High technology companies in Sweden spend a huge amount of money on research and product development in proportion to what they get back in earnings from their inventions. Product development has traditionally been regarded as much more important than business development. This thesis aims to point out the critical factors behind successful business development processes for high technology companies. We have chosen to make a case study of Hexagon, a highly successful and innovative company within the measurement technology business. Internal and external actors that are important for business development have been identified and interviewed in order to understand how ideas are developed and executed.

The rise of social media has put a focus on the division of owned, paid and earned media, where earned media has recently been hyped at the expense of owned and paid media. Due to a novel area we examine the differences and effects of using owned and paid media, specifically for packaging versus newspapers. Owned and paid media showed no significant differences regarding credibility, persuasion and perceived commerciality, which restored owned media?s status, especially since owned media is more cost efficient. The effects of allowing ads for external brands on the owned medium were also studied.

In this undergraduate thesis you will venture on a journey through the land of democratic values and urban planning. My research question is stated as: whether or not urban planning can show effects on democratic values and whether or not the municipalities in Sweden takes these possible effects into account when planning their city centres. You will in my theory part of this thesis be able to read about different views on urban planning and on democracy. Famous authors like Robert D. Putnam and Richard Florida will be examined as well as other theorists on democracy and urban planning.

The purpose of this study is to interogate the tension-laden relationsship between men (of the dominant classes and ethnicities) and feminism. Closely linked to this lies the question of how valid and relevant official Swedish goals of gender equality can be to the Centres for Women´s Studies and Gender Research in Sweden.The essay is mainly an in-depth qualitative study concerned about questions such as; how does feminist researcher in Sweden perceive the question of men in/doing feminism and what are the implications of these perceptions for the Swedish goals of gender equality? Thus, in this study I´ve interviewed six feminist researchers, five women and one male, about their view of men doing/in/and feminism and about the adequacy of equality goals to the Centres for Women´s Studies and Gender Research in Sweden.The main questions I posed in this essay was prompted by the Swedish political scientist Bo Rothstein accusation of two feminist Swedish researchers, Yvonne Hirdman and Maud Eduards, of deliberately harassing men interested in feminist theory and striving to create women-only spaces at the different Centres for Women´s Studies and Gender Research around Sweden. This would according to Rothstein violate the Swedish goals of gender equality where equal representation is essential.However, the empirical material shows a benign attitude towards men doing feminism and the interviewed all stressed the importance of diversity among feminist scholars and students.As for the Swedish goals of gender equality, the interviewed expressed diverse and contradicatatory answers concerning how valid those goals should be to the Centres for Women´s Studies and Gender Research in Sweden.Contrasting the empirical material, my own argument in this essay circles around a critique of the validity of the Swedish goals of gender equality to the Centres for Women´s Studies and Gender Research in Sweden. Seeing men as a group with groupbased experiences, perspectives and interest puts the female dominance at the Centres for Women´s Studies and Gender Research in Sweden in another light, making the absence of men not a question of harassment but a question of male privilege to stay ignorant and indifferent of gender relations..

Bakgrund: Nålrädsla är ett vanligt förekommande problem, som drabbar mer än var tionde person. Rädslan sträcker sig mellan en oro inför provtagningar till en stark fobi som leder till undvikande av behandlingar och undersökningar. Det är viktigt att personer som lider av nålrädsla eller fobi får stöd och hjälp för att kunna ta emot nödvändig vård. Syfte: Syftet med examensarbetet är att belysa hur sjuksköterskan kan underlätta för vuxna patienter med rädsla för nålar att genomgå undersökningar och behandlingar. Metod: Metoden som använts är en litteraturöversikt.

The aim of this thesis was to understand and illuminate how readingpromotion projects can be carried out, what sort of activities they mightcontain and what sort of lasting impressions they might make. We choseto examine reading promotion projects because we consider thepromotion of reading and literacy a vital and important part of thelibraries work. The study took place at the city library of Uddevalla andthe projects included in the study were all directed towards children andyouth.The theory used in the thesis was Aidan Chambers?s model of theReading Circle which consists of the four themes of selection,?reading?, response and the enabling adult. Methods used were semistructuredinterview, document studies and observation.The results show that reading promotion projects benefit from cooperationbetween the adults involved and that education of the adultsin order to indirectly target the children is an effective way of spreadingthe love of reading.

The aim of our graduate work is to study the importance of image and shape?s in children's development and learning and also the preschool teacher?s views on image and shapes. Our research aims to explore the value of image and shapes creation and how it is expressed among children and in classroom activities. We are also interested in finding out how it differs from adults' views and what materials teachers use to promote the image and shapes creation in the curriculum. In our own experience, image and shapes activities are often structured differently in different curriculum activities.

