In February 2002 the European commission put forward a proposal for a new directive on The patentability of computer-implemented inventions, but which during my work on this essay has not been decided on yet. The directive has divided the decision-makers in the union, the commission and parliament, into two different positions regarding by which range computer-implemented inventions should be patentable. The parliament has amended the commissions proposal in a substantial way and the legal process has caused a heated debate both within the unions administration and among various interest groups both in favour of and against a patent on computer-implemented inventions. The loudest protests have come from a group that feels threatened by a possible software patent: Open Source. In this study I examine both the arguments by the decision-makers and by the lobbying for and against the proposal.

This thesis is carried out at Portsystem 2000 AB who manufactures and markets industrial doors and docking systems. The background to this thesis is that the company?s management considers that their follow-up process of cost accounts is not fully functioning.The aim with this report is to investigate and describe the present procedure of the follow-up process concerning the time of operations and come up with suggestions for improvements. This thesis is performed within the range of the following areas: Information systems, quality, processes and cost calculation. The main method we used were semi structured interviews with a fairly opened framework.

This report describes a Bachelor thesis work in which a robotised laser welding cell has been modelled and simulated for the purpose of making a presentation movie. The report shows that the work has been concentrated on making the movie from the modelling phase through the recording of the movie and ending up with the editing of the final presentation movie. A pre-study was made prior the Bachelor thesis work. In the pre-study a literature study was conducted about measurement and calibration of a welding cell. Measurement of almost all equipment in the entire cell was also conducted in the pre-study.

Syfte med denna uppsats är att kritiskt granska och analysera Irving Janis begrepp groupthink samt bedöma om det är en hållbar teori.De frågeställningar jag valt att behandla är:? Vilken kritik har och kan riktas mot Irving L Janis groupthink teori?? På vilket sätt har groupthink teorin utvecklats sedan uppkomsten?För att besvara frågorna och uppfylla mitt syfte så genomförde jag en litteraturstudie där jag utgick från en kvalitativ ansats.Resultatet visade att sedan Janis myntade begreppet 1972 har kritiken främst riktats mot det bristfälliga stöd teorin fått, dess negativa utformning samt Janis snäva inriktning på när groupthink leder till fiaskon. Utifrån denna kritik och min egna analytiska förmåga kommer jag fram till groupthink teorin inte är att ses som en hållbar teori. Det sätt groupthink teorin utvecklats på är att den gett upphov till flera andra förklaringsmodeller när det gäller beslutsfattande i grupp samt att den verkat som en katalysator för detta område inom smågruppsforskningen..

The environmental debate is more intensive than ever before and the demands on companies increase. There are a number of methods to make it easier for the companies to fulfil the demands. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) end ecodesign are some of the methods that can be used. Syntronic AB has the possibility to reduce the products´ environmental impact in the design phase. Therefore it is important for the company to make it possible to visualize the negative environmental impacts a product can cause in an easy way. It is also important to visualize for there clients if any improvement is possible. The purpose of this thesis is to develop a simplified model.

This Master thesis studies how a diversified institutional care organisation can optimise its collective knowledge resources so to manage and distribute this knowledge to different parts of the organisation with help of the organisations intranet. The purpose of the study is to examine if knowledge management and the organisations intranet can be used to create, store, transfer and better use the knowledge within the organisation. Through a case study the thesis will look at different knowledge processes and their relation to the organisations intranet. The case study includes a questionnaire for the whole organisation and qualitative interviews with seven persons from different levels of the organisation. The theoretical framework of the study approaches knowledge management and intranet through four knowledge processes.

A major issue that has been a subject for quite some time is whether there will be a scarcity of metals in the bedrock in the future and whether or not we might end up with a problem similar to that of the big oil crisis in the mid-seventies. Following the oil crisis many oil companies started up with risk management to control future risks. This work presents how Swedish mining companies work with risk management to handle risks that might come up in the future due to metal scarceness. How Swedish mining companies look at the possible metal scarceness and if they use risk management in their decision-making process is studied. By doing interviews with Swedish owned mining companies it was found that the mining companies did not see the future metal scarcity as a risk, even though 2/3 of the companies acknowledged the scarceness to be a reality.

The study aims to give a description of the conditions in which matters is prepared withinSwedish Government`s offices, to describe the adaptive capacity in the agency`s internalprocesses by investigating the experiences of some civil servants restricted to the Ministry ofEnterprise and the Ministry of Environment in their work with the EU Maritime Policy GreenPaper. The results have been analyzed against the basis of eight identified criteria of buildingadaptive capacity in socially dominated systems. The criteria are comprised of both individualand organizational abilities. Only two of them were fully met; the criteria about diversity inexperiences and knowledge and the criteria about information and how the information hasbeen applied. However, the process has traces of all the identified criteria.

