AbstractIT can facilitate communication among individuals and connect people across geographical distances. On the contrary, citizens of the society who do not use communication technologies to some extent might feel excluded from the information society. As elderly citizens are already in a vulnerable position for the digital divide, communication technology becomes an important tool for interacting with friends and family. The social situation of elderly, 60 years of age and older, is a topic of current interest since they are the fastest growing age group in the world today. Further, social interaction becomes more important among elderly since it has a positive effect on well- being.

The project is a practical and theoretical test of IP telephony with Skype in order to form a base for a comparison between IP-Telephony with Skype and the Public Switched Telephony Network (PSTN). PSTN is the common standard that most of us use for telephony today. The objective for the study is to simplify the choice between PSTN and IP-Telephony for the Swedish private customer user group. The project is supposed to answer the following questions. - How easy is it to start using IP-telephony with Skype? - How is the quality of IP-telephony compared to PSTN? - Are all services provided by PSTN available and accessible using the IP-solution? - How are the usability and the availability of support with IP telephony? - Is IP-telephony a cheaper solution and in that case under which circumstances? Within the project a collection of practical and theoretical tests have been performed to be able to form an opinion on the IP-solution in the following areas, installation, function, quality, usability, costs, accessibility and security.

This paper aims to discover if the customers meeting with a company?s website can be described through theories derived from both web usability and theories concerning physical meetings between customers and salespersons in a traditional way. The conducted research involves five interviews as well as participating observations witch where analyzed with a hermeneutical approach. The most prominent results are that the web based customer meeting can be described through both of the theoretical perspectives witch results in a broader and more colorful portrayal of the individuals encounter with a commercial website..

This study has been conducted with the purpose to examine the marketing effects of waiting lines on the customer- and brand experience. Our ambition has been to describe how the waiting line can be used to heighten the positive experiences. The study has had a qualitative, as well as an inductive approach towards the subject. The study is mainly based on nine interviews with a total of ten respondents employed at nine different companies relevant to the subject. In the final chapter of this study we present our results and conclusions..

AbstractIT can facilitate communication among individuals and connect people across geographical distances. On the contrary, citizens of the society who do not use communication technologies to some extent might feel excluded from the information society. As elderly citizens are already in a vulnerable position for the digital divide, communication technology becomes an important tool for interacting with friends and family. The social situation of elderly, 60 years of age and older, is a topic of current interest since they are the fastest growing age group in the world today. Further, social interaction becomes more important among elderly since it has a positive effect on well- being.

To work with environments outdoors for people, animals and plants is the main topic for the landscapearchitect. On several occasions the work is about public places that is to be in relation with other parts of the town. It is about the activities and the life that take place. The physical environment and the interpretation of it gives possibilities or obstructions for people who moves around or spend time in it.Since public places, parks and places for movement are used in daily life they strongly effect the people who use the places. The concequences of this effect can be positive or negative experiences.A positive example is a passage over a brook on the way to school while a negative one is to be afraid while passing a tunnel when it is dark outside. Other examples of concequences are stress effect from traffic noice or calming environments with twitter of birds. The physical environment is also a part of the total interpretation of a town.

AbstractThe object of this study has been to analyze how companies within the music industry can successfully market their artists, this due to the complexity of today?s marketing environment, where technology has rapidly changed the way of communicating, and therefore contributed to a highly competitive market. The vast change of technology has resulted in several possibilities as well as difficulties breaking through, what could be seen as, a media sorl. Our purpose has been to outdo how companies market, as well as which factors that are vital, for a successful promotion of their artists. To be able to carry out our aim, we have created one key question; How can companies within the music industry market their artist to make them reach success?We have used a qualitative research approach for this study, this to be able to generate more depth concerning the chosen topic.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how the legal protection against sexual harassment at work functions, and where to draw the line. The study is limited to focus on the sexual harassment directed at women from men, because it usually occurs that way even though only a few report the incidents. The results are discussed from a gender perspective on how the distribution of power is between men and women as a way to explain sexual harassment.Sexual harassment is currently protected by the discrimination law and the EU principle of equal treatment for men and women. For a behavior to be considered as sexual harassment it has to be unwanted by the receiving party and the person practicing the harassments must be aware that the behavior is perceived as offensive. The behavior shall be of a sexual nature and contribute to a disadvantage for the victim in the form of a violation of that persons integrity.It is the victim that determines whether the behavior is perceived as sexual harassment or not, what one person believes is a friendly behavior may be perceived as offensive by another.

