Since the beginning of 1940 there have been externally developed tests in Sweden. Their appearances have changed over the years together with the cognitive approach. Nowadays, this kind of tests is going by the name of the national tests, which was introduced in the year of 1994. When the Swedish National Agency for Education received the assignment to develop new purposes and national tests to the third grade students, debate took a bounce. The matter was well discussed; national tests in third grade or not?The national tests thus far carried out four rounds in the third grade and the purpose of my study was to find out how teachers are reasoning about the tests.

Purpose: This study`s purpose is to investigate the role of a business incubator in the strategic decision situations during the process of a new venture startup. It also aims to explore the methods and instruments the incubator and its advisers applies during the process.Methodology: This study is built on the basis of a hermeneutic approach with qualitative method and abductive design. The empirical material collected consist of interviews from two case studies and secondary data collection from different related sources.Theoretical perspective: The theory in the study consists of the elements of previous research on innovation processes and entrepreneurship. To analyze the data, models and theories related to decision making, incubation, process theories and organizational theories.Empirical foundation: The empirical material consists of interviews and data from two completed case studies. Additionally consist a relatively large part of the empirical data out of a comprehensive information retrieval from various secondary sources such as internet, newsletters and annual reports.Conclusion: The assay was able to detect not just one, but a variety of roles that the incubator occupies at different stages of the innovation process.

This Master of Science thesis is conducted at the faculty Integrated Product Development at theRoyal Institute of Technology and in cooperation with EssNet Interactive AB, both situated inStockholm. In the report the final results and the road to get there is described as well as thedesign process and how the process is used to obtain the goal of this thesis.The author of this thesis has developed the design and the function of an interactive videoterminal (IVT) and by using semantics created an encouraging gaming design. The projectspurpose was to change the anonymous withheld shape and produce an experience of gamingmachine that has been absent. The work was aimed to answer the question: How does oneproceed to develop the IVT and by using semantics creating an understanding of gamingmachine?In general the author wants to show that small changes, with the help of design and its signals,can completely change the overall picture of a product.

The purpose of this thesis was to increase the understanding and discuss safety aspects in two stairwells on Nyforsgatan in Eskilstuna, where the buildings were built during the years 1965-1975. I have presented a proposal for improvement through lighting. I have through different methods, such as surveys, interviews, literature studies and observations, come to a conclusion: that there are opportunities for improvement through better lighting that allows orientation in space and creates a nice atmosphere which will remove the feeling of not being safe, e.g. dark corners and shadows. It has been an exciting process to gather enough of facts to rely on and to develop the lighting design for the environments.

Föreliggande studie omfattar sättningsberäkningar med den senaste kommersiella versionen av datorprogrammet FEM-Design 12, utvecklat i samverkan mellan konstruktörer och geotekniker. Programmet är en uppföljare till den tidigare versionen FEM-Design 11 och även en förbättring av den betaversion 12, som fanns tillgänglig och under utveckling fram tills att den första kommersiella versionen av FEM-Design 12 lanserades under hösten 2013. Tidigare studier har gjorts av en Betaversion 12 i form av ett examensarbete, där jorden modellerades med volymelement, enligt kontinuumsmekanik. Resultaten i studien påvisade en stor procentuell sättningsdifferens (22 %) jämfört med sättningsberäkningar i det geotekniska programmet PLAXIS. Denna procentuella skillnad kan antingen bero på att själva byggnaden inte kan modelleras i PLAXIS och därmed inte kunde beaktas i beräkningarna, eller att det fanns brister i betaversionen FEM-Design 12, vilka gjorde att resultaten som uppvisades inte var rättvisande. I denna naturliga fortsättning har nya beräkningar gjorts med hjälp av den senaste kommersiella versionen av FEM-Design 12 för att validera sättningarna i en ny pilotstudie och undersöka om rimliga resultat erhålls. Som en del av denna jämförelse och värdering har även sättningsberäkningar för hand utförts. Interaktionen mellan FEM-Design och användarna har granskats för att se hur brukarna upplever den nya versionen samt om programmet uppfyller de mål som formulerades i samband med utvecklingsarbetet. Tre olika projekt har modellerats i FEM-Design 12 där jorden beskrivs med finita element (volymelement)..

This comparative case study, which is based on a most similar system design,investigates why the Chávez government has attained a lower degree of democracy than the Kirchner and the Lula governments. In order to develop asupplementary theory about why governments in general achieve various degrees of democracy I compare these governments and examine what policies that differ them and why. My results show that these governments? policies differ concerning the rule of law, militarization, and negotiations with economic groups and anti-regime parts of civil society. I have found numerous answers to why some of these governments (and governments in general) have democratic policies within these four areas and why some do not.

The water company MittSverige Vatten (?MidSweden Water?) located in the Medelpad, Sweden was in need of a moreexclusive water carafe for restaurants and conference in the region. Current design solution was not able to cope with thedemand of a more exclusive setting and was not promoting the company in a good way. In the beginning of the projectit became clear thru an intense interview period that there was at least three directions for design solutions the companycould go for.? A carafe (exclusive settings)? A pitcher (conference and lunch servings)? A water dispenser type (serving of larger amounts of water during a certain brief periods of time.)It was decided to go for the exclusive one.Small pieces of rock from the last ice age turned out to be a vital component of the new design concept for the company..

