<p>The last few years a lot of media air time has been devoted to training, sports, health and weightloss on a more personal level then before. The new media arena is beeing used at its´ maximumto broadcast wievs on how we should eat, look, exercise and live. This thesis is trying to makebetter understanding on what people in general think is important when it comes to physicaltraining and motivation with the aid of digital media and IT systems. The thesis describes aworkshop that was conducted within the frames of Participatory Design and the outcome of thatworkshop. The workshop was conducted with a group of lead users (in this case instructors at avery large fitness center in Umeå, Sweden) and the main question was ”How can IT be used toachive a positive effect on physical exercise if motivation is the focus?”. Data was collectedduring both a future workshop and an analysis of a digital media production prototype, andcould be seen as two qualitative studies. The outcome of these studies shows three interestingareas where motivation aided by IT is importat. Primarily it is through the experience of theclass. Through flow and mindfulness. Secondarily motivation can be aided by IT in the field ofresult analysis. As a final arena motivation could also be aided by IT through informationsharing between the finess center and the class participants.</p>

This thesis presents the argument that the concept of vertical farming can help resolve the long-standing paradox of humanity’s inclination toward exponential demographic and economic growth while inhabiting a planet of limited material means. The document is comprised of two parts. The first establishes the intellectual framework necessary to assess agriculture’s effect on human and ecological systems, and explores the philosophies central to rationalizing high-density indoor agriculture with the objectives of human sustainability. The second part focuses exclusively on exploring the technologies and design strategies of the vertical farming concept. This aim is facilitated through the illustration of three design projects, each of which represents a distinct variant of the vertical farming concept. In order to ground the largely conceptual notion of vertical farming within a real-world economic context the thesis includes a thorough cost-analysis of a simplified fourth design. The thesis concludes by addressing the vertical farm’s potential to transform urban resource metabolism from its existing linear dependence on the external environment to a more self-contained, cyclical resource flow reminiscent of that exhibited by natural ecosystems.

Introduction: The world is changing rapidly and the uncertainty that characterizes today´s society makes companies preparations for the future crucial. Purpose: To examine how CEO:s in small companies look at the future and what kind of preparations they make in order to meet it. Hereby, our ambition is to find out whether there is a difference between companies working in industries characterized by different degrees of stability. Mode of procedure: The purpose of this thesis has been fulfilled by interviews with four CEO:s from industries characterized by different degrees of stability. Result: The companies working in relatively unstable environments tended to be relatively more flexible and have an emergent strategy formation process, whereas companies working in relatively stable environments displayed relatively less flexibility and tended to have a planning strategy formation process.

Tidigare forskning har visat att förmågan att läsa och skriva påverkar både människans kognitiva tänkande och neurologiska strukturer. Likaså innebär oförmågan att läsa och skriva en social press som påverkar vår syn på oss själva. Men hur påverkas vår själv- och framtidssyn av att vi lär oss att läsa och skriva? Detta har undersökts genom intervjuer med 14 kvinnor i Nepal med olika erfarenheter av att läsa och skriva. Resultatet visade huvudsakligen att kvinnorna såg sig själva som mer självständiga och självsäkra, och sin framtid som mer ljus efter att de lärt sig att läsa och skriva. Slutligen har studiens reliabilitet och förslag på fortsatta studier diskuterats.

In this postindustrial era, organizations have realized a dire need to have work force with leadership skills in order to maintain their competitive edge in the market place. This has stretched the scope of leadership education to diverse field of studies and has raised the number of leadership education programs offered in colleges and universities all over the world. This thesis is an exploratory study to identify key features of leadership education that distinguish it from conventional educational programs. In view of key early career challenges faced by graduates, research hypotheses were generated regarding the role played by different type of leadership educators and various means employed for leadership education. In order to test the research hypotheses web based questionnaire was distributed among 72 students of three Master Programs at Linnaeus University, Sweden, of whom 32 responded, giving an overall response rate of 44.4%. Among the three Master Programs, two offer leadership education while one offers courses in business strategy and marketing. Furthermore, interviews were conducted with the program directors of three Master Programs. The commercial statistical software GraphPad Prism version 5.04 was employed for statistical analysis of the data. The results have showed a clear distinction of perceptions among the students of two types of programs, one that offer leadership education and other that do not, in terms of role of different type of leadership educators and various means employed for leadership education. It has been concluded that leadership programs have helped in developing the leadership mindset and vital leadership skills.

