Perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are ubiquitous in the environment today and they have been detected even in remote areas such as the Arctic. PFASs can be transported by the atmosphere and ocean currents but the transport mechanism is not fully understood. PFASs may be harmful to organisms due to their persistence in the environment, bio-accumulation potential and toxicity. Studies have shown that PFASs can cause adverse effects on the metabolism as well as the endocrine- and reproduction systems in organisms. In this study, PFASs were investigated in glaucous gull (Larus hyperboreus) (n=5) and black guillemot (Cepphus grylle) (n=4) from Svalbard.

For a company to survive it has to make a profit. To make a profit transactions are necessary and to achieve this a company can choose to focus on creating loyal customers. Loyal customers can contribute to secured revenues, increased market shares and reduced marketing costs. Research within customer loyalty has mainly focused on different types of loyalty and the impact it has on customers behavior. However, there is a lack of research concerning which factors that create loyal customers.

The impact of computer programs in safety-critical systems has increased in the past decades and computer-based systems can now be found in a wide range of applications. A new approach for developing dependable systems is documenting all design rationale that affects safety using Intent Specifications. A recent approach for developing complex systems efficiently and in an upgradeable manner is Component-Based System Engineering. In this thesis, these approaches are combined in the development and upgrade of a Remote Robot Control Unit by using the tool SpecTRM. The case study showed that Intent Specifications and CBSE could successfully be combined.

It is now increasingly common for organisations to work actively with HR issues. Furthermore, it is a constant top priority for organisations to remain profitable. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether so called soft HR values, as manager?s communication skills, has an actual impact on hard values in terms of costs for the organisation. Leadership is largely characterised by emotional communication, which together with personnel costs were the main focus of the research.

De senaste åren har utsläppsreglerna för sjöfarten blivit allt hårdare och under de kommande åren skärps de ännu mer. För att svaveldirektiven för sjöfarten ska fungera effektivt så krävs det också att de efterlevs. Syftet med den här studien var därför att undersöka hur länderna i Europeiska SECA områdena agerar och kommer att agera i framtiden för att se till att svaveldirektiven efterlevs. Studien syftar också till att undersöka hur efterlevnadskontroller genomförs, samt se om länderna har infört sanktioner mot överträdelser och vad dessa innebär. För att få svar på detta studerades lagar och förordningar, men framförallt skickades frågeformulär ut till de ansvariga myndigheterna i flera olika länder kring SECA områdena.

Background: Recently, the Swedish food culture has expanded by leaps and bounds. Interest in food and cooking has taken more space in the Swedish welfare state. Products and icons, such as organic free range chicken or Per Moberg have had greater impact on the way we consume food. Consumers have become increasingly aware of what they should and should not be eating. With an increased interest in food, supply and distribution channels have become increasingly important for the major grocery retailers (Board of Agriculture 2011).

Webbens utveckling går i raskt tempo och nya tekniker utvecklas ständigt. På senare tid har en ny teknik växt fram som kallas för remote scripting. Med detta menas att man kan göra anrop till servern utan att ladda om hela webbsidan. Genom att utnyttja denna teknik kan man också reducera tiden för att hämta data från servern och tiden det tar att uppdatera informationen i webbläsaren. Det har funnits metoder och tekniker för detta ett antal år men det var inte förrän Jesse James Garret myntade uttrycket AJAX i sin artikel ?Ajax: A New Approach to Web Applications? som tekniken uppmärksammades i större skala.

SVT is Sweden?s largest TV-network and broadcasts more then 22 000 hours of TV each year. SVT is a public service company where the basic idea is to reflect the world from different perspectives and news is very important for providing neutral and versatile information in a variety of areas. An important part of the flow of information is to continuously receive reports from all corners of the world around the clock. This places very high demands on the technology used and it is important that it function and develops to meet current and future growing needs.

The furniture retail industry in Sweden has gone trough large changes during the last decades. Today the industry is tough and in the maturity stage where few new companies enter, especially if they do not have a unique offer. The furniture companies have become larger and fewer, the changes have lead to difficulties for smaller and medium sized companies to grow and be profitable.Our purpose is to analyse, evaluate and compare three smaller companies in Stockholm with the intention to find what kind of marketing strategies they are using to survive on the Swedish market. First we interviewed the three companies to see what they do to survive on the market, then we asked 100 persons to fill in a questionnaire to see if they had the same opinion as the companies described.With help from theories we prepared questions which laid the foundation to the empirical part of the essay.The result from this study shows that the three companies differ from each other when it comes to using relationship marketing and placing the customer in the centre. All of them are aware of the importance of doing so, but because of different limits and possibilities they can not fully adjust everything to the customer.

