Today's consumer society has led to never-ending choices in terms of brands, products and prices in an endless variety of shops. The retail industry is a very complex industry that includes many different types of sales channels and many different types of products. A consequence of this trend is that brand owners today face difficulties in understanding how their products are being evaluated and difficulties in knowing which final cause that make a consumer willing to by their product is hard to figure out. The industry is very diversified, which means that for a company to really understand their position and their role on the market it requires that the company put a lot of effort and also a lot of money in the process of trying to figure it out. We will with this paper try to explain a small piece of that understanding and we hope to get results, which contribute to the further research in this area.

There is no standardized test to control the appropriate physical ability in the Swedish ambulance service. The county in question does not perform annual physical tests. A project has been going to develop science-based physical tests, designed for the ambulance service. The research has resulted in the Aasa-test.Objective: The aims of this study were to examine the ambulance staff perception of the Aasa-test relevance, introduction of annual tests and the importance of their own physical training in relation to ambulance work.Method: A quasi-experimental study with a comparative design has been conducted. Aasa-tests were conducted in 41 randomly selected staff at an ambulance station in central Sweden.

I följande studie kommer rekryterings- och utvecklingsmetoden Assessment Center (AC) attstuderas. Syftet med studien är att utifrån verksamma organisationers erfarenhet av AC skapa en ökad förståelse för; metodens innebörd, vilka argument som ligger till grund förorganisationers användande av metoden samt dess värde för organisationer. Studien är avkvalitativ karaktär och fokus fästs vid tolkning och förståelse av AC baserat pårespondenternas subjektiva uppfattningar och upplevelser. Studiens teoretiska referensrambehandlar; Human Resource Management, rekrytering, personalekonomi, Talent Management och Assessment Center. Empiri har samlats från sex verksamma organisationer, varav fem organisationer vilka arbetar med AC samt en organisation som har påvisat ett eventuellt intresse av att utveckla ett AC.

Studien analyserar vad arbetsgivare har för uppfattningar beträffande personer med ADHD på en arbetsplats. Semistrukturerade intervjuer har använts som datainsamlingsmetod. Urvalet består av sju arbetsgivare inom den privata sektorn. Studien har inspirerats av den fenomeno-grafiska ansatsen, där olika uppfattningar om ett fenomen står i centrum. Teoretiska analysbe-grepp för den här studien är social kategorisering och den medicinska och sociala modellen kopplat till funktionsnedsättningar.

This project has as main goal to study the influence of the coating thickness, deposited by arc-PVD- technology, on the wear resistance of coated cemented carbide inserts in three different turning operations. An additional effort has also been made to develop a new test method for evaluating flank wear resistance. Three different coating types (Coating A, Coating B and Coating C) have been studied in three distinctive thicknesses (2, 4 and 6 µm) for each type. For two of the coating types (Coating A and B) special studies has been done with the thickest coating, creating two additional coating versions of the thickest coating, by changing various deposition parameters, with the aim to enhance the cohesive properties of the coating and lower the residual stresses at the cutting edge. The results show increased crater wear resistance with increased coating thickness for all coating types, but the amount of increase changes with coating type (Coating A>B>C).

Background: Goodwill has been a hot and debated topic for a longer period of time. Researchers have debated how goodwill should be accounted for and have not come to a solution. In 2005 IFRS standards came which meant that goodwill no longer will be amortized according to plan, but to be put through a yearly impairment test.Problem: A number of disclosure requirements in the financial reports have been made in an effort to avoid companies to account for goodwill differently. Apparently there still is a problem of how companies account for goodwill and there are several studies in the subject. But no one has studied how it is between two different industries, which make this study interesting to execute.Purpose/questions: This study have the purpose to investigate how the industries day to day wares and health care regards the disclosure requirements for goodwill by the impairment tests.

The largest project at the AICG lab at Linköping University, Cognitive models for virtual characters, focuses on creating an agent architecture for intelligent, virtual characters. The goal is to create an agent that acts naturally and gives a realistic user experience. The purpose of this thesis is to develop and implement an appropriate learning model that fits the existing agent architecture using an agile project methodology. The model developed can be seen as an online unsupervised reinforcement learning model that enhances experiences through reward. The model is based on Maes model where new effects are created depending on whether the agent is fulfilling its goals or not.The model we have developed is based on constant monitoring of the system.

