Organisations tend to focus more and more on product and process development to increase their competitiveness. Several major organisations, among them ABB, have developed models aimed to more effectively control and manage product development processes. ABB is using its standardised model ABB Gate Model for this. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze how the introduction of ABB Gate Model has affected the outcome of decisions and also the decision-making in the product development process. The study is limited to elucidate the version of ABB Gate Model handling product development projects.

The objective for this Master?s thesis is to study literary programs for infants at six Swedish public libraries, their relevance and importance for infants and how the infant?s perspective in the program design and implementation is taken into consideration. The questions I pose are: In which way do the programs take the infants need for development and their literary prerequisites into consideration? Which functions can the programs have for infants? I have used a qualitative method, based on deep interviews with six library staff, working with literary programs. A model was developed based upon Daniel Stern?s theories of the interpersonal world of the infant together with Joseph Appleyard?s reading development theory.

The main objective of this thesis was to develop appropriate strategies and find factors that affect the usability of parameterized designs. This was accomplished by investigate the user-interface and how it is designed to meet the user's information needs. The thesis also embraces the basic theories in terms of investigation, cognitive design principles and human behavior patterns in the interaction with the machine. The approach has led to an explorative investigation in this subject area.The thesis also had the purpose to achieve more efficient ways for development of motor chainsaws at Husqvarna AB's department Global Cutting Equipment. That can be achieved through reduce costs of development per sold unit.

Background: Employees acting towards company goals and having a strong desire to remain in the organisation are very important for the success of a company. In order to generate such organisational commitment of the employees, the knowledge about what motivates and satisfies them is essential. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate and analyse the factors which motivate employees, under consideration of individual characteristics. Limitation: Age, gender, marital status, work area, position and the years a person has been working in the company represent the individual characteristics examined in this study. Realisation: Literature research as well as a practical survey consisting of mail questionnaires and personal interviews were carried out in order to best serve the purpose of this thesis.

Objective: The aim of this work is to find out how a number of educators work when giving children support and opportunities for language development.Questions:What have preschool for policy to monitor/assess the children?s language development?What experiences do teachers have of children who need support in language development?How do educator?s regard support from specialised educator?s? Do these efforts support the children to enhance language development?Methods: Qualitative methodology, Interviews with six teachers and two specialised educators from three kindergartens in the municipality.Summary of conclusions: The municipality in which the survey was conducted has a document that provides guide lines on how to work with children?s language development in school and preschool. Pedagogical documentation is a tool that teachers use in nursery school which educators and parents can follow, which shows children?s learning processes and learn strategies. Research shows that through play, music, creative activities, photos, etc.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the innovation process of companies, and to analyse how important success factors and obstacles are in their innovation process.Method: The investigation strategy used for this essay was to interview companies that work with innovations. The essay has a qualitative approach. Both primary ? in the form of interviews - and secondary data ? literature found in books, scientific articles and internet - have been used to achieve our results.Results: The result of this essay is: there is not just one inovation process that is applicable to all companies. On the other hand, there are some guidelines that could be followed in the process.

The purpose of this study is to find out teachers and students thoughts about sustainable development. Research shows that sustainable development should be a part of all education. When this is the case, the student´s will develop a competence to act in this matter. This is important so student´s encourages to act and make decisions based on knowledge about sustainable development. This field investigation is based on four interviews with teachers and eleven interviews with student´s. The result shows that the teachers has learned a lot about the concept, and in different ways realizated this in their teaching.

This study investigates the effects that commercial computer games have on young individuals social comfort and learning progress. As a systematic study of literature, scholarly articles have been analysed in order to illuminate the positive as well as negative effects on social comfort and learning progress that may come with playing computer games. The social effects have mainly been discussed with role-playing games, such as World of Warcraft, as starting point, while the learning effects have been coupled with strategy games, such as Civilization IV. The study does not simply declare how these games can be good for these factors, but also in what respect computer games may prevent the development of young individuals socials skills and learning progress. The study showed that in spite of perpetual prejudices against computer games in the technological age, computer games might actually be good to use as a tool in order to authorize the development of young individuals regarding learning and social aspects.

