AbstractDate              2009-06-07Level             Master thesis in Information Technology and Business Administration, 15 hp, EIK024Authors        Anna Karlsson, akn05009@student.mdh.se                      Lena-Maria Lindström, llm05002@student.mdh.seTutor            Peter EkmanTitle              IT Governance with an IT investment focusKeywords     IT Governance, IT investments, IT decisions Problem       To control and manage IT and IT functions in the organization has been a big challenge for many businesses for a long time. In order to make the management of IT more efficient IT Governance is needed. If the organization is going to be successful IT Governance is necessary and this type of governance enables a more effective use of IT that supports the business and its operations. The problem questions for this thesis are: How is the company?s IT Governance built up? How are decisions regarding the company?s IT investments taken? How is the connection between the company?s IT investments and the company?s IT Governance?Purpose        The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyze how a company?s IT Governance is built up and how the company uses IT Governance to reach the desired results from the IT investments.Method        The thesis is a qualitative study.

Business valuation is something that has been more general and discussion around this subject is very common. The discussions often revolve the various principles and procedures that a business appraiser can apply when a valuation of a business should be done. When there are different evaluation methods there are also resulting in an assumption that there are not so easy to create a complete objective business value. The individual evaluator choice of method will determine the result of the business value. The global world for each business has been more uncertain and turbulent/changeable which have tended to exacerbate the work for the evaluator to determine a business value.

This essay examines how the critical reception of French nouveaux réaliste-artist Raymond Hains 1961 exhibition La France déchirée has been articulated at two historically separate occasions.In her 2010 book Nouveau Réalisme, 1960?s France and the Neo-avant-garde, art historian Jill Carrick examines the fundamental impact the founder of nouveau réalisme ? French art critic and theorist Pierre Restany ? has had on the movement?s historical reception. According to Carrick Restanys writing established an interpretive framework that remained more or less intact for several decades. In addition to a closer analysis of the movement?s critical reception during the 1960s?, Carrick provides a set of new, alternative readings of a number of nouveaux réaliste artworks, which all originates from a position outside of Restanys interpretive framework.

Technology based self-service (TBSS) used in supermarket self-scanning checkouts is a relatively new phenomenon in Sweden. Studies on TBSS as a self- checkout device have been formerly carried out but with focus on the customer perspective. The authors therefore saw a challenge in covering the self-scan checkout concept, from a company perspective. The purpose of this research paper is to investigate, through a management perspective, the changes brought about by implementing an innovative TBSS system in Swedish supermarkets, and its effect on the competitiveness of the company. This is done by presenting and linking the theoretical framework and empirical study in the research.

Thid thesis concerns pre-Roman religion in Gaul, taking as its starting point Caesar's De bello Gallico. Caesar's account of the Gauls and their religious customs is compared with the accounts of Lucan, Pliny the elder and Ammianus Marcellinus. These are also compared to, and contrasted to, the archaeological evidence. There is some discussion of the nature of the common interpretations of this evidence. The concept of 'the Celts' is touched upon, since much of the relevant evidence has, in our time, been thought of as Celtic.

Chapter 6 of the Ch?ndogya Upani?ad has often been treated in works on early Indian philosophy, as well as in some comparative studies on color symbolism. Attempts to place it in a larger framework against the background of late Vedic religion are, however, few, the rationalistic and ?tradition-challenging? appearance of the text having repeatedly been emphasized. But the doctrine contained in the text ? a cosmologic teaching on the three elements constituting the universe, each being characterized by a color (red, white, black) ? and their microcosmic counterparts in the human body, does have some clear affinities to the worldview of the Br?hma?as and ?ra?yakas, which posits a series of similar correlations (bandhu-) between macro- and microcosmos.

The purpose with this work is to describe the language that is built around the chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) in Sweden. Our questions are: What does the professional field look like; who writes, about what and for which kind of readers? How do they describe the expressions and the upcoming of CFS? For which reasons can CFS be considered as a medical diagnosis/illness? How can CFS be understood from a social perspective? Our theoretical starting point is a social constructive theory and also Karin Johannisson's theory about medicalization and Foucault?s theory about power. We have from a literature-exposition of Swedish articles from 1989 to 2006, done a social constructive discourse analysis with help from Laclau & Mouffe's discourse theory, and Fairclough's model of social practices. In our textual analysis we found three dominating discourses: A medical discourse, a social/cultural discourse and a general/popular discourse.

IT is often seen as a solution to many problems concerning effectiveness in organizations. Information systems within the healthcare sector is often viewed as medical devices rather than just systems or services. These medical devices are thoroughly regulated by laws, standards and certifications. In this study I participated in an innovative project that aimed to bring new life and use to the old fashioned patient journal by giving it a visual representation through the use of an avatar. I aimed to study the effects of regulators connected with the patient journal as a source of information for the innovative project.