Web 2.0 har möjliggjort och öppnat upp för en ny typ av mellanmänsklig kommunikation. Numera kan vem som helst starta sin egen offentliga och lättillgängliga webbplattform där digitala dialoger frodas och med det skapas attraktiva marknadsplatser för företag. Enligt forskningsluckan vi har identifierat anser vi att det saknas insikter om hur företag på bästa sätt ska arbeta med bloggare utifrån bloggarnas perspektiv. Bloggar är inte bara en attraktiv marknadsplats för företag utan också för bloggarna själva som skapar sitt personliga varumärke genom att bygga upp den digitala identitet som presenteras i bloggen. Således är syftet med vår uppsats att bidra till ökad förståelse för bloggares preferenser i relationen med företag och varumärken, samt hur de väljer varumärken att beröra i sin blogg utifrån sin digitalt konstruerade identitet.För att genomföra vår studie har vi valt en kvalitativ metod med en abduktiv ansats där vi har genomfört semistrukturerade intervjuer med sju populära bloggare i Sverige.

The main purpose of this study was to investigate which enter- and exit barriers that exist on the banking market for small enterprises located within the region of Gotland. The reason was to examine and identify which barriers that could affect the mobility among small enterprise bank customers on the bank market. To identify the barriers, the study was carried out partly by a quantitative survey with 33 small business owners respondents located at three different concentrated small enterprise areas within the region of Gotland. And partly by qualitative interviews that were conducted with two employees at Länsförsäkringar Gotland Bank.The result indicated that the enter barrier mostly depended on the aspect that business owners of small enterprises believed that bank switching were complicated. The business owners did also consider bank switching as time demanding.

Problem: The corrugated board industry is highly affected by customer uncertainty, various demands and short delivery times. In combination with a complex multi-step production process managers have to be able to identify bottle-necks and gain knowledge and understanding of how different changes in process will affect the production output. <br/><br/>Purpose: The purpose of this master thesis is twofold, (1) to examine applicability of complexity theory through agent-based modelling on a production process (2) to identify improvement areas in order to increase the production output at SKS production site in Eslöv, by modelling and simulating the production process through an agent-based model. <br/><br/>Method: The chosen method of this study is a combination of a case study and a complex system approach. The empirical data was collected through interviews, observation and document studies which were analysed through an agent-based simulation model.

Palliativ vård innebär ett förhållningssätt där patientens livskvalitet står i centrum. Vården kännetecknas av en holistisk människosyn där patientens fysiska, psykiska, sociala samt existentiella behov ska tillgodoses. Från sjuksköterskans perspektiv kan palliativ vård bedrivas inom såväl primärvård som slutenvård och omfattningen av det palliativa vårdandet varierar beroende på inom vilket område sjuksköterskan är verksam. Oavsett kontext har sjuksköterskan en relations­skapande funktion och relationen har stor betydelse för patientens välbefinnande. Professionell hållning inom palliativ vård innebär att sjuksköterskan medvetet tillämpar ett empatiskt förhållningssätt.

Relationsmarknadsföring består av att antingen skapa, upprätthålla eller avsluta relationer gentemot företagets kunder. Betydelsen av att upprätthålla relationer med befintliga kunder har ökat under de senaste åren, mestadels på grund av en ökad global konkurrens. Frågan är då hur ett företag upprätthåller relationen med kunden, när det väljer eller tvingas avveckla en distributionskanal vilket begränsar möjligheten till fysisk närvaro gentemot kunden. Denna uppsats syftar därmed till att utreda hur ett företag kan bibehålla kundrelationen när den fysiska kontakten gentemot kunden begränsas. I syfte att undersöka detta utfördes två fallstudier på Scandinavian Airlines System, SAS och Zytt.

The following text constitutes an attempt to present the French philosopher Gilbert Simondon's genetic ontology through an account of his reconfiguration of the problem of individuation in his doctoral thesis from 1958, L'individuation à la lumière des notions de forme, information, potentiel, métastabilité. The intention is to show how Simondon through this reconfiguration of a classical philosophical problem ? in which concepts and schemas from contemporary physics and technology is utilised in a critique of the bi-polar hylomorphic schema as its traditional, substantialistic solution ? becomes able to articulate an anti-substantialistic and anti-reductionistic ontogenesis as first philosophy. A systematic philosophical conception that according to Simondon precedes every critical investigation of the subject as well as every scientific ontology ? not by establishing a pre-critical position, but by exceeding Kant's critical position: that is, through a displacement toward a conception of the transcendental conditions for the genesis of being and thought as real conditions, rather than conditions of mere possibility.

I en alltmer konkurrensmässig värld, där synbarheten blir allt viktigare, fyller public relations en viktig funktion i hur företag finner och behandlar relationer till sina följare. En ny trend är att utelämna information i kampanjer för att skapa förvirring och därmed få nyhetsvärde. Branschen är delad i huruvida detta är ett etiskt korrekt tillvägagångssätt. I denna studie undersöker vi, genom en fallstudie, hur kampanjer av detta slag dels ser ut men även planeras med syfte att skapa förståelse för eventuella för- och nackdelar med tillvägagångssättet. Studiens teoretiska inramning bygger på att med hjälp av förståelse kring kampanjplanering, medias dagordning och vikten av förtroende, ge insikt i hur en PR-kampanj skapar värde genom uppmärksamhet.