Design Thinking är ett spännande och fortfarande relativt outforskat område med rötter i Service Management. Med hjälp av designerns verktyg och metoder och en mångvetenskaplig grund med fokus på kundens behov kan Design Thinking bidra till att utveckla produkter och tjänster och genom detta öka lönsamheten för företag. Syftet är att göra en deskriptiv studie av området Design Thinking som metodiskt arbetssätt vid tjänsteutveckling. Detta appliceras sedan på verkligheten för att komparativt se hur tre svenska bolag arbetar med tjänstutveckling inom en av världens största tjänstebranscher utifrån områdena Service Management och Design Thinking. Uppsatsen beskriver utvecklingen från Service Management till Design Thinking och hur man har gått från att utveckla tjänster till att designa tjänster. Uppsatsen har använt en kvalitativ metod vid datainsamling. Detta har gjorts genom intervjuer med de tre valda försäkringsbolagen samt med en tjänstedesignbyrå som samarbetat med ett av bolagen. Teoriavsnittet inleds med en teoretisk bakgrund där en djupare förståelse skapas inom områden Service Management och Design Thinking. Detta för att underlätta tolkningen och analysen av teorierna. En teoretisk modell för tjänsteutveckling har valts ut för respektive område, samt en som tolkas dess skillnader och likheter. Samtliga teorier har sedan tolkats och analyserats utifrån den empiriska studien av försäkringsbolagen. Några slutsatser som uppsatsen har genererat är att de studerade försäkringsbolagen inklusive tjänstedesignföretaget arbetar utifrån kundens behov när det utvecklar tjänster. Däremot visar undersökningen att försäkringsbolagen inte interagerar med kunden i den utsträckning som teorin säger samt att försäkringsbolagen anlitar tjänstedesignföretaget i ett senare skede av tjänsteutvecklingen än vad som egentligen är syftet enligt teorin. Intresset för Design Thinking kommer främst från tjänstedesignföretaget och inte i första hand  från försäkringsbolagen. Utvecklingen från Service Management till Design Thinking visar även att designerns roll har förändrats då denne nu kommer in och är med genom hela processen istället för att som tidigare endast vara med i slutskedet. / Design Thinking is a relatively young and unexplored field with its roots in Service Management. By using the tools and methodology of designers, working in multidisciplinary teams and focusing on the consumers needs Design Thinking can contribute to the development of services and thereby increase the profitability for business. The objective of this paper is to construct a thorough description of the field Design Thinking and its methodology in service development. This is subsequently applied to the swedish insurance sector to comparatively describe how three insurance companies develop their services in one of the worlds greatest service industries. The paper initially describes and explores the development from Service Management to Design Thinking and how one has gone from merely developing services to designing services. Some conclusions that the paper has discovered are that the insurance companies we studied focus on consumer need. However, the study shows that the companies don't interact with the consumer to the extent that is described in the the theorethical models relevant for the paper. According to the study of Design Thinking, the designer is supposed to be involved throughout the entire process and not merely in the later fases as they are in Service Management. The analysis shows that the insurance companies choose to recruit designers only when they feel it to be neccesary, not involving them in the business development which is the next competitive advantage for companies today.

Isotope analyses on human and faunal skeletal remains from different Swedish Neolithic archaeological contexts are here applied as a means to reconstruct dietary strategies and mobility patterns. The chronological emphasis is on the Middle Neolithic period, and radiocarbon dating constitutes another central focus. The results reveal a food cultural diversity throughout the period in question, where dietary differences in part correspond to, but also transcend, the traditionally defined archaeological cultures in the Swedish Early to Middle Neolithic. Further, these differences, and the apparent continued utilisation of marine resources in several regions and cultural contexts, can only in part be explained by chronology or availability of resources depending on geographic location. Thus, the sometimes suggested sharp economic shift towards an agricultural way of life at the onset of the Neolithic is refuted. Taking the potential of isotope analyses a step further, aspects of Neolithic social relations and identities are discussed, partly from a food cultural perspective embarking from the obtained results. Relations between people and places, as well as to the past, are discussed. The apparent tenacity in the dietary strategies observed is understood in terms of their rootedness in the practices and social memory of the Neolithic societies in question. Food cultural practices are further argued to have given rise to different notions of identity, some of which can be related to the different archaeological cultures, although these cultures are not to be perceived as bounded entities or the sole basis of self-conceptualisation. Some of these identities have been focused around the dietary strategies of everyday life, whereas others emanate from practices, e.g. of ritualised character, whose dietary importance has been more marginal. Isotope analyses, when combined with other archaeological indices, have the potential to elucidate both these food cultural aspects. / At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 3: Submitted. Paper 4: Submitted. Paper 5: In press. Paper 6: Accepted.

