In many products a compromise between ground clearance and the required space to store the product has to be made. This problem attracted the attention of the authors of this thesis.The objective of this project is to develop a functioning solution to a foldable wheel. The solution should be applicable to several types of product groups. A limitation for this work has been made so that the work only covers solutions for lighter vehicles.The purpose is to drive this project forward, so that a solution can be found. Furthermore the purpose of the report is to clarify how the authors proceeded to design and construct the wheel according to a fixed specification.

The purpose of this study is to investigate what knowledge children in preschool have about recycling, and to examine how teachers work with environmental efforts to increase children's understanding of environment and sustainable development. And if there is differs between the two preschool classes, one of which has a environmental profile. The study is based on qualitative semi-structured interview methods of teachers and children, and observation of the children during a sorting exercise with a number of garbage objects. The result shows that teachers in the environment profiled preschool spend more time per week on work related to environmental and natural issues and worked more thematic. Similarity between this preschool classes is that the use of outdoor education to get into environmental awareness.

Aqeri has since the past year a new profile with name and logotype, which has createda need for an updated visual product identity. The company is a leading developer,producer and distributer of IT products suitable for extreme environments in industry,defense and vehicles. This new profile with the different segments has together with aproduct identity from two companies resulted in that they have no clear designidentity on their products. From this background the aim of this research is todetermine how a development of a design identity is done to implement it to Aqeri.The design identity can be defined as a product?s identity visualized through its formor appearance which defines what the product is.

Research has concluded that meaningless differentiation with trivial attributes sometimes can be a successful strategy. However, the effect varies with respect to certain aspects such as the price of the product and the decision context. How the characteristics of the consumer influence the effect of trivial attributes has until now been unknown. This thesis investigates how the consumer?s level of knowledge and personal involvement influence the effects of trivial attributes on product preferences and product attitudes.

The environment has become an important part in people´s lives, and in today´s society stakeholders demands have increased upon companies when it comes to sustainability reports. How these sustainability reports are designed depends on whom it?s for, laws and regulations, and the companies own norms and values. The purpose of sustainability reports is to measure, monitor and compare a company´s enviromental impact. It?s not only about integrating economics, but also enviromental and social standards together to get both financial and competitive advantages.Sustainable Value method is a new model and is the first real method that can be used to evaluate a company´s resources, both financial, social and enviromental to a sustainable value.This model is used to compare the resource efficiency between companies.In this thesis, a documentary study with an experimental approach has been made.Sustainability reports from six selected companies (in the engineering and forestry sector) have been investigated with respect to their accounting for carbon dioxide, and an experiment using the method ?Sustainable Value Approach? was subsequently performed.

Background: Pesticides in conventional food may be related to morbidity and mortality. Furthermore pesticides have a negative impact on the whole ecosystem. Organic food can presume better health as they contain less chemicals and toxins and contribute to sustainable development efforts.Objective: The aim was to examine what attitudes consumers have regarding to purchase organic fruit, vegetables and root vegetables.Methods: The association between consumers? views on conventional food and organic food was investigated using questionnaire given to a population sample of men and women aged by 23-65 (N=60) in grocery stores and in a fitness center. The study was based on a cross-sectional study in a municipality in central Sweden.Results: Consumers were interested to buy organic food.

Due to an increasing global market with a growing competition and an escalating technologydevelopment the demands on companies today are increasing. To maximise the output fromtheir recourses they need to be more efficient. The research on product development and how toensure the efficiencies in the process are extensive and companies could by adapting andimplementing the result of this research use its benefits.This master thesis is made for Knightec AB with the aims that through interviews anddiscussions with three companies investigate, collate, justify and give proposals for productdevelopment process together with supporting methods and procedures for technical projectmanagement. Besides Knightec AB three other companies located in Sweden has beenparticipating in this study. Through semi structured interviews and discussions in focus groupsinformation from the three involved companies were obtained.

User friendly and usable are two words that are often mentioned in the context of marketing new products. By doing so it adds an extra sense of quality to the product. The meaning of these words is therefore something that every product wants. But what is it that makes a product usable and user friendly? What methodology exists formaking sure that a product is usable? Does it exist applicable processes to ensure user centered development? These questions together with a practical example are parts of what will be addressed in this report.The thesis was carried out for C2 Management, a company that works with supporting other companies in their work with quality and constant improvements.

This case study has been conducted within the Swedish fitness chain World Class to explore the opportunities for knowledge development and transfers within franchise networks. We have interviewed the product manager at the World Class headquarter, the owner of a franchise club and a local product manager from the same facility. Our finding indicates that various forms of knowledge transfer occur within the World Class network, particularly in product development and sales. The transfer occurs within the framework set by World Class with regularly scheduled meetings. In addition informal networks provide other means of knowledge exchange between some units.

In today's producing companies, there is a high demand on early integrated productdevelopment. One way to facilitate communication between departments and collaborationbetween people and thereby enable early sharing of product information within the companyis to use PLM, Product Lifecycle Management.The CAD environment at Scania is at the moment being upgraded from Catia v4 to Catiav5. In this stage it is important that also the interacting computer systems in Scania?s PLMenvironment are adjusted and in the future join the development. Scania has an idea of howthese systems will be developed as the transition from Catia v4 to Catia v5 is being carriedout.

My thesis is a combination of theory and practice, where theory is meant to create a context and a background for my interpretation proposal. I wanted to ?access? the ideas that are always in the background of the reasoning which underlies both planning in a larger scale, and the design of a place. I wanted to make a ?work of ideas.? In the process of shaping the proposal, I wanted to be deleted from the site itself.

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.

This essay deals with the principle of surprise warfare and its development as well as the adaptation of military action that had to be made to surprise the opponent in the modern era.The concept of surprise is divided into its components in order to clarify what is required to implement a surprising maneuver, to understand the complex concept and form a theoretical framework for gathering facts in the case study.Development and adaption are demonstrated by a comparative case study where Pearl Harbor illustrates an example of historical surprise and Operation Desert Storm illustrates a modern surprise. The product will then be analyzed in order to detect the development and how military conduct is forced to adapt in order to carry out a surprising maneuver. The results shows that the military action of performing a surprise attack has had a major development and is now carried out in a different stage of the attack..

AbstractAt the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992 the nations stated that traditional environmental policies were not sufficient to handle the multidimensional challenges posed by sustainable development. Governments needed to broaden their political decision making procedures in order to coordinate and integrate environmental, social and economic policies. Therefore a new tool was introduced in Agenda 21, National Strategies for Sustainable Development (NSDS). The aim of an NSDS would be to bring together actors from all parts of society to jointly reach a consensus on how to work towards the vision of a sustainable society. An NSDS would be seen as a strategic tool to help focus national policies for SD.

This thesis examines the ongoing European political debate on the links between livestock production and climate change. In the end of 2006 the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) released their report Livestock?s long shadow, showing that livestock production represents some 18 % of the total global greenhouse gas emissions. The purpose of this paper is to explore the European Commission?s position and response to this question since the release of the report.Using Arne Naess? argumentation analysis, statements made by the Commission will be systematically organized and broken apart.