An increasing number of automotive supplier companies are investing in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in order to gain cost advantages. This has happened in a rapid pace since many of these countries did not have any foreign direct investments (FDI) at the turn of the century. The problem now is for how long these countries will be able to maintain the low costs. One purpose was to create a model of country advantages for automotive supplier companies when relocating further production to CEE. This dissertation was written in cooperation with the Trelleborg Group.

In recent years, the penetration of new players on the telecom market hasdrastically increased the work pace, affecting both design and production. Inthis report the technical and economical potential of a DC/DC converterplatform is investigated, in order to shorten the time of the design process.This is done in comparison with the present discrete type designs. PowerIntegrations offers a product, the DPA-Switch?, enabling this.By developing a wide DC/DC converter platform based on the DPA-Switch?,many advantages are gained. The component count is decreased by up to48 % and the yield increases by up to 2.9 % which in all yields a costreduction by up to 43 % or ?390 000 for 100 000 manufactured units.

The ability to tackle NP-hard problems has been greatly extended by the introduction of Metaheuristics (see Blum & Roli (2003)) for a summary of most Metaheuristics, general problem-independent optimisation algorithms extending the hill-climbing local search approach to escape local minima. One of these algorithms is Iterated Local Search (ILS) (Lourenco et al., 2002; Stützle, 1999a, p. 25ff), a recent easy to implement but powerful algorithm with results comparable or superior to other state-of-the-art methods for many combinatorial optimisation problems, among them the Traveling Salesman (TSP) and Quadratic Assignment Problem (QAP). ILS iteratively samples local minima by modifying the current local minimum and restartinga local search porcedure on this modified solution. This thesis will show how ILS can be implemented for MSA.

Title: What drives the customer's choice of packaging and which factors influence the customer's packaging cost? ? in the automotive and manufacturing industriesAuthor: Lena AnderssonSupervisors: Annika Olsson, Division of Packaging Logistics, Lund Institute of TechnologyHelena Claesson, Volvo Logistics ABProblem: Which parameters are important for logistic people to think of when they are going to choose a package?Which cost factors are included in the packaging cost?What kind of added value can an emballage supplier provide their services with?Purpose: The purpose of the project was to study the parameters that drives the customer's choice of packaging and the factors that influence the total packaging cost. The study also consists of a valuation of what an emballage supplier can offer to add value to their services.Method: The study is based on interviews with people who are working at Volvo Logistics and Volvo Car Corporation. Volvo Logistics provide their customers with standard packaging material, which they own and administrate. Volvo Car Corporation is one of their customers.

Good business relations can contribute to the success of IT-outsourcing, and create new business opportunities. Despite a sharply increasing trend to outsource IT-operations there is a high degree of failures related. The cause may be that some important factors have not been taken into account. The purpose is to investigate elationships within IT-outsourcing and test if specific factors identified by previous research are being concerned in IT-outsourcing relationships and also to investigate the view IT-outsourcing customers and suppliers have on business. Research shows that business relationships are widespread throughout companies. It demonstrated that a small number of business relationships can have a major impact on a company's financial performance and may create stability. Business relationships can be divided into an arm's length relationships and strategic alliances depending on the degree of involvement.

Påståendet om att ju längre ett förhållande fortgår, desto bättre lär individerna i relationen känna varandra, är ett logiskt antagande. Forskning visar att vissa personlighetsegenskaper är mer önskvärda än andra hos en potentiell partner och att dessa egenskaper och attribut skiljer sig beroende på om ett par känt varandra lång eller kort tid. En enkätstudie genomfördes bland trettiotre par. Deltagarna uppmanades att skatta självbild, jagideal, partnerbild samt partnerideal genom att rangordna 15 personlighetsegenskaper. Resultatet visade att individer tenderar att känna sin partner sämre i förhållanden som varat i fem till nio år i jämförelse med par som varit tillsammans kortare eller längre.

Studiens syfte var att skildra anhörigas individuella upplevelser av att vårda sin partner på äldre dar. Teman som berördes var upplevelser kring hur situationen uppkommit, relationen, vardagen, stöd och den egna hälsan. Metoden var kvalitativ med en fenomenologisk ansats. För att besvara frågeställningarna intervjuades fyra personer, tre kvinnor och en man. De anhöriga var vid tidpunkten av deras partners insjuknande pensionerade.

Introduction: Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a great public health issue that can cause serious physical, psychological and psychosomatic injuries to the woman. Education is one out of many important protective factors against IPV. Aim: This study aimed to investigate the association between women?s educational level and IPV in low- and middle-income countries, the interaction between the education of the woman and the man and IPV, how education on different levels (individual-, family- and community-level) influences IPV and how gender is connected to education and IPV. Method: A literature-based study with 12 selected scientific articles as the foundation for the analysis was performed.

