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.

After the formation of the European Union internal market in 1992, member state specific obstacles and barriers were largely removed. This was especially the case in harmonised industries where standardisation and technical regulation have led to legal certainty. Despite this, a large range of trade regulation continues to remain distortional to trade, in addition to the ongoing tariffs and subsidies. The key trade regulations relate to a number of areas involving technical regulations such as production labelling and the protection of intellectual property rights. Whilst policy makers claim justification based around the need to correct market failure in delivering desired outcomes, the question is whether these regulations are appropriate responses to market failures or if they have simply been imposed in an attempt to protect domestic markets.

This Master Thesis covers the concept of Green Cars. The background to the research area is the high and rapidly growing number of cars, which together with other factors ad to the pollution of the environment. Under the Kyoto agreement the signing members agreed to lower the emissions of green house gases, further on the EU has a 3-pillar strategy on carbon dioxide and cars. Included in the EU strategy is a voluntary commitment from the car industry to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from new cars. The easiest way of lowering the emissions is by using alternative fuels and engines.

Companies today face more and more demands from society and stakeholders. It is no longer about just satisfying shareholders, sales and making a profit. Consumers are becoming more aware of products effects and the consequences it has on humans, our environment and the generation ahead of us. NGO:s and society request that companies take responsibility and actions toward a more sustainable business. Many investors analyze companies? sustainability regarding social and environmental issues when it comes to choosing a company to invest in.

A pilot-study was used to investigate, types of assistance, assessed needs, outcomes and effects of special-needs assistance given to a subsample of compulsory school pupils in an effort to develop an evaluation strategy for identifying educational impacts of specific special-needs inputs.  Preliminary results indicate a tendency for postive outcomes for most pupils in the pilot group (n = 11) but also that many pupils have residual difficulties.  Pupils with residual difficulties mostly required special education asssitance with Maths, English or Swedish.  More pupils also needed support with behavioral difficulties.  More research and an expanding knowledge base is required in order to effectively evaluate outcomes of teacher support.  Schools need help in devising different methods of assistance and particularly for pupils with behavioral difficulties..

Bakgrund: Risken för hjärtsvikt ökar med stigande ålder. Upplevelser av att leva med hjärtsvikt varierar vilket kan påverka det dagliga livet och leda till individuella vårdbehov. Patienter med hjärtsvikt ska vid behov erbjudas vård i hemmet och den är idag mer avancerad än tidigare.Syfte: Syftet med studien var att belysa patienters upplevelser av att få vård i hemmet för sin hjärtsvikt.Metod: En induktiv intervjustudie med semistrukturerade frågor har använts. Genom ett strategiskt urval framkom sex informanter. Intervjumaterialet analyserades med kvalitativ manifest innehållsanalys.Resultat: Vården i hemmet utformades individuellt och informanterna upplevde att de fick all vård de var i behov av.

The purpose of this thesis was to illuminate how companies work with their brand identity and particularly how it is applied in their positioning. The empirical data has been collected through interviews with two companies in Sweden working with brand identity as a stated strategy. The study shows that companies discover, develop and build their brand identity based on their core identity and core values. The core value can be strengthened through customer satisfaction surveys. In order to develop the brand identity in companies, management has to be aware of their brand person- ality, as an essentiality for survival.

AbstractTitle:The Impact of Management Control Systems on the Purchaser Function - A study of Scania and Sandvik Authors: Mohammad Reza Akhbari and Johanna Sullivan Svensson Published: 2011 Keywords: Management control, purchasing function, impact, control, control instruments, Key Performance Indicators, measurement, communication and organizational structure. Background and problem formulation: In order for a company?s business idea or vision to be fulfilled, the management of a company needs assistance from various means to intentionally affect the operation in the desired direction. Management control concerns activities of both financial and non-financial character in order to implement the strategy of a company and to reach profitability. Since the purchaser function is responsible of spending 50 percent of a company?s total revenue, the function has an optimal starting point to be a key actor in the shaping and execution of a company?s strategic plan.

The division of Electricity at Uppsala University is developing a wave energy converter(WEC) consisting of a linear generator connected to a bouy at the water surfacethrough a wire cable called the connection line.During extreme conditions, the wave power plant will experience forces up to 500kN, which lead to unnecessary wear and will ultimately cause the failure of theconverter. To prevent this there is a need for a damper.The wave energy converter works at a maximum efficiency when the translator?sare centered with respect to the stator. Due to tidal movements the position of thetranslator can deviate. There for a mechanical divice that will compensate for this isneeded.This report describes the further development of an earlier project where a tidalwave compensator for a wave energy converter of Seabased AB was developed.

