With the advance of the modern information society, the importance of reliable identity authentication has increased dramatically. Using biometrics as a means for verifying the identity of a person increases both the security and the convenience of the systems. By using yourself to verify your identity such risks as lost keys and misplaced passwords are removed and by virtue of this, convenience is also increased. The most mature and well-developed biometric technique is fingerprint recognition. Fingerprints are unique for each individual and they do not change over time, which is very desirable in this application.

This thesis deals with the numerical 3D simulation of a four stroke, spark-ignited, internalcombustion engine, which is mounted on a high performance motorcycle. The work, carried outin collaboration with Politecnico di Milano and MV Agusta, focuses on the simulation of theintake, compression and expansion stroke, including combustion simulation, using an opensource CFD code.Simulation of internal combustion engines offers a great challenge in the field of CFD research.Moving boundaries of the solution domain, caused by the motion of the piston and valves, leadsto deformation of the computational grid, with decreasing quality of the solution as result. Basedon this, a previously developed mesh motion strategy was employed where a number of meshesare used to cover the whole simulation cycle. Within each mesh interval the internal cell pointsof the mesh are moved to account for the boundary motion of the piston and valves. This strategywas previously applied to simplified geometries as well as real engine geometries.

Millions of people are using search engines every day when they are trying to find information on the Internet. The purpose of this report is to find out how people formulate search queries. The result in this report is based on an empirical study which is based on a search log from the Swedish search engine Seek.se.One of the results in this thesis is that nearly all search queries are based on keywords..

Internationally most Internet trade related payments are performed with the use of a credit card based payment system on the Internet. Payment against invoice is still most common when trading over the Internet in Sweden. The security development, comfort and timesaving indicate that credit card based payment systems on the Internet soon will have a breakthrough in Sweden as well. The Swedish legislation concerning payment is neither especially extensive nor suited to electronic payments but to payments performed with notes and coins. When the legal effects, of a payment performed with a credit card based payment system on the Internet, set in is not fixed.

Some MNEs encounter frustration or failures when they enter a new market. The main reason is due to a lack of adaptation. There is a lack of theoretical study about the local adaptation phenomenon of Swedish MNEs in China. Most studies are at the level of experience. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to find out the dimensions subject to local adaptation and their degree for the Swedish MNEs in China.

The ambition to use evidence based treatments has spread within the field of Swedish social work. The number of treatments with claim to being evidence based has grown but the research concerning implementation; the procedures being used to introduce new methods in organizations and assure that the method is being used appropriately and continuously, is scarce. The aim of this study was to examine the implementation of Functional Family Therapy (FFT), being an evidence based treatment, in an organization providing social services in the public sector, in Sweden. We used a qualitative research design and conducted interviews with persons involved in the implementation of FFT in the social services in a town in the south of Sweden. We used the practice guidelines provided in Evidence Based Practice (EBP) together with recently published meta- analyses of implementation research, in the field of social work, to examine the implementation of FFT, as being an evidence based treatment.

In this study I analysed how burning affects sprouting ability and survival of oak (Quercus robur) during the first season after a burn in southern Sweden. The study consisted of two separate field tests; in the first, two 300 m2- plots in western oak dominated forest were burned to analyze the fire behavior and the immediate mortality of oak and beech seedlings defined as individuals (> 20cm of height). At the end of the season almost 50% of the oak seedlings had resprouted while the beech seedlings had 100% mortality. An attempt to investigate the effect of the burn of artificially sown acorns was totally ruined by wild boar grouting before any conclusive results could be seen. In the second test the resprouting ability of oaks of varying diameters (average BHD 7-9 cm, range 2-42 cm) was examined one season after a prescribed burn in southeastern Sweden.

The focus of this thesis is positioning and customer retention in newly started small service businesses. The thesis is based on the case study of two small newly started service businesses: Kåffe In that is based in Skellefteå and Lundström Aaro Design! which is based in Umeå. The thesis presents the conclusion that newly started small service businesses, regardless of industry, seem to work in accordance with the theoretical framework of the thesis..

This thesis reports on the methodology and results of a study with one retailers 73 units to investigate factors of the store managers leadership that influence productivity performance in store. The study determine the impact of ten independent variables in terms of the store managers leadership on four performance measures: (3) three productivity measures: Sales Over Labor (SALOL), Sales Over Inventory (SALOI) and Sales Over Square-metre (SALOS) and (1) one profit measure: Contribution Income Over Square-metre (CIOS). The result shows that the leadership factors give no more explanation to the economic results after factors of local market condition and the store attributes are taking in to account. The store manager's leadership can though influence his or her decision-making in-store. The store manager's decision to staff the store more intense (higher service-intensity) can increase the level of contribution income over square metre in-store..

The purpose with this final thesis has been to study the aesthetics and design of roundabouts and to ascertain important factors that influence the experience of them. The investigation was carried out through literature-, field studies and interviews with persons that in different ways have participated in the formation of roundabouts. Furthermore, six roundabouts have been explored in more depth so that the survey would get a more practical link. These six roundabouts all occur in the rim of a city and do thereby have an important role as a gateway. The environments in such contexts are often complex which adds additional difficulty in achieving a visually appealing design, especially when taking into account the usually high traffic intensity.

The intensity of cleaning declined dramatically in the early 1990?s in the Swedish forests. Recession, an economic depressed forestry and the new law of silviculture from 1993, where the duty of cleaning was removed have been considered as sources to the decline. This has led to a situation where huge areas of forests are untouched, which can lead to negative effects for those stands in the future. The purpose of this thesis was to find out how the individual landowner acts and feel when it concerns cleaning activities. Has the landowner noticed Södra?s campaigns about cleaning and what sort of measure should Södra implement to increase the members? cleaning activity? The thesis is based on a opinion poll made through a random draw among all Södra?s members.

This paper examines possible applications of fuzzy logic on the field of artificial intelligence in digital games. It describes fuzzy logic in contrast to crisp logic. The paper will give several examples of possible applications of fuzzy logic-based decision making for game AI. These examples include the choosing of weapons for AI agents and the gas-break decision of an AI-controlled car. The paper will also analyze the impacts of game AI which makes decisions based on many factors.

Some MNEs encounter frustration or failures when they enter a new market. The main reason is due to a lack of adaptation. There is a lack of theoretical study about the local adaptation phenomenon of Swedish MNEs in China. Most studies are at the level of experience. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to find out the dimensions subject to local adaptation and their degree for the Swedish MNEs in China.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyse and propose improvements to the cost accounting system in use at an airline operating on the Swedish market. The choice of study object is based on the airline?s desire to have its cost accounting system evaluated. During the analysis we have identified a number of points where the current cost accounting system does not correspond to its intended purpose. These points include significant groups of costs not being considered in the current system, potential over capacity is not visible and logic connections between distribution keys and the use of resources are sometimes lacking.

Background: Many different parties in the society are affected by the financial information delivered by the companies. Therefore, different interests want their ideas to have an impact on the accountning standards. The construction of the accounting standards are illustrated as a pure political process, where lobbying and conflicts of interest are determining factors. Purpose: The purpose is to understand the underlying interests behind regulation of financial accounting in Sweden and how these interests are manifestated in the establishment of accounting standards. Method: The thesis is designed as a casestudy of the regulation process which induced the legislation of the Årsredovisningslagen 6 kap 1 § 3st.