When in the process of buying a product based high effort behavior, the consumer needs information to decide on which product that best satisfies their need. There is a wide arrange of sources where this could be found. One of the most important, due to the great influence it has on consumer choice, is in-store communications. This is also one of the least developed sources. It is not uncommon that the only facts that can be acquired are found on product packaging and from contact with the store´s staff.

The project was carried out in cooperation with the department of product development IOS at IKEA. The work included improvements of a new existing product that Ikea soon will release on the market, Observatör, a wall bracket for flat screens. The product is supposed to fulfil the needs within this market for IKEA. However, since Ikea was not satisfied with it, our work was to carry out the improvements that were specified in the beginning of the project. Another task in the project was to develop a side-product that is supposed to be used together with Obeservatör for storage of DVD/decoders.The project included labour as problem definition to final technical drawings and a prototype.

Over the past one hundred years, there has been an increasing globalization and industrialization of the food systems. As a result, the distance between the production and the consumption of food has increased, both in time and space and in the minds of people. There is also an increasing concern for the environmental effects of industrial farming and the long distance transportation of food. Sustainable agriculture and efforts to build more sustainable food systems has emerged in opposition to the global food market. The definitions of sustainability usually include environmental, social and economical aspects. To build more localized food systems is seen as one way towards increased sustainability.

This report is a documentation of the workflow and the result of a project carried out by twostudents from the Royal Institute of Technology in collaboration with a company. The report isstructured in a chronological order and describes the methods and systems developed in theworkflow. The report shows how the project evolved from a study phase to the various proposals onthe concept solutions.The project aims to develop a systematic way of bonding two different kind of cardboard under fiveminutes. By conducting a general study about glue and its different forms it was possible to obtain abroad knowledge, which helped to choose the right substances to later use in testing on the differentcardboard materials in question. Glues's survey resulted in a list of different substances that wererelevant to the project.

The large-scale soy cultivation has negative consequences for the habitat of local populations because of the intensive use of pesticides and the destruction of rain forests and eco-systems. GM soya, varieties are often used. The majority of Swedish people, however, do not want GM products in their food. It will be hard in future to ensure GM free food, particularly foods that come from countries where GM crops are grown on a large scale. It is very difficult to avoid cross- contamination when both GM and non-GM crops are grown in the same area.

Raw food, eller råkost diet kan ses som en växande trend i västvärlden och även i Sverige. Det har kommit ut raw food böcker på svenska, på internet finns det svenska diskussionsforum, bloggar och butiker som alla har dedikerat sig till rawfoodister, första raw food restauranger har öppnats i landet. Raw food är en form av vegankost; den består av frukt, grönsaker, nötter, frön och kallpressade oljor. Maten värms inte upp mer än 40 C, torkning och frysning accepteras, många äter mjölksyrade grönsaker, groddade spannmål och baljväxter. Kaffe, alkohol, raffinerat socker, vit mjöl och salt undviks.

Today the individual ventilated cage system (IVC-system) is a commonly used housing system for mice in research facilities. IVC systems have HEPA- filters and are designed to control both supply and exhausted air at cage level, as well as temperature and relative humidity in the cages. This creates an optimal environment for the mouse and at the same time a protection against the risk of cross-infection between cages and the outside environment. The aim of this study was to evaluate the health and welfare of breeding females and pups of two different strains of laboratory mice (NMRI nude mice and C57BL/6N) in three different kinds of IVC-systems; Arrowmight, Allentown and Tecniplast. The NMRI nude (Nu) females gave birth to 18 litters in Allentown, 16 litters in Arrowmight and 15 litters in Tecniplast.

In recent years, existing solutions for cooling personal computer CPUs have been supplemented by a new product category, factory sealed water cooling loops. These systems, consisting of a water block with an integrated pump, a fan and a radiator, perform well compared to the air cooling solutions but are less effective than larger, custom-built water cooling systems.This project aims to explore the most important aspects of a factory sealed system and to identify possible cost-effective enhancements of the performance.The most significant differences between the different groups of water cooling loops are the block design and the pumping power. The performance of both categories is also largely dependent on the fan power, but increasing fan power has a large negative impact on the noise level.Both radiator size and fan model choice appear, in tests, to be relatively unimportant, presuming that the noise level is kept constant. The position and direction of the fan, however, has significant impact on both the temperature and the sound level.Water blocks can be designed in several different ways, both regarding the heatsink design and the flow direction. In simulation, flow with the inlet centered above the heatsink result in considerably lower pressure drop and slightly higher temperatures than flow through the block, for heatsinks with fin arrays.Creating a competitive product in this product segment certainly seems possible, as there are performance-increasing changes to be made that seemingly has little impact on the production cost.