In this paper five different commonly used methods of making a mount for a costume in along term display was investigated: The shaping of a mannequin and a polystyrene dressstand, the making of a gypsum torso, support made out of plexiglas and polycarbonte and athree dimensional mount on a board. The materials of the mounts were thoroughly takeninto consideration and described in the paper. One of the methods was put into practice in acase study of a Russian uniform dress coat. A gypsum torso was considered to be the mostappropriate mount in this case. The dress coat was to be displayed at the Garnisons- ochluftvärns museum in Halmstad.

In today's society, the availability of energy plays an integral part in our everyday lives. Unfortunately, the price of energy in Sweden has increased in recent decades. A large part of our energy consumption goes to heating modules for houses, where heating methods that depend on energy sources such as electricity, district heating, fuel oil, gas and biofuels are the most common ones. During the winter period, the increase in energy costs becomes significantly evident, especially for small property owners. This increase in energy cost is most noticeable for home owners with electric heating.This thesis is written at the Halmstad University, in cooperation with a company, which makes parts of this thesis confidential.

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) is a genre of computerized systems which allows system development corporations to efficiently and more easily manage, maintain and handle the applications lifecycle. These ALM systems have a wide variety of tools which can be integrated to enable and support collaborative work, while they act at the core of the organisation. Todays ALM systems support flexible system development methods throughout the entire development process. This paper focuses on a case-study of a Swedish business- and technology corporation and their use of two ALM systems with an aim to unravel the differences between these systems and their functionality to serve as a basis for decision making regarding their utilization of best practice with their ALM-Systems. Meanwhile we studied their approach to ALM systems to see if they were using them according to the initial idea of ALM systems.

Goal: To describe which evaluation method is used by Swedish retailers to assess a potential retail location and to describe to what extent the retail brand effects this strategic decision. Design: Analysis of ten interviews with companies within five retail sectors in Sweden. Main study: Indication of what methods are used to evaluate a location and how a company's retail brand affects the decision. Results: Retailers use a mix of theoretical methods to evaluate the location attributes and possible profit. Most common among mixtures was an application of the analog method, residual method or the checklist method in combination with a financial assessment.

The contribution of biofuels to the total consumption of energy in Sweden must increase to 49 % in order to meet the goals for the year 2020 set by the European Union. In order to do so, improved information systems are needed to support the business processes within delivery scheduling between customers and suppliers.Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a concept to enable the alignment of Business processes and Information Systems. EA is the framework for the architectures of business, information and applications. With a comprehensive view of the architectures, an Information System aligned with the Business processes can be enabled. The first step in the development of an Information System is documenting the business processes.The goal of this study is to clarify a generic sequence of activities performed within the delivery scheduling process and the information needed to perform the activities.Data for the study was collected through qualitative interviews, first through a meeting with the respondent and after that a following telephone interview with in total 5 suppliers and 6 customers of biofuels.

The creation of value is considered the core purpose and central process of economic exchange. Value creation is now conceptualized as shared by both producers and customers, and value is seen as fundamentally derived and determined in use, the integration and application of resources in a specific context, rather than in exchange, embedded in products and manifested as price. The field of research is abundant with publications but these do not fully further the understanding of value creation and co-creation in a way that is meaningful for theoretical development and decision making in business and marketing practise. Without a thorough understanding of the factors characterising value co-creation, the nature as well as content and locus of co-creation cannot be identified. In that case value co-creation easily becomes a concept without substance. Until now, individual publications on co-creation have focused on few or different aspects, have emphasized the process from either the customer?s or from  the firm?s vantage point, have different theoretical approaches and have ignored the complexity in interactions between actors.The purpose of this essay is to analyse how five fundamental aspects of co-creation of customer value are perceived in contemporary marketing literature. Discussing the different views on co-creation, this essay concludes that thoughthere are evident points of agreement, finding one generally valid doctrine of predestination or value co-creation is improbable.

Virtual Design and Construction (VDC) is the definition for using BIM in the construction process to simulate and analyse the building. Resulting use of the technology will according to proponents lead to fewer construction errors, a better understanding between stakeholders for the construction project, less communication problems and a smoother construction process. Although BIM has according to researchers a big potential, few companies have succeeded in broad and continues implementation. The study aims to identify the factors affecting the implementation. More precisely identify what factors influencing the decision to adopt VDC and potential barriers in the diffusion process. The empirical findings are based on a case study of NCC Construction Sweden.