The energy sector is facing an impending paradigm shift. Today?s technology enables the end-user to generate their own energy locally at home. Furthermore, recently developed storage technologies make it possible to balance energy demand with stored energy and integrate district heating with the local power grid. This means that in the future heat and electric power will interact and energy flows is converted over energy boundaries.

Purpose/Aim: The purpose of this study is to examine how the advertisements of houses in the newspaper of Dagens Nyheter, have developed in layout, by text and image, during the last fifty years and to examine what part of the home is highlighted, as evident values of lifestyle.Material/Method: By examining twenty advertisements from the newspapers every decade during the period of 1958-2008, the layout and lifestyle will be described and analyzed by a quantative and qualitive (discourse) method.Main results: The advertisements has changed in many ways. The layout has drastically developed to a more personal layout of the estate agents and the trends of lifestyle have had an impact on how the agents have created the text in the advertisments to entice customers..

This project has been about illustration, text and format with illustration as the main communication path.A study has been made of how these three elements interact, particularly how text and format affect the illustrations. The goal has been to create an illustrated story in a form of a book. The story is about the feeling of being alienated from other people and invites the reader to make their own interpretations. The main target audience has been the ones who is interested in illustration and storytelling, no matter of age.Colors has been inspired from animated movies and the natur. Various textures such as wood, fabric and metal for example has been scanned to create a rough feeling.

This report is a joint venture with SCA Skog AB in the Jämtland forest management area. The company is a major player in the timber market in northern Sweden, and also a large business globally with offices in over 100 countries. The purpose of the study was to find out how timber suppliers want feedback/follow-up after completion of timber business. To determine this, a questionnaire survey was sent out to 75 landowners who supplied the wood for the company during the past year. The questionnaire consisted of a total of 15 questions with the opportunity to comment on certain issues.

The aim of this project was to create an interior design for a children?s hospital patient room with the concept to adapt the room for the wide target group from 0-18 years of age. The analysis in the project is based on the hospital ward 322 at Drottning Silvias Children?s and Youth Hospital in Gothenburg. It?s an oncology ward where the children are very sensitive for infections and therefore need to be isolated in their rooms for 3-4 weeks.The main goal for the project was to create a room that works as a template and gives the people who lives in it the opportunity to create thier own room based on the personal things they bring into it, and how they decide to furnish and use the room.The result of the project is a template room with fixed furniture that can be transformed due to screens in the room.

The report is a project in cooperation with the Swedish toy company Playsam. The assignment was to design a new toy to their range of products, a pull along toy in shape of a snail with a mechanical function. The research phase contains studies and analysis of the company, its identity, product range and its customers. The research phase includes all the information needed to complete the project. A number of concepts were presented for evaluation by the company.

Since the middle of the 1980´s the Swedish bank market has experienced a change concerning structure and pressure of competition. Before the year 1985, the market was characterized as a market with few operators but have changed to a market with many operators and seen as one of the most intense in Europe where the four major banks; Nordea, Handelsbanken, SEB and Föreningssparbanken together have a strong position. Their market share has recently decreased, mostly for the benefit of foreign banks and niche banks. The Swedish market has experienced difficulties in generating profits which mostly depends on new establishments that have increased the pressure on competition, a low growth as well as weakened customer relations. The development has resulted in a growing importance of market segmentation, mainly by the fact that costumers have become more disloyal as a result of the increased competition.Students are a market segment of interest for the financial market, mainly because of the expectations of their positive financial situation in the future.

The essay describes the bachelor project by Marie Hanås, in collaboration with Skälsö Arkitekter. Skälsö Arkitekter are currently developing an area in the north of Gotland, Bungenäs; previously home to lime stone quarries and military bases.The brief was to design a set of outdoor furniture to complement the new development. The main effort of the project was in designing furniture that would fit the environment visually but construction issues were a major secondary concern, to ensure the easiest possible manufacturing. A reference group of coastal house owners were interviewed, and their feedback, together with an analysis of functions, trends and target groups, were the base for the ideas.Of the five concepts presented, Skälsö Arkitekter chose one to develop further. This was done through sketches, models and 3D models and led to the final result which is lightweight furniture of Gotlandic pine wood with an industrial touch.

The name of the study means ?The short arm - a study in diversity and arm?s length in the cultural collaboration model?. Right now there is a reform in the Swedish cultural administration where the responsibility for handing out state funds and grants to cultural organizations is changing from the state government to the local regional governments. The purpose of this study is to map the organisational changes caused by the reform and investigate how this affects the regional policies concerning cultural diversity and the arm?s length principle.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine whether Swedish, Internet-based travel agencies, acting on a consumer market are working towards creating added value for their customers. If that is the case, how and why do they use such a mode of operation.The theoretical framework was based on Grönroos´ ?Augmented service offering?, which treats added value as an addition to the core service. The services offered on five of the larger companies´ websites on the market were examined and 3 representatives of the five companies were interviewed.The study shows that 2 of the examined companies did not produce any added value, while 3 of the companies did produce added value for the customer. The added value was generated through packaging of core-, facilitating- and supporting services for the purpose of differentiating the company towards competitors and generating service fees..

As the usage of loyalty programs increases, this study takes a new approach to examine how these programs influence consumers? attitudes toward brands. This paper is influenced by the recent findings that question the capability to create a clear picture of the effects of loyalty programs by conducting quantitative research. This is based of the differentiation between attitudes and actions, leading to the fact that quantitative research have only captured the actions of members of loyalty programs. In contrast to that, this paper uses qualitative interviews to create a more in-depth point of view.The paper immerses the reader in the theoretical viewings of what loyalty is and how it emerges from satisfaction.

The increasing administration in IT-systems is the target of much debate today. It is viewed as taking time from what is considered to be managers? real tasks as well as resulting in an ineffective and stressful work environment. This view of IT-systems as problematic and time consuming can also been found among unit managers in a municipality in the north of Sweden. To be able to understand why IT-systems are perceived in this way this study?s aim has been to find what leads to this view.

Leaders in modern working life are confronted with frequent use of temporary groups. The purpose of this study was to examine possible reasons for swift trust towards leaders in temporary groups. The target group of the study was school employees. An opinion poll was carried out in the occupational group (n = 35) which made it possible to make statistical comparisons. The result showed that the following aspects were important for the development of swift trust in leaders: personal attributes, image related attributes, competence and experience, leadership and also social competence.

How does the weather protection systems look like today, and how will they be developed in the future? These are questions that we have worked with during this project. At the start of our report there?s a summary of the leading weather protection manufacturers in Sweden. We have explained how these systems are constructed and how they work.

Facebook has over 665 million users worldwide and has created a new venue for companies to interact with their stakeholders. However, since it is a new phenomenon it brings some uncertainty and confusion as how to manage the communication on Facebook, and it is only recently that research and literature has become available on this topic.The purpose of this study is to investigate how three chosen companies within the travel industry communicate on Facebook. We also compare the results to the existing literature to see how they can improve from a theoretical point of view. We thereby hope to shed a light on, and add knowledge to, a research area where we have identified weaknesses. In order to fulfill our purpose, we used a quantitative content analysis as well as qualitative interviews.The major findings in our study on Facebook communication include a lack of strategy and target audience awareness, as well as a self-centered communication.