Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) is a technology that utilizes the temperaturedifference in oceans between the warm surface water and the cold water at 1000 m depthto produce electricity. The purpose of this report is to investigate if OTEC with its synergiescould become a commercially feasible energy solution for a small island. A literature reviewis conducted to explore the different OTEC technologies and to what extent the threesynergies; fresh water, air conditioning and aquaculture, could be used. In order to calculatethe profitability of these synergies there is also a study conducted on the conventionalmethods and cost of fresh water production, aquaculture and air conditioning. A model is setup using a scenario of a small tropical Island with population of 100 000 people.

This Swedish essay deals with a study of two tourist brochures of Värmland from two different years, 2005 and 2007. The purpose is to examine what their differences and similarities are through a comparison. My focus is put on what tourist categories the brochures mainly turn to. I want to se if they turn to all tourists or if they lean towards a special group of people.To guide me I have used both textual and picture interpretation.I have created my own tourist categorization as a tool for my study, named The matter tourist-related categorization. It contains six categories which all have some common denominator where tourists will fit in.The result shows that all tourist categories are mentioned even if some are more frequently mentioned than others.Key words: Tourism, brochures, categorization, interpretation, nature and culture..

This thesis aims on adding another piece to the puzzle that is the supplier relationship research. Taking its base in a series of articles regarding the transformations of global supply chains into more long-term profitable ones. Two research questions are presented, one regarding long-term supplier relationships and one regarding the main criteria?s while evaluating new suppliers. With an emphasis on the long-term relationship and profitability are five medium sized Swedish manu-facturers examined through semi-structured interviews.

The aim of the study was to look at the differences in groups in Karlskrona Kommun in comparison to a larger population of work-groups in Sweden. The instrument used was the Team Diagnostic Survey developed by Ruth Wageman, J. Richard Hackman and Erin Lehman (2005) in order to diagnose the strengths and weaknesses in work-groups, as well as explore the group?s behaviours and effectiveness. The results show that there was a significant difference between the Karlskrona Kommun groups and the larger population of Swedish groups in the following areas: stable, clarity, challenge, diversity, whole task, resources and availability..

Abstract New methods, techniques and tools for the building industry are constantly being developed and improved and launched on the market. The problem in the building industry development is not that the products are not good enough. The problem is instead that the existing construction companies do not choose to use these innovations, instead they continue to employ the technologies they already possess and master. This leads to the fact that the construction industry is, in the public eye, beeing seen as a conservative industry. AquaVilla is a company that basically produces houseboats.

In this thesis we study the development of post-earnings announcement drift (PEAD) in the Swedish equity market from 2000 to 2009. By forming portfolios based on the stock price reaction to quarterly reporting we show that the characteristics of PEAD have changed. We demonstrate that negatively surprising companies show a positive drift during a holding period of six months sufficiently large to render the trading strategy unprofitable. This development holds from 2005 and onwards and these results contradict many a study which finds the same portfolio construction to be indeed profitable. We argue that this development is a trend that will not only affect our study but future studies as well..

This paper studies the option market?s implied dividend as a predictor of future equity market returns. We introduce this variable in the simple total return framework and discuss some complications of using it as a proxy for the expected dividend. We construct some regressions using the price-dividend ratio and the implied dividend growth, and test them on six years worth of data on the EURO STOXX 50-index. The main result is that implied dividend growth exhibits some forecastability over two-year horizons, but that the dataset is too short to draw any definitive conclusions about long-horizon forecastability.

The purpose of current paper is to identify the differences (ifany) between Swedish and Turkish consumers in terms ofproduct design perception and to identify the differences toproduct design in relating the four dimensions / characteristics:1.Aesthetical attractiveness, 2.Functionality, 3.Value and4.Quality.The findings of the study indicate the existence of a universal perception of design. Despite the culturally different countries that are examined the empirical material consistently display similarities between the two countries. Both the quantitative and qualitative data point to a very similar perception in terms of design. The possibilities of global design are discussed for companies as well as managerial implications and future research..

Research has shown that still today mostly men inhibit the managing director positions and jobs such as electricians, engineers, and road workers, which makes the work situation unequal among those work places. Another issue is that studies show that minority groups have fewer possibilities in comparison with majority inhabitants on the labour market. One reason can be that many companies and organizations lack when it comes to the recruitment process due to prejudices and the applicants for a job who has names such as Ahmed, Carlos and Ali are taken out of the process at first stage.The purpose of this research is to study how civil servants at Vägverket (Swedish Road Administration) discuss about diversity and equality. Whereas subjects such as ethnicity and gender will be illuminated..

Voltage sag indices are a way of quantifying the performance of the power supply, as far as voltage sags are concerned. Indices can be defined for individual events, for individual sites, and for a whole system. A standard method for single-event methods is part of IEC standard 61000-4-30.This thesis emphasizes the importance of voltage sag indices and different methods for calculating three-phase voltage sag characteristics. Three-phase events measured in a medium network voltage over period of one month were analyzed, results examined and statistically evaluated. An algorithm for calculating voltage sag characteristics and indices was created in Matlab.

The main topic of this thesis is to evaluate the impact on the usability of web pages when using responsive web design, a concept for developing web pages whose design adapts to the screen size being used. This is done by creating a responsive prototype based on an existing web site. A number of usability tests are conducted on the two versions of the site in order to compare the time to complete the tests and to observe the behaviour of the test participants. The tests are conducted on desktop as well as on mobile devices with varying screen size.The number of test participants was relatively low, and so the quantitative result is not statistically valid. However, the conclusion is that the most effective combination is to use either of the sites on desktop format.

This thesis studies the stock price reaction around 68 announcements of special dividends and share redemptions on the Swedish stock market between the years of 2003 and 2007. We show that for the Swedish private investor, the tax effect of a share redemption is lower than that of a special dividend. Moreover, a share redemption could be interpreted as a signal of undervaluation. These two factors lead us to assume that the stock market would react more positively in connection to the announcement of a share redemption. We test this hypothesis through an analysis of the risk-adjusted abnormal return for the observations in the sample.

This essay deals with the subject of communication through Facebook. In this survey we studied 100 youths from Karlstad and their communication habits and behavior patterns on Facebook. The social network site Facebook has since its start in 2004 made a mark in modern communication. Today in 2010 the site has more than 500 million users. This paper wants to study what happens to other types of communication.

Studien undersökte om de personer som anser sig vara minst sårbara för att bli manipulerade är de som främst manipuleras av reklam. En experimentell design användes där 204 studenter bedömde sitt intryck av en reklam, vars manipulationsgrad varierade. Ett frågeformulär som mätte upplevd osårbarhet mot manipulation fylldes även i. Deltagarna ansåg att de var relativt osårbara mot att manipuleras samt att andra påverkades mer av reklam än de själva. Hypotesen att de personer som anser sig vara minst sårbara för att bli manipulerade är de som främst manipuleras bekräftades inte.

Voltage sag indices are a way of quantifying the performance of the power supply, as far as voltage sags are concerned. Indices can be defined for individual events, for individual sites, and for a whole system. A standard method for single-event methods is part of IEC standard 61000-4-30.This thesis emphasizes the importance of voltage sag indices and different methods for calculating three-phase voltage sag characteristics. Three-phase events measured in a medium network voltage over period of one month were analyzed, results examined and statistically evaluated. An algorithm for calculating voltage sag characteristics and indices was created in Matlab.