Small scale internal consumer tests provide a company with a cheap way to get valuable information regarding their products advantages and flaws. Therefore the demand for possibilities to do this kind of test has increased. This report is part of a new sensory project at Unilever. It presents a method for sensory comparison of the company?s own products with the corresponding competitor products.

This paper investigates the usability of the intelligence test Wechsler Nonverbal Scale of Ability (WNV). Twenty four children in two different age-groups were tested with WNV, 10 children between ages 5 - 6, and 14 children between ages 9 - 10. The WNV turned out to be a useful test when some verbal communication was used in the test situation. This was especially apparent among the younger children, who needed extra verbal instructions and verbal support through the different subtests. The test also contained standardized verbal instructions for all ages.

Multichannel-shopping has become a wide spread phenomenon in the retail industry due to a significant development of retail channels and formats. Consumers now shop for the same product category in many different retail settings and this trend is increasing. Therefore both the academic world and the retail industry are screaming for knowledge about the multichannel-shoppers. Several studies have focused on the characteristics of different channels and how multichannel strategies should be designed to minimize cannibalization. There is however a lack of research concerning what characterizes multichannel-shoppers and what drives them to shop in several channels.

Servicescape is a research area within service management which processes the effect that the environment has on the service experience. The purpose of this essay is to find out how servicescape, with focus on the ?background music?, affects customer behavior in a clothing retail store. Through manipulation of the background music?s tempo the essay aim to explore to what extent this part of the servicescape a) affect the customers approach and avoidance behavior, b) is affected by customers with a hedonic or utilitarian shopping behavior, c) affects pleasure, arousal and dominance perceptions for the customer, and d) how the servicescape is perceived.Key words: Servicescape, approach-avoidance behaviour, pleasure, arousal, dominance, hedonic-utilitarian behaviour..

The purpose of this masters thesis is to evaluate the retrieval effectiveness of three different search engines on the Internet: Google, Yahoo! and MSN Search. We have constructed 25 topics and queries with varying contents, in order to test the width of the search engines as much as possible. In every search we have evaluated the first 20 hits in each of the search engines. The measures we have used are precision and cumulated gain. Precision is based on a binary scale and cumulated gain is calculated by means of a non-binary relevance scale.

We have conducted a quantitative study investigating whether an Ingredient Branding collaboration between private label and national brands could be executed with success in the Swedish market. The objective was to measure the consumers? response to two products from different product categories, representing hedonic and utilitarian products. We have been able to establish that by adding a branded ingredient to a private label product, one obtains a more positive product attitude as well as a higher perceived product quality and taste. The study also shows that attitudes towards the ingredient brands were improved by the collaboration whereas the brand attitude towards the private label did not change significantly.

Smartphone applications, or apps, are an increasingly important part of omnichannel retailing. While the adoption and usage of apps for communicating with consumers has grown exponentially over the past few years, there is little academic research in this area. The primary purpose of this thesis is to describe how the involvement in a product category affects consumers' intention to use a retailer-branded smartphone application during their shopping trip. Drawing upon recent IS-literature with models TAM and UTAUT, our results indicate that product category involvement constitutes an important factor on the intention to use a retailer-branded smartphone application. By viewing involvement as a multidimensional construct, our study shows that the degree of hedonic and expressive value a product cateogry provides consumers with has important effects on intention, and these relationships are not moderated by consumers' age.

The purpose of this study was to examine customer attitudes towards flagship stores and how they perceive them. To ascertain this, and obtain answers to the research questions covering the study's main issues, we decided to turn to the customers who recently visited a flagship store.Our background theory is based upon literature from previous research done on the subject in the form of scientific articles and books. We present the theoretical concept that explains how flagship stores are used as a marketing tool and what impact they have on the new market. These will be helpful in answering our questions when we evaluate our results.!A theoretical framework, consisting of three value dimensions, was used as a support throughout the implementation of the study. These three values; hedonic, practical and social, should give us a better idea of what customers experience and what they value when they visit the flagship stores.!The method used in our investigation is of quantitative form, so that it can be feasible on a large crowd to thus contribute to a quantitative result.