There were used human skeletal remains from eight Older and Late Eneolithic burial sites from Bohemia to set their health status. I used remains of 307 individuals. Paleodemography analysis of cemeteries and cultures was made. There were shown possible modifications of life table values based on experiment with modern population values. During paleoepidemiological analysis I described the most important categories of pathological findings. The results of analysis were used to make comparisons between themselves and with individuals from the Moravian cemetery of Bell Beaker Culture from Hoštice I za Hanou. An unexpected result was the statistically significant difference in the height of Bohemian and Moravian population of Bell Beaker Culture. Male individuals of Funnel Beaker Culture had the lowest height of all. There were found only two congenital anomalies, plagiocephalia and Klippel-Feil syndrome (fused cervical vertebrae). X-ray images were made of the most important findings for better diagnosis. Except the classic categories of pathologies I detected two cases of hyperostosis frontalis interna, both females from a burial site of Corded Ware Culture in Vikletice. In five cases were found osteoplastic growth on the visceral surface of the ribs of individuals of Bell Beaker Culture from...

Abstract  Erik Samuelsson: A View Towards the Sea – Towards a Changed Understanding of the Culture and Social Life of the Middle Neolithic in Eastern Central Sweden.  The objective of this essay is to undertake an investigation and critical review of the Neolithic cultural groups as defined by contemporary archaeologists. This will be achieved through the analysis of empirical material derived from the Neolithic site of Tibble, located in the Björklinge parish of Uppland, Sweden. The primary aim is to develop a more comprehensive understanding and interpretation of not only the specific site but also the cultural and social aspects of the Neolithic period as a whole. Key questions addressed in this study include the impact of material studies on the overall interpretation of Neolithic culture and social life, as well as the potential for attaining a more holistic understanding of a time and place through an analytical approach that oscillates between detailed analysis and broader contextual perspectives. The primary sources utilized in this research consist of material artifacts, reports, and relevant literature pertaining to the Middle Neolithic settlement at Tibble, Björklinge parish, Uppland, Sweden. The theoretical framework employed in this study, as well as the chosen methodology, is rooted in the hermeneutic spiral. Previous investigations into the Stone Age have been largely characterized by the classification of cultural groups, with limited consideration given to the criticism of the concept of culture itself. Consequently, substantial changes in the interpretation of the Neolithic period and its inhabitants have not been extensively pursued. In this essay, the integration of hermeneutics and interdisciplinary approaches is demonstrated as a valuable means to foster a transformative understanding of both specific sites and broader chronological periods. By doing so, it becomes possible to harness the knowledge embedded in material studies.It is important to note that this essay does not aspire to provide an ultimate solution to the perceived problem but rather represents an initial step towards a new direction of inquiry. This process is not necessarily confined to a singular location or region but can be applied to the interpretative work concerning other Neolithic sites as well.

One of the current testing method (the Dry Flow test) to qualify resin for use in production in the rotomolding process has been shown to have many flaws in both equipment and procedure. Research was done here to investigate a possible alternative that could eliminate some of these testing deficiencies. By reducing equipment and operator errors, the testing of materials becomes more valuable of an exercise. The Angular Flow test developed in this research can increase repeatability. By coming to understand the rotational molding process better, an evaluation that can give more valid information was devised.

Companies are always trying to increase their sales and revenue, but nowadays due to technology advancement, competence and the fast moving economy this task becomes more difficult as time goes by. This is where innovation walks in, to find new ways to add value to customers, increasing profit and even find new potential markets. As part of implementing innovative practices, many companies have added corporate entrepreneurship to their structure, to look for new business models that reach diverse customers within the same industry. Getting in the mind of customers, trying to decipher unspoken needs and matching problems to new solutions is part of the insighting process that has to be done when attempting idea incubation. This research seeks to provide a methodology to make the insighting process for early idea validation, in a corporate environment, less manual and more mechanical. For this purpose the Stockholm division of Telia Company was used as study case and main source of data recollection, which brings the research results to a practical use and analysis.

The industrial marketing strategy in many industries has been largely influenced by the coming of digital marketing over the past decade. The trends are changing from the traditional to a digital era and companies are being forced by this digitalization shift. The manufacturing and marketing consultant industry is no exception. Since previous research has often been towards SMEs as a whole instead of specific industries. The research gap that the authors would like to investigate is brand equity development through digital marketing among two B2B SME industries, manufacturing and marketing consulting firms in Sweden. Moreover, the authors used a series of research methods to collect primary data and secondary data, as well as a computer-assisted coding software used for qualitative data analysis and coupled with benchmarking analysis for the secondary data analysis. Theories of brand equity and digital marketing ( marketing funnel and digital channels) are connected to the empirical findings of digital communication and business relationship to uncover what differentiates manufacturers from marketing consultants in brand equity building through digital marketing channels. The manufacturing industry has gained knowledge over the last few years when it comes to branding and digital marketing but is still split over the subject because of no clear direct benefits. They also lack the motivation that would have given them access to this knowledge, but somehow they have started outsourcing. Overall it seems that the manufacturing industry is working hard to become more digital. Lastly, a proposed model is recommended by the authors through the findings from both industries.

