This thesis? objective is to evaluate the recently proposed Shy (2002) approach of estimating consumer switching costs. We apply Shy?s method for estimating switching costs on the Swedish markets for bank deposits and telecommunications. The evaluation has been achieved by comparing estimated results to economic theories, related empirical studies, and our expectations.

Students who regularly cause trouble in school, how can they learn anything? That is what we asked ourselves after having visited a special school for ?troublesome students? (in Swedish resursskola). Our main purpose has been to find out how these students have experienced the help they have been given in those schools.We have interviewed students, parents and a social worker in order to find out if the alternative pedagogical methods used by those schools give the students better opportunities to perform their schoolwork. The interviews have been made two or three years after the end of their studies in compulsory school (grade 9). We have used a qualitative method with semi structured interviews and also an evaluation model.

Problem: Trots att betalkort funnits länge i samhället, så används idag kontanter fortfarande i stor utsträckning. Handhavandet av kontanter innebär höga kostnader, dels på grund av extraarbetet det innebär för butiker att räkna pengar varje dag, dels för bankpersonal som ska sköta insättningar och uttag och dels för kostnader till vaktbolag som sköter penningtransporter. Om man vet varför kontanter fortfarande används till så stor utsträckning och till vad, så kan man rikta in sina insatser på var man ska öka betalkortsanvändningen. Avgränsningar: Fokus i denna uppsats är på samtliga svenska konsumenter som har rättighet att få ha betalkort från en bank. Syfte: Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka om produktegenskaper såsom pris och kvalité påverkar valet om att betala med kort eller kontant.

Syftet med arbetet var att undersöka hur olika reaktionsbetingelser skulle påverka syrgasdelignifieringen av en sur sulfitmassa. De betingelser som undersöktes var utbyte, slut-pH, viskositet och kappatal. Massan som användes kom från Nordic Paper Seffle och alkalit som användes var magnesiumoxid. Syrgasdelignifiering av massan gjordes  i autoklaver i ett PEG bad där tid, temperatur och alkalisatser varierades.Resultaten visar att alla utbyten låg mellan 90-97% och att även de mest aggressiva betingelserna bara gav en viskositets reduktion på 260 enheter, motsvarande 19% av den totala viskositeten.Slut-pH för syrgasavluten hamnade mellan 6,5-9,4 beroende på alkalimängd och temperatur under delignifieringen. Slut-pH minskade när mängden alkali hölls konstant men temperaturen varierades mellan 110-140°C.Kappatalet för massan kunde effektivt reduceras från ett startvärde på 23,4 till ett slutvärde på under 5 med en temperatur på 140°C, alkalisats på 10 kg/ODT och en tid på två timmar utan större förluster av vare sig viskositet eller utbyte.En ovanligt resultat som upptäcktes under arbetet var att delignifieringen tappade i effektivitet med ökad alkalimängd och detta samband gällde vid alla betingelser.En teori om detta kan vara att jonstyrkan i lösningen gör att fibrerna i massan drar ihop sig och att syrgasen får svårare att reagera med ligninet..

This text answers the questions how do we define what a campus is, how the concept of the campus came to exist and how it is used today, and how the Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH) campus can be designed according to site conditions and the conclusions drawn from case studies at Chalmers University of Technology and Karlstad University. The purpose of the case studies is to gain insight into their campuses advantages and disadvantages. This finally results in an interpretation of how the Blekinge Institute of Technology campus can be planned. A campus is the area of land on which a college or university and its surrounding buildings resides on. Campus as a concept meant a field at first, it later evolved at American universities due to their design of college campuses.

This is a study on the outcome of the Swedish Forest Agency´s mission to provide individual advice to private land owners about precommercial thinning. The study was conducted in Sala municipality and included forest owners that had received private individual advice from a Swedish Forest Agency consultant as well as forest owners that had not received individual advice. One of the central issues was to make comparisons between these two groups. The survey was carried out by telephone interviews combined with a smaller field study. The questions were designed to provide information about to what degree the forest owners had been affected by the advice and if there had been a change in the way in which precommercial thinning was performed. In terms of the amount of precommercial thinning that had been carried out, no statistically significant differences were found between the two groups.

This report evaluates whether normal approximation or resampling is to prefer for estimating the distribution of the sample mean and functions of the sample mean. The evaluation relies on simulation studies. The observations of the sample are allowed to be differently distributed. In the case of sample means they are also allowed to be dependent.For sample means the two approximations behaves very similar. The most important component whether we have a good or a bad approximation is how good the approximations catch the variance of the true distribution.