Le Français, what is that? What is actually a language?Questions like these are not easily answered and whilelinguists are continuing their search for the essence ofour communicative systems we are all free to make ourown interpretations.In various media, like schoolbooks and otherlanguage-teaching material, for instance, you mayfi nd visual interpretations of what French is, as alanguage?. Very often it is the common picture of whatis considered typically French that is shown. There areseveral problems to be found in limiting oneself to thesekinds of visualizations. One of these is that the Frenchlanguage is no longer strictly French.

The aim of this study was to explore and gain understanding of the situation between managers in different forms of human service organizations. I chose to use a qualitative method and conducted semi-structured interviews with five professional middle managers in the public sector. To accomplish my purpose, I worked on the basis of several questions. The questions dealt with the role of middle management and what it involves, how it is perceived and what the middle managers think of the specific requirements for them and their leadership in organizations that provide services relating to people.  As a result of the analysis I have used the theory of social roles that describes the meaning of the different roles and role conflicts that arise in connection with various and conflicting expectations. The review of the results shows that middle managers in human service organizations experience to have to deal with a complex leadership role.

The regulatory framework for constructional calculations in Sweden did expire In January the 1.st, 2011.Since then the constructional regulatory that originally were composed by Boverket (BKR) has been replaced by new common range (Eurocodes) for the entire European Union. This transition has led to changes in existing rules and standards regarding dimensioning area in Grids and has forced a need for updating to structural Engineers.The new calculation system has caused time-consuming studies of the new rules and a proper understanding of all the advice and regulations for the entire profession.This study has been carried out in cooperation with the firm "Knut Jönson Ingenjörs AB i Stockholm?, that has been affected by this transition as all other consulting firms. The firm has requested for a calculation method of wall beams according to Eurocodes. The study's focus is therefore to clarify the rules and guidelines regarding the design of wall beams according to the new regulation.

The increased media clutter requires of brand managers to be innovative and creative in their choices of marketing communications in order for brands to be salient in the minds of consumers. Recent studies emphasize incongruent marketing as a means of "standing out" from this competitive clutter and reaching existing and new potential customers. The aim of this thesis is to examine the effects of brand incongruent sponsorships (sponsorships which are incongruent with established brand associations) on consumer response to well-established brands from the perspective of high and low levels of loyalty. A quantitative survey was conducted and the results show that incongruent sponsorships improve brand attitude, brand interest and brand credibility, while not affecting ad attitude, purchase intention and word-of-mouth intention for customers of low loyalty. For highly loyal customers the findings were that brand attitude, brand interest, brand credibility, purchase intention and word-of-mouth intention remained unchanged while ad attitude decreased.

AbstractThis is a thesis done in cooperation with the firm Somas and University of Karlstad. The project is an independent final examination part of the program in Innovation and DesignEngineering comprising 22.5 points, and performed by Mia Myrén Zreloff during spring term 2012. In parallel and collaboration, Fredrik Kjellin performs a similar job for the same company and with the same extent, but for the Program in Mechanical Engineering.The client and supervisor at the company have been Magnus Jansson and Anders Josefsson. At Karlstad University has technical supervisor been Hans Johansson, and in the design- and development process it was Monica Jakobsson. Examiner has been Fredrik Thuvander, professor in the Faculty of Technology and Science at Karlstad University.The mission has been to make a basis work for the company's own development and make a computational model to calculate, visualize and implement materials and other solutions in the manufacture of the company's ball valves.The project has undergone three major phases that included thorough study of the company, production, the problem and product.

How do we perceive literature? In our times computer games and Internet have made us grow more comfortable to the usage of non linear storylines. But how does this apply to printed literature?In this essay, called ?From a to b through d h and o. Non linear storytelling in our time? I have focused on nonlinear literature from different time periods and I have studied novels such as James Joyce?s Ulysses as well as works by William S.

The purpose of this thesis is to look into the knowledge city concept and the preferences and requirements of companies on such a city. Furthermore, suggestions of ideal conditions in a knowledge city are proposed. The thesis has been conducted through a qualitative approach where a deductive procedure has been implemented. In order to examine knowledge cities, Barcelona has sketchily been looked at as an early example of a knowledge city, whereas a more exhaustive observation of Copenhagen was conducted. Since the concept of knowledge cities is a rather new phenomenon, models from several disciplines constitute the theoretical framework.

The purpose of this essay is to look at how museums design their activities as tourist destinations through the dissemination of history. In order to research this problem we have posed the following questions: How do museums act in order to animate and interpret history? What does the future hold for the museums? In order to find the answers to these questions we have made a deep-going analysis of the activities of four museums, Nordiska Museet, Etnografiska Museet, Historiska Museet and Naturhistoriska Museet. These museums have been analyzed by means of interviews, observations and the study of documents. Our theoretical perspective is informed by a hermeneutic perspective as well as Foucault´s definition of museums as institutions, and the concept of storytelling.