Since the mid 1900s the organizational perspective in media producing companies has changed. The focus has shifted from just being a laborer to the person behind the effort. The most important for an efficient and smooth organization is the motivation of the employees and the social working environment. Former research argues that managers must be coaches and that crucial factors for the survival of organizations are creativity, innovation and adaptability. With this study we investigate what motivates employees to use their creative skills.

Interest in alternative energies is high in Sweden today, particularly in the agricultural sector. According to the Swedish lantbruksbarometern (2009), almost all respondents consider the use of some form of alternative energy from the farm. While interest in alternative energies is large, attention to the alternative energy straw has fallen and is almost nowhere mentioned in the literature today. Three years ago, in the Lantbruksbarometern nearly 44% of the farmers would be willing to invest in straw as heating system on the farm. How do the farmers decide to invest in alternative energies? With this information a problem is presented for this paper.

The Swedish model for developing the national infrastructure is based on increasing the cooperation between municipalities, government and businesses. The method to establish the infrastructure in Sweden is the geodatastrategin. The effort to implement the geodatastrategin has resulted in an interaction model, Geodatasamverkan. The purpose of this study is to alert municipalities and to investigate the usefulness of their participation in Geodatasamverkan. The study also presents examples of different applications where geodata can be used within a municipality. The report is based on literature reviews, surveys and interviews. Online Surveys were sent to some of Sweden's municipalities to get an overall idea of ??how they make use of geodata and their general attitude towards Geodatasamverkan.

Education in Swedish sport is mainly based on traditional learning that requires a lot of time and effort, which could be a barrier for trainers since they report a lack of time as a consequence of their commitment as a leader. The Swedish sports movement has noticed some trends that could be seen as influential on the future directions of sport. One of these trends is a changing way of communication where people today communicate to a greater extent with the use of digital technology. The Swedish sports movement has to relate to this and follow the evolution. The use of e-learning has increased in higher education and organizations over the past decades.

Background: Within real estate companies assets according to IFRS/ IAS 40 should be valued at fair value, to compare with previous valuation criteria according to which real estate should valued at cost. Two models can be used within IAS 40, these are value at cost and fair value. When valued at cost the real estate value in the balance sheet should be specified at cost. The method chosen by the company should be used for all real estate within the company except for the premises used by the company. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to analyse and evaluate how real estate companies experienced the problems that arose when converting to IAS 40, and to analyse the effects on the companies key ratios as a result of the change of accounting method.

The connection between rune stones and churches is a known phenomenon. Unfortunately, very little is known about the previous function of the church sites, and consequently very little is known about what the connection between rune stones and churches means. The purpose of this study is to examine the rune stones connected to churches in the administrative province of Jönköping, in an effort to ascertain their purpose, symbolism and function. The aim is to find out if the rune stones connected to churches were primarily or secondarily placed on the site where the church was later built, and why some rune stones were built into the churches. Further, the inscriptions and iconography of rune stones have been analysed, and also their relation to their immediate surroundings.

To work in an unpredictable work environment requires communication that functions well. In every organization it?s important that employees receive information that is relevant yet not confusing. Due to that, our ambition with this study is to understand how rescue effort organizations communicate in meetings; and whether their communication is clear or not. Our subject for this case study is the Emergency Services in the region of Karlstad.

The purpose of this study is to examin the depiction of culturalmeetings in history books in relatioon to the schoolguidelines, and how and why the description may have changed over time. To achieve this, a qualitative method was used to analyze the content of cultural meetings in Swedish schoolbooks after the World War II. The material used in the study was taken from eight editions of Alla tiders historia published between 1985-2011. The material was then put together and analyzed from the theoretical perspectives, which try to explain the factors that influenced the depiction of the texts.The results of this study shows, that over time, the school guidelines have incresed their focus on human value and the need for students to interact with people from other cultures. The depictions in the history books lives upp to the demands of the school guidelines, but this study shows that the main influence of the content of the book is the social context.