During the last decade several cooperatives have struggled against many problems. Especiallyin North America several cooperatives have been forced to reconstruct, merge or have beenpurchased by other firms. There are many reasons behind these problems, but one observationmade on these cooperatives implies that they have one thing in common. The cooperatives areall very large and have a complex business structure.Lantmännen is one of the largest cooperatives in the Nordic Countries with its main office inSweden. In Nilsson et al.

This thesis aims at exploring a national collaborative gateway-service, PictureAustralia, hosted at the National Library of Australia. This will be done by means of investigating some underlying principles for descriptive standards and conventions as of the library discourse which is the objective of bibliographic control and access. The reason to do this is to bring some main features of these principles into the context of a cross-institutional cooperation between libraries, galleries/museums and archives in a picture database service. The attention will lay on the objectives of what functions the system is designed to perform to give access, as defined by Elaine Svenonius in the Intellectual Foundations of Information Organization 2000, and how these objectives will affect this particular database-service collocating performance, which is a system- and logical approach. Though, this study will be done in an explorative and qualitative way, by a case-study, which is to examine some sample metadata records emanated from different institutions in this project.

SMC is in the process of developing a micro simulation model. The existing micro simulation model developed at Cornell University for US data, CorSim, is one of the fundamental parts for the new micro simulation at SMC. To develop the Swedish model, Swedish data on all individuals in Sweden during 11 years are also available. These data are organized in a database. This paper describes the process of rebuilding the database to a more useful structure.

De senaste åren har molekylärbiologisk data växt explosionsartat. Ny teknik gör att information kan härledas ur data snabbare och mer än tidigare. Faktum är att det tillkommer så mycket ny data att de nya resultaten inte längre kan publiceras i artiklar. Dessa sekvenser av data finns istället bara åtkomliga i speciella databaser. Dessa databaser är tillgängliga för allmänheten dels genom att ladda ned dem eller att använda en Internet browser.Det har, för ett par år sedan, kommit en ny standard för att strukturera upp och lagra data på.

Due to a growing interest in communication in today?s society the demand for equipment that is used in communication networks increases while the competition between companies that produce this equipment grows. To meet the increasing demand and at the same time having a competitive product development many companies use some effective product design, such as the modular product design. When a modular product design is used it?s good to compare different module configurations for a certain product and to simplify these comparisons some tool can be used.

The purpose of this thesis was to examine if there where fallacies in the design solutions for the business system IFS Applications from a user perspective, and if so, correct these from a cognitive science approach.Data collection consisted of three main portions. These where; workshop, individual interviews and observations. The collected data was analyzed and resulted in identification of two main areas in the application that where found lacking.The result of the study showed that the usability for processing large amounts of data and the lack of customization where the main flaws in the application. Two low fidelity prototypes where created with the purpose of rectifying the underlying flawed design solutions that where identified from the collected data..

Dagens informationssamhälle har bidragit till att människor, maskiner och företag genererar och lagrar stora mängder data. Hanteringen och bearbetningen av de stora datamängderna har fått samlingsnamnet Big Data.De stora datamängderna ökar bland annat möjligheterna att bedriva kunskapsbaserad verksamhetsutveckling. Med traditionella metoder för insamling och analys av data har kunskapsbaserad verksamhetsutveckling tillämpats genom att skicka ut resurskrävande marknadsundersökningar och kartläggningar, ofta genomförda av specialiserade undersökningsföretag. Efterhand som analyser av samhällets befintliga datamängder blir allt värdefullare,har undersökningsföretagen därmed en stor utvecklingsmöjlighet att vaska guld ifrån samhällets enorma datamängder. Studien är genomförd som en explorativ fallstudie som undersöker hur svenska undersökningsföretag arbetar med Big Data och identifierar några av de utmaningar de står inför tillämpningen av Big Data analyser i verksamheten. Resultatet visar att de deltagande undersökningsföretagen använder Big Data som verktyg för att effektivisera befintliga processer och i viss mån komplettera traditionella undersökningar.