This research explores if Sweden, a country with high trust in the political system could be challenged by social media. The study focuses on one spectrum of social media, TikTok, that exploded during the covid-19 pandemic and is proof of how fast social media develops and reaches out to human beings. The study addresses a research gap regarding this new social media platform as it examines exposure to political content and impact on political behavior. Specifically, the study focuses on first-time voters voting behavior in the Swedish election 2022. This thesis is based on a digital survey sent out to 139 respondents during November 2022. The result indicates that there is a relationship between viewing time on TikTok and voting behavior among young voters in the Swedish election 2022. The study ends with a discussion about how specific political content the respondent was exposed to on TikTok could have had an impact on the political behavior in the Swedish election 2022.

In the past decade, the integration of spatiotemporal constraints into control systems has emerged as a crucial necessity, driven by the demand for enhanced performance, guaranteed safety, and the execution of complex tasks. Spatiotemporal constraints involve criteria that are dependent on both space and time, which can be represented by time-varying constraints in nonlinear control systems. Funnel-based control methods provide computationally tractable and robust feedback control laws to enforce time-varying constraints in uncertain nonlinear systems. This thesis begins by exploring the application of funnel-based control designs to address performance specifications in coordinate-free formation control of multi-agent systems. Moreover, we develop new robust feedback control schemes dealing with coupled spatiotemporal constraints in uncertain nonlinear systems that cannot be directly addressed by conventional funnel-based control methods. In the first part of the thesis, we present a novel coordinate-free formation control scheme for directed leader-follower multi-agent systems, exhibiting almost global convergence to the desired shape. The synthesis of fully decentralized robust controllers for agents is achieved through the application of the Prescribed Performance Control (PPC) method. This method imposes spatiotemporal funnel constraints on each agent's formation errors, ensuring a predefined transient and steady-state performance while maintaining robustness to system uncertainties. The core idea in this work is the utilization of bipolar coordinates to achieve orthogonal (decoupled) formation errors for each follower agent. This approach not only ensures the global convergence to the desired shape but also facilitates the effective application of the PPC method. In the second part of the thesis, first, we introduce a novel approach that extends funnel-based control schemes to deal with a specific class of time-varying hard and soft constraints. In this work, we employ an online Constraint Consistent Funnel (CCF) planning scheme to tackle couplings between hard and soft constraints. By satisfying these CCF constraints, we ensure adherence to hard (safety) constraints, while soft (performance) constraints are met only when they do not conflict with the hard constraints. Subsequently, we directly employ the PPC design method to craft a robust, low-complexity control law, ensuring that the system's outputs consistently stay within the online planned CCF constraints. In subsequent work, we tackle the challenge of satisfying a generalized class of potentially coupled time-varying output constraints. We show that addressing multiple constraints effectively boils down to formulating a single consolidating constraint. Ensuring the fulfillment of this consolidating constraint guarantees both convergence to and invariance of the time-varying output-constrained set within a user-defined finite time. Building on the PPC design method, we introduce a novel, robust low-complexity feedback control framework to handle this issue in uncertain high-order MIMO nonlinear control systems. Additionally, we present a mechanism for online modification of the consolidating constraint to secure a least-violating solution when constraint infeasibilities occur for an unknown time interval. / Under det senaste decenniet har integrationen av bivillkor i tid och rum för reglersystem framstått som en nödvändighet, driven av efterfrågan på förbättrad prestanda, garanterad säkerhet och utförandet av komplexa uppgifter. Bivillkor i tid och rum för icke-linjära reglersystem kan representeras av tidsvarierande bivillkor. Trattbaserade reglermetoder ("funnel-based control") tillhandahåller beräkningsmässigt hanterbara och robusta återkopplingslagar för att garantera tidsvarier-ande bivillkor i osäkra icke-linjära system. Denna avhandling börjar med att utforska tillämpningen av trattbaserade kontrollmetoder för att hantera prestanda-specifikationer i koordinatfri formationskontroll av multiagentsystem. Dessutom utvecklar vi nya robusta återkopplingslagar som hanterar kopplade bivillkor i tid och rum för osäkra icke-linjära system som inte direkt kan hanteras av konventionella trattbaserade kontrollmetoder. I den första delen av avhandlingen presenterar vi en ny koordinatfri formationskontrollmetod för riktade ledare-följare multiagentsystem, vilken uppvisar nästan global konvergens till den önskade formen. Syntesen av helt decentraliserade robusta regulatorer för agenter uppnås genom tillämpning av Prescribed Performance Control (PPC)-metoden. Denna metod lägger på trattbivillkor i tid och rum på varje agents formationsfel och säkerställer en fördefinierad transient och stationär prestanda samtidigt som robusthet mot systemosäkerheter bibehålls. Kärnan i detta arbete är användningen av bipolära koordinater för att uppnå ortogonala (frikopplade) formationsfel för varje följande agent. Detta tillvägagångssätt säkerställer inte bara global konvergens till den önskade formen utan underlättar också en effektiva tillämpning av PPC-metoden. I den andra delen av avhandlingen introducerar vi först ett nytt tillvägagångssätt som utökar trattbaserade kontrollmetoder för att hantera en specifik klass av tidsvar-ierande hårda och mjuka bivillkor. I detta arbete använder vi en online Constraint Consistent Funnel (CCF)-planeringsmetod för att tackla sammankopplingar mellan hårda och mjuka bivillkor. Genom att uppfylla dessa CCF-bivillkor säkerställer vi efterlevnad av hårda (säkerhets-) bivillkor, medan mjuka (prestanda-) bivillkor uppfylls endast när de inte strider mot de hårda bivillkoren. Därefter tillämpar vi direkt PPC-designmetoden för att utforma en robust reglerlag med låg komplexitet som säkerställer att systemets utsignal konsekvent håller sig inom de online planerade CCF-bivillkoren. Därefter hanterar vi utmaningen med att uppfylla en generaliserad klass av potentiellt kopplade tidsvarierande utsignals-bivillkor. Vi visar att effektiv hantering av flera bivillkor i grund och botten handlar om att formulera ett sammanfattande bivillkor. Uppfyllandet av detta sammanfattande bivillkor garanterar både konvergens till och invarians av den tidsvarierande mängden som uppfyller utsignalsbivillkoren, inom en användardefinierad begränsad tid. Baserat på PPC-designmetoden introducerar vi en ny, robust återkopplingsregulatorstruktur för att hantera detta problem i osäkra högordnings MIMO icke-linjära reglersystem. Dessutom presenterar vi en mekanism för online-modifiering av det sammanfattande bivillkoret för att säkra en lösning med minsta möjliga kränkning då bivillkoren blir omöjliga att uppfylla under en okänd tidsperiod. / <p>QC 20231229</p>

