This study investigates a method for identifying human capital and its effect on company valuation. We devise a measure for the efficiency of human capital based on the personnel cost. We include all companies listed in the financial and industry sector on Nasdaq OMX Stockholm in an attempt to examine human capital and its effect on firm valuation. Our results indicate that a higher efficiency of human capital has a positive effect on return on assets. However, we find that our measure can be interpreted in two ways; either as a firm?s level of human capital efficiency or its dependency on human capital, to achieve its net sales and revenue.

The thesis aims to examine how companies optimize the human capital from a value creation perspective. The value creation will be related to transfer of knowledge, recruitment, staff turnover and development. The thesis has a deductive approach and six qualitative interviews have been conducted. The results from the interviews will be strengthened with a quantitative data analysis of two measurements; value added per employee and human capital efficiency. The theoretical framework includes definitions of human capital.

The thesis ?Vi fixar och trixar oss fram till att hjälpa människor? focuses on social work in the field of prostitution and human trafficking in Sweden. Through semi-structured interviews with social workers in the municipalities of Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö working with persons selling and buying sex, and through discourse analysis, the author analyses the perceptions among these social workers of the relation between human rights, prostitution and human trafficking, and the social work which they conduct.The thesis concludes that although the social workers perceive prostitution and human trafficking and social work in this field as human rights related, they are not explicitly using a human rights based approach in their work.The thesis concludes that the social workers identify several aspects that infringe on the rights of their clients in relation to the human rights principles of Universality, Non-discrimination, Accountability and Rule of law and the principle of Participation and Inclusion. They portray the human rights situation of street based sellers, especially those not being Swedish citizens and those affected by human trafficking, as severe.The thesis concludes that the social workers find several obstacles (legal as well as structural) that diminish their ability to strengthen their clients? human rights situation.

AbstractThis study is a critical analysis of three different views on human dignity and its function in the discourse of human rights: that of Christopher McCrudden, Jürgen Habermas and Elena Namli. The three positions are interpreted, analyzed and compared in order to see which is most reasonable.The conclusion is that Habermas?s and McCrudden?s view of human rights as legal reduces human dignity to a legal concept. Namli?s perspective of human dignity as a moral principle generates a wider understanding of human dignity and its function.

This study presents an alternate viewpoint to the strive to overcome the gap between research and practitioners within paper prototyping in interaction design. Earlier research identifies three aspects of this gap, which is:Practitioners being unaware of interaction design methods and theoriesPractitioners being aware, but choosing not to apply these methods and theories, due to time, budget and constraints of labourPractitioners and research having different perspective on similar design issuesOur study was done by carrying out qualitative interviews with interaction designers based on two digital design bureaus. One of the bureaus has an expressed link to research: the other has not. Our hypothesis is that the gap would manifest as a difference in work practice between the two bureaus.Our study shows that the two bureaus have similarities in work practice and that this work practice is based on scientific methods and theories, but is adapted to fit the client and/or the project. We conclude that the overcoming of the gap might not be necessary.

Public participation in urban planning is meant to increase democracy in the planning process. Even though all citizens have the option to participate in urban planning debates, few seize their chance to partake. This thesis describes a study on how user needs are met and prioritized in design processes concerning urban planning. The aim was to determine whether user-centered design (UCD) methods could be used as an avenue for public participation in urban planning and ultimately invite more citizens into the planning process.The thesis details a design process where a team worked to develop Farsta, a suburb of Stockholm. The design problem was the question of how Farsta could become an attractive business location.

The purpouse of this study is to find out how and if a Content Managment System (CMS) can benefit from applied User Experience Design (UX). A work project has been executed where a client wanted the students to create a user friendly CMS for adding content to a global hotel review site. A prototype of a CMS was created based on literature studies about UX and CMS. The prototype of the user friendly CMS was then tested through user tests and interviews with key users. After input from the key users the prototype was changed until the users were satisfied with it..

