The aim of this paper has been to examine personas role in the development phase and whether or not some of the criticism that have aroused against personas is valid or not. In this paper we examine the benefits as well as the downsides of working with personas both from a scientific point of view but also from the experiences of a small company located in the north of Sweden. Since personas much like many other powerful tools have pit falls aswell as do's and don'ts this paper looks to clarify what role personas should take aswell as how to minimize risk and maximize the usefulness of personas..

The company Sound Precision has developed a new Line Array loudspeaker system (VHA-40). When using this system, their customers need computer aid to get the best possible sound-quality and control of sound levels for the whole audience. The aim of this thesis is to develop a truly useful sound quality simulator for the VHA-40. The system will help the sound engineers to position the loudspeakers for optimal sound by simulating loudspeaker configurations and visualizing the resulting sound quality and quantity. To solve this a human-centered design (HCD) approach is taken to implement a system that is truly useful for the users, meaning that they will use it more and hence deliver better sound for the audience.

The proportion of women entrepreneurs in Sweden is, as in many countries, smaller than the proportion of men entrepreneurs. Sweden has therefore created political measures with the ambition to increase women entrepreneurship. However, knowledge about the determinants of women entrepreneurship is needed in order to enable the promotion of it and, at the same time one can question the treatment of women entrepreneurs as a homogenous group. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the determinants of women entrepreneurship and whether these determinants fluctuate regionally. If this proves to be the case, a more spatial/individual approach should be used, when creating measures to promote entrepreneurship.

SammanfattningLångvarig smärta orsakar stort lidande för individen och belastar samhället ekonomiskt. Syftet med denna uppsats var att undersöka om en exponering in vivo-behandling inspirerad av Dialektisk beteendeterapi (DBT) för människor med långvarig ländryggssmärta var görbar samt om behandlingen gav effekt på smärtrelaterad problematik. Designen var en single case experimental design vilket är en beprövad design för att testa nya terapimetoder. Studien bestod av sex deltagare, alla med hög grad av smärtrelaterade katastroftankar, något som litteraturen visat predicera sämre behandlingsutfall. Behandlingen var DBT-inspirerad och indelad i tre faser; en första valideringsfas, en andra färdighetsfas och en tredje exponeringsfas.

The aim of this project is to examine the needs and problems that exists amongst homeless people and to develop a solution that will help them in their everyday life. Since the homeless are a relatively large vulnerable group i Sweden, their everyday lives could be made easier in many ways.A clear definition of the target group is put together to create a good starting point. What state and help orginazations do to help the homelss and the society?s view of the homeless is also relevant and has been documented. Four personal stories have been put together to desicribe cases of clear problems existing in everyday life.Several interesting problems has been defined from the research and acceptance in the communtiy, desire to be seen and heard and a lack of confidence were the main needs.

Syftet med denna rapport var att ta reda på om det fanns en värdepremie på den svenska marknaden. Därmed var avsikten att verifiera huruvida framtida avkastning baserad på fundamentala värden, såsom den förväntade långsiktiga utdelningstillväxten och det förväntade utdelning/pris förhållandet, gav högre precision på värdepremien än framtida avkastning baserad på realiserad avkastning. Ytterligare jämfördes resultatet med vad som hade uppnåtts i en liknande studie på den amerikanska marknaden. En kvantitativ metod baserad på sekundär data användes i denna undersökning. 30 aktier noterade på den svenska A-listan och den svenska O-listan mellan 1993 och 2002 valdes ut.

The economic crisis has affected the airline industry as much as it has affected all other industries in the world. The small airlines and maintenance organisations must find new opportunities and options in order to survive the harsh crisis. Priority Aero Maintenance is now an approved maintenance organisation performing maintenance on aircrafts, engines and components. The company sees economic gains in the future by becoming an approved organisation that follows the European Aviation Safety Agency guidelines (EASA) and meets the requirements outlined in the rules of Part-M.In order for the company to become an approved organization, responsible for continuing airworthiness of aircraft, a handbook should be presented to the local authority. This handbook describes the company?s responsibility for the continuing airworthiness in order for the authorities to get an insight into the company and its work.This thesis resulted in a draft of CAME (Continuing Airworthiness Management Exposition) and this draft has been approved by Priority Aero Maintenance.The CAME will in the future be used by the company as a basis for developing a more detailed manual to be presented to and approved by the Swedish Aviation Authority (Transportstyrelsen)..

