This thesis is about university spin-offs and the competition in high technology industries. In the light of efforts to increase the competitiveness of the European Union, an effective transfer of cutting edge technology from universities to the industry plays an important role. University spin-offs, start-ups founded to exploit academic inventions, are likely to face considerable market entry barriers. This is among other reasons due to high capital requirements for further technology development and lack of complementary resources. With a combination of relevant literature and empirical investigation, commercialisation of technologies within spin-offs is investigated and analysed.

This qualitative case study, made with four companies, looks closer at how more effective information management, with the help of IT-systems, affect companies market communication and relations to customers and suppliers. Customer Relationship Management perspective is used and Enterprise Resource Planning-systems are the ground for new technology change. The main conclusions are that new technology affects the outcome of companies? relationships towards their customers and suppliers and that the processes and activities between the involved parties are more closely linked. Also involving your suppliers and external actors makes the information handling more effective and companies that do so most likely have a competitive advantage..

The purpose of this study was to examine and compare what six preschool teachers thought about their opportunities to take advantage of children's interest in natural sciences and technology, across four kindergartens. The following questions were explored in order to achieve the aim of the study: How do the preschool teachers interviewed describe their work with science and technology in the preschool and what these preschool teachers think about the meaning of motivation in the children?s learning of natural sciences and technology in preschool.  The study used a qualitative approach in the form of semi-structured interviews and interviewed a total of six trained pre-school teachers from four kindergartens with different profiles. The first kindergarten focuses on mathematics, science and technology.

Information technology inflicts upon us in our everyday life. It is a natural part of our work and of our spare time. The education system is not excluded from this development, IT is becoming an important part of education at all levels. In university, learning platforms is one of these new ways of using IT in education. Learning platforms becomes a valuable tool for teachers and students.

Internet and information technology today has a rather obvious role in the activities of companies and organizations. All cash transactions within and between companies is digitized, communication within the company is done via e-mail, sales and marketing is done largely with marketing and ads on the Internet. This has resulted in economic benefits for companies and organizations, and facilitated the work for them. However, this has also led to new threats have emerged. Companies and organizations is well aware that there are numerous threats that comes with using the Internet and Information Technologies but exactly what those threats are for a mid-sized company in Sweden is not clarified anywhere.

This essay is a study of the use of IT technology by teachers of English and History at a Swedish upper secondary school. It is based on four interviews and four observations. In my analysis of these I have made use of the theory of Social Shaping of technology, a theory which puts emphasis on a teacher´s purpose regarding the use of IT technology in order to empower the teaching process. As a researcher I aim to explore the reasoning on the part of the teacher and to that end I use the method of interviews and observations. This study shows different ways of using IT technology varying from one teacher to another.

Globally, coastal ecosystems like mangrove forests, sea grass meadows and salt marshes are well known for their ability to capture and store atmospheric carbon effectively. In Sweden, there is still limited knowledge about local coastal ecosystems with similar functions, with alder swamp forests being an interesting example. Therefore, this study aimed to increase knowledge of the factors that can contribute to the potential carbon sequestering ability of alder swamps. Vegetation data and sediment samples were collected from a total of 37 sampling plots across four alder swamps in Bohusl?n on the Swedish west coast.

The Smart Grid technology has during the last decade been established as a way to create a greater flexibility on the electricity grid that will be needed as the development moves towards an increased share of renewable primary energy sources in the electricity production. One part of the Smart Grid technology is the ability to shift loads in time, to adapt to either price or emissions, known as Demand Response. This project, which was conducted at KTH in collaboration with the consulting corporation Capgemini, examines the economic, environmental and social aspects of the Demand Response technology. In the project, three household products are used in a model that derives the potential savings in costs and emissions of CO2e. The results show that the actual savings measured in SEK are small, but that the savings measured in percent can be as high as 20 percent. Reduction of CO2e emissions is slightly lower.

