There are numerous of ideas and theories around the present development in our global society, describing an ever changing era based and propelled by information and communication technology (ICT). How influential has this development been on political visions and intentions and on the business worlds views on important competencies? The purpose of this thesis is to describe the national and international visions of important competencies in the ?information society?. Through a case study, focused on how the training and consultancy industry apprehends and answer to this change and development, as they often act as agents for new trends in the business world both as accommodators and originators. The growth and speed of the universally available information demands knowhow in seeking, analyzing and managing information, and this competence is crucial today.

Information är en viktig del i arbetet med människor. Jean Watson beskriver i sin omvårdnadsteori hur information kan reducera stress, rädsla och ångest samt öka möjligheten att förutsäga vad som kommer att hända. Arbetet som följer ämnar beskriva patientens upplevelse av information i samband med radiologiska undersökningar eller behandlingar samt identifiera röntgensjuksköterskans möjligheter att stödja och hjälpa patienten genom undersökningen eller behandlingen. Litteraturstudiens resultat baseras på 11 vetenskapliga artiklar från år 1999-2005 och behandlar patientinformation utifrån ett omvårdnadsperspektiv i samband med radiologiska undersökningar eller behandlingar eller vid liknade undersökningar eller behandlingar. I resultatet framkom att en patient som inte fått ta del av eller fått tillräckligt med information kan känna sig orolig och stressad inför och vid sin undersökning eller behandling.

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.

To manage the industry?s need of wood assortments in a optimal and cost effective way the forest companies need to have knowledge of the actual standing volume and the yield of the planned clear cuts. The mean volume of the trunk is also important since it is important for the contractors prices. Today the total volume are estimated either with Näslund (1940) or Brandels (1990) functions of volumes, and the yield is estimated with Rune Ollas (1980) function for trunks and stands. The purpose of this study has been to answer the following questions: How good is the yield forecast with data collected with currently used methods? How well can the yield forecasts became with data collected according to the instructions? How well can the yield forecast be with data collected according to the instruction and calculated with the program Aptan for theoretical bucking? The study has been initiated and financed by SCA Skog AB.The material consisted of a number of randomly selected objects ready for clear cut.

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.

There is an increased pressure for firms to provide the financial market with additional information. Such disclosure is attached with different kinds of costs. In spite of these costs, and in spite of increased mandatory disclosures, firms choose to voluntary disclosure financial information to analysts and others. This indicates that firms also benefit from providing additional information. The subjects of this study is 431 annual reports from firms listed at the Stockholm Stock Exchange for 2002 and 2005 and the objective is to survey factors that can explain variations in firms? voluntary disclosure.

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..

The aim of this masters thesis is to learn how an organization has solved its information management via intranet and document management. The purpose is to identify what different types of information are made available via an intranet, how this information is structured and what functions the intranet includes. Conventions, directions and advice about intranets and document management were studied, with the purpose to compare whether the systems of the company correlate with these. Other issues considered in the thesis, are how the employees of the organization use the intranet and how the document management is organized. To get an understanding of these questions the structure and functions of the intranet were studied empirically and a questionnaire on what the employees need and use, concerning the intranet, was sent out to 130 employees.

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 this study has been to examine different aspects of the professional role of the high school librarian, especially the educational role, and its delimitations to the teacher's role. The methods that were used were studies of literature within the subject area and qualitative interviews with high school librarians and high school teachers of social studies. Andrew Abbot's theory on the system of professions was used in the analysis of the results of the study. The high school librarians who were interviewed enabled access to information, both intellectually and physically. They helped students develop information seeking skills and they functioned as educators and counselors.

Syftet med den här litteraturstudien var att beskriva vad patienter vill ha för information av sjuksköterskor efter en hjärtinfarkt relaterat till behoven, och hur de upplever informationen de fått. En beskrivande litteraturstudie genomfördes där vetenskapliga artiklar av kvantitativ och kvalitativ karaktär analyserades. I föreliggande litteraturstudier framkommer att hjärt och kärl-sjukdomar är ett stort hälsoproblem p.g.a. den ohälsosamma livsstil som så många har i dag. Hälso och sjukvården jobbar med detta genom att försöka förebygga ytterligare hjärtinfarkter, vilket kan innebära att patienten måste ändra sin livsstil.

The purpose of this Masters thesis is to examine the attitudes of deaf and hear-impaired people towards libraries, information, and culture. The issues are: What are the attitudes of the informants towards libraries and culture? What do reference group theory and the theory of information access-/avoidance implicate concerning the information behaviour of the informants? In-depth interviews with five deaf and hear-impaired university students have been carried out in this qualitative study. The world of deaf and hear-impaired people is presented as well as a survey of political guidelines to make, for example, libraries and theatres more available to disabled people. The research overview analyses scholarly studies on deaf and hear-impaired people.

Nethouse Sverige AB is an IT consultancy in need of a mobile solution to inform participants of in-house events and distribute news to their consultants working in the field. This report  describes the planning and development of such a solution. The result of this thesis is a three system-solution. A mobile application where it is possible to view news and information about in-house events, and also receive suitable notifications, a web service which assists the mobile application by providing the corresponding information and finally a website to manage the information and notify mobile clients..

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.

SAMMANFATTNINGSyfte: Syftet med denna studie var att på ett sjukhus i Mellansverige undersöka hur tillfredställda patienterna var med information om läkemedelsbiverkningar Syftet var även att undersöka grad av oro över eventuella biverkningar och jämföra om det fanns någon könskillnad gällande detta.Metod: Studiens design var en kvantitativ tvärsnittsstudie med deskriptiv och jämförande statistik. Data samlades in genom en Studiespecifik enkät. Antalet svarande var 29 inneliggande patienter under 10 veckor som uppfyllde inklusionskriterierna.Resultat: Resultatet visade att hälften av deltagarna inte hade fått information om läkemedelsbiverkningar och att 78 % uppgav sig vilja ha mer information. Nio av tio deltagare instämde till att vara oroliga över eventuella biverkningar och 64 % uppgav att de var osäkra eller inte visste vart de skulle vända sig vid frågor om biverkningar. Trots detta var drygt hälften av deltagarna delvis eller helt nöjda med den information de fått.