ABSTRACT System development has become more and more concentrated on development for the Web and this has resulted in larger target groups. It will most surely continue to be so considering that the Web will be the infrastructure of business and services in the future. A big target group involves that the owner of a system can earn a lot of money from the paying users, but that assumes that the system can meet user needs. If a system on the Web does not satisfy the user?s demands then they will use the competitor?s system instead because it is only a mouse-click away.

Introduction: The world is changing rapidly and the uncertainty that characterizes today´s society makes companies preparations for the future crucial. Purpose: To examine how CEO:s in small companies look at the future and what kind of preparations they make in order to meet it. Hereby, our ambition is to find out whether there is a difference between companies working in industries characterized by different degrees of stability. Mode of procedure: The purpose of this thesis has been fulfilled by interviews with four CEO:s from industries characterized by different degrees of stability. Result: The companies working in relatively unstable environments tended to be relatively more flexible and have an emergent strategy formation process, whereas companies working in relatively stable environments displayed relatively less flexibility and tended to have a planning strategy formation process..

Åmotfors Bruk AB (ÅBAB) has today an inefficient production of steam for the manufacturing of paper. Unpredictable energy prices and modernisation of the current equipment has been the underlying factors to invest in a thermal power plant, mainly driven by garbage. This facility will not only use the steam for paper production, it will also generate electricity through a steam turbine. Today, when a fault on the supplying line occurs which leads to disconnection of the external grid, all the support of electricity to Åmotfors Bruk (ÅB) will disappear. This will lead to major interruptions in the paper production, which will cause severe economical losses.

Concern about personal privacy continues to grow among online users along with the fact that new technologies help online companies to share user's private information. Still the usage of online entities such as social networks and e-commerce sites continue to increase. This raises the question of why online users act in such a contradictory and irrational way.Our study examines what impact one recently developed application called social login, which is provided by several social networks and used by millions of online companies, has on consumer's evaluation of online brands when they are primed for various types of information concerning privacy issues. Our assumptions are built up on the theory of cognitive, dissonance and suggest that there will be no differences in evaluation of the brands due to the human need to rationalize their existing behavior and attitudes when they receive new or contradicting information. The potential effects are measured by a manipulation presented in a survey distributed in an online environment to a sample of users (n=,154).

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.

This study is intended to give an impartial view of a young and complex program in Sweden titled Product Innovation Engineering program. The purpose of this program is to increase innovation capability in Sweden that will result in new companies, patents and economic growth. The results from this study might give some direction to future innovation initiatives, but should primarily serve as a tool for the PIEp participants. The study will focus on investigating the creation of the program as well as the development of its strategy. From weaknesses and strengths within the strategy of the program the study should also attempt to show its future potential.

The purpose for this Masters thesis is to describe childrens librarians work in supplying literature to children with emphasis on easy-reader materials. Our main questions are: · What do librarians believe characterizes an easy-reader book, and what do they base their decision on when classifying a book as easy-to-read? · How have the libraries in our study solved the hands-on difficulties associated with easy readers childrens literature? · Which factors do librarians consider to be important when supplying literature to children that are not used to reading or are not good readers? The theories we have used are Aidan Chambers Reading Circle and Karner Smidts view on the librarians professional roles when supplying literature. We have used a case study method, which means that we have gathered information through observation, objective papers and interviews. This has been done at six libraries.

The purpose of this thesis is to develop an application for mobile phones that simplifies communication. The company Doberman wanted to look at possibilities to develop such an application that uses Bluetooth? technol-ogy to communicate in ad-hoc networks. The aim has been an application to run on mobile phones in which you can send messages and files to other devices and also add a user profile with personal information to share with others. The communication will take place in temporary networks created when Bluetooth enabled devices is in range of each other.The market for mobile phones has grown rapidly over the past years and is still growing.

The purpose of this paper is to study how the TV program Border Security: Australia?s FrontLine (Gränsbevakarna Australien) can be seen to reproduce networks of human and non-human actors. The aim is thus to investigate how boundaries between nations are upheld and how people, as a consequence, are discoursively categorized and what preconditions this create for people?sidentity- and meaning-making practices.The theoretical and methodical framework is built upon Bruno Latour?s work on Actor-Network-Theory, and discourse analysis inspired by Michel Foucault. The empirical material consists of two episodes of the TV program.

In this thesis an energy analysis of ethanol production at the ethanol plant of Lantmännen Agroetanol in Norrköping has been performed. The ethanol plant has been studied in combination with Händelöverket, the combined heat and power plant which provides the ethanol process with steam. The purpose of this study was to determine the energy consumption for the whole production chain from grain to ethanol. The analysis has included the energy consumption for cultivation of grain, production of chemicals, the production chain for wood chips, the steam production and the ethanol plant. The grain and wood chips are both considered raw materials there for the energy content in these are not included as energy input in the system.

In this thesis an energy analysis of ethanol production at the ethanol plant of Lantmännen Agroetanol in Norrköping has been performed. The ethanol plant has been studied in combination with Händelöverket, the combined heat and power plant which provides the ethanol process with steam. The purpose of this study was to determine the energy consumption for the whole production chain from grain to ethanol. The analysis has included the energy consumption for cultivation of grain, production of chemicals, the production chain for wood chips, the steam production and the ethanol plant. The grain and wood chips are both considered raw materials there for the energy content in these are not included as energy input in the system.

Issue of study: The development of technology and society is closely linked. Mutual dependency and complex interrelationships make straightforward analysis of issues regarding the future of technology and society hard to perform. Therefore, the study addresses the question of how organizations should describe and analyze the interactions of technology and society in order to gain a better understanding of what the future may bring. Purpose: ? To develop a method for analysis of the future course of issues regarding technology and society in interaction.? To apply and test the developed method through a case study, where it is used to analyze the future of the Russian fuel market.

The purpose of this thesis is to assist the Swedish energy company NIBE Energy Systems in their studies of adaptive regulation applicable to electrical water heaters. Due to coming energy classifications of these appliances in the European Union, NIBE Energy Systems needs to use adaptive regulation, called Smart Control, to keep their products in the best possible energy class and remain competitive to the market. By using this Smart Control regulation a 2-3 % improve-ment of efficiency can be credited the system. This is a small number, but heavily needed, since the energy classes are based on the idea that the European Union is provided with electricity from coal condensate power resulting in a 40 % maximum efficiency. Furthermore, doing noth-ing will result in some water heaters not being approved to use on the market from 2015 due to low efficiency.

The society of today is largely dependent on electricity and the dependence does not show any signs of declining. Reliability of supply will become increasingly important in the future and it is therefore important to investigate factors affecting the failure rates in electrical components.Sweden was hit by several severe storms during the 00?s. As a result of this many overhead lines in forests were cablified. In urban areas underground cable systems have been the norm for many years.

Human capital is professional service firms' most valuable resource and its quality is closely linked to the quality of its services. The purpose of this study is to investigate how professional service firms appraise their employees. A comparative study between an architecture firm and a management consulting firm is conducted with the aim to identify and explain similarities and differences in performance appraisal. Two qualitative case studies are performed and interviews as well as documents are used to explore the area. The thesis builds on a critical perspective and it has an explorative approach.