The survey takes its starting point in a critical evaluation of recent phenomenological approaches to rock art in landscape studies, foremost the works of Chris Tilley. The purpose is to present a phenomenological theory, based on the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, which includes both motives, places and landscapes in a holistic interpretation. Bronze age rock art around Motala ström and the city of Norrköping is used to exemplify the theoretical discussion. When presenting the framework, emphasis is being laid on the bodily experience of rock art and place through the process of phenomenological intersubjectivity..

The study is based on a new approach on how Swedish healthcare is supposed to be controlled and organized. There is a renowned administration problem within Swedish healthcare, which seems to be an obstacle to exploit the resources to the fullest. The latest venture within the healthcare system is patient involvement, where the patients become co-producers of their own care, which aims to both improve and make healthcare more efficient. A few wards in Sweden have implemented this new approach whereupon the study intends to discuss the effectiveness and efficiency in some of these.The study is restricted to three wards, whereof two of these are inpatient wards and the other one is an outpatient ward, within the medical clinic in Jönköping County Council, which has implemented the patient involvement approach in their daily work. The methodology for this study is qualitative in its nature where a time study of personnel time allocation and supplementary interviews with managing nurses on the wards have been conducted.

The purpose of this thesis was to find out whether the main class C (religion) in the Swedish classification system Klassifikationssystem för svenska bibliotek is well adapted to classify materials published in or imported to Sweden, and handled by Swedish libraries today. The questions we put to ourselves were:1. How easy to understand, and how useful is the main class C religion today?2. What, in the main class C, is satisfactory?3. What, in the main class C, is inconsistent, anachronistic or incorrect?4. What, in the main class C, is in need of change or renewal?The method that was used was a number of interviews with librarians and cataloguers. We have interviewed eight librarians from six different libraries, of different types, but all with a relatively large collection of religious materials.Though all of our respondents have expressed a feeling that all the major religions deserve equal treatment in the classification system and a similar division of space, after some pondering on the subject, our respondents have agreed that a larger space for Christianity is warranted considering the composition of the current collections and publication. Our respondents have in some cases expressed that there is a lack of instructions as to how the subdivisions of the main class C (religion) is meant to be used.

Collaborative music making on the Internet is not a new phenomenon, but no applications have yet caught on with the vast number of laptop and bedroom studio musicians active today. This is strange considering the inherent social and interactive nature of music, especially amongst trends like Web 2.0 where collaboration and user-generated data is key. In this paper I study the problems these applications face, and why they do not have a greater appeal to musicians. With the results I develop and evaluate my own framework, known as Crescendo Online: a multi-user sequencing and modular synthesis environment, intended to pave the way for a new type of online music creation platform..

This text concerns itself with war, the just war theory, and the application of that doctrine on the ?war on terrorism?. I present different views on the theory's place in the discourse, its relevance for unconventional wars followed by the analyses of above mentioned empirical situation.Particular interest is given the criteria concerning proportionality, both ad bellum and in bello, due to in part its difficult nature, and the attention it has received from others. This paper asks the question: Is the just war theory adequate for analysis of modern war?There are few alternatives.

Islamic masculinity which quite often associates with oppression of women has remained an underexaminated category despite its constant presence in the debate on honour related oppression. Honour has primarily been studied from a feminine point of view and theories of masculinity have taken insignificant interest in the issue of honour. The aim of this study is to understand what attitudes boys/young men from the Muslim world have toward native Swedish men and what these attitudes do imply for their own conceptions of masculinity and honour. The ambition of this study is also to make explicit the similarities, differences and connections between honour and masculinity.The empirical basis of this study consists of twelve interviews with boys/young men from the Muslim world about their notions of honour and masculinity. The theoretical platform arises from theories of masculinities and honour.Some prominent ?patterns? that I have found:- That religious norms and rules appear to be significant in how the masculine manners of conduct should be adjusted.- That honour and women as carriers of men?s honour, play a crucial role for the constitution of proper masculinity.- That the Swedish context and its policy of equality seem to threaten the obviousness of the islamic masculinity.

The purpose of this essay is to examine Marjane Satrapi?s comic novel Persepolis from a gender and postcolonial perspective. To reach this I have used several theories from mainly three different fields of theory: gender studies, postcolonial theories and theoretical texts which focus on the form of comics.My analysis has shown that idols, heroes and other cultural symbols are important for the creation of the main character Marji?s identity, but that she at the same time has many Marxistic influences. These casts of mind do not stand in opposition, but become an expression for her hybridity.