Creating a database to manage medical data is not the easiest. We create a database to be used for a presentation tool that presents medical data about patients that is stored in the database. We examine which of the three databases, MySQL with relational design, MySQL with EAV design and MongoDB that are best suited for storing medical data. The analysis i performed in two steps. The first step handles the database that is most effective to retriev data. The second step examines how easy it is to change the structure of the various databases. The results show that depending on whether efficiency or maintenance is most important, different databases are the best choise. MySQL with relational design proves to be most effective while MongoDB is the easiest to maintain..

The study has shown that retailers in the mid-price segment differentiate their brand through developing a strong company identity around the brand. The personality involves store atmosphere, merchandise and advertising. Larger companies have chosen to lay the responsibility on management level, which facilitates on store level. By controlling the strategies on a central level the company can make sure that the stores are steered in the direction that the company wants them to be steered in, and also that they follow the positioning-concept. The company can also devote its efforts to working with its core value, which is service.

The purpose of IFLA:s Core Programme ALP Advancement of Librarianship in the third world is to further the objectives of the library profession, library institutions and library and informationservices in the less developed countries in the third world. This essay deals with how and with what purpose IFLA/ALP managing developing work in the third world. What roles do they consider that the public library could play for development of the society? The essay also deal with purposes that have resulted in the close cooperation between IFLA/ALP and other organizations.till comparing their work with SIDA and UNESCO. Finaly I try to connect this work with a development theory and a global context..

This master of science thesis intends to examine how the established innovation theoriesinteracts with the social and cultural phenomena arising from the reduction in communicationcosts as a result of the development of the internet.The aim is to present a knowledge inventory of attitudes to and experiences of an openapproach, with emphasis on collaborative innovation, in product and service developmentdriven companies in different fields. The studied theories and the empirical results forms thebasis for an analysis of how companies can benefit from the diversified knowledge that existsoutside their borders as well as an exploration of the potential for this kind of knowledgeexchange to act as a catalyst for innovation.The theoretical part of the study is based essentially on two tracks: (1) innovation theories witha focus onopen innovation and user innovation, and (2) a broad review of how theories ofdiversified knowledgeand collective intelligence has become possible to apply in an innovationcontext. The empirical part of the study is based on material obtained from semi-structuredinterviews with respondents from six companies.The results show that companies have implemented unstructured innovation initiatives withoutany formal links to the structured product development processes, which are part of thecompanies core activities. The main conclusions include the following insights: There is a needfor structured links between the unstructured initiatives and the core activities, which makes itpossible to take promising ideas to market. The companies also have to lose some control of theunstructured initiatives; consequently it is impossible to pinpoint what the outcome will be.

Diabetes is a widespread disease, which is increasing in the Western World and even in the developing countries. This entail an increasing strain on the medical service when to nurse and treat patients with diabetes type 2. To support and empower the patients in their choices, which will affect them for life, is a challenge to the nurse. The nurse is an important character in nursing care when patients take a more active part in treatments. The aim of this literature review was to exam the factors, which influence diabetes care.

This thesis addresses the subject of internal communication between the leadership and the employees. Communication is a common process and according to Tufvesson (2008), the primary focus has been on the role and responsibility of the leadership. This can mean that, from the employee's point of view, it is not clear what the organization expects, and this lack of clarity dimishes the ability of the employees to live up to those expectations (ibid). Tufvesson (2008) believes that today's organizations need common interpretations, which requires a well thought out communication strategy between leadership and employees. Because communication represents an organization's functionality, the report?s authors were interested in studying the employees? representatives.

The original promise behind the Internet Protocol was to deliver data from a sender to the receiver using a best-effort approach. This means that the protocol makes no guarantees except that it will try to deliver the data to the destination. If some problem occurs the packet may be discarded by the network without any notice. No guarantees are made regarding the time it takes to deliver the data, the rate at which data will be delivered or if data is delivered in the same order it was sent. The best-effort approach is arguably the reason behind the success of the Internet Protocol and is what makes IP scalable to networks the size of the Internet.

This thesis aims to explore the process where strategies for music artists are created by record companies. We describe and analyze how decisions regarding signing, distribution, marketing, bookings and co-operations are made. Through our study we find that the strategy process can be described as a pattern according to Mintzberg's definition. The "inside-out" perspective is dominating and the record companies base their strategies on internal core competencies and the artistry and will of the music artist. The underlying causes of this are the uncertainty that characterizes the industry; the focus on social relations; and the importance of cultural legitimacy..