Background: Many authors consider knowledge to be a significant source for competitive advantage. Replicating companies found their competitiveness on an ability to leverage its knowledge base by replicating its business model in new contexts, a process often referred to as the McDonalds approach. Several authors emphasize that an efficient method for knowledge transfer may increase the risk for imitation. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine in an explorative manner how strategies for replicating complex knowledge systems are employed and developed. Furthermore, our ambition is to explore the notion of replication strategy.

This thesis aims to study brand change, which can be of interest since a brand during its lifetime can be expected to meet a lifecycle consisting of five phases; innovation, introduction, growth, maturity and recession. In order to avoid the recession phase and the sales decline that follows there is a need for a change of the brand.In order to study brand change, theoretical framework is compared to two real world cases that have gone through an active change.The conceptions of positioning, repositioning and revitalization are clarified. Positioning deals with how brands are located in customer?s minds as well as on the real market. Repositioning implies a change of the current position and is also often a move towards a new market segment.

In this thesis, three separate experiments have been performed on different aspects of the interaction between the causal agent of clubroot, Plasmodiophora brassicae, and its hosts. In the first experiment the pathotype of the P. brassicae single spore isolate, which is currently used to construct a reference genome, has been classified using the ECD bioassay. The disease severity of infected plants was scored according to two different scales and the pathotype was determined according to three previously published guidelines. The results were compared to previous published studies describing the e3 isolate. The life cycle of P. brassicae is not well understood.

The aim of this study was to investigate how mothers in families with strong patriarchal traditionssee their role as a mother and as a woman. The study is built upon two main questions: What arethe expectations of your family and your immediate environment on you as a mother and as awoman? And what does ?honour? mean for you as a mother and as a woman? In our paper wehad as a starting point a gender perspective that was further on applied in defining our researchquestion. We are also giving an account of the phenomenological perspective that we also had asa basis of our work. We interviewed six mothers living in families with strong patriarchaltraditions.

The latest thing in the area of environmental building today is energy-plus-house. The idea behind the energy-plus-house is to create a house that produces more energy than it consumes. To accomplish this, the house uses renewable energy, in this particular case solar energy. With the help from a proper construction and thoughtfully projected installations you can achieve a surplus of energy. The surplus energy can then be sold to the surrounding buildings and thereby conduce to a financial profit for the household.

The scope of this investigation is to decide how and to what extent the energy consumption of apassive house is affected by the users? knowledge and habits. To achieve this a literary study hasbeen made and as a complement the planning of a passive house was completed.The result of a primary study of the rules and regulations that effect passive houses in Swedenshows that the user?s influence on passive houses is a completely unregulated area. Even thoughthere is no regulation, a need for some general knowledge of the passive house concept has beenexpressed.To further investigate how the users? knowledge and habits affect the energy consumption and ifthere is a difference between different households? energy consumption , three main factors havebeen identified.

This study aims to evaluate the waste management in Norrbottens municipalities in key areas such as possibilities to reach the two national waste goals, information to the public, the effect of legislation, future of waste management and differences in geographic- and demographic areas. The Waste Framework Directive (WFD) issued by the EU and incorporated into Swedish law plays a major part in waste management by defining a hierarchy in five steps how waste should be treated. Interviews conducted with each of the fourteen municipalities aimed to find out what step in the hierarchy they are at and what effect the implementation of EU-legislature into Swedish law has had. Based on the interviews a diverse range of answers was found in relation to the questions asked, generally the more populated municipalities saw a more positive future of waste management, mainly because more developed infrastructure to handle waste is already in place. However the smaller the municipality is the harder it is to allocate resources for waste management and problems arise in the form of expensive transports of waste.

