The ski resort is a business unlike any other. While providing the customer with a service, it produces the service in a manner that in many respects resemble the traditional producing company. Therefore, since the challenges facing the ski resort are a mixture of what can be found in these different environments, this study aims to investigate the applicability of Lean principles in this context. With a qualitative approach based on direct observation, combined with survey data from 2819 respondents, we evaluate the expected effects on customer value of ten commonly defined Lean principles. The study finds that although Lean theory can help disseminate customers throughout the resort and provide greater transparency, the nature of the operations calls for caution.

Marketers are today confronted with new forms of media and tend to use different strategies to exploit these media. The podcast medium has emerged in a time of changes in terms of media planning. By using stimuli containing identical context with different forms of advertising, this thesis seeks to explore whether ads, sponsorships or product placements is more favourable for an advertiser to practice in the podcast medium. The purpose of this study is to investigate the differences in communication effects, such as attitude towards the brand and purchase intention, depending on the form of advertising. Testing if previous research, made on the same format but in different media, is applicable in the podcast medium carries out the study.

Background: The prevalence of dementia increases both in Sweden and in the rest of the world. People with dementia often display some types of behavioral and psychological symptoms. These symptoms include, among other things, aggressiveness, inactivity, activity disturbance, anxiety, hallucinations and depression. The symptoms can create a negative impact of those with dementia, their caregivers and their next of kin. Aim: To describe the effect of non-pharmacological treatments have on the behavioral and psychological symptoms of people with dementia.

The wide distribution range of our boreal pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) provides a great variation in growing conditions and climate/weather factors that influence the wood development of the trees. A great number of extensive studies have been conducted over the years in order to clarify growth trends of this and other species over more or less wide-ranging areas. In this thesis effects of weather factors were instead compared between different forest stands from the about same geographical location. The effects of precipitation, temperature and frost on the year ring characteristics of pine were studied in the research forest of Svartberget Vindeln, in northern Sweden. The stands differed in site index and silvicultural treatment; fertile ? high stem density, fertile ? low stem density, poor ? high stem density and poor ? low stem density.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse, identify and clarify:- The integration of music and brands in commercials that are created for television, cinema or internet,- The effects that this integration has for the involved parties and the movie that is being created.Music is a big part of today's society and advertising is a big part of people's everyday lives. It is therefore natural that music in advertising can have the power to affect, attract, influence and interest human beings. We think that the music in commercials is a fascinating subject to study because the phenomenon is relatively unexplored in the academic sphere. The knowledge of the synchronization process of music and commercials is also becoming increasingly important for involved parties to understand and manage. The essay is developed through a qualitative methodology.  We have conducted six interviews, with different players who all have extensive experience and knowledge about the chosen topic.

Previous research analyzing information and communication effects regarding high-involvement purchases has so far concerned communication length and the use of salient attributes. Studies investigating the effects of communication on a word-level is however limited. For a high-involvement purchase like an apartment the need for information is vital in the customers purchase decision. The main purpose of this study is to investigate whether the communication in the prospectus varies based on sales success. The study connects research in information search, high-involvement purchases, communication length and information vividness.

The aim of this essay is to study the development of democracy in the Halland province, with focus on participating measures. First and foremost to test earlier research about the causes of the development of democracy, which says that the work takes place with obvious variation between the municipalities and that it is caused by economic resources and experienced problems in the democracy. The purpose is also to conduct a general discussion about the conditions and effects of the development.Thus the method can be characterised as theory consuming because I as far as possible assume the method that has been used in earlier research. Still, my study is limited to the six municipalities of the Halland province and is therefore a study of few cases. One person in each municipality has been interviewed in order to collect a list of all the measures that have been carried out.

The major part of the existing research on psychological effects on participating in war or residing in a war zone shows negative effects on the person?s mental health. However not all research, from an international perspective, shows the same results. Since we haven?t found any research regarding Swedish conditions and there has been a recent implementation of a decision from the Supreme Commander regarding commanded international service for all staff within the Swedish armed forces, the question has now become more relevant.

