Finnhamn is a group of islands that are located in the middle north part of Stockholm?s archipelagos. On the main island Stora Jolpan there is a camp called Sommargården, which consists of eleven different buildings in various sizes. The assignment given by the Archipelago foundation (Skärgårdsstiftelsen) is to analyze if it?s benefited to replace Sommargårdens current heating system that consists of electricity radiators, with a more energy efficient heating system. This research is done with help of the literature review and a visit to Finnhamn in order to map Sommargården?s current state and its energy usage.

Many IT projects that have been developed in recent years are often considered to be unsuccessful. According to a study by Exido up to the 72% of all IT projects are considered to be failed. A failed IT projects means that the organizations that have ordered the new system may have higher costs or/and the system will not be ready in time. If costs are too high the new system might not be installed in the organization or if the system is not completed within the specified time frame the organization can become stagnant.In this paper we conduct an investigation of the failure of IT projects there we will examine where, in the systems development lifecycle four different phases, projects fail. We will conduct an empirical study of each phase, where we describe the key steps in the process; we will also investigate failed IT projects that are linked to the current phase.

During the last year in the Innovation Engineering Program, at Halmstad University, a degree project was performed that was carried out during Fall semester in 2006 and Spring semester 2007. The project was performed by two students in corporation with LIC Audio AB, a company in Stockholm. The degree project was meant to result in a communication aid for people with a cognitive handicap. The project focused on people suffering from dementia because of the expressed need within this group. This aid should first and foremost help in a conversation between a person with dementia and another person, like a relative or nursing home staff.

It is increasingly important for cities to attract visitors, potential new residents and businesses. Jönköping is one of the cities working with place marketing, a strategy that intends to mediate a positive image of the city, in order to accomplish just that.People often have a need to preserve the memory of a trip into something tangible. Anyone visiting Jönköping encounters a souvenir choice, much like the one in many other cities. Linked to the idea of positive place marketing, our work aims to investigate how we as product developers can create a product that en¬hances the image of Jönköping based on the thought that all residents are con¬sig¬nors. Accordingly, we develop three different products from the residents' own image of the city.Our research questions are:Based on the photographs, what image of Jönköping do the ambassadors mediate of their own city?As designers, what in Jönköping's history versus the image of Jönköping today, can we seize in order to give products for visitors a sense of authenticity?As designers, how can we use knowledge of place branding in the development of souvenirs?We performed interviews within three different aspects: history, souvenirs and place branding, all focused on the city of Jönköping.

In a time of economic turmoil and financial crisis profitability matters rise higher and higher on company agendas. Many companies are pressured to find profitability to avoid layoffs or even bankruptcy. Profitability essentially depends on the margin on the product or service sold and the costs associated with selling these products or services and hence these areas are of vital importance if companies are to improve profitability. Previous research has focused, for the most part, on product profitability while customer profitability has received less attention. This study is based on a case study of a Swedish publishing house and aims to investigate how the company?s Cost-to-Serve varies between its distribution channels.

AbstractThis thesis was conducted by Jenny Jansson and Maria Madsen, students at the Faculty ofTechnology and Science and the Innovation and Design Engineer programme at KarlstadUniversity, during the spring 2008. The thesis covers 22,5hp for each student. AnnaHolmquist and Chandra Ahlsell at the company FOLKFORM were the ones who requestedthe theis, their company are located at Stora Skuggan in Stockholm. Tutor for this thesis wasLennar Wihk and the examiner was Monika Jakobsson of Karlstad University.The given assignment came from FOLKFORM and the aim for the thesis was to create afurther development of two already existing lamps from an earlier collection at FOLKFORM,?Jaipur? and ?Modern Times?.

The aim of the thesis was to provide further understanding on how Swedish consumers use the Internet as an information source in their purchase decision process. The subject was investigated from different perspectives: gender, product type and information type. The authors used a quantitative approach, and a survey (n=120) was conducted. It was concluded that men and women are equally influenced by traditional word-of-mouth, but more men than women search for product information online and they are more likely to let their purchase decision to be influenced by it. Women tend more to trust commercial sources.