This thesis deals with an iterative user-centered IT-development project in a bank setting. The aim is to present a solution for deployment of future Internet banking for small businesses. The project features a design of IT-related concepts and ideas with a strong emphasis on scenario-based design and the usage of patterns as a documentation tool.The project plan featured an iterative framework and was carried out by a group of designers in collaboration with a reference group representing the future users of the system. This group consisted of company managers and bank employees, all from the small town of Åtvidaberg in Sweden.The method used in the development process was Scrum. A total of three sprints were completed with user meetings at the end of every sprint.

Vid design av IT-system krävs en förhållning till de specifika egenskaper som finns i den miljösystemet är tänkt att användas. Även om användningen ser liknande ut krävs en detaljeradanalys av det specifika sammanhanget för att få en djupare förståelse för hur det verkligaanvändningsområdet ser ut. Det har visats sig uppkomma användbarhetsrelaterade problem vidförflyttning av ett system från en stationär miljö till en mobil miljö. Rapporten har undersöktvilka utmaningar som uppkommer när ett system flyttas från en mobil miljö till en annan snarlikmobil miljö och tar sin utgångspunkt i Ecodriving-lösningar för tunga fordon. En kvalitativundersökning genomfördes för att undersöka och identifiera de utmaningar som uppkom.Analyserat material låg till grund för framtagningen av en prototyp.

Given a considerable increase in knowledge-based companies, the interest for measuring and valuing intangible assets, particularly human capital, has increased accordingly. Human capital has climbed the management research agenda as human assets make substantial contribution to the value creation in knowledge-based companies. Neither internal nor external financial statements reflect the value of an organization?s human assets. Against this backdrop, we find it interesting to explore how counting and controlling for human capital is devised.

Given a considerable increase in knowledge-based companies, the interest for measuring and valuing intangible assets, particularly human capital, has increased accordingly. Human capital has climbed the management research agenda as human assets make substantial contribution to the value creation in knowledge-based companies. Neither internal nor external financial statements reflect the value of an organization?s human assets. Against this backdrop, we find it interesting to explore how counting and controlling for human capital is devised.

AbstractThe research in the interdisciplinary field of natural-human-health-design has in recent decades gainedmomentum and led to new or new-old ways of thinking and acting in terms of planning and design of outdoorenvironments with the aim of health promotion. Concrete concept models and design guides have begun toemerge as a result of this research.The purpose of this work is to use these guides to develop a design proposal for a supposed health garden,with Wij Trädgårdar in Ockelbo as a base. This has been done in the form of a process description. The targetgroup for the design proposal is long-term unemployed and people who have come to Sweden as refugees.Since the specific design recommendations could not be found for the selected target group, the main materialwas general guidelines for health gardens in combination with guidelines for health gardens directed to targetgroups with stress-related problems, which is a broad target group for which there are relatively much currentresearch.The result is a process description of the progression towards a sketch on a health garden, designed for aspecific spot on Wij Trädgårdar, but available for use in other locations, provided adjustments is made to thespecific location. The sketch is supplemented with plant suggestions to different parts of the garden.

During spring 2001 we have been involved with our bachelor thesis at Doberman Digital Agency, an Internet related webdesign company. We have focused our work on the registration process via digital medias such as the Internet. During our workprocess we have been conducting a number of studies and analyses of workrelated materials. Ethnographical methods such as structured interviews and participant observations were primarily used in our work. We also widely used brainstorming in our designprocess.

There is always a need for more effective ways to store energy in order to reduce the human impact on the environment. One step on the way can be the use of flywheels as kinetic energy storage devices. Low frictional losses are essential for a flywheel to be effective. To minimize these losses active magnetic bearings (AMB) can be used to keep the shaft centered instead of the more conventional ball-bearings. AMBs use actuators and a fast control system that needs correct and noise-free measurement data of the shaft position and the current in the actuators to work properly.This thesis explains the process of constructing power electronics and a current measurement system for active magnetic bearings (AMB).

In this paper we explore the relations between context and feedback generated in three user-centered evaluations of a flash-based game. Whether it?s the social context, the physical context or the degree of intrusion from the evaluator, they all contribute to the quality of the feedback received. The selection of test subjects is a narrow process, which gives the above mentioned factors different meaning. Contextual factors have shown to influence the feedback given within both usability and user-experience.