This thesis describes new methods for automatic crack detection in pavements. Cracks in pavements can be used as an early indication for the need of reparation.Automatic crack detection is preferable compared to manual inventory; the repeatability can be better, the inventory can be done at a higher speed and can be done without interruption of the traffic.The automatic and semi-automatic crack detection systems that exist today use Image Analysis methods. There are today powerful methods available in the area of Computer Vision. These methods work in higher dimensions with greater complexity and generate measures of local signal properties, while Image Analyses methods for crack detection use morphological operations on binary images.Methods for digitalizing video data on VHS-cassettes and stitching images from nearby frames have been developed.Four methods for crack detection have been evaluated, and two of them have been used to form a crack detection and classification program implemented in the calculation program Matlab.One image set was used during the implementation and another image set was used for validation. The crack detection system did perform correct detection on 99.2 percent when analysing the images which were used during implementation.

In the recent years auditing scandals all around the world, deficient internal control has attracted a lot of attention. This has contributed to further requirements on insight and internal control. Those scandals have seriously damaged the auditor?s profession and contributed to a reduced trust among the public. Therefore an extensive work to recover and stringed the trust was started all around the world.

The great debate topic in media and among real estate agents in spring 2011 wasspecially reduced prices. Specially reduced prices means that a property is advertised at a considerably lower price than the evaluated current market value of the property. This is to attract more bidders in a potential bidding. It is in this case not completely established by law what is meant by considerably lower price, why this concept is difficult to interpret. Real estate agents got lot of criticism due to the output prices which were too low compared to the final prices.

This thesis aims to examine the conditions for entrepreneurship in Taiwan by the occurrence of cultural phenomenon guanxi. Based on the concept of familiness and guanxi, the family is central in this study of family business. Traditional descriptions of the Asian culture claim that guanxi is vital in the business context. Though, recent studies indicate that significance of guanxi seems to be changing. Therefore the purpose of this thesis is to create an understanding of the importance and relevance of guanxi in the context of Taiwanese family business.By travelling to Kaohsiung, Taiwan to interview six managers of Taiwanese family firms this study?s empirical material was gathered for further processing based on a qualitative approach.

Active work to increase the efficiency of energy use is taking place in Sweden and throughout all of Europe. Electricity is an important part in our society?s energy system which means that the electrical grid operators and associated therewith has a central role in this work. Monitoring and controlling the electrical grids are managed from the distribution system operator?s DC, dispatch center.The aim of this report is to examine how the operations in a typical DC on the Swedish electricity distribution network will look like in five to ten years.

Background: As Porter?s diamond (1990) suggested, the business environment highly influences firms? strategies. Today, most of the companies have to decide their strategy depending from a worldwide business environment. Yet, strategy researches and the growing importance of marketing for business success also show that customer dimension must be taken into consideration. On some markets and in certain industries, the offer is much higher than the demand and then, companies need to attract customers.

The Mission at ÅF Industry in Norrkoping was about optimizing bulk data handling while importing process tag types from their construction database into the Process Controlled System of type Siemens PCS7.I found three different methods to solve the task. Two of them were using different software from Siemens under the premise that the report from the database was corrected as needed. The third variant was manually creating the circuits. All methods worked out fine but there were times when one was better than another.To solve this task I had access to all software presented in chapter 2 ?Programvara? (=Software).

The idea for this project was initiated together with one of the leaders in the forest, paper and packaging industry. To get through an A/R CDM process the company is exposed to the risk of failing the process or that the overall costs will exceed the benefits of the project. This would delete the incentives to invest in GHG removals compared to purchasing emission allowances on the carbon market. The questions that have been raised and needs clarification in the thesis are the following:? From a company perspective, what are the incentives for implementing Forest Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects?? What is a likely financial outcome of a reforestation CDM project on degraded land in the Guangxi province of the Peoples Republic of China?? When does an investment like this break even with the cost of buying market based carbon emission allowances? The objective of this master thesis is to carry out a research about the incentives for forest, paper and packaging companies to invest in reforestation through the clean development mechanism.