The purpose of the study was to inquire into pupils? attitude towards the current beauty ideal from a gender- and an ethnicity perspective. The study was based on a quantitative survey among 116 young students about prevailing beauty ideal from two different schools in the Stockholm area. The result showed that the students are partially characterized by the stereotyped images of women and men but that there are tendencies towards another view especially among the girls. It is however clear that appearance still is important.

Kitron had wishes to be able to test and measure how disturbance affects their vehicle electronic units before they have been verified by SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden in Borås. This work started with the writing of a demand specification together with Kitron for a product PSQS, Power Supply Quality Simulator, which can generate some test pulses according to a standard for electronic units to Volvos vehicles. A design proposal was developed with the help the demand specification and was verified with the help of simulations. All electric schematics was designed with the guide of the design proposal. The pulses realized in the works of this thesis are those which Kitron experienced that they have a need to test in their own premises and which are possible to generate with the means available.

Efficient energy use in the housing sector is crucial for achieving a sustainable society. The expansion of this sector only represents a fraction of the existing houses, hence it?s within the existing houses the potential for energy savings lie. This potential has been analyzed in order to determine if it?s possible to cut the current energy demand in half.

Media has in the last year been dominated by news about the current financial crisis around the world. For the banking system in Sweden the crisis began to show in the beginning of 2008 and there where a lot of speculations about how serious the crisis would be and it?s consequences. In several aspects, the banks' situation in the current crisis, are linked to the banking crisis in the 1990s. Although these crises have had different break-out reasons, there are several parallels between these crises to be drawn.

The following essay investigates emission rights accounting. Presently there are several methods through which emission rights can be accounted for by companies. The rights can for instance be valued at fair value or nominal value and as marketable securities or intangible assets; due to a lack of consensus or clear standards companies use these or other accounting methods to value their rights. This essay investigates whether there is a relationship between the company?s choice of accounting method, the key ratio number of owned emission rights/total assets, the accounting firm used and the yearly result as a sign of earnings management.Through a quantitative study based on questioners and numbers from the annual reports three hypothesis are tested.

One part of preventive conservation is controlling the lighting in the exhibitions. As a first step we have to accept the fact that the very act of displaying objects is causing them damage, and because the trend is for everything to be open to the public view all the time, the aim is to minimize light exposure of exhibits.This essay will present lighting options and relate them to the current recommendations. I have put the emphasis upon describing which methods one can use to minimize the degradation of exhibits on display by eliminating UV- and IR-radiation and reducing the visible light. The intention with this essay is to investigate the current lighting options and compare these to the recommendations on lighting exhibitions.The selections of different lighting options such as LED-, halogen- and energysaving lamps were made based on avaibility. Thereafter I did two types of investigations.

A large part of the Namibian low income population lack access to grid distributed electricity. This mean they are effectively shut out from basic functions such as lighting, information technologies and hygienic food handling. Hence, finding ways of providing affordable off-grid electricity is an important, not to say critical, task.This master thesis is an innovation and concept development project that has been carried out in cooperation with organisations in Sweden and Namibia. The purpose of the project has been to (1) develop a concept for off-grid electricity supply in Namibia and (2) to gain a deeper knowledge within the area of innovation and product development for the Base of the Pyramid population, i.e. the poorest, but largest, socio-economic part of the global population.Essential in this project has been to acquire user understanding and to identify user needs to create a foundation for developing the concept.

First time labelling occurred was when animal owners marked their cattle in order to distinguish the differences. The need for labelling was added when the trade had expanded during Roman times in order for the customers to know who manufactured their craft. Trademarks are characterized as a way to distinguish one's own product or service from someone else. The marketing purpose is to create an identity. The brand has an important role as an effective competitive tool for businesses.A brand can have many different functions, which will simplify a customer's decision making process in selecting a service or product.