The report describes an ecodesign thesis performed by the author at the ÅF EcoDesign Center. The basic idea of ecodesign is to develop products with a minimized environmental load, without neglecting other significant product aspects such as function and price. During the last couple of years the public interest in environmental friendly products has increased, which has made it possible for companies to make a profit from their investments in ecodesign. To meet the increasing market for ecodesign services ÅF started the ÅF EcoDesign Center, where the company has gathered all of their competence in ecodesign in order to help companies to become greener. The task was to develop a tool for an Eco Screening.

Sandvik står inför många nya utmaningar då världen globaliseras. Sandviks strategiska plan syftar till att nå världsklass inom verksamheten och värdeskapande för aktieägarna. Sandvik Mining and Construction Köping AB är i startfasen när det gäller förbättringsarbete och 5S. 5S står för sortera, systematisera, städa, standardisera och se till.Syftet med detta examensarbete är att undersöka hur man genomför en förändring på bästa sätt och applicera det på implementeringen av 5S på Sandvik Mining and Construction Köping AB. Målet med examensarbetet är främst att göra en nulägesbeskrivning samt utveckla och arbeta efter framtagen arbetsmodell.

The Sub-Saharan countries have for a long time struggled with poverty and conflicts which might have proven hostile for investors. The analysis aims to see if there is a significant correlation between foreign direct investments (FDI) and economic growth and which cultural and institutional factors seem to be significant in this correlation. Considered are also other variables and their influence that might explain what motivates and gives incentives for foreign direct investments (FDI) and are used in the construction of a regression analysis. This to see whether there is an effect on the economic growth in relations to FDI. The results show that FDI is of significance to the economic growth in the region and the study shows that corruption seems to be the most significant institutional factor in the correlation with effect on economic growth and the ability to attract FDI..

Scania is constantly trying to improve their product development process, the PD-process.The company, along with others, is optimizing their development process in order to gainadvantage in terms of shorter lead times and larger market shares. For this to happen, a wellorganized process is required.The PD-process is divided into three different phases that are linked together by a hand-overprocedure. Scania Bus has experienced problems that stem from a lack of hand-over routines,and as a result the product development process has been slowed down. This has a number ofconsequences, one of them being the complication of new project initiations.The main purpose of this master thesis was to review the hand-over procedure. Within thestudy the project directive was also to be examined, and a recommendation of how the start ofa new project could be made easier was included.To begin with, a detailed literature study was conducted with the intention of obtaining thebasic theoretical knowledge needed for this study.

Aim: The challenges that arise from the development of the digitalization are forcing organizations to adjust their activities and operations to meet the needs of the society and organization´s important stakeholders. To be able to keep up with the developments organizations are constantly changing. These changes must be communicated to their stakeholders in a way that makes sense to them and to ensure that mutual understanding is achieved for the change to be succesful throughout the organization. The main purpose of this paper is to study an organizations communication during a change process. The focus lies on organizational communication strategies and the sensemaking processes as organization communicates about the change to its important stakeholders.Contribution:This paper will contribute to the field of organizational communication by filling a gap on empirical studies of internal communication during an organizational change.Method: The main method for this paper is the qualitative interviews.

Title: Establishing in China?s ?good-enough? market - A benchmarking study on Scandinavian engineering industries? further establishment in China. Problem discussion: The Chinese market is gaining importance for Scandinavian engineering industries and is by many considered a crucial market to be successful in. These companies have a tradition of producing premium products for premium customers. However, in China many are currently experiencing the threat from local competitors producing products of somewhat less quality aimed at the vast Chinese middle market - the good-enough market.

The purpose with this study is to examine and analyze the eldercare staffs conceptions and perceptions about the construction of ethnicity and aging, in Swedish eldercare, to illustrate the process of othering. The authors interviewed eight people who work in the eldercare by using a vignette. We have analyzed our result from the interviews through several theories and earlier research pertinent to the subject. The study has shown that eldercare staff through their conceptions and perceptions unconscious been conducive to make and recompose constructions of ethnicity and elder. The constructions of ethnicity and elder can be conductive to processes of othering..