This report presents an investment calculation based on an assumed initial investment of a new saw line to an existing sawmill. In order to get as close to reality as possible, we have received data material from northern forest owners who recently made an initial investment in their sawmill in Kåge. In order to calculate and evaluate investments are several different methods, but we, we have chosen to use the discounted cash flow method. The method sums up with the help of a fixed cost of capital together with any future costs and revenues, thereby giving a present value of the investment. We also do a sensitivity analysis to examine how selected factors affect the investment research they change. The study is carried out to a fictitious investment, and therefore the result should not only be studied as a result of the figures. The purpose of this study was that with the help of an investment calculation studying the profitability of a hypothetical investment, and by means of a sensitivity analysis to study the sensitivity of investment to changes. The result demonstrates that the calculations according to the present value method requires a lot of information of the prospective investment.

The aim with my work was to gain a deeper understanding of some adult adopted children?s experiences and reflections about which role parent ship plays for the adopted child?s development of identity. Following questions have been in focus: What does a working parent ship imply, seen from the perspective of adopted child? In which way can the development of identity for the adopted child be supported by a functional parent ship? Semi-structured interviews were carried out with the two following themes: Support and confirmation. The sample consisted of five foreign-adopted between the age of 18 and 37 years.

Musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) are common in individuals with computer based work. Thecurrently known risk factors for these disorders is in the literature derived to physical,organizational and individual factors. A recent survey of three working groups at a companyin Stockholm explored that more than 50% of the employees had neck and shoulder problems.Aim: The study aims to create a better understanding for the current musculoskeletalproblems at the company. Such an understanding is created by examining the physical,organizational and individual risk factors in the workplace and the result can provide a goodbasis for intervention proposals.Method: In order to answer the aim of the study the authors chosed to use both qualitativeand quantitative methods of data collection through interviews and questionnaire survey. Theinterview and questionnaire was designed to create both a specific and comprehensive pictureof the physical, organizational and individual risk factors having a bearing effect on theexisting MSD problem.Result: Seven categories were compiled from interviews, which largely deals with the factthat high demands can lead to behaviors that may pose a significant risk for the occurrence ofMSD.

AbstractIn this essay, I have chosen to examine how four teachers in a work unit think and work with linguistic development and strategies, particularly in grade 4-6. The teaching profession has gradually become more like a cooperative profession. Therefore it is in a general pedagogic interest, to know, how each one of the teachers in the work unit, are thinking about linguistic development, teaching profiles and the significances of a work unit to achieve their aims to provide for all the individuals in their classrooms. My intention was to find out if a homogeneous work unit or a heterogeneous work unit is to prefer in work with linguistic development, which initially made me focus and realise the importance of each one of my informants? answers.

Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union a lot of hope has been put on civil society to help develop Russia into a more democratic society. This study explores the constructive elements in the relationship between civil society and the state in Russia, and how this enables the work toward political development. By using Julie Fishers theory about political development and organisational autonomy I discuss the varying and often complex ways in which civil society and the state interacts. These are often not mentioned in the liberal tradition, which believes that civil society's most important democratic function is to act as a watchdog for the state.There is very limited political space for NGO's in authoritative Russia. The existing oppositional NGO's are important for the political development, but they are few and their impacts on society are limited.

The purpose of this Bachelor?s thesis was to examine the information needs of the international students at the University of Borås. A further aim was to examine the types of information sources the international students was using to satisfy their information needs and the environmental factors keeping them from achieving this. This was done through focus group interviews with international students from four different countries ranging from the ages 20 ? 35.

Following study is about motivation from a student perspective. Based on the prescribed literature and published research, the concept and field of motivation have been illuminated. The purpose of the study was to examine how students in ninth grade perceived their educational motivation and what kind importance they considered it had for their performance in school. The study is also supposed to base upon the result; clarify the differences if any between schools. In an attempt to get a clear image of this a quantitative method in the form of surveys was made on two schools in the Stockholm region. One of the schools had a really good merit value, and the other had a rather poor merit- value. By choosing a quantitative method a relatively large number of students where able to participate and equally large quantity of statistics have been presented. The result point at motivation in the participating students in both schools can increase and decrease through different factors.