Today all buildings contain some form of home automation. It might be heating controlled by athermostat or motion detectors controlling outdoor lighting.This paper,The Intelligent House, deals with the planning of a house in Kiruna, in the north ofSweden and further immerses itself in home automation or intelligent control in single-familyhomes. The house has been entirely planned, from layout to structural design and plumbing.The purpose of the paper has been to investigate the possibilities in home automation in singlefamilyhomes and to choose a suitable home automation system for the house being planned.The system has been designed and the costs and energy savings have been calculated.The system chosen for the house is called KNX and is the largest system for home automation inSweden. It is used to control heating, ventilation, lighting and alarm systems in the house. Is hasbeen found that KNX is very expensive and that the amount of energy, possible to save in thehouse, using the system, is relatively small.

The competition amongst companies is getting tougher and the economic markets are getting even bigger with new products and businesses. One way for companies to differentiate themselves from the competitors is through packaging design. If the merchandise is to send a reliable and solid message to consumers, the attributes of the packaging must be consistent and uniform. If the different attributes are not coherent, the message loses credibility towards the consumer. Through the sent messages, the pack signals the products? expected quality and price.This paper includes two studies, in which the main objective is to discover and build understanding about Swedish consumers? perception of a product?s price depending on the pack?s design.

Biogas is a renewable fuel that can be extracted from anaerobic digestion of many differentsubstrates, for example biological household waste. An alternative handling of the waste is tomix it with other wastes and incinerate it in a combined heat and power (CHP) plant. Thisstudy uses life cycle assessment to investigate which type of waste handling that is betterfrom an environmental point of view, anaerobic digestion with biogas production orincineration. The results are based on a case study of a biogas production plant owned by thecompany Ragn-Sells in Vänersborg. The alternative is incineration at a CHP plant inGothenburg.

This qualitative study was conducted to investigate how subordination and superiority emerges in the interaction between heterosexual couples between 20 to 30 years old, without children. Eight semi-structured interviews with four couples have been conducted to provide insight into how subordination and superiority is made in the interaction between the cohabiting couples. All interviews were transcribed and then manually categorized along specific main themes and sub themes. The empirical data were then assayed by a hermeneutic interpretation.   Three previous studies have formed the basis for this study, Det kallas kärlek by Carin Holmberg, the anthology, Jämställdhetens pris and Familjer i tiden by Christine Roman and Helen Peterson. The theoretical framework consists symbolic interactionism, and especially the concept of asymmetrical role-taking and also doing gender.

Background:Life-cycle costing (LCC) is an investment calculation that takes intoaccount operating costs throughout the investee lifecycle. LCC calculations are mainly usedto evaluate investments that have no revenue side. Attempts to apply the LCC calculations forbuilding-related investments have occurred since the 1980s. Despite the advantages ofusing LCC calculations, use has not passed through in full. The main obstacles have beenidentified as a lack of relevant input data, and insufficient experience of workingwith LCC calculations.

Chemical substances are spread diffusely and uncontrollably as a result of the increased consumption of goods. REVAQ is a certification system that works to reduce the flow of hazardous substances to Swedish treatment plants and to create a sustainable nutrient recycling. According to REVAQ, the yearly accumulating rate of metals should not exceed 0.2% in soil per year. Silver and bismuth are two metals that do not fulfill this requirement. The silver concentration in sludge decreased during the last decade, however the last few years, it has leveled off.

New Economy Firms (NEFs) are considered being important drivers of economic development and growth in Sweden. Also, entrepreneurship is a widely discussed topic that is considered being essential for firms that are making business in a fast moving landscape. Usually, the growth of companies is put in context of the life cycle. The life cycle further implies that as a company moves from the startup-stage along the curve, the organizational structure increases. Further, increased structure is claimed to impede the entrepreneurial culture within the firm.

Background:Life-cycle costing (LCC) is an investment calculation that takes intoaccount operating costs throughout the investee lifecycle. LCC calculations are mainly usedto evaluate investments that have no revenue side. Attempts to apply the LCC calculations forbuilding-related investments have occurred since the 1980s. Despite the advantages ofusing LCC calculations, use has not passed through in full. The main obstacles have beenidentified as a lack of relevant input data, and insufficient experience of workingwith LCC calculations.