Background: In an increasingly market-driven and global higher education industry, characterized by growing international competition and the emergence of disruptive mobile technologies, higher education institutions (HEIs) are challenged to adopt innovative ways of marketing for student recruitment to sustain student enrollment numbers. Within this new landscape the concept of mobile marketing for student recruitment has become an important issue for HEIs. Mobile devices are playing an increasingly significant role in the decision-making process of potential students and this trend has created the need to adopt new forms of marketing through mobile devices to stay relevant with a new mobile generation of students. Purpose: Despite the growing significance of mobile marketing for HEIs, little is still known about the phenomenon of mobile marketing for student recruitment within a higher education setting. Hence, the purpose of this thesis was to fill this knowledge gap by exploring how and why mobile marketing can be used during the student recruitment process from the perspective of education-marketing practitioners. Method: The research gap addressed in this thesis called for existing mobile marketing concepts to be introduced to the field of higher education marketing. Hence, in alignment with abductive reasoning, the starting point of the research was the creation of a theoretical framework that integrates theory on mobile marketing tools with the student recruitment process. Subsequently, through a collective case study design, exploratory qualitative research was undertaken amongst ten universities and four education-marketing agencies to learn about exemplary cases of mobile marketing practice in HEIs. Empirical data was collected from semi-structured interviews with 16 informants, as well as relevant documents to gain a rich understanding of the phenomenon of mobile marketing for recruiting new students. Results &amp; Contribution: This thesis extends the higher education marketing literature by making a first contribution towards conceptualising mobile marketing for student recruitment. The empirical study revealed ten major categories of mobile student recruitment tactics to engage with potential students on mobile devices, and provides new insights on how and for what purpose these tools can be used to recruit new students. Furthermore, a conceptual model of mobile marketing for student recruitment was developed, which helps to understand how mobile marketing can be applied to the student recruitment process. The study is particularly relevant for education marketers, as it provides practitioners with new knowledge about the opportunities presented by mobile marketing channels to communicate with their main target audience. Specifically, the study provides empirical evidence of mobile marketing practices in the industry and a set of specific recommendations. Additionally, the new model may provide a framework for developing a mobile recruitment strategy for HEIs.