Brämhults Juice AB is one of Sweden?s leading producers of fresh fruit juices and drinks. The fruit drinks last 3 days once opened and when stored in a refrigerator kept at 7°C. Since factors that shorten the drinks? best before date are usually not noticed until the entire batch has expired, it would be advantageous to find a way to accelerate the drinks? natural deterioration, so that an unusal short best before date is noticed before more products are shipped off to the stores.

Due to the forest industry downsizing, many communities in rural forest regions in Canada and Sweden are facing problems to survive. In order to create community sustainability, resilience and well-being in remote forest regions, the view on the forest resources has shifted towards multiple use, through the concept of sustainable forest management (SFM). Beside the economic and ecological elements of sustainability, the social forest values are needed, contributing to the human well-being, local participation, stakeholder collaboration, human rights and cultural connection. In this thesis the embodiment of the social component of SFM within Prince Albert Model Forest (Canada), and Vilhelmina Model Forest (Sweden) will be examined. Being partners and facing similar challenges as rural boreal forest regions, the two model forests are compared through analysis of projects and activities, conducted interviews and organization documents. Looking at projects mentioned as successful by the interviewees, they all have elements from the social values of SFM. The direction can be explained by the introduction of the Forest Communities Program in Canada, demanding the Model Forests to work towards community stability and resilience, the Model Forest organization concept itself and the way global focus are increasing around social forest values. In the future, it may be important that the role of the MFs enable some kind of political authorization and legitimacy in order to improve conflict solving and indigenous rights equality.

The relational database model was defined in the 1970?s and is the dominating database type today.  The main difference between data from a relational database and a hierarchical data structure is that the relational database stores records in tables. The records have no particular order, but can include links in terms of relationships with other records. A hierarchical structure organizes data in the form of a tree structure  and  can for an example be found in organizational structures in which different levels involves different responsibilities. If the data stored in a relational database is to be presented in a hierarchically, a conversion of the data structure is required. The intention of this paper is to describe how such a conversion can be performed.  To investigate the conversion methods, case studies has been conducted on the basis of a specific organization?s hierarchical structure.

The demand for shopping centers has increased in recent time and more shopping centers have been built. To become competitive shopping centers has evolved to become more than just a place for shopping. In the recent past Galleria Duvan in Karlstad has been run by foreign owners who has not been involved or renovated the shopping center. During the spring of 2011 AlbérFastigheter bought Galleria Duvan and they are now renovating and negotiating new deals with the tenants. Our problem has led us to the following question: How can a centrally located shopping center, such as Galleria Duvan, develop a strategy to strengthen their position on the market.

This master?s thesis was performed at PartnerTech AB in Åtvidaberg. It addresses the problem of managing test results obtained from testing electronics manufactured by PartnerTech. PartnerTech has developed a test system, called Tor, which performs tests on manufactured boards and stores the test results in files. The Tor system consists of both hardware and software part, where the software runs on an ordinary PC with MS DOS/Windows 2000.

This thesis was carried out at Atlas Copco Tools and Assembly Systems. The purpose hasbeen to develop a design tool to be used for development of new electric motors for AtlasCopcos electric nutrunners. The focus of the thesis has been to increase productivity bydecreasing the power losses in an electric tool. The productivity is defined as themaximum number of tightenings a nutrunner can perform without becoming too hot.Before starting the development of this design tool an existing Matlab script, whichcalculates the losses in a slotless electric motor, has been studied and modified torepresent the real losses in a better way. The modification has been made by performingpractical studies of different losses and then adjusting existing parameters in the Matlabscript.Because design changes in one part of a mechatronic system can lead to a decrease inperformance of another part the choice of parameters that can be changed has been madeso that other parts of the system is affected as little as possible.A study of the existing tools efficiency during an entire tightening has been made toincrease the understanding of when and where the different losses appear and to comparethe modified Matlab script with the measured values.The design tool was formed so that it executes the Matlab script, that calculates thelosses, for a number of different design options and stores the alternative which producesthe least losses.