Road design with focus to safety has been extensively developed in last decades in Nordic and some other EU countries with the main aim to achieve a decrease in a number of accidents and fatalities on the roads. These countries gained many valuable experiences, but they had to sacrifice great effort, expenses, and time to reach the present art-of-state. The purpose of the Master?s Thesis is to review some design approaches with focus to safety and discuss the general way that they may be applied. The Master?s Thesis studies safety in three levels: (i) general - design standards, national safety policies and road hierarchy; (ii) local authority and road administrator; and (iii) three specific safety countermeasures - junctions, pedestrian crossings and traffic calming.

The aim of this final thesis is to make it easier for the customer of a new designed house to get a picture of what the house will look like inside before it has been built.A method, which can be applied by any construction company who likes to visualize there buildings, has been designed and tested. One works after a regular design planning which is transformed into a three dimensional model of the house. In a rendering program, materials and surfaces are chosen for the model and then a picture of the finished product is made. The programs used for this work are ADT 2006 and VIZ Render.To evaluate the use of this method I?ve chosen to cooperate with LB-Hus which is a housing company that is specialized in building detached houses.

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to facilitate increased understanding of immigrant's experience of the meaning of work with focus on how that meaning can change as a part of the acculturation process. Participants (n=13) from eight countries answered an open question. The responses were analysed using Meaning Construction Analysis (MCA)-Minerva and the individual's life-worlds were made visible and discussed. The themes meaning of work, work, unemployment, education, adjustment, immigration, Sweden/country of origin, dreams, possibilities and self appeared as jointly shared important aspects. The results indicate that work is of central importance, and although the individuals share certain experiences, the meaning associated with the themes is of a complex and individual nature..

In my work I have received a lot of concrete advice about improving the cooperation between landscape architects and contractors. Here is a list of suggestions from both cathegories: Landscape architect's advice: ? Be humble, show respect. ? A practical approach makes cooperation easier. ? Call together a startup meeting with all the consultants and builders. ? Establish a network of contacts with serious contractors whom you can recommend to customers. ? Don't hesitate to ask the contractor for advice; they often have lots of useful knowledge. ? It is important to have clearly written and thoroughly worked out documentation. ? Never let a newly graduated landscape architect visit the buiding site without the company of an experienced colleague.

Today's climate and environmental issues have now been up for discussion for quite long. Various environmental measures have been taken, but it is not always certain that those measures actually are for the better because of the complexity of our environment. Therefore, studies of whole life cycles are very important even if they are time and resource intensive.Real estate accounts for 15% of global carbon emissions, but also affects our environment in many other aspects. In Sweden this number is even higher. About 30 % of its carbon dioxide emissions originates from building sector and changes are therefore of great importance.

Students of all ages host a wide variety of scientifically inaccurate ideas and conceptions about everyday astronomical phenomena, such as the seasons, the moon phases, and gravity. The field of Astronomy Education Research has over the last decade experienced an accelerating growth, although the majority of studies have been conducted in the USA. In this work, the 9th grade students of a typical Swedish school were surveyed by means of a questionnaire in order to probe their conceptual understanding of several key concepts in astronomy. In the end, the number of respondents amassed to a total of 90. The results were analyzed with a constructivist approach in light of conceptual change theory and phenomenological primitives.

A Swedish electronics company wants to make the cooling of one of their electronic components more efficient. They propose that a retrofit liquid cooler is the way to achieve this goal. The current air cooling has high energy cost due to the high amount of power needed to power fans and heat exchangers. Using high volumes of air for cooling also leads to noise pollution. The conversion from air to liquid cooling would possibly make the operation of the electronics more cost efficient and less noisy.The purpose of this project is to theoretically evaluate different concepts of drawing the heat generated by the electronic component in to a fluid, using numerical calculations in Matlab and FEM simulations in ANSYS.

Today's climate and environmental issues have now been up for discussion for quite long. Various environmental measures have been taken, but it is not always certain that those measures actually are for the better because of the complexity of our environment. Therefore, studies of whole life cycles are very important even if they are time and resource intensive.Real estate accounts for 15% of global carbon emissions, but also affects our environment in many other aspects. In Sweden this number is even higher. About 30 % of its carbon dioxide emissions originates from building sector and changes are therefore of great importance.