The Swedish market for unsecured loans has frequently been attacked by media and government officials. Some actors have been accused of exploiting customers and charging inappropriately high interest rates. Despite the public interest very little academic work has been published on the topic. Therefore it is our purpose to investigate why the prices can differ so much between the different actors. Further, we also aim to conduct a market overview as a secondary purpose which will help us in reaching our primary purpose.

Parallel to new technological advancements, including the development of interactive recommender systems, digital music services on the Internet, such as Spotify, have in a short time span gradually replaced former physical media such as CDs and MP3-players and become pioneers on a market with an otherwise uncertain future. By subscribing to the service, users have access to a vast library of music and from any device with Internet access. In order to provide a satisfactory and useful musical experience, different ways of coping with the vastness is required - which is precisely what recommender systems are for. Improved filtering techniques and use of devices built in sensors, make way for new opportunities of more precise and contextually tailored suggestions for track selection, which in turn leads to potential privacy issues when using interactive music services. But where do we stand today? By compiling, exemplifying and discussing three different perspectives with relating to the development of interactive music recommender systems, the objective for this paper is to provide a for science, industry and user, objectively nuanced account of current potentials and expectations.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the new real estate brokerage Act and to see whether the main intent, to strengthen the consumer protection, has been fulfilled through the implementation of the 2011 Act. The real estate agent legislation is made to protect both the buyer and seller throughout the property transaction. Although the intent is to protect the consumer, it is not unusual that disputes arises. To avoid disputes concerning the property transaction, the 2011 legislation opens up for greater transparency in the mediation process. The protection for the consumer has been considerably stronger since the 2011 legislation was implemented.

The purpose of this thesis is to study the usage of and attitudes towards electronic books among graduate and PhD students at Karlstad University. The main questions are: How do graduate and PhD students use electronic books? To what extent are electronic books used compared to printed books? To find the answers, a user study was carried out at Karlstad University library. The results show that a majority of the respondents are aware of the possibility to use electronic books but prefer to use printed ones if they have to choose. Many respondents also complained about difficulties reading a text on the computer screen.

This study explores Environmental Storytelling techniques and whether these can beused in combination with each other to lead a player through a game scene in aspecific pattern, affect the player?s narrative and exploratory view and explorewhether Self-paced Exploration can be combined with these techniques.It is a qualitative study conducted by six gaming sessions with accompanyinginterviews in which six people get to play one of three versions of the same gamescene. The only differences between the scenes are the different guidance techniquesused. The informants' movement patterns are identified and interviews recorded byaudio, as well as screen recording. The results shows that Environmental Storytellingtechniques can very well be used to control the player's exploration patterns, bothnarratively and navigation purposes and Self-paced Exploration can be utilized to agreater efficiency in combination with these..

Caso Skanska is an incident that occurred in Argentina and regarded corruption and bribes to government officials. This study investigates how this incident could occur and how it can be explained. The theoretical framework used is the dynamic interaction model, stakeholder theory, embeddedness theory, the political perspective and corruption theory. The method used is qualitative and it consists of data gathered through semi-structured interviews in Sweden and Argentina as well as other sources of written information of relevance for the study. The authors conclude that Caso Skanska could occur due to the lack of strong institutions as well as transparency.

   Officially, Sweden has a very low level of corruption and in 2008 topped Transparency International?s list in terms of the perception of a lack of corruption. However, on closer examination it would appear that the Swedish public sector is not as clean as the Transparency International list suggests. What appears to be relatively common and quite widely accepted in Sweden, especially in local government, are conflict of interest situations in which public officials use their position to obtain advantages for themselves, their friends and their colleagues, in particular with respect to public procurement. According to the Swedish constitution, the public administration shall be governed by the principles on legality and objectivity. Grave violations of these principles are deemed illegal and contrary to the penal code provisions relating to bribery, public misconduct and breach of confidentiality.