"Food security is a situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life" (FAO Summit, 2003, pp. 28).Food insecurity is of concern regarding the Republic of Mauritius (ROM) since it is defined as a net food importing country. (Farming news, 2008). The impacts of climate change followed by their complexity could potentially have an increased risk effect upon the social and environmental welfare as well as the economic drivers in the ROM (www, UNESCO1, 2009). The primary victims when it comes to the impacts of climate change are the Mauritian agricultural producers since agriculture is highly dependent on climate stability, therefore affecting the yields of the producers.

This work of examination describes an environmentally oriented product development aimed to develop new packaging with improved environmental and sale aspects of the products from Primus Sweden AB. The report covers the design process from the first collection of facts to the final results with a description of all methods involved in the work. The focus has been on a clear environmental awareness and the report contains a deepening of the concept life cycle assessment (LCA) for product development. In the process, the consumers? opinions of the brand Primus and environmental profiling formed the basis for the packaging to communicate the right values such as quality, technology, environmental awareness and adventurer?s first choice.The deepening of the life cycle analysis shows that composting and other alternative treatment of the biological cycle is not possible to implement in a satisfactory way in the design process.The work results in two final concepts.

The aim of this essay is to give the reader an idea of how the European agricultural policies have developed, in regard of sustainable development, since Sweden became a member in the union 1995. The main aspect that?s been investigated is the issues regarding sustainable development and how the issues regarding the ecological farming methods have been dealt with. My research questions are:- How has the European environment- and agricultural politics changed since Swedenjoined the union in 1995?- What consequences have the changes had for ecological farming?The answers to the stated questions are that there have been several treaties in the field of environmental development of the agricultural policy, starting with the Maastricht treaty and ends up with the European Action Plan for Organic Food and Farming.

AbstractThis is a thesis done in cooperation with the firm Somas and University of Karlstad. The project is an independent final examination part of the program in Innovation and DesignEngineering comprising 22.5 points, and performed by Mia Myrén Zreloff during spring term 2012. In parallel and collaboration, Fredrik Kjellin performs a similar job for the same company and with the same extent, but for the Program in Mechanical Engineering.The client and supervisor at the company have been Magnus Jansson and Anders Josefsson. At Karlstad University has technical supervisor been Hans Johansson, and in the design- and development process it was Monica Jakobsson. Examiner has been Fredrik Thuvander, professor in the Faculty of Technology and Science at Karlstad University.The mission has been to make a basis work for the company's own development and make a computational model to calculate, visualize and implement materials and other solutions in the manufacture of the company's ball valves.The project has undergone three major phases that included thorough study of the company, production, the problem and product.

During the year 2014, Artex AB has worked to launch a new product whose function is to locally purify the air. The product is a headboard and its purpose is to give the user clean air while sleeping. The air purifier has different speeds and it`s up to the user to choose which effect that will be on. To get the best experience of the product as possible, the air purifier shall be controlled by a mobile application. In that way the user can increase and decrease the fan speed, even when the user not is home.

The product "urinal funnel" for women has fascinated me for a long time. Not only because it solves a practical problem in a simple way, but also because it challenges our definitions of gender and behaviour. This report describes the process of making a new design for a funnel, taking material, ergonomics and construction in consideration. It also includes structuring a launching of the product in Sweden. It starts up with a large amount of information gathering, both by interviewing testgroup-perticipants, but also by researching and evaluating the range of existing funnels.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between Health Locus of Control, Exercise habits, Food habits and Self-esteem (Personal self and Physical self) between two groups of student teachers at a university in the south of Sweden. Is health such as exercise, eating and self-esteem something that is controlled by internal or external factors? Student teachers that participated in Physical and Health programme and student teachers that participeted in other programme were investigeted. The participants (N = 160) answered the questionnaire. The Health Locus of Control scale and Tennessee Self-Concept Scale were used.