At a manufacturing company, due to the competition the price is reducedtowards the manufacturing cost. Therefore it is important to maintain control ofones costs and keep calculations up-to-date.This thesis deals with cost accounting at a aluminium-processing company. The report focuses on calculating machine cost per hour since the manufacturing costs are the major part of the total product cost.Managers on the company believe that the costs they use in calculations todayneither is up-to-date nor advantageous in a market aspect and due to that their calculations need to be revised. The machines cost per hour is a major part in the manufacturing calculation. The company wants to provide a competitive price that also covers their costs.

Den svenska modebranschen är en hårt konkurrensutsatt bransch och för mindre modeföretagi tillväxtfas är ett starkt varumärke och image en viktig del i att särskilja sig och sinaprodukter från mängden. I ett mindre modeföretag kan varumärkesfrågor lätt komma attbortprioriteras med främsta motivet att budgeten inte ger utrymme för den typen av satsningarsamt att kompetensen inom företaget ofta brister på just dessa punkter. Som alternativ har denexterna varumärkesprocessen presenterats som ett mer realistiskt alternativ för det mindremodeföretaget då det går ut på att låta sitt kringliggande externa nätverk i större utsträckningstyra och påverka varumärket. Detta branschnätverk kan bestå av allt från media, regering ochintresseorganisationer till mer närliggande aktörer som återförsäljare, PR-byrå ochleverantörer.Syftet med uppsatsen är att, utifrån ett varumärkesperspektiv, beskriva vilket inflytandeexterna branschaktörer har på ett mindre modeföretags tillväxt. För att exemplifiera problemethar en enkel fallstudie på det svenska modeföretaget Stylein genomförts, som med sinpositionering i det svenska medelprissegmentet och tillväxtfas befinner sig inom ramen förden problematik som beskrivs.

This study has been carried out in cooperation with Unilever and partly with the EC founded project, Smartdoc IST-2000-28137. In areas of statistics and image processing, both the amount of data and the dimensions are increasing rapidly and an interactive visualization tool that lets the user perform real-time analysis can save valuable time. Real-time cropping and drill-down considerably facilitate the analysis process and yield more accurate decisions. In the Smartdoc project, there has been a request for a component used for smart filtering in multidimensional data sets. As the Smartdoc project aims to develop smart, interactive components to be used on low-end systems, the implementation of the self-organizing map algorithm proposes which dimensions to visualize.

En del av verksamheten vid EuroMaint Industry AB i Skövde består av att tillverka och sälja maskinsystem för tillverkningsindustrin. Ett av dem är fixturer för fastspänning av bilväxellådskåpa, inför bearbetning. Fastklämning av denna detalj i fixtur sker med hjälp av hydrauliska spännare som arbetar i sekvens med olika tryck samt fastspänningskraft. Styrningen sker med hjälp av en sekvensenhet som dels är skrymmande, dels har relativt hög framtagningskostnad. Det här examensarbetet har syftat till att ta fram en ny sekvensenhet med mål att få en kompaktare lösning med en lägre framtagningskostnad.

The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has lately gained popularity throughout the globalized world. Swedish retail industry is no exception. Though increased levels of explicitly claimed responsibilities of companies, a number of other facts points out a development that contradicts this trend. Labour conditions and forms of employment is substantially retrograding, with an increased level of insecurity characterizing the Swedish retail labour market. At the same time, almost all Swedish retail companies explicitly state claims on social responsibility.

The automotive industry is increasingly studying lightweight solution in their designs, also rational production and low costs in materials and manufacturing methods are of great interest. This thesis consisted in the practical evaluation of anchors for sandwich panels. The object was to study loads of shearing and pull out of the plane. The experiments were carried out on panels made up of 1mm aluminium coatings and 50mm extruded polystyrene (XPS) at its core. As the fasteners used simple methods such as blind rivets, screw and glue.

Polaris Eyewear is one of the world's leading companies in innovative eyeweardesign. My assignment has been to, in collaboration with them, expand their range with a pair of children's glasses, while maintaining the innovative character they are so known for.The problem with childrens eyewear today is that most of the time the glasses tries to mimic the adult eyewear and the ?childish? type of designing is spared. From an ergonomic point of view, a child's nose is smaller than an adults and therefore needs a different type of shape and nosebridge. In addition, children have softer ears, which means that they need a different type of shaftend as well.