To find competencies on a workplace with flex office structure.Companies today, 2012 are facing new opportunities and challenges. Information technology develops, competition is bigger today than ever, increased environmental requirements will be added and new patterns of life and values are occurring. This means that people who work in offices feel strong pressure of conversion, which is something that people experience differently. Therefore it is essential how the working environment is designed in an office. Working in an office means a lot of information processing and we can see large changes taking place.

The thesis presents an optimally designed kinematic structure for a new 6-DOF haptic devicebased on TAU configuration. The configuration of the TAU-2 proposed by Suleman Khan andKjell Andersson [1] was modified and its mobility was verified by using Grübler criterion tohave a 6 DOF. Analytical kinematic models for the inverse and forward kinematics weredeveloped for the haptic TAU configuration to determine a set of optimal design parameters.Kinematic performance indices such as volume of the workspace, kinematic isotropy and payload index, were defined based on the singular values of the Jacobian matrix. The Jacobianmatrix was scaled to homogenize the physical units. The Jacobian matrix dependent on theposition and orientation of the end-effector gives local isotropy and pay load index, so globaldesign indices were defined, which represent the performance of the mechanism in the wholeworkspace.

The economic climate that has been going on for the last years has more or less affected everyone. This has created a need to get more knowledge about how our banks work and also how peoples own personal financial situation looks like. When our banks over this last period have compensated their employees with even greater deals of money, reactions has gone to the roof. This discussion has made us interested in the subject, which led to the decision to write an essay about remunerations within banks.The purpose of this essay is to investigate if our banks remunerations to their employees have any effect on their profit numbers. Does the size of the compensations vary with changes in the market? Do larger compensations contribute to a greater result?The study will look at Sweden?s four largest banks, Handelsbanken, SEB, Nordea and Swedbank.

The thesis strives to reveal the dynamics between a central and a peripheral shopping area in Kalmar, Sweden. The establishment of larger shopping centers has become a hallmark of postindustrial cities. Cities globally are at risk of creating an urban economic rift between the central and peripheral shopping areas. By establishing major shopping venues around the traditional central business districts, cities hope to create a larger customer hinterland and thereby also increased economic growth. The aim of this thesis is answered by two research questions regarding collaboration and competition between two shopping areas; the central Kvarnholmen and peripheral Hansa City Mall.

This report is about planning a demolition. The purpose of this report is that it should become a base for a demolition of house J at the Academic hospital in Uppsala, and also to make general help for planning a demolition. This report also contains a part about how a change in the work environment affects general people. The work started with studies of literature and design of the general part of the report and then continued with a practical study of house J. From the experience of the first two parts of the report a general help for planning a demolition was shaped.

This is a final project which makes up 20 credits at the Landscapearchitecture programme at SLU in Alnarp. The thesis is design based. My final project is comprised two parts; of a competition entry for ? A New Square in the Centre of Täby? as well as a theoretical study that derives from the competition proposal. The competiton itself was announced on March 1st 2007 with the final hand-in date on May 28th 2007. The program of the competition asked for a flexible urban square that offers a diverse range of activities that can be used during both night and day, all year around. I became interested in the term ?mutlifunctionality? and I went on to use the subject as a base for my design approach.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att ge en beskrivning av Sloveniens arbetsmarknad samt redogöra för vilka faktorer som har varit drivande för dess positiva utveckling. Övergångsekonomier tenderar att drabbas av hög arbetslöshet under övergången till marknadsekonomi, vilket även var fallet för Slovenien. Övergångsfasen i Slovenien präglades av uppsägningar på grund av konkurser samt reformer som minskade restriktionerna gällande uppsägningar, vilka var de största orsakerna till arbetslösheten. Genom ett flertal reformer, både i samband med och efter övergångsfasen, har Slovenien lyckats få ner arbetslösheten samt marknadsjusterat arbetsmarknaden. Sedan självständigheten har utvecklingen på arbetsmarknaden bland annat kännetecknats av en ökad andel högutbildade av arbetskraften, växande servicesektor samt större flexibilitet.

This thesis of 15 hp has been implemented at Halmstad University, in collaboration with Saab Dynamics in Linköping. Saab Dynamics is a company operating in the defence industry where competition is tough. This necessitates new ways to increase efficiency in the company, which is the basis for this thesis. Saab Dynamics wants to introduce simulation driven design. Since Saab Dynamics engineers have little experience of simulation, required a user methodology with clear guidelines.