High brand equity is a great asset for companies that operate their business in a free and competitive market. Brand equity can arise from both product-related and non-product related attributes and may be viewed from many different perspectives. This study examines which different attributes that contribute to enhance brand equity from customers point of view at the Swedish market for agricultural machinery. The study have been developed using a comprehensive literature search in order to investigate the field regarding brand equity and brand image. The literature review results in one product specific and one non-product specific approach in order to examine factors that contribute to enhanced brand equity. This takes the form as one survey-based approach regarding the non-product related attributes which is examined by interpreting the extra value added by different attributes.

AbstractThe purpose of this paper is to investigate to what extent LS ? a standard screening test for dyslexia ?is also relevant for the purpose of finding second language students with dyslexia. Starting with an overview of recent studies in the field, I have analyzed texts from parts of the chosen material. After a brief presentation of the test, I have presented it from a second language point of view. Furthermore, I have analyzed the way in which the test measures phonological awareness, lexical accessibility and correctness in language.

AbstractThe purpose of this paper is to investigate to what extent LS ? a standard screening test for dyslexia ?is also relevant for the purpose of finding second language students with dyslexia. Starting with an overview of recent studies in the field, I have analyzed texts from parts of the chosen material. After a brief presentation of the test, I have presented it from a second language point of view. Furthermore, I have analyzed the way in which the test measures phonological awareness, lexical accessibility and correctness in language.

This study is an examination of the stadium fever prevailing in Sweden. It is built stadiums in Sweden as never before. The high cost of these constructions end up in the end at the Swedish taxpayers. The study examines through the hedonic pricing of real estate how local residents value the new stadiums. The result indicates that local residents put a positive value in the costly and sumptuous buildings.

A bioslurry reactor was built for the bioremediation of TNT contaminated waste from the demilitarization industry. The field test was conducted at Vingåkersverken in Vingåker, Sweden, to see if results from laboratory studies could be repeated in a full scale reactor. The goal of the project was to optimize the reactor to such a degree that it could be used to handle the waste produced at Vingåkersverken and also that this technique could be applied for remediation of contaminated soils. Unfortunately the samples taken during the full scale field test were destroyed by the shipping company and no analysis was possible. A later attempt by the Biorex research group has also been unsuccessful to reduce the amount of TNT using the bioreactor.

Syfte: Studiens syfte var att reliabilitetspröva stabiliteten för M-SES för patienter med långvarig smärta genom test-retest metoden. Syftet var även att undersöka samtidig validitet för M-SES, genom att utföra M-SES och SES mätt vid samma tillfälle.Metod: I studien undersöktes self-efficacy instrumentet M-SES på Uppsala Akademiska sjukhus, på avdelningarna för Smärtcentrum och Smärtrehabilitering. Frågeställningarna berörde vilken stabilitets reliabilitet mätt med test-retest som förelåg hos M-SES, samt vilken grad av samtidig validitet som förelåg för M-SES korrelerat med SES. Den slutliga undersökningsgruppen bestod i frågeställningen om stabilitets reliabilitet av 29 patienter (23 kvinnor, sex män), och i frågeställning om samtidig validitet av 22 patienter (17 kvinnor, fem män).Resultat: Vid prövning av stabilitets reliabilitet för M-SES visade resultatet en stark korrelation, med korrelationskoefficient 0,92 och p<0,05. Det förelåg även en god överrensstämmelse för test-retest undersökningen.

The aim with my master thesis is to develop and test the applicability of methods to quantify and map solute advective travel times and pollutant transport at the catchment scale. Such quantification and mapping can increase the understanding of catchment-scale pollutant transport in general and contribute to the identification of the main sources of water pollution and the most efficient measures to reduce such pollution. The study area is the catchment of Oxundaån, about 20 km north of Stockholm. For detailed GIS modeling of water flow and catchment-scale contaminant transport in water, I´ve used new high-resolution elevation maps, land cover maps and soil maps combined with other available relevant data..