Det råder delade meningar om konsekvenserna av att arbeta i öppna kontorslandskap. Kommunikation och en bra laganda anses vara ett grundläggande element i framgångsrika organisationer. Då användandet av öppna kontorslandskap ökat finns ett behov av forskning inom området. Syftet är att utifrån ett arbetspsykologiskt perspektiv undersöka medarbetarnas upplevelse av kontorslandskap med fokus på den verbala kommunikationen och lagandan mellan medarbetarna, detta genom åtta deltagare i Downs & Hazens (1977) Communication Satisfaction Questionnaire samt semistrukturerade intervjuer. Respondenterna upplever en öppen och positiv verbal kommunikation dock upplevs den även som ett störningsmoment. Lagandan upplevs som stark och främjande av den individuella och organisatoriska prestationen. Arbetssituationen skulle förbättras om privata utrymmen upprättas samt regler och rutiner gällande agerande i kontorslandskap införs.

The extremely shrinking demand of domestic market on PS resin has been resulted by the relocation of sub-manufacturing lines to overseas and the threat of substitutes. Thereof, the export becomes the main life pulse for PS resin industry. However, in the recent years, both China and oil supply countries in Middle East have aggressively made the development in petrochemical industry ,our export has been confronted strong competitiveness accordingly. On top, the vacillated policy on resin restriction and the getting stricter environmental protection law from government have become the obstacles for PS resin industry to make further development and have increased the manufacturing cost. Facing this high competitiveness and various obstacles, manufacturers have to increase their competitiveness in their business strategy , or they could be eliminated from the competition. This thesis is based on the methodology of ¡§qualitative research¡¨ by referring to the national and international related documentation and the analysis of the entire environment and the external environment of industry in order to seek the opportunity and threat for the industry. Besides, through the internal analysis, the advantages and disadvantages have been understood. In addition, base on the practice of business strategy, the possible solutions; references and proposals to increase the competitiveness have been listed for manufacturers of traditional industry to make their business plan. The summary per our study to increase competitiveness for business strategy can be covered by the following: 1. To make differential products to seek new customers in different category. 2. To well control the cost of raw material to seek the opportunity profit. 3. To setup alliance strategy to improve the weakness of business. 4. To develop targeted market to build up new sales channel. 5. To adjust and develop the production line for alternative use to create more profitable products¡¦ production. 6. To make cooperation forum for R&D to develope value added products

There is no doubt that the world is more flat and people are more multicultural and movable than 10 or 20 years ago. If you take a look at my case, I am a Spanish who meet a Taiwanese in New York and now I am forming a family in Taipei. During my childhood I didn’t learn any other language than my two natives’ languages (Catalan and Spanish), I started to study English with 20 years and since then I am still struggling trying to improve my language skills (English and Chinese). However, there is a way to avoid my long learning journey. As thousands of studies demonstrated, learning a language as a kid is a lot easier and faster than as adult, the main reason is because the brain’s cognitive flexibility decreases with age. Living in Taiwan for more than 2 years, I realized the importance that the Taiwanese parents give to the early education of their children and specially to learn languages, mainly English. For example, last April I went to the Toddlers Fair in the World Trade Center in Taipei, it was astonishing see that 70% of the Area was focused on books’ subscriptions with a lot of bilingual books. Another fact is that in almost any street you can find an English cram school or an English kindergarten. During my research I found that there is a lot of competition about English kindergarten, but I also found that there is no competition regarding other languages kindergarten besides the French and German section of the Taipei European School, with a prohibitive price. The lack of competition for trilingual kindergarten, plus the recent inflow of people with Spanish background that came to Taipei recently due to the ICDF program, makes me believe that there is a profitable niche to exploit in a trilingual kindergarten. Based in my estimation and the information obtained through the contact with the Spanish Speaking Countries’ embassies the approximate number of children between 0 and 6 years with one Spanish Speaking parent is around 100 (around 20 Embassies in Taiwan with an average of 5 children per embassy). Our target would be acquire around 40% of this market and use it as a hook to attract Taiwanese families interested in a multicultural experience for their children and other foreign families (targeting North American) interested in helping their children to boost their language skills. Hola Baby Kindergarten is a local Taiwanese company with 34 employees, 9 of them foreigners, created to help Taiwanese children to understand and learn from other cultures and to arouse interest to learning languages. The school is planned to be located in Tianmu neighborhood in Taipei with three different departments (Chinese, English and Spanish), each one in a different floor with different cultural decoration and motives to create three different worlds. Furthermore, each Department works independently in deciding their own individual activities under a general curriculum and monitored by a Committee formed by all the departmental heads and the Director. The parents are given a wide range of flexible plans to choose for their children, part-time or full-time. They may choose just one language plan for their children (Chinese, English or Spanish) or they may choose bilingual or trilingual schedule. However, even if the parents choose the one language schedule their children will also have a daily involvement in activities with other departments and cultures with the activity “Explore New Cultures”. Other factors we consider important in our school are the involvement of the parents in the children education, through the “Saturday Family Activities”; and to build up confidence to have an outgoing and sociable child through the “Monthly Theater Activities” and a curriculum full of fun and sharing activities.

