In recent centuries the Swedish Tiled Stove has varied in its design with an aesthetic evolutionary history that has not only followed the architectural and artistic ideals but also the taste in stove design. The heat source has varied depending on the regional traditions and where it was located within the country, but the inside of the construction was of a similar five channel system. The purpose of this paper is to study and compare the design of tile matrices made by Emil Petterson with other Swedish stoves. The following questions will be addressed:What characterized the production of a small scale tile stove workroom during the years 1900-50? Which main styles can be described as Emil Pettersson?s ideal while producing his matrices? And finally, is it possible to study the tile stove matrices as objects of historical and cultural significance, and what difficult methodological issues might occur in the doing of it? To answer these questions I will present the results of the documentation of Pettersson?s tile matrices with detailed historical categorizations and schedules. The conclusion shows that Pettersson as a stove builder and -producer was characterized by eclectic ideals and a design shape based on more liberal interpretations of contemporary trends.

In this essay I have described ecocriticism as a theory with several different subfields that are inspired by a cross-disciplinary approach, such as green culture studies, ecofeminism, and postcolonial ecocriticism. After a short summary of the background of ecocritical studies I analyze the various subfields, take a closer look at their contents and present various examples of ecocritical thinking. A presentation of the commonly used concepts within the discipline and some reflections on these is followed by my final discussion, where I state that even though ecocriticism is a relatively new theory and the concept doesn?t have a clear definition as yet, it is in my view a useful tool for analysis and can with time make valuable contributions to literary studies, not least by introducing a number of new perspectives..

The purpose of this study has been to examine how the image of the gambler is described by studying a report published by Folkhälsoinstituet [FHI] and a number of chosen articles from the Swedish Evening Press. Discourse theory has been used both as theory, together with social constructionism, and as a research method. The main conclusions of the study are that three different discourses can be identified: the normal gambler, the professional gambler and the problem gambler. The image of the problem gambler is described as a deviant and problematic minority characterized by loss of control, irrational thoughts and dissociative behaviour. The construction of the problem gambler fills three possible purposes for the state: As a solvable problem to handle criticism against negative consequences of gambling, as an argument to avoid competition on the market and as an individual characterized by loss of control in order to legitimize and make the construction of the normal gambler possible..

The study examines the meaning of having a dog in the workplace of personnel who work with therapy. The purpose was to examine the personnel?s view of dogs in their work envi-ronment. The study uses two theories. One is ?psychosocial work environment? and the other theory used is ?symbolic interactionism?.

This report describes an bachelor thesis work which is performed in cooperation with SVIA that develops and sells automation solutions for the manufacturing industry. The thesis purpose was to evaluate the machine FeedLine to find opportunities for improvement in the product?s design that could lead to more standardization and thus improving the efficiency of manufacturing and assembly.Based on these basic issues suggestions for improvements were developed:How can the design of FeedLine be improved to facilitate the assembly?Can more standardization be imposed on FeedLine?s design to enable more stocking of standard components?An initial pre-study was conducted to evaluate FeedLine?s to find opportunities for improvement in its overall design. During the pre-study staff at SVIA and two of its clients was interviewed. Based on information gathered during the interviews and observations by the authors improvements was amendments.

Background:The value a consumer connect with a certain brand and its design differ from person to person. This value ought to be investigated. Why does people buy expensive things when there are cheaper alternatives? Is it brand equity and/or the perception of a brand?s value that make a difference? People strive to show themselves and to perform through products, which makes it interesting to see to the perceived value of design.Tweens is a group of consumers that are easily influenced to consume products by their surrounding. To choose clothes, shoes and other products after what your surrounding?s demand, is a way of adapting yourself to society.

This study has been conducted on behalf of Vectura Consulting AB with the purpose to examine how different actors perceive the dimensions of sustainability and sustainable construction. The purpose is also to provide an understanding of existing barriers and opportunities for sustainable construction within the industry and exemplify with different directions for the actors in order to develop sustainability. The study has approach the research problem by using systems theory, developed by Checkland, to identify the relevant system. Other systems theories has been used as an theoretical framework in order to identify barriers and opportunities, which in this study are based on Hughes?s theory about reverse salients and salients.

