The aim of the study was to illustrate how single parents who want to adopt a child are described in consent investigations made by the social service. The methodology for this study was document analysis. The analysis material consisted of 23 consent investigations from family courts in 12 different municipalities and district administrations. The theoretical starting point of the study was the perspective of social construct of reality. Based on the issues of the study, background on international adoptions, theory of norms and deviation and past research the documents were analyzed.

There is a lot written about being hearing impaired. There are guidelines on how to adjust the indoor environment for the hearing impaired. There is even more written about gardening and garden design from different aspects. However, I found out that there is nothing written about garden design or adjusting the outdoor environment for the hearing impaired. At the background of myself being hearing impaired and garden designer I realised that I actually had adjusted my own garden out of the fact that I am hearing impaired.

This work of examination describes an environmentally oriented product development aimed to develop new packaging with improved environmental and sale aspects of the products from Primus Sweden AB. The report covers the design process from the first collection of facts to the final results with a description of all methods involved in the work. The focus has been on a clear environmental awareness and the report contains a deepening of the concept life cycle assessment (LCA) for product development. In the process, the consumers? opinions of the brand Primus and environmental profiling formed the basis for the packaging to communicate the right values such as quality, technology, environmental awareness and adventurer?s first choice.The deepening of the life cycle analysis shows that composting and other alternative treatment of the biological cycle is not possible to implement in a satisfactory way in the design process.The work results in two final concepts.

Thermia Värme AB is one of the market leading manufactures of heat pumps. In order tomaintain this position, the company wants to improve the vibration characteristics of theirproducts. The aim of this thesis is to develop product design changes that lead to a reductionof vibrations in the heat pump Thermia Diplomat 8.The main cause for vibrations in the system is flow pulsation and mechanical forces inducedby the scroll compressor. Vibration is transmitted through the compressor piping and receivedby the heat exchangers, from where it is further transmitted to the connection points for theradiator and heat source circuits.A number of design changes in order to improve the vibration characteristics have beenevaluated through calculations and practical experiments. The changes have included thecompressor and heat exchanger mountings, the compressor suction and discharge line pipingand also pulsation dampening.The results of the experiments show that the vibration levels in the connections for the heatingand brine circuits can be decreased strikingly through changes in suction and discharge linepiping.

The aims of this project were to describe the circumstances around dogs being left alone in cars, to investigate owners? knowledge of the risks associated with leaving dogs in cars and the relevant legislation and, finally, to study how changes in the air temperature and air composition in the car affect the dog. The project consisted of a survey of the literature, a questionnaire part and an experimental part. An important conclusion is the importance of the level of knowledge of owners, since there are several ways in which an owner can prevent their dog from heat stroke and, in the case of an eventual accident, their action can have direct consequences in minimizing the long-term damage to the dog and even whether or not it survives. Fewer than half of the owners in the study knew that for a dog suffering heat stroke, the most important thing is to bring the body temperature down. Only a third of dog owners knew that if a dog is left in a warm car and showing signs of heat stress, then the police should be contacted and the dog quickly helped out of the car.

In today?s technological society, there are increasingly less physical demands on the locomotor system. However, despite that notion strength and function in the hand?s complex biomechanical system are in fact both needed to cope with daily life. The grip function is a main function in the hand and is used in many examples of scientific research, for instance when assessing physical health and predicting the probabilities of premature mortality.

In relation to the development of IT-products it is very important that the software supplier is aware not only of the target group but also the field of application. Usability should characterize the whole IT-design process as, in relation to this context, design includes more than merely those aspects which are visible to and thus can be interpreted by the naked eye. The study examines the specific qualities and properties that substantiate the usability and the demands that a customer rightfully expects from an IT-product. The user and the customer are highlighted in the same context in order to demonstrate that it is through the customer that an IT-product is defined as being useful. Thus, from this perspective, the user and customer can be considered as being the same person.

