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 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.

Babies born prematurely are deprived of normal sensorimotor stimulation when placed in an artificial environment, the incubator. The aim of this project was to design a series of products that could promote the baby?s emotional and neurological development, and to facilitate parental bonding. The products designed in this project has a theoretical basis on the research available today on cognitive and emotional development in children born prematurely. They were developed in close cooperation with a group of parents and nurses in a neonatal intensive care unit.Presence is a product collection for developmental care, consisting of a mattress, a figure and a necklace. The mattress has vibration sensors that transfer the mother?s heart beat and speakers with recorded heartbeat and her voice.

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.

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.

A film can attract all kinds of emotions and moods of the audience through its audiovisual communications and cinematic expression, in which music plays a significant role in both understanding and interpretation of film content.It is interesting to explore the musical significance and the emotional aspect of the film out of a media and communications perspective and visual communications perspective because it?s a subject that belongs to the communications of scientific discipline as film is a media text which is working both as communicative and as audio-visual medium with its expressive aspects.The purpose of this bachelor?s paper is to increase and deepen the understanding of music's function and significant role in context with its reinforcing sense of visual expression in film. More specifically, it aims to explore the musical value of the expressive aspect of the media text in form of film musical Les Misérables (2012), which has been transmedialised from the novel of the same name, referring to the sound, music and song in relation to the film's visual expression.The research questions are at the core of the essay study: "how is music used to reinforce the cinematic visual expression?" and "how can music signify the narrative and highlight the emotional aspect of the film?" The theoretical framework is based on some of the key scholars assumptions such as Michel Chion (1994) and Claudia Gorbman (1987), who share the same theoretical views that the soundtrack seems powerful when it expresses its participation in a scene?s emotional moods as the music follows the scene?s rhythm, the image?s flow and contributes emotional and musical codes of emotions and expressions. According to Chion sound and image interact together to tell a story where sound enrich the image with expressive and informative values.

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 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.

In today's changing environment, an increasing number of companies are realizing thebenefits of analyzing business information and thereby stay competitive. By making use ofdecision support systems, known as Business Intelligence (BI), organizations are expected tocollect and process business data and thus get more out of their business.Nowadays it is not enough for organizations to have access to corporate data inside officewalls, they must also be able to bring the information "on the go", which has been thefoundation for the progress of mobile BI solutions. As the mobility increases and thecorporate data leaves the office, new risks arise, which is one reason as to why manycompanies hesitate at the idea of introducing mobile BI solutions.In this paper we explore two security aspects in the area of mobile BI solutions. Our researchquestion is as follows: How does security aspects affect a company's decision to acquiremobile BI solutions? The survey was conducted through interviews in cooperation with thefirm Optivasys, exclusively dedicated to the BI solution QlikView.A significant part of the theory we studied describes security as critical; however, ourresearch suggests a solution on how companies can manage the security aspects.

There are an increasing number of unaccompanied children coming to Sweden. Sweden is one of the countries in the world that receive many of them. This awoke my interest to investigate the assessment of financial assistance and ?other living expenses? considering unaccompanied children. My approach was a qualitative study including interviewing five social secretaries working in five different districts in Malmö.

The purpose is to examine social workers view of vulnerable children and their needs. We are also interested to know how social workers think and discuss concerning the help these children are given. Our main questions in our study are; How do social workers define vulnerable children? Which needs do vulnerable children have according to social workers? Which opportunities and difficulties might there be in the decision making when trying to help these children? Which public authorities do social workers cooperate with? Which opportunities and difficulties do social workers find in the cooperation?This study is based upon interviews with ten social workers in the social childcare division in different municipalities in Skåne region, Sweden. Our results are explained and analyzed with a qualitative approach through different aspects of power- and Human Service Organization theories.