My work has been to create a magazine for iPad to explore this format, whichthere are mixed feelings about. Instead of seeing the digital format as an enemy ofthe printed magazine, I have chosen to see it as an opportunity.I have given myself the task of designing a magazine that can justify the useof the digital magazine. I have looked at the identity of the magazine, but mainlyexplored the format and its prerequisites.I was triggered to do the project when I saw people who are just making a pdfof the printed magazine and publish it digitally. I have during my work discoveredhow near or far away you can be from the printed magazine.The format of the iPad has multiple aspects to look upon; one that turned outto be clear in my project was navigation. Working with a spread has its problemsand opportunities; the same applies to an article that is larger than a screen.

This project has created a web-application for the service technicians at the paper plant Gruvön. The project was outsourced to the IT-company Sogeti.The application visualizes information about reparation-work of the equipment at the paper plant. The displayed information is work-orders, the status of the work-orders and errors. It is also possible to see the costs and hours spent on reparation-work.. The work-orders and related information is stored in a relational database.The application is created mainly for web-browsers in mobile-phones and tablets.

The aim with this essay is to penetrate the opinions of how women should be represented on screen. I am using a selection of contributions from the gender debate that Lars von Trier´s movie Antichrist caused in Sweden in spring 2009. The focus of the debate was mainly about the way the female actress was displayed. The provocative thing considered by many was that the female part could be interpreted as evil and in connection with Antichrist. But is that a obvious negative way to present women? In a historical view the discussion have been constantly fluctuated when it comes to the ideas of the correct way to visualize women in the movies which have left us without a true answer to that question.I am interested in investigating what is considered today as the best way to represent women by Swedish debaters.By using Michel Foucault?s term discourse as theory in a text analyse I am trying to look trough their language and see their ideological position..

In today?s modern society with high-speed connections covering the globe people are more than ever finding themselves gazing into the cold lights of the computer screen. On the other side a strange and exciting world yet to be explored awaits. Many are those who spend hour after hour running over green hills swimming in vast blue oceans in the lands of Azeroth, the playfield in the MMORPG game World of Warcraft. In media we often read and hear alarming reports on players stuck in this virtual world, ceasing to play a part in the real world.

En effektiv och populär grafisk effekt för realtidsgrafik är Screen-Space Ambient Occlusion(SSAO). Teknikens nackdel är brusiga artefakter som kan dämpas med blur filtrering. Detta arbete studerar upplevelsen av defekterna i SSAO med en användarstudie. Arbetet implementerar en renderare som renderar bildrutor från kameraåkningar och ett visningsprogram som används i experimentgenomförandet. Renderade bilder utan och med aktiv blur-filtrering visas för försökspersoner som får beskriva om de ser skillnader mellan bilderna och välja vilken bild de föredrar.

The Go Down Arts Centre is a proposal for a new building to an existing organisation in Nairobi, Kenya. The proposal relates to the scale of the city by making a statement on a future urban path, and by welcoming the city in to the building. The proposal houses both activities affiliated to Go Down, such as studios and rehersal rooms, as well as opportunities for the visitor to meet and interact with the culture produced at Go Down, both in formal and informal settings. The building is closed to its surroundings, apart from a grand entrance towards the urban path. There, the city passes through the building to an inner courtyard, where the communication to all the rooms and activities takes place.

This thesis examines effects that occur when consumers are placed in a negative category by the sender in an internet marketing context. The effects studied are attitude towards the ad, attitude towards the media, sense of being monitored and sense of being categorized. The authors argue that consumers will become increasingly aware of the fundamentals of internet marketing and how advertisements online are being directed towards them. Consumers will thus, to a larger extent than today, analyze advertisements and how they have been individually categorized by the sender. This will affect the way advertisements are perceived.

Idre Fjäll currently has not full control of how visitors experience their site or if it has good usability. I have helped the company to do a usability test on their website to see how and where any improvements can be made on the page before the winter season 2010. I have also done a survey to investigate how users perceive Idre Fjälls website. Ten people of various ages participated in the survey. All test subjects was recorded with both audio and screen activity during the tests.