Personas (typanvändare) är ett populärt verktyg för interaktionsdesigners och gör det möjligt att, bland annat, uppfatta skillnader mellan en ofta stor mängd potentiella användare och därefter anpassa en design efter detta. Men hur användbart är detta verktyg om användarantalet är litet och deras mål i huvudsak styrs av deras identiska arbetsuppgifter?Interaktionsdesigners som vill försäkra sig om att de skapar användarvänliga applikationer bedriver ofta någon from av datainsamling och testning, från och med användare. Det finns flera kända metoder för analys av data som samlats in från kvalitativa studier. Det finns dock färre konkreta riktlinjer för vilka frågor man bör söka svar på under själva datainsamlingen.

My aim in this case study has been to create a method for creature design to test this method in a production and evaluate the results. To achieve this I studied and analyzed the methods of three concept artists and illustrators named James Gurney, Neville Page and Iain McCaig. From the analysis of these artist´s methods, combined with my own personal experience, a new method was formed. To test this method a creature was designed based on directives given by a game design group in the process of creating a table top role playing game in a fictitious world. These directives where given for the creature´s role and its living conditions.

A future expansion of wind power in the Nordic power system makes the balancing for the transmission system operator Svenska Kraftnät (SvK) more complicated. Up to the hour of delivery the balance responsible parties? (BRP) makes prognoses and plans, for consumption and production, to help maintain the balance in the electrical grid. How well this is accomplished is affected by the setup of the market design. Therefore SvK has proposed the following possible changes in market design: Increase the imbalance costsIntensify the regulation of imbalancesIncrease the temporal resolution on the different marketsPresent the prices for balancing power in real-timeModify the balancing market to simplify auction of consumption bidsA mapping over the BRPs? processes within planning and trading on the day-ahead, intra-day, and the balancing market has been performed in this thesis.

Detta arbete ämnar undersöka problem och utmaningar relaterade till design- och produktion av ett tävlingsinriktat spel för gratis utgivning samt utforska potentiella lösningar och designfilosofier genom att påbörja utveckling av ett spel. Problem som uppstår, lösningar som tillämpas och val som görs dokumenteras varpå resultat analyseras. Undersökningen tar upp design av både spelmekaniska och grafiska element samt produktionen av spelet och dess resurser, saker som är viktiga att tänka på och några saker som kan gå fel..

The aim of this paper is to examine how the design of management control in a retail trade company affects motivation among its employees. Our purpose is to identify what actions create motivation and how management can benefit by developing and promoting such activity from its high-performing employees. Motivated personnel have become increasingly important in companies today, and companies are increasingly reliant on individual employees? capabilities. The study covers all parts of the management control system, to see how these align to create goal congruence in an organizational context.

»Does it have to be so green?« is a visual communication project focused on packaging design. I attempted to challenge the clichés of graphic design for organic products and designed a packaging concept for a fictional food brand. The project had a special objec¬tive which was to explore ways to use the package as carrier for in¬formation about the enviromental impact of the packaging itself.The process included research about packaging design and its ef¬fect on the consumer, an investigation of the Swedish market for organic foods, creating and defining a brand, and designing a cohe¬rent packaging concept for a product line which communicates the brand?s values and appeals to the intended target group.The project resulted in prototypes for a muesli package, tea car¬ton and honey jar, as well as a manual that explains the application of the graphic program..

Denna rapport tar upp problem med revisionskontroll i realtidsbaserade kollaborativa system. Enligt Fan & Sun (2012a); Fan & Sun (2012b) behöver man bryta kraven som definerar realtidsbaserade system för att uppnå detta.Den stubbaserade lösningen som beskrivs i rapporten lyckas minska antalet fel i testfallen som utförts i fallstudierna. Genom att implementera personliga editeringsflikar och stubbar är det möjligt att ha revisisionskontroll i ett realtidsbaserat system. Dock för att detta ska vara effektivt och användbart bör detta endast användas i specifika fall och med noggrann granskning.Fallstudien som genomförts visar inte på några imponerande siffror men en förbättring är fortfarande möjlig vid specifika fall..

Utvecklingen av informationssystem har de senaste åren gått framåt med stora steg. Trots detta utvecklas massvis med informationssystem som inte fungerar i verksamheten där de ska användas. Detta tillsammans med ökningen av användandet har gjort att kraven på systemens utformning har stigit. Många författare anser att lösningen på detta är att engagera användarna i större omfattning än vad som görs i dagens utvecklingsmetoder. En av de mest använda metoderna för systemutveckling idag är Rational Unified Process (RUP).