The aim for the project was to develop a risk analyse tool for measuring the fire safety level in Cultural Heritage buildings of Visby, Gotland. In 1995 Visby were taken into the Unesco:s World Heritage List with the explanation ?Visby is an outstanding example of a Northern European walled Hanseatic town which has in a unique way preserved its townscape and its extremely valuable buildings? One of the demands for the tool was that it should be easy to use and result into a ranking level in examined buildings. The user of the tool is recommended to be personnel in the fire department. To develop the tool a Multi Attribute Decision Making (MADM) method was used.

Purpose: To evaluate the management development course held at FöreningsSparbanken in Ronneby during 2000. The evaluation aims to map and describe what effects the course has had on the participants. We will assess to what degree the effects meets the objectives of the course set by the manager of the bank (future management recruitment, leadership, change catalyst, aligning the strive towards a shared organisational objective). Above mentioned also implies that the organisation should be influenced in some regards. Conclusion: Our conclusion is that all of the participants have as a result of the course increased their emotional intelligence in varying levels. We also conclude that the course participants? progress has not spread to the non-participants.

In the Real Estate market there are a large number of commercial properties with offices. As acompany or business you are faced with many decisions when choosing your office space.This bachelor thesis examines the concept of architectural quality with focus on beauty and itsvalue for office tenants. The ambition is to find out if beauty is a decisive factor in theselection of office and if there is a willingness to pay for it.The selected question is studied in a case study of Garnisonen where tenants, a propertyowner and an architect are interviewed, all with connection to the examination object.Garnisonen is well suited as a case study because it is Stockholm's largest office complexwith buildings from three different architectural eras. Tenants in the survey represent allarchitectural styles and have different industry affiliation.As a theoretical framework a literature study is presented where the importance of beauty forthe individual, the built environment and society are treated, and also how the office can beused for branding purposes. The interviewees? views of beauty and their opinions on beauty atwork in Garnisonen are presented in the results.

This master thesis covers the development of an automatic tuning process for the existing speed controller for drive systems. The drive systems are resonant two-mass systems where a motor is used to drive a load connected by a shaft. The developed method relies heavily on system identification and the construction of a complete mechanical model of the process. With this approach, the common problem with poor load speed control that derives from measuring only the motor speed can be addressed and solved for a majority of such processes.The automatic tuning method has along with general test functions been implemented in a complete tool for automatic tuning, testing and performance evaluation and reporting for drive systems..

Swedish family companies are facing a tremendous change in the form of generation changes because of the large part of owners that are about to retire. If all 45 000 to 50 000 family companies ceases to exist, Sweden looses a significant part of business trade.There are numbers of different methods for an older generation of owners to transfer their companies to a younger generation such as inheritance, gift, will, internal stock transfer, division?s etc., where inheritance is the most complex area. That an owner of a company dies without any plan for the future of the company is not preferable because the rules of legal successions occur. The law system regarding inheritance is usually not a good method since the surviving wife, who has the primary right to the inheritance, may not be interested in the company.

This major project in Building Engineering has its focus on inquiring into what methods has been used in the planning process of the residential buildingLjusbojen 1. This project has been conducted in cooperation with Kadesjös Ingenjörsbyrå AB, an engineering contractor firm which also acts as the property developer. Initially several different general methods for planning residential buildings have been presented. After the methods from the process of building Ljusbojen 1 has been analyzed compared to the general methods presented in part 1. This shows what the determining factors are during the planning process; factors such as cost, quality, time management, know-how and environmental issues.

This master thesis is the documented work of the construction process and testing of a three hour laboratory session in mathematics aimed at high school level students. The purpose of the thesis was to create an interesting laboratory session for the science education center ?The House of Science? that could be used as a part of their regular program directed to schools. The thesis explores the possibilities for how one can construct a laboratory session on the topic ?molecular symmetry? as well as the underlying pedagogical theories used to describe learning processes in creative contexts.

The aim of this study is to examine the investment decision process for investments that arise due to strategic changes and are of strategic importance to the company. At the foundation of this study is the previous research in this area, done by King (1975) and Bower (1970), which examines the investment process on a more generic level. At the core is the investment decision process pertaining to Projekt X, an investment performed by NordiCorp. Having conducted a case study including six interviews with employees from various parts of the organization, combined with a large number of internal documents, the process regarding the investment decision was carefully illuminated. The results show that in many regards, this process follows the more generic investment process.