This project was conducted during the spring semester 2013 at mechanical engineering program at University Halmstad. The project was conducted in collaboration with MPQ Consulting in Halmstad. MPQ Consulting is a newly established company looking to take step into the product development world. The company has already had ideas and existing products. One of the ideas is to construct and design a form of beach games whose rules are based on the volleyball rules.

The purpose of this thesis is to describe what Building Information Modeling, BIM, could mean for landscape architects, and also hopefully to make sense of the possibilities and problems of the system. BIM is about virtual design and is based on all consultancy groups in the design team modeling in 3D. Intelligent objects and metadata, such as price and material, are used. The project group has a common interchange format for simple sharing of information. To get an idea of how the situation with BIM for landscape architects looks like today, I collected information mostly through interviews.

Examensarbetet har gått ut på att genom kvalitativa undersökningar ta reda på hur grafisk form ochinformationsstruktur samverkar för att skapa användarcentrerade webbplatser. Målet var att ta fram en grund för huranvändarcentrerade webbplatser bör byggas. Denna grund är tänkt att fungera som riktlinjer för formgivare som villskapa användarcentrerad webbdesign.Studien visar att det viktigaste för att skapa användarcentrerad webbdesign är att involvera användarna kontinuerligti utvecklingsprocessen. Detta sker genom användartester och intervjuer med representanter för målgruppen. Vi harkommit fram till att graden av användbarhet spelar stor roll för hur målgruppen uppfattar webbplatsen som sådan,men också vilken uppfattning de får om företaget bakom..

Futurum.kom is a collaborative marketing project with the aim of strengthening the internal organization of Länsbibliotek Sydost, Regionbibliotek Kalmar and the 25 public libraries within the southeast region. The project intends to externally build the brands of the public libraries in Blekinge, Kalmar and Kronobergs län. This thesis is a study and evaluation of the implementation and results of Futurum.kom?s first campaign "Låna dig rik" at a public library. The analysis is based on the following issues:? What goals does the library have with the "Låna dig rik"-campaign.? What is the feedback from the staff's experience of the users in terms of needs and demands?? In which way does the library choose to implement the marketing campaign and what role do the users have in this process?? What is the internal performance of the library's marketing campaign, what was the experience of the staff of the campaign?? What is the external result of the library's marketing campaign?The method is based on a case study of a single library, with a series of interviews and document analysis of written and electronic documents.

In a time of economic turmoil and financial crisis profitability matters rise higher and higher on company agendas. Many companies are pressured to find profitability to avoid layoffs or even bankruptcy. Profitability essentially depends on the margin on the product or service sold and the costs associated with selling these products or services and hence these areas are of vital importance if companies are to improve profitability. Previous research has focused, for the most part, on product profitability while customer profitability has received less attention. This study is based on a case study of a Swedish publishing house and aims to investigate how the company?s Cost-to-Serve varies between its distribution channels.

As the contemporary discourse surrounding urbanism is almost exclusively focusing on aspects of density and traditional urban qualities, it entrenches notions of what constitutes a proper city and countryside. But beyond this urban-rural dichotomy is another highly contemporary landscape. A territory usually mentioned as sprawl, peri-urban, wasteland, edge city, etc. Although its existence is due to mobilization, telecommunications, globalization and other phenomena of modern life, it is a landscape without an own name or place in public awareness.This thesis provides a case study of how to map and intervene in such a landscape, specifically along the border between Malmö and Burlöv municipalities in southern Sweden. Its structure is composed of a sequence of three parts:1 Spatial Conditions:Divided up in the sections Network, Fringe and Void.

This study aspires to find an answer to what makes a negotiation for peace successful. In our pursue to do so we have chosen two cases to compare with each other through a set of different theories. The theories we believed could be relevant were ripeness/readiness, asymmetry, the strategies of mediation, intra-state conflicts and personal actors.The case-study consists of two negotiations that both took place in Camp David. The first one was between Egypt and Israel, 1978, and serves as the example of a successful negotiation. The second case was, again, with Israel but the counterpart was Palestine and took place in year 2000.

AbstractWork to develop the Eurocodes started in 1975 by the European Commission adopted a program to eliminate trade barriers within the construction area. The goal was to create common European design standards that would replace the member countries' own rules. Eurocodes will replace The National Board of Housing Building and Planning, National Rail, The National Road Administration and other agencies' calculation rules for the buildings structures. The transition to the use of Eurocodes looks like this:Eurocodes set to Swedish standards  between 2002 ? 2007They can be used parallel with national standards 2006 - 2009 The total transition is at the end of 2010/2011.Right now is going on a lot of work for replacement of the existing standards to Eurocodes.  The transition to the new calculations` standards, many construction companies and consulting firms facing a big changes and competitions.