The aim of this thesis is to get an idea of how service companies set their prices. The method used was a case study approach, which was conducted at three real estate companies. The study showed that when setting their prices, the main aspect is their own costs. However, we have found that several other aspects play a big role when setting prices on services in real estate business such as individual customer behaviour and market competition. We have also found that the real estate companies charge very similar prices.

The thesis has investigated how Sandvik Coromant could implement the SMED principle on one of their grinders groups and what improvements it would lead to. The aim of the thesis is to identify the current situation and investigate how their setup times would be affected by SMED. The work initiated with a literature analysis about the SMED principles and then proceeded with an analysis of the current situation where the activity was time mapped. The analysis consisted of time trials of the process that the thesis would include. The time studies revealed opportunities for structural improvements to create environment for a more structured process.

The mental constructions of other places are based on impressions from everything that surrounds us in our everyday life, e.g. pictures, videos, texts and narratives. The tourism industry is especially influential when it comes to creating the image of before ?unknown places?. Furthermore, it has a tendency to embellish and idealize people and places located in what is commonly known as the Third World.

Purpose: During the last years Real Options have been established in many areas of the day-to-day business. Recent literature also tries to address Supply Chain problems with option theory, since an efficient Supply Chain increasingly gains in importance as a significant competitive advantage. This thesis tries to answer the question, if Real Options can mitigate the costs induced by the Bullwhip Effect as one of the major problems in Supply Chains. Methodology: The authors of the thesis used a deductive approach. Based on a theoretical model utilizing Real Option contracts and under the usage of a randomly created dataset the influence of the Bullwhip Effect on the company?s business and financial structure is examined and subsequently analyzed.

In this two years master?s thesis I examine the library?s representation of research and its influence upon the relationship between the library practice and the research practice. I also intend to find out what controls the representation and if it is possible to see changes in the representation over time. My source material has been texts published in the Swedish library journal ? and social domain ? Biblioteksbladet during the last decennium (2001?2011).

The purpose of this thesis was to examine if users of digital music games may acquire skills from the games that may be of use in learning to play a real instrument, that is a non-digitally simulated instrument like an acoustic piano. We have used Gee?s theory regarding a possible interconnection between different semiotic domains, and how this connection may enable a transfer of skills between related domains. In this thesis we examine possible skill transfer between the domains ?digital games? and ?non-digital instruments?. To examine our question formulation we chose to conduct a pilot study from which we collected both quantitative and qualitative data.

This report is the result of a case study at Peltor AB during the spring semester of 2007. The task Peltor gave us was to improve the delivery accuracy and to lower the high finical value of delayed orders (backorder), and to divide the products into logical groups. The logical group will be a useful tool to remain a high level of service. If the level of service increases the company will be more competitive.The electronic department at Peltor has problems with delayed orders. According to Peltor, the problem is based on delivery lead time which is presumed.To increase the delivery accuracy, a lead time analysis is made to find the accumulated delivery lead times for each product.

AbstractBuying real estate property is a complex process for the uninitiated. Apotential buyer has to keep track of laws and regulations affecting theproperty. The purchase of a property is for many also the largest deal made inlife and because of that it is especially important to make sure everything getsdone correctly.A real estate property purchase contains a number of different elements, suchas engineering data and inspection of the property and documentation to makesure that the signing of contracts and clauses are done according to the laws ofthat country. These purchase process steps are ordinary people not familiarwith, and therefore they hire the help of a real estate agent.Buying a property abroad complicates things because the countries have theirown laws and rules that make them different from the Swedish rules which theSwedish real estate buyers are accustomed to.Our thesis is about exploring if a Swedish buyer knows the buying process inforeign countries, or whether they rely on the broker they hired. The countrieswe have chosen to examine and compare against Sweden is Spain, Thailandand Turkey.Our questions will be answered by interviewing buyers about how they feelabout their buying process, if they encountered any problems before, duringor after their purchase, and if they are happy with their purchase after theevent.Our study shows that the buying processes in all four countries are generallyequal to each other.

The purpose of this essay is to study how the local creators of a "master plan" for the swedish city Kristinehamn, the years between 1940 to -43, looked on their planning. It is an analysis of ideas case study. A hypothesis is upheld for the research: that the local physical planning had largely extended ambitions what regards central state control in a way that is similar to planned economy. Questions that are asked include: Was the planning assumed to be a tool for the state to regulate the environment? Can the planning be seen as a mean to control the society in time and space? The essay search for verification of the hypothesis by a theoretical analysis apparatus made upp of ideal types.

!is began as a product design challenge, which stipulated broadlythat the designer be ?inspired by a subject?, whose ideas would leaddown a path of product idea evolution. From there, the goals forthe end-product would undergo rigorous revisions, re-de#nitionand re#nement. !e end-product itself would be the result of anentire thinking process.!e subject I have chosen is: Time. I want to challenge and evenalter our conventional sense of time, using principles ofdesign.

During the fall of 2007 Uppsala University gave the course ?Projekt DV?. As a result of this class a publishing tool for real-time media came to be ShiShi TV. The purpose of this application was to introduce a new way to reach out to people. This was done with a video player on the Internet and a second one placed in a regular mobile phone.

This paper examines a long run macroeconomic dilemma. This dilemma states that given a real appreciation, i.e. a continuous increase in the real exchange rate, an economy has two options open with respect to inflation and nominal exchange rate. Either the economy chooses a fixed exchange rate- regime but has to allow for a rising inflation. Or the economy can choose an inflation targeting- regime, but then has to allow for an appreciating nominal exchange rate.

An analysis of Zolas Nana focusing on male desire. Through a study of the narrtive structure and the polemic relation between the concepts of ?Nature? and ?Culture? it is shown that opposing ideologies are imbedded in the text. Nana is a symbolic character, in large, a myth created by male desire that eventually becomes a manifestation of that desire. At the same time, however, the character Nana evolves from being a mirrored image of male desire into a more stable and real individual and this process is also an answer to when and why she dies,underlining the fact that she initially was a creation emanating from male desire and in losing those symbolic functions she loses her function in the novel..

Background: Businesses are traditionally valued with the so called Discounted Cash Flow-model. When valuing newly-started businesses, surrounded by high uncertainty, and whose capital mostly consists of unrealized business opportunities, the Discounted Cash Flow-model needs to be complemented if the total value of the business is to be captured. A valuation with the help of real options is capable of valuing these unrealized opportunities, which often exist in newly-started businesses. The unrealized opportunities are to be found in the business plan of the business, why this needs to be valued to capture the total value of a newly-started business. Purpose: To demonstrate what the use of real options can result in when valuing businesses.

This thesis presents a new way of providing library users with reference services, namely chat (text based digital reference service in real time). Our research questions focus on the role of reference service, a comparison of chat reference to other reference forms, and the interest for real-time, digital reference. Our literature review covered the areas of digital reference and reference theory, the results of which showed that an ongoing debate hardly exists among Swedish librarians on the topic of reference work. We interviewed librarians from the three different Swedish chat reference projects existing at the time of our study. Most interviewees were very positive about chat reference.