This thesis tries to explore how different strategies of internal communication are used in actual situations within an organization. Specifically, the purpose is to investigate how the internal communication within the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) has been carried out during their work to change their organizational structure, and, how this can be understood in terms of existing theories for strategic communication. The research questions explored are:What are the chosen strategies used to communicate the changes internally?How can these strategies be understood in terms of existing theories?What are the views of the employees on the communication and what are the relations between their views, the chosen strategies and existing theories?The theoretical ground work chosen is mainly the work by Cornelissen (2008), Dalfelt (2005), Johansson (2011) and Larsson (2008). The method chosen for the empirical part of the study is semi-structured qualitative interviews.

Syfte: Syftet med den här studien var att undersöka smink påverkar kontaktlinsen och ögast främre segment vid bärande av mjuka korttidsslinser.Metod: De medverkande fick använda smink en vecka och vara utan smink en vecka. Efter varje testperiod noterades eventuella beläggningar och skador på linserna och vanliga ögonkomplikationer graderades. Inför varje testperiod fick deltagarna vara utan linser från och med kvällen innan och de fick ett nytt par linser och ett nytt linsetui.Resultat: Det fanns ingen statistisk signifikant skillnad mellan testperioderna gällande ögonkomplikationerna, förutom vid palpebral konjunktival ojämnhet som visade sig ha ett högre medelvärde efter sminkperioden jämfört med  den sminkfria perioden.  En lins hade skador efter den osminkade perioden och en lins hade skador efter sminkperioden. Beläggningar återfanns i större utsträckning efter smink-veckan, men skillnaden var inte statistisk signifikant.  Slutsats:Studien visar på att smink inte påverkar kontaktlinsen eller ögat, förutom palpebrala konjunktiva, negativt efter en vecka sminkanvändning..

Bakgrund: Majoriteten av de epidemiologiska studierna visar på en ökning av hjärtsvikt över hela västvärlden. I takt med att antalet patienter med hjärtsvikt ökar kommer också vårdpersonalens behov av att förstå hur hjärtsviktspatienter lever med sjukdomen att öka, vilket är en förutsättning i processen för patienten att anpassa sig till sjukdomen och dess påverkan på det dagliga livet.Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att beskriva hur patienter med hjärtsvikt upplever att sjukdomen påverkar det dagliga livet.Metod: Litteraturbaserad studie med grund i kvalitativ forskning som följer Friberg (2006) metod för analys där 14 artiklar granskades.Resultat: Fem teman identifierades: (1) en ny och osäker situation, (2) förändringar i patientens psykiska och fysiska förmågor, (3) förändringar i det sociala livet, (4) anpassning och acceptans i situationen med ny mening och identitet, (5) ångest kring döden och sjukdomens oförutsägbara natur. Att leva med hjärtsvikt karakteriserades av påfrestande symtom, begränsningar av de dagliga aktiviteterna, förändringar i sin identitet och det sociala livet samt ångest kring döden och sjukdomens oförutsägbara natur.Slutsats: Upplevelse av hälsa och livskvalitet är individuellt. Tydlig information om sjukdomen och egenvård till patienten är nödvändigt för bättre kontroll, upplevelse av hälsa och livskvalitet..

I svensk hälso- och sjukvård finns en skyldighet enligt lag att arbeta med kvalitetsutveckling och säkring. Vårdkvalitet kan mätas genom olika kvalitetsindikatorer. En kvalitetsindikator är en variabel med hög validitet när det gäller just vårdkvalitet. Med hjälp av indikatorer kan viktiga aspekter studeras. Orsakssamband och möjligheter till förbättring kan sedan identifieras. Olika sätt att organisera vården och olika sammansättningar i personalgruppen kan antas påverka omvårdnaden av patienterna.

Background: With the increased globalization food prices went down for a while, only to skyrocket to new levels. Prices of organic food, which already were more expensive than conventional, are now even more expensive. The current financial crisis results in reduced consumption which creates a threat to the smaller grocery stores. Globalization and the increased competition have had a negative impact on the environment but at the same time the desire to solve these issues has increased appreciably. The environmental aspect has been given higher priority by the individual, which led to a wider range of organic products and dramatically increased the number of stores selling organic products, leading to a greater competition among the stores selling organic food.  Problem definition: What factors are important for organic retail business long term survival?Purpose: Trough case studies analyze and evaluate the organic niche retail companies? strategies of marketing.Methods: This study is based on both qualitative and quantitative research methods.

This study aims to explore purposes of daily workshops for persons with disabilities. The method used was qualitative interviews. An inductive research strategy was used. Half-structured interviews with six managers of daily workshops were carried out, wherein they expressed their intentions with the daily workshops and the reasons for people to participate. The interviews were analysed with Antonovsky´s salutogenetic perspective, in which Sense of Coherence, SOC is a main concept, and with the normalisation principle.