In this essay, the phenomenon and the concept "meditation" are treated. Meditation is a mental training technique where one develops the ability to choose where to put attention and ability to focus. Techniques for meditation is used individually of people who wants to develop themselves as persons and in therapeutic aims of professional within the field of psychology in order to help people to find solutions of problems within themselves. The aim with this essay were to do a qualitative study in order to see how possible effects of meditation influences daily life of contributory practisian's. Issue has been as follows; which effects have one regularly conducting of meditation on people and their lives? Interviews with four experienced meditators were done in India and the material were analyzed afterwards with the aid of thematic analysis, furthermore in order to link the results with clinical research and established theories about meditation.

Floor signs in stores have become a more common phenomenon during past years. The problem is that the knowledge about these signs is limited and the actual effects are unknown. This lack of knowledge can have a negative impact on store performance and marketing efforts. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of floor signs on consumer attitude and behaviour. The study was conducted in two grocery stores, where the movement pattern of 39 501 customers was recorded over a four week period.

The aim of this paper is to find an algorithm to establish and maintain a virtual enclosure around a mobile unit. The area may take any form and should be scalable up to and including national borders. The enclosure is managed on the mobile unit. The target system is Android. Smartphones, tablets and more recently, cameras is examples of mobile units. A modern mobile unit is part of a computer network.

This study aims to highlight patients´ experiences about and thoughts of side effects fromelectroconvulsive therapy (ECT), a therapeutic method commonly used when having severedepressions. The framing of questions were how the respondents of this study describe theirlife before, during and after ECT-treatment, how the treatment has affected their daily life andhow these experiences may contribute to the awareness of power in professional relations.The study is based on three semi-structured narrative interviews and the main result showedthat, according to my interpretation, ECT as a treatment obliterated memories, quality of lifeand daily structure for all participants. Unfortunately they have all become subjects ofpsychiatric power and have faced considerable difficulty in getting professional recognitionaccording to their severe memory issues. The respondents have lost the ability to relate totheir past which clearly makes them struggle in their present context. A point in commonamong them is that neither of them wanted ECT but, because of the lack of communicationbetween them as patients and the health care in general, they all ended up getting it..

Background: A large number of companies works as a link between manufacturers and final users. These companies buys and stores goods to be able to deliver when a need comes up later in the chain. The storage could have a negative effect on profitability and therefore places great demands on the management control systems. ABC as a method has been used with some success in manufacturing for over ten years. In wholesale companies the method is not frequently used.

The research within the management control systems-field and more specifically performance management has been rather shallow and not much has happened the last decades besides the balanced scorecard. The researchers see a lack of studies focusing on the effects of an integrated performance management system and also how it affects the different hierarchical levels and the tasks to perform.We decided to perform an essay with case study-characteristics by looking at both the strategic and tactical level at Volvo Group, or more specifically Group Trucks. We performed three different interviews, one at the group level and two at the division level. The aim was to see what effect an integrated performance management system had on the tactical level (i.e. the divisions).Our findings and corresponding analysis suggested that Volvo was a rather centralized company in order to get the performance management system to work by enabling a ?weekly control?.

Abstract:Title: The popular blog ? on updating and its effects on vistor statisticsNumber of pages: 35Author: Wilhelm von SydowTutor: Else NygrenCourse: Media and Communication Studies CPeriod: Autumn 2006University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala UniversityPurpose/Aim: To examine to which, if any, extent the update frequency of blogs affects their visitor statistics.Material/Method: Quantitative method, Swedish blogs, visitor statistics and updating frequency.Main results: No results could prove the causal effects of the relation between visitor statistics and updating frequency. A noticeable connection between the two variables could, however, be identified.Keywords: Blog, update frequency, visitor statistics, quantitative, Habermas, public sphere, Else Nygren, intranet, Matt Haig, business websites.