Jag har genomfört en undersökning av två ungdomsromaner, Det händer nu och Regn och åska, där huvudtemat är icke-heterosexuell kärlek. Min metod kommer från den systematiska funktionella grammatiken, och jag har valt att undersöka processer och presuppositioner. I processanalysen tittade jag på de kapitel där personerna interagerar sexuellt och/eller för relationen framåt, och då på de processer där någon av dem alternativt båda är förstadeltagare. När någon av dem, båda eller fragment av dem är andradeltagare har jag även tagit med andradeltagarna i resultatet för att se om de utsätter varandra för olika handlingar. I analysen av presuppositionerna har jag tittat på de presuppositioner som säger något om inställningen till huvudpersonen och dess partners kärleksrelation.

I Sverige är det i dag ungefär 140 000 personer som har diagnosen demenssjukdom och därför klassas demens som en folksjukdom. Många av dem som insjuknar vårdas i hemmet av en anhörig, vilket innebär en stor omställning för den anhörige som ofrivilligt tvingas in i en ny livsvärld där även en vårdarroll ingår. Att vara anhörig till en demenssjuk partner innebär ofta att den anhörige också blir påverkad både på det psykiska och fysiska planet. För att den anhörige ska kunna upprätthålla sin hälsa i den förändrade livsvärlden krävs det att sjuksköterskan lyssnar till den anhöriges behov utan att lägga in egna värderingar för att på så vis kunna sätta sig in i den anhöriges situation. Syftet är att genom analys av biografier beskriva makars upplevelse av sin förändrade livssituation då partnern insjuknat i en demenssjukdom.

Purpose: To assess awareness and attitudes regarding HPV, HPV-vaccines, use of condom and participation in pap-smear screening among high-school students in Uppsala County. The intention was also to investigate if there were any differences between students at theoretical programmes and vocational programmes.Methods: 608 students from seven high-schools in Uppsala County answered a questionnaire covering demographics, awareness and attitudes regarding HPV, HPV-vaccine, use of condoms and pap-smear tests.Results: A majority of the students had never heard of HPV (86 %, n=521), HPV-vaccine (94 %, n=537) or the link between HPV and cervical cancer (88 %, n=563). Most respondents had a positive attitude towards HPV-vaccine (84 %, n=508), but the biggest obstacle was the high cost (37 %, n=227). The students believed that it was less likely that they would use a condom with a new partner if vaccinated (mean=78, SD=26, p<0.001), or if they or their partner used contraceptive pills (mean=62, SD=32, p<0.001) compared to how likely it was that they would use a condom in general with a new partner. The girls rated the probability that they would participate in a pap-smear screening as relatively low if vaccinated (mean=59 SD=27).

Syftet med denna litteraturstudie är att sammanställa litteratur angående informationsbehovet hos kvinnor med gynekologisk cancer och deras partner. Den systematiska litteraturstudien är baserad på SBU:s (1993) sju steg för systematiska litteraturstudier. Databaserna som användes för litteratursökningarna var CINAHL, PubMed och The Cochrane Library. Tio vetenskapliga studier med kvalitativa och kvantitativa metoder inkluderades i litteraturstudien. Resultatet av denna systematiska litteraturstudie visade på att kvinnor med gynekologisk cancer var i behov av information kring behandling, utkomst av sjukdomen, psykiska och fysiska effekter av behandling.

The aim of the study was to examine prerequisites for the changes that are taking place within working with Intimate Partner Violence in Va?stra Hisingen (a municipal district in Gothenburg, Sweden). My research questions concerned incentives for the new features, their practical consequences and prerequisites for implementation. The study has been performed by three focus group interviews with different parts of the organization represented. The work material has then been analyzed using Implementation Theory, Human Service Organization Theory and theories on breaking up.

Background: Traditionally defined boundaries and borders between organizations are at present being re-evaluated because of new and tougher demands. Today we can see a trend where these boundaries are being lowered or even eliminated when organizations choose to co-operate instead of compete. Purpose: In order to create an understanding for the partner selection process in the newly founded joint ventures between the companies which are building the Swedish 3G Network, the determining factors are being studied. Delimitation: The studies companies are co-operating as network operators but are at the same time competing as mobile operators. This relationship is in the literature described as co-opetition, which will not be investigated in this paper.

First objective: To bring forward managers? perceptions of the underserved consumers in emerging markets. Second objective: To reveal what implications managers? perceptions of underserved consumers in emerging markets provide for branding in these markets. Our study indicates that managers? perceptions are still lacking consumer insights within five elements (value, loyalty, purchasing power, consumers and consumption).