Handing over a software system from development to maintenance is still an under-researched domain. The software community has a hazy insight into its constellation and inherent activities. In this paper, we have evaluated a preliminary version of a taxonomy of handover activities within one Swedish software company. The evaluation is conducted in an in-house handover context only. Despite this, our results provide evidence of its enormous complexity, variability and strong dependency on many other software engineering processes. / © 2010 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.QC 20120223

After a full first term without any Supreme Court nominations, and almost no cooperation from the Court in regards to the New Deal, President Franklin D. Roosevelt decided to introduce a Court-packing plan into the Legislature that would allow him to add six new justices to the Court if necessary. The Bill failed in both the House and Senate but time allowed Roosevelt to have his chance to “pack” the court. Roosevelt nominated some of the best justices the Court has seen, and with their service the Supreme Court was forever changed.

Den här experimentella studien undersökte huruvida man kan skyddas från bakgrundstal genom att använda sig av ett annorlunda teckensnitt än det man vanligtvis läser. Trettiotvå försöksdeltagare deltog i experimentet. Deltagarnas uppgift var att minnas information från texter om två påhittade folkslag som antingen var skriven med ett vanligt teckensnitt (Times New Roman) eller ett annorlunda teckensnitt (Haettenschweiler) i två ljudbetingelser: tystnad och irrelevant bakgrundstal. Resultatet visade att försöksdeltagarnas prestation på läsminnestestet försämrades av bakgrundstalet när texten de skulle minnas var skriven med Times New Roman, men inte när texten var skriven med Haettenschweiler. Det tyder på att man kan skyddas från att bli distraherad av bakgrundstal när man läser kortare texter skrivna med ett annorlunda teckensnitt, vilket kan vara en enkel lösning att använda i ett kontorslandskap. / This experimental study investigated whether a person can be protected from background speech when using of a different font then they usually reads. Thirty-two participants took part in the experiment. The participants' task was to recall information from texts about two fictitious cultures that were either written in a common font (Times New Roman) or in a different font (Haettenschweiler) in two sound conditions: silence and irrelevant background speech. The results showed that the participants' performance deteriorated on the reading memory test when they would remember a text written in Times New Roman, but not when the text was written in Haettenschweiler. This suggests that a person can be protected from background speech while reading shorter texts written in a different font than they usual read, which can be a simple solution to use in an open-plan office.

After formulating the problem and reviewing relevant research literature, a study was performed that compared reverse engineering with traditional scenario-based techniques in usability evaluation. In this case study, an online tool for creating asthma action plans was created and evaluated through questionnaires and focus groups. The tool was then tested in a controlled study using both a traditional scenario-based approach and the reverse engineering method. A group of twelve users built asthma action plans using each method in a randomized order. Results concerning usability, efficiency and the types of usability problems found were reported, along with recommendations for further research in the use of reverse engineering as a method of usability evaluation.

After formulating the problem and reviewing relevant research literature, a study was performed that compared reverse engineering with traditional scenario-based techniques in usability evaluation. In this case study, an online tool for creating asthma action plans was created and evaluated through questionnaires and focus groups. The tool was then tested in a controlled study using both a traditional scenario-based approach and the reverse engineering method. A group of twelve users built asthma action plans using each method in a randomized order. Results concerning usability, efficiency and the types of usability problems found were reported, along with recommendations for further research in the use of reverse engineering as a method of usability evaluation.

Urban planning intended to conserve cities’ valuable past, both areas and structures, is challenging due to the need to find a balance between preserving urban heritage and fulfilling development needs. In China, efforts to preserve cities designated to be Historic Cultural Cities (HCCs) are affected by HCC planning mechanism (HCCPMs), which have been developed to protect the cities’ significant value as a whole. In this study, policies in HCC conservation plans are evaluated on their amount of detail and are compared to stakeholders’ expectations. A case study is carried out for areas in the City of Beijing. Findings of this study include the following: a general level of the detail used in HCC conservation plans; this level of detail ranges distinctively in various policy categories and HCC classes; stakeholders desire a higher level of detail than currently exists in the conservation plans; different expectations exist among stakeholder groups (residents, participants from the central districts, and participant without planning knowledge). Five statements can be reflected from the general level of detail: 1) urban conservation is not a primary concern in HCCs; 2) plan objectives were achieved in HCC plans; 3) the public did not effectively impact planning decisions; 4) little financial and human resources support exists for conservation activities; 5) the written legislative guidance is inaccurate. The differences in stakeholders’ expectation and the current plans reveal the failure to achieve public participation goals such as transparency and democracy. Recommendations are provided on improving plan quality and public participation in Historic Cultural Cities to better serve for urban conservation in Chinese cities.

Arbetsförmedlingen is the Swedish national authority responsible for the work politics, and its main purpose is to create and build a solid and sustainable job market.Economic crises together with changes in the society and in the organization over the past few years mean that the unemployed individuals that come in contact with Arbetsförmedlingen are no longer a homogenous group. A lot of effort is put into helping those who may find it difficult to enter the work environment, such as youths (19 – 26 years old), people who have been unemployed or on sick leave for a long period of time, people with disabilities or immigrants who are newly arrived in Sweden.A harder social and economic climate can lead to frustration among the unemployed which mean that security measures at the offices has had to become adjusted. Local offices now have a public area where they have meetings with their clients and a locked open plan office space to which the public have no access. Working within an open plan office environment can cause health problems, mostly due to the constant background noise that comes from people having conversations on the phone, or with each other. The public areas have been furnished from a safety aspect, and different alarm functions are in place. Interviews with employees at the local Arbetsförmedlingen in Eskilstuna show that staff safety is a high priority with plenty of guidelines and directions to be followed.There are rules regulating the handling of personal information, and strategies need to be in place regarding the IT-structure that the organization is using.