AbstractThe Swedish Road Administration in the region of Mälardalen has since 2004 worked to in¬crease the efficiency of the maintance of bridges based on limited functional requirements and time demanded action.The maintenance of the bridges is contracted in the county of Uppsala since 2004, and Örebro since 2007. The county of Nyköping and Västerås is contracted by the traditional system. The contractor will perform a regular maintenance on all bridges. The bridges are inspected by the contractor at least once every year.The contractor registers the result of the inspection in a database called BaTMan. BaTMan is a Bridge and Tunnel Management system and is a strictly web solution were the user logs in via the internet.The Swedish Road Administration also inspects the bridges to se that the demands on the bridges are followed.My work is to compare these different inspections and to see any development..

Living Lab är en öppen innovationsmiljö där innovationer samproduceras, testas och verifieras av användarna, tillsammans med företag och akademin i en kontext som representerar innovationens tänkta användningsområde. Genom samverkan kan olika värden skapas för företagen. Syftet med uppsatsen var att undersöka hur Living Lab skapar värde för företag och vilka värden företag kan identifiera ur de användarcentrerade aktiviteterna. Uppsatsen karaktäriseras av en kvalitativ ansats och grundar sig i en explorativ undersökning med djupintervjuer där fyra företag ligger till grund för uppsatsens resultat. Uppsatsen har visat att Living Lab skapat värden för företag genom att de fått mer tilltalande produkter, identifierat nya användarkategorier och samordnat resurser med företag.

The aim of this master´s thesis is to examine how librarian´s views of the users can vary for different types of materials in public libraries. We have seen that literature and reading are the central parts of the libraries in Sweden. All other types of media are traditionally seen as complements and in focus for the study is feature film as an example of these other medias. We examine policy documents to see the official view of the general target group of the libraries and compare it to the view of the users of feature films as expressed by the librarians. The study includes several different types of empirical materials such as interviews, observations and documents and the method used is case studies.

Syftet med uppsatsen var att undersöka affärsutvecklares betydelse för företag i en inkubator utifrån inkubatorföretagens synvinkel. Uppsatsen syftade även till att ta fram ett verktyg för att mäta denna betydelse. Studien utfördes genom intervjuer med företagsrepresentanter och andra nyckelpersoner vid inkubatorn Ideon Innovation i Lund. Intervjuerna bestod av såväl öppna frågor som enkätfrågor. Enkätfrågorna sammanställdes i ett verktyg som tagits fram för att utvärdera affärsutvecklares betydelse.

Denna studie åsyftar att undersöka om produktutvecklande B2B företag använder sig av sina kunders tysta kunskap i sin innovationsprocess. Studien ämnar även att undersöka vilka redskap eller stimuli som de berörda företagen företrädesvis använder sig av i kunskapsdelningsprocessen.Den undersökningsmetod som valts är en flerfallsstudie av kvalitativ art och den har bedrivits genom semistrukturerade intervjuer. Data analyserades genom en abduktiv analysmetod. Fem produktproducerande företag har deltagit i studien. Resultatet visar att de redskap och stimuli som används mest frekvent av de undersökta företagen i avsikt att nå sina kunders kunskap är förtroende, "face to face" möten, prototyper och bilder.

Denna rapport berättar om vårt arbete med att ta fram ett inredningskoncept till den nya kårpuben i Eskilstuna. Vi har med hjälp av våra kunskaper inom informationsdesign och rumslig gestaltning arbetat fram ett förslag, anpassat efter uppdragsgivarens önskemål. Våra uppdragsgivare är Kårhusstiftelsen och Mälardalens studentkår. De ville att inredningskonceptet skulle vara målgruppsanpassat med funktion, flexibilitet och nytänkande i fokus. Då kårpubens personal till största del består av ideell arbetskraft ville de även att inredningskonceptet skulle underlätta det dagliga underhållet av verksamheten.

During recent years, financial innovation has given rise to numerous structured investment opportunities aimed towards the general public. These have enabled private investors to engage in high-risk investments offering as much as 400 per cent leverage while oftentimes not fully having grasped the risk involved. The issuers of these securities have been criticized for using advertising of a too aggressive and misleading nature.By presenting 819 potential investors with two different investment opportunities yielding the same return over a six day period, we have aimed to assess whether the inclination of being affected by judegmental heuristics varies with factors such as knowledge, overall attitude towards the asset class, risk appetite and experience from previous investments.We have observed that investors' perception of the attractiveness of an investment can be distorted by altering the information presented to the investor. However, our findings show that this tendency decreases with an increased level of knowledge, experience and risk appetite..