Detta arbetets syfte är att klargöra om ett företag kan få sin lönsamhet ökad genom att låta kunderna påverka produktdesign eller genom att anpassa produktdesign till produktionskrav. För att kunna dra slutsatser utifrån problemformuleringen har intervjuer genomförts i fyra företag som agerar i olika branscher och tillverkar produkter där designen spelar relativt stor roll.Slutsatserna är i stort sett att företagen idag inte har användarorienterad design, men allting tyder på att detta kommer att ändras i framtiden. Konkurrensen har blivit allt hårdare och nya krav på tilltalande design tillkommer hela tiden. Tack vare användarorienterad design skulle ett företag kunna öka sin lönsamhet på lång sikt, men det skulle troligtvis ta några år innan dess, och företaget skulle tvingas arbeta irrationellt under denna period.Genom att helt anpassa produktdesign till produktionskrav skulle ett företag kunna öka sin lönsamhet och därmed tillverka fler kvalitetsprodukter och ha nöjda kunder..

This degree project has been carried out by Carolina Rapp and Jenny Tauson, students at Innovation and Design Engineer program at the Faculty of Technology and science at Karlstad University. The project was carried during Spring of 2009 and took 15 weeks of full time work.  Doppelmayr/Garaventa Group is an Austria/Switzerland corporate group and its associated company Doppelmayr Scandinavia lies in Sunne, Sweden. Doppelmayr/Garaventa Group is the world quality and technology leader in ropeway engineering. The degree project goal was to develop a new shaping of a surface lift. There are two kinds of surface lifts, platter and T-bars. The two kinds of surface lifts have some variation in design but only minor differences.

The aim of this thesis is to study a number of standards and theories, from the two research areas human-computer interaction and psychology, about how a graphical user interface (GUI) should be composed in order to facilitate interaction between humans and computers. Special emphasis is put on how the GUI should take into consideration the strengths and limitations of human cognition and perception. A study of three web catalogues shows how these theories appear when concretised. The following questions are answered in this thesis:What guidelines and styleguides can be found that specify the design of a user-friendly GUI?How do a few library catalogues on the web match a selection of these design principles?The guidelines are extracted from literature concerning human-computer interaction, psychology, automated library systems and web design.

Patientövervakning och rondmöten är centrala aktiviteter i all sjukvård. Teknik som tagits fram för patientövervakning och rondmöten är relativt underutvecklad vad gäller överblick och mötesstöd. En fallstudie genomfördes med två observationer och en fokusgruppintervju på intensivvårdskliniken vid Linköpings universitetssjukhus. Syftet med fallstudien var att ta fram grundläggande informationskrav för att stödja sjukvårdspersonal vid möten och ronder i en intensivvårdssituation. Målet var att utveckla en övergripande design för ett digitalt arbetsbord.

SUMMARYThe Swedish laws of animal welfare emphasize the social needs of the horse but nothing is said about how to fulfill this. Though there are few studies done in this subject it can be difficult to understand if the needs are fulfilled. The purpose of this study was to learn more about the horse?s social needs in box stable and to increase other people?s knowledge and understanding of the horse behavior to increase the welfare of the stabled horse. The questions where: How does the horse choose to place itself depending on what horse is next to it? How many attempts does the horse do to take contact and nose contact with the horse next to it? How does the box design affect the horse behavior?22Eight horses were videotaped during 24 nights.

This essay is about the massive Iranian aid to Hezbollah and the Saudi Arabian, likewise, towards the Taliban. The main view is that the two countries aid respective aid to Hezbollah and the Taliban is/were not a gesture of goodwill but rather an economic method of getting influence and controlling the receiver. This view that is based on a theory called; economic statecraft. The economic statecraft theory is used in this paper to investigate why Iran?s influence towards Hezbollah has been successful while the Saudis ambitions with the Taliban have failed.

This paper aims to study the Armenakis´ theory of readiness, "are they ready?", which consists of five key components affecting the outcome of an organizational change. In this case study, the intention is to investigate if any component is important; alternatively if it is possible to discern a pattern between components, i.e. how they correspond to each other. During the past 30 years have a research group lead by Armenakis has studied organizational change and how resistance to change can be avoided by preparing employees in the introductory phase of change. The main object for Armenakis is the question "what determines whether the employees (change recipients) adopt and support, or reject and resist a change".

Eyjafjallajökull is made of textile, ash and pigment. Itis a publication which tells the story of the ash cloudthat stopped Europe. The primary goal of the projectwas to use textile as material and screen printing asmethod to present the story of Eyjafjallajökull. Theaim was to examine the relationship between artand graphic design. As the material and printingmethod was set from the beginning the processwas inverted: The information needed to fill thepublication was produced to fit the presentationand not the other way around.