision making.

Background: Previous studies have shown that intuition occurs in decision making in small enterprises. However, these studies have not illuminated which decision attributes leads to intuitive decision making.Purpose:The purpose with this study is to contribute with an increased understanding of which decision attributes leads managers in small enterprises to use intuition in decision making and why these decisions attributes have an impact on the role of intuition. The follow-ing research question will be answered in our study: Which decision attributes leads to intui-tive decision making in small enterprises, and why?Method: To answer the research question we have conducted semi structural interviews with managers in small enterprises to achieve a deeper understanding of the role of intuition. We have also used a method called Visual Card Sorting as a complement to the semi structural interviews.Result/conclusion: The result of our study indicates that the relevance and the uncertainty of a decision have the greatest significance in the use of intuition in decision making in small enterprises.

This paper investigates decision-making under uncertainty and complexity. The focus point of the study was to investigate how organizations in Stockholm has come to a decisions on how to manage the trial implementation of a congestion tax in terms of their company cars. The study was conducted as a survey with complementary interviews with the decision makers in change of congestion tax problem. The aim of the study was to gain an understanding for the decision making processes, and how and why the companies decided as they did. The theory on which we based our study emanated from both systems theory and business economic theory on decision making.

Background: Previous studies have shown that intuition occurs in decision making in small enterprises. However, these studies have not illuminated which decision attributes leads to intuitive decision making.Purpose:The purpose with this study is to contribute with an increased understanding of which decision attributes leads managers in small enterprises to use intuition in decision making and why these decisions attributes have an impact on the role of intuition. The follow-ing research question will be answered in our study: Which decision attributes leads to intui-tive decision making in small enterprises, and why?Method: To answer the research question we have conducted semi structural interviews with managers in small enterprises to achieve a deeper understanding of the role of intuition. We have also used a method called Visual Card Sorting as a complement to the semi structural interviews.Result/conclusion: The result of our study indicates that the relevance and the uncertainty of a decision have the greatest significance in the use of intuition in decision making in small enterprises.

Mergers between companies has become more and more common in Sweden and in the rest of the world with the motive to increase the competitive strength in the current markets and has an important role within organisational development of companies. When organisations merger there is not only buildings and objects that are put together but also their individual organisational structures, people, values and cultures. This can be a difficult process and can affect many people in how they think conscious as well as unconscious, feel and react.The purpose of this thesis is to gain a deeper understanding of how employees are affected following a merger when changes in the organisational culture come up, and how these changes are expressed.This thesis is delimited to investigate only one company, Skruf Snus AB and only focus on their business and employees in the region of Stockholm. The thesis contains a qualitative investigation with semi structured interviews that has been carried out with eight employees at Skruf Snus AB. The thesis is partly based on a model of Schein which describes the different levels in organisational culture and partly on some theories about reactions to change in relation to the integration between the employees following a merger.The results of the investigation indicate that with a merger the whole organisational culture is affected and therefore also the employees.