AbstractPurpose/Aim: To describe in-classroom use of mobile phones amongst teenagers.Material/Method: The data was collected through as use of focus groups and field studies.Main results: The main findings confirm the findings of other studies on teens and mobile phones. Teens use their mobile phones for much more than just sending text messages and making calls, there are many different types of localized usages. There is also a strong emotional connection between the device, its content and the user.Keywords: mobile phone, teens, classroom, focus groups, observation, field studies, mobility..

The communication with government and municipality through Internet has in-creased during the last couple of years. Therefore we have chosen to focus our bachelor thesis in this particularly area and the needs for usable web services for the citizens. In this bachelor thesis we are studying a increasing group users, namely elderly citizens. During the study we have analysed E-governments ser-vices usability through usability tests. The combination of conversations and meetings with individuals, observations of interactions and literature studies give us the opportunity to explore the users needs.

AbstractAttitudes towards the reference situation and the meetings between library users and librarians have become the subject of much debate in the library setting today. The aim of this two years master´s thesis has been to examine six librarian?s attitudes and apprehensions concerning the interactions between the librarian and the users in the library setting. We were also interested in knowing how a library can work to become more service oriented and customer centred. We conducted six interviews with librarians located at three different libraries in Sweden.

Detta examensarbete utfördes på uppdrag av akademin för innovation, design och teknik vid Mälardalens Högskola och undersöker hur mikrosensorteknik med stöd av regelverk används och kan komma att användas för det tillämpade tillståndsbaserade underhållet inom flygbranschen från ett underhållsperspektiv. Syftet är att introducera den oinsatte i tekniken med dess möjligheter och begränsningar. Arbetet gjordes i tre faser. Först generella efterforskningar och källsökning, därefter fördjupning med förfrågningar till bolag och slutligen sammanställning av insamlade kunskaper. Även om förhoppningen var att få mer respons från tillfrågade bolag, så påvisar ändå frånvaron en viss indikation på den slutsats som dragits om det relativt låga intresset hos slutanvändaren i dagsläget.

Namibia, southern Africa, suffers from an energy shortage and is therefore facing severalchallenging problems. The use of firewood as fuel for cooking is common in the whole countryand has negative consequences for health and the environment. This work have focused ondeveloping a solar baking oven, calledSunbaker, adapted for Namibian families needs forbaking. The development was based on classic solar cooking limitations, specific needs forNamibia and to have a feasible manufacturability.The project started with a theoretical study in Sweden where different solar cookers, informationregarding Namibia, technical aspects and end user aspects were studied. To assess the need for asolar baking oven aMinor Field Study took place in Namibia during eight weeks in July toSeptember 2009 and resulted in a product design specification.

This work derives from the question ?What is a beautiful road??. The question is being discussed in interviews with two employees at the Swedish National Road Administration and two former members of the ?Council of environment and beauty? at the Swedish National Road Administration. The interviews are summarized in my own discussion about the concept of ?Beautiful roads?.

Al Gore may have helped put global warming on the agenda. However, it is not a new subject. Neither is so called green marketing a new phenomenon within branding and communication. As more and more companies establish environmental strategies there exist beliefs that the environmental focus is becoming a triviality, which is the reason for this study. Implementation of words such as ?environmentally friendly?, ?green? and ?global warming? is becoming more and more widespread and frequently used within marketing communication.

This report describes the initial work intended for updating the car sharing service Roadmate. Roadmate is one of the services received by the car rental company Hertz First Rent a Car. The goal was to present the client with design- and structure proposals for a car sharing service that includes high usability and at the same time remains aesthetically pleasing.The work is based on an initial study with data collection, mapping the target user group and its needs. Subsequent structural and design proposals for Roadmates company carpooling service are based on the facts surrounding the target group's needs. The result are well developed and tested design sketches with accompanying visual identity and sitemaps that can be the basis for the further work on the development of the service..