This thesis aimed to study the interaction between an educational technology system and its users and give suggestions for design improvements. The technology system is called EDIT (Educational Development through Information Technology) and has been developed and applied at Linköping University?s Faculty of Health Science. EDIT supports Problem Based Learning and enables scenarios to be presented through the World Wide Web. The study was divided into two parts.

Syftet med denna studie är att uppmärksamma attityder till Teknik hos förskollärare, lärare, skolledare och näringslivsrepresentanter och försöka ta reda på tänkbara orsaker bakom dessa attityder för att se möjligheter och svårigheter i arbetet med ämnet. Den forskningsfråga jag kommer att försöka besvara lyder: ? Hur ser några ?tidigarelärare? förskollärare och representanter från näringslivet på barns tidiga möten med Teknik? De empiriska data som studien bygger på kommer från 83 enkäter och 2 intervjuer. Enkäterna besvarades av 28 förskollärare, 30 lärare och 25 anställda i näringslivet. Intervjuerna hölls med en person ur ledningen på ett större företag och en skolledare.

Användaracceptans är en viktig del i alla systemutvecklingsprojekt och är också en väldigt lättpåverkad variabel för en lyckad implementering. Därför är det viktigt att ha översikt på sådana faktorer som kan påverka användaracceptansen negativt, en sådan faktor är försening. Denna uppsats belyser sammanhanget mellan hur en försening påverkar användaracceptansen. Genom att låta en undersökningsgrupp genomgå en enkät utformad efter Technology Acceptance Model har jag samlat upp en generaliserad åsikt. Resultaten visar att försening som variabel inte påverkar användaracceptansen för fallstudien..

The Smart Grid technology has during the last decade been established as a way to create a greater flexibility on the electricity grid that will be needed as the development moves towards an increased share of renewable primary energy sources in the electricity production. One part of the Smart Grid technology is the ability to shift loads in time, to adapt to either price or emissions, known as Demand Response. This project, which was conducted at KTH in collaboration with the consulting corporation Capgemini, examines the economic, environmental and social aspects of the Demand Response technology. In the project, three household products are used in a model that derives the potential savings in costs and emissions of CO2e. The results show that the actual savings measured in SEK are small, but that the savings measured in percent can be as high as 20 percent. Reduction of CO2e emissions is slightly lower.

Coastal sediments are important carbon sinks, storing organic matter and thereby helping to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. However, they can also act as carbon sources if the deposited organic matter decomposes rapidly, contributing to increased greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. Rapid decomposition partly depends on the degradability of the material itself. In this literature review, I examine which coastal plant species dominate different locations along the Swedish coast, based on coverage data from the ClimScape project (www.climscape.se). For the most dominant species, I investigated the type of organic matter they may contribute to the sediments and based on those results I qualitatively assessed which sites that may function as carbon sinks or sources.

Organic Light Emitting Displays (OLEDs) are a new type of thin emissive displays predicted to possess superior properties to existing techniques e.g. Liquid Crystal Display (LCD). The main advantages are low power consumption and a thin display structure. This report contains an explanation of the emissive OLED technology, its functionality and the physics of the organic layer structure in an OLED. The technology is described with respect to the two classes of organic materials used in displays, small molecules and conjugated polymers.

The Smart Grid technology has during the last decade been established as a way to create a greater flexibility on the electricity grid that will be needed as the development moves towards an increased share of renewable primary energy sources in the electricity production. One part of the Smart Grid technology is the ability to shift loads in time, to adapt to either price or emissions, known as Demand Response. This project, which was conducted at KTH in collaboration with the consulting corporation Capgemini, examines the economic, environmental and social aspects of the Demand Response technology. In the project, three household products are used in a model that derives the potential savings in costs and emissions of CO2e. The results show that the actual savings measured in SEK are small, but that the savings measured in percent can be as high as 20 percent. Reduction of CO2e emissions is slightly lower.