Want to help making the world a better place? Do it with HypOCycle!HypOCycle is a bachelor thesis that started in September 2007. The project is owned byLars-Johan Hjertz and Erik Westerlund.HypOCycle is probably the only bike in the world that has a linear pedal movement. Themovement comes from a new engine technique that hasn?t even been brought to themarket yet.

The aim of the study is to show how a selected part of the European Language Portfolio, ELP, can support the assessment process for teachers. All the checklists at level A1 and My Language Goals from the Language Biography, a part of the ELP, are implemented and communicated in teaching in a 4th grade class of students. Two teachers are interviewed and both of their classes are compared in the study. One group worked for two weeks with the selected part of the Language Portfolio and the second group followed the regular curriculum for the same period of time. The teachers are interviewed before and after the ELP through support of mind maps.Results show that by using checklists at level A1 and My Language Goals students become aware of their own learning process.

This paper aims to derive the Black-Scholes equation for readers without advanced knowledge in finance and mathematics. To succeed, this paper contains a theoretical chapter in which concepts such as options, interest rate, differential equations and stochastic variable are explained. This paper also presents the theory of stochastic processes such as the Wiener process and Ito process. In the chapter on the Black-Scholes model the Ito process is used to describe price of shares and with the help of Ito's lemma Black-Scholes equation can be derived. In the paper, assumptions are listed that apply to the Black-Scholes model and then uses the Black-Scholes equation to calculate the price of a European call option.

 This degree project aims at developing a concept for how to use solar energy to pump up water. The target audience is people living in areas where the functioning of the electricity and water network is absent. In these areas, the hand-powered water pump is the most common technology. The degree project's goal is to find an economically viable alternative to the time consuming hand-powered water pumps. The power comes from solar energy.

Mergers and Acuisitions are becoming increasingly common. This can be explained with the fact that the competition is increasing. Therefore many companies are forced to join other markets. This thesis inquires into the process of Mergers and Acqusitions when one company buys another company. The main focus is set on how three different banks handle the process of Mergers and Acqusitions and what results this leads to. These are: Kaupthing Bank, Nordea and Citibank.

Risk management is a key competency that is constantly being researched how it can be improved within project management. The risk management process consists of four major steps: identify risks, assess the risks? significance on the project, evaluate and address the key risks and follow up.The majority of companies seem to neglect certain identified risks, and decide not to mitigate if the risk does not cause adverse effects to the business. To counteract undesirable consequences and help organisations to become more effective at managing risks an initial work has been conducted for a risk repository.The project develops a proposal on the design of a risk repository which aim to effectively support a database implementation. The study includes literature studies which resulted in a relational model for database implementation.

One of the environmental problems today in seas, lakes and streams is eutrophication. This is often caused by nutrients such as phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) that leak from agricultural areas. A measure to partly prevent the nutrient discharge is to construct or restore wetlands.In order to control the efficiency of nutrient reduction of existing wetlands in the county, the administrative board in Västra Götaland wants to find different criterias for reference wetlands. These reference wetlands should represent other wetlands and be used in future evaluations of reduction of nutrients and design of constructed wetlands. According to the administrative board in Västra Götaland the reference wetlands should have a catchment area of about 50 hectare consisting of at least 70 % arable land, to represent wetlands created to remove nutrients.

During year 2004 Ålö AB made significant change in their production process. The production of front loaders is nowadays highly automated with short operation times. To be able to control their process in a better way Ålö recently decided that they needed a tool for simulation of their production and to shift patterns. This final thesis started with a pilot study in Ålö?s factory in Brännland.

The most common preventive and treatment service for children in child welfare services in Sweden is the contact family program. The number of children who are involved in the program has steadily increased. Usually it is a single mother who apply for or is offered this service. The aim with a contact family is that the parent should get respite and that the child should have its network enlarged and sometimes get a male role model.The purpose of this study was to look into how children´s perspective was considered in the contact family process. I have studied the process in order to see how it works and to see to what extent children is participating.

Background and problem:Theory and literature in the field of board recruitment are limited. The theory and literature that existed focused primarily on the recruitment of senior management and CEO. It was identified that no one had examined the factors that influence the recruitment of board members. The underlying factors might cause the board recruitment is not done from a purely efficiency perspective and therefore it is of interest to be examined.Purpose:The purpose of this thesis is to examine and give an insight into the underlying factors affecting the choice of new directors in large Swedish companies.Method:The thesis has had a deductive approach and been based on existing theory and literature to explain the factors that affect board recruitment. The study was quantitative and the sample consisted of all the major Swedish listed companies.Results and conclusions:The survey indicated that board members ethnicity and number of other board assignments were factors that influenced the board recruitment.

If Swedish companies are to compete with companies in low-cost countries they have to achieve a more efficient production. The purpose of Total Productivity Maintenance (TPM) is to increase the company's profitability by increasing the productivity. TPM is a method that involves all employees and aims to prevent failures in order to increase the availability of existing equipment.The aim of this paper is to evaluate the implementation process of TPM and give recommendations for the further implementation process. The conclusion and the analysis are based on a case study done at a production department at ABB Cewe-Controls facilities in Nyköping. The case study consists mainly of qualitative data from participation observations, surveys and interviews.Commitment of the management is a key factor in the implementation process of TPM.

This thesis is a feasibility study into how Fresenius Kabi may rationalize their destruction process in regards to cost, recycling, and work environment. The two main objectives are to identify scrap flows and the possibility to improve or replace the equipment that is now carrying out the physical scrapping. The flow has been visualized by a flow chart of the material and communication. A chart of the problem established to visualize where improvements are necessary. Based on the problems proposals are presented on how to improve the flow thru the plant.During analyze of the physical scrapping equipment it was also necessary to take a deeper look at how they are carrying out there work today, how does the procedure look like, working environment and where are the weaknesses.

Research is a time-consuming endeavor which requires appropriate tools to manage often vast amounts of information. Militarization 2.0 is a research project aiming to explore Militarization in social media. The aim of this project is to design a user interface for supporting researchers in projects involving large amounts of data in qualitative studies. The project will follow the design process of the first version of the Militarization 2.0 research database interface. The design process involves user studies, interviews and design and testing of paper and digital prototypes.

The financial crisis in the beginning of the 1990´s the financial crisis had a strong impact on the Swedish economy. Some of the main actors in the crisis were the largest banks of Sweden which brought a huge amount of losses on themselves. One of the main reasons for this was that the banks focused on volume increases rather than on credit losses. The credit analysis process is performed differently these days and it is the development of this process that is the focus for the authors.This thesis is about the credit analysis process in the four largest banks of Sweden. The purpose of the thesis is to highlight which factors the banks include in the credit analysis process and in how small and medium size companies are treated in this process.

Problem: The corrugated board industry is highly affected by customer uncertainty, various demands and short delivery times. In combination with a complex multi-step production process managers have to be able to identify bottle-necks and gain knowledge and understanding of how different changes in process will affect the production output. <br/><br/>Purpose: The purpose of this master thesis is twofold, (1) to examine applicability of complexity theory through agent-based modelling on a production process (2) to identify improvement areas in order to increase the production output at SKS production site in Eslöv, by modelling and simulating the production process through an agent-based model. <br/><br/>Method: The chosen method of this study is a combination of a case study and a complex system approach. The empirical data was collected through interviews, observation and document studies which were analysed through an agent-based simulation model.