Nowadays, one of strong trends is globalization all over the world.That is not a surprising issue anymore and still going on. Furthermore, since many of people are gathering in cities to get jobs and live in convenience, the urban areas are growing wider and more crowded constantly. This fact automatically makes transportation usages and buildings increase. In this environment, the city offers some of publictransportations and infrastructures to make citizen transport efficiently. But, lots of people are still driving by private cars despite rising fuel costs. So, trafic jam, lack of parking space and waste of resource are getting serious. If we look around a city, there are many drivers going to work alone by a big commuter. It is a crucial cause of these issues. It aims to create a suitable personal commuter for primarily single drivers, with fascinating look despite its compact size. That will catch the eyes of people, and then make them desire it.

This study analyzes the impact of self-esteem (high vs. low), situational characterization ("negotiate" vs. "ask"), and gender (men vs. women) on the likelihood an individual initiates negotiation (n = 140). Self-esteem was primed with a prompt and the participants were told they could either "negotiate" or "ask" for more money after completing two tasks. A main effect of situational characterization was found such that negotiation was more likely in the "negotiate" condition than in the "ask" condition. Neither self-esteem nor gender produced significant results. A significant interaction showed that men were more likely to negotiate in the "ask" condition, but there were no gender differences in the "negotiate" condition. Finally, gender differences in anticipated future earnings were found. Men held considerably higher expectations for average salary 5 years after graduating from college than women. These results have important implications for training students to negotiate for the salaries they deserve and moving closer to closing the gender wage gap.

This thesis presents the argument that the concept of vertical farming can help resolve the long-standing paradox of humanity’s inclination toward exponential demographic and economic growth while inhabiting a planet of limited material means. The document is comprised of two parts. The first establishes the intellectual framework necessary to assess agriculture’s effect on human and ecological systems, and explores the philosophies central to rationalizing high-density indoor agriculture with the objectives of human sustainability. The second part focuses exclusively on exploring the technologies and design strategies of the vertical farming concept. This aim is facilitated through the illustration of three design projects, each of which represents a distinct variant of the vertical farming concept. In order to ground the largely conceptual notion of vertical farming within a real-world economic context the thesis includes a thorough cost-analysis of a simplified fourth design. The thesis concludes by addressing the vertical farm’s potential to transform urban resource metabolism from its existing linear dependence on the external environment to a more self-contained, cyclical resource flow reminiscent of that exhibited by natural ecosystems.

Abstract The goal of this research is to know whether higher degree of customer involvement in the service value creation would help firms build stable and valued relationship with customers. To be more specific, this research studies whether firms can implement co-production as the strategy to develop bonds with customers and to strengthen the relationship with customers. In this thesis, a research is conducted by studying the customers¡¦ feedback of a law firm which specializes in resolving disputes regarding intellectual property rights. This research focus on studying the relationship in the business to business context as the customers of the law firm are mainly foreign associates and foreign and domestic companies in different business field. The author develops a framework and investigates the correlation between co-production and customer¡¦s loyalty and their future intention by using overall satisfaction, trust, and commitment as intermediate factors. The testing results show co-production is positively related to overall satisfaction, trust, and commitment and each of these intermediate factors has a positive relationship with customer loyalty and future intention. Also, future intention is positively related to loyalty. This study provides valuable insights for firms and managers by demonstrating that firms can create competitive advantage by retaining customer loyalty and influencing future intention of purchases through the implementation of co-production.

Abstract Preparing for retirement is a complex task at which some individuals succeed while others do not, often with dire consequences. A model of investor behavior including retirement planning and saving is tested in a Taiwanese sample of full-time working adults. 134 participants completed a questionnaire about future time perspective, retirement goal clarity, financial literacy, retirement planning activity level and monthly savings contributions. Results indicated that FTP was a significant predictor of savings contributions and goal clarity which in turn predicted financial literacy and planning activity level. Financial literacy predicted planning activity level. No support was found for planning activity level as a predictor of monthly savings contributions. A three-way interaction with FTP, financial risk tolerance and financial knowledge as predictors of savings contributions was approaching significance, but small sample size likely limited statistical power. Path analysis shows some support for a model of retirement planning proposed by Hershey (2004) though data do not fit models previously tested by Hershey, Jacobs-Lawson, McArdle, and Hamagami (2007) and Stawski, Hershey and Jacobs-Lawson (2007). Instead a new model of retirement planning and savings contributions is proposed. However it is likely that savings norms affect contributions such that those who do not plan for retirement do not save at a rate lower than those who do. It is also likely that those who do plan for retirement invest rather than save disposable income. Keywords: retirement planning, personality, future time perspective, financial planning, financial literacy