Syftet med denna kandidatuppsats var att undersöka hur aktivt arbetande fastighetsmäklare uppfattar och skapar kundlojalitet under en fastighetsförsäljning. Eftersom det enligt forskning inte finns någon samstämmig definition av kundlojalitet eller ett ramverk för att skapa det så bör fenomenet undersökas branschvis, i detta fall inom fastighetsbranschen. Detta gjordes för att försöka klargöra osäkerheterna kring det lojalitetsskapande arbetet. Det teoretiska ramverket bestod av forskning kring fenomenets innebörd samt vilka egenskaper som en tjänsteförmedlare bör besitta. Metoden som användes var kvalitativa intervjuer som utfördes på åtta fastighetsmäklare från olika marknader i Sverige. Teorin och empirin visar sambandet mellan kundlojalitet, kundnöjdhet och image - ett samband som skulle kunna undersökas ytterligare i fortsatt forskning med denna studies resultat som grund. De lojalitetsbyggande egenskaperna som värderades högst var kontinuerlig kommunikation, engagemang, lyhördhet och anpassning efter kunden. Eftersom mäklartjänsten alltid i grunden innehåller detsamma så var det enligt respondenterna viktigt att mäklaren utmärker sig på ett personligt plan för att ha chansen till en bred och lojal kundbank. Inför framtida forskning kan denna studie användas för att fortsätta skapa en större insikt i hur andra fastighetsförmedlare eller tjänsteleverantörer uppfattar och skapar kundlojalitet. Ytterligare avgränsningar och fler resurser skulle kunna skapa en mer omfattande studie kring ämnet. / The purpose of this bachelor thesis was to investigate how active-working real estate brokers’ interpret and creates customer loyalty during a property sale. According to research there is no unanimous definition of customer loyalty or a framework for creating it. Therefore the phenomenon should be investigated in various industries, in this case within the real estate industry. This was done to try to clarify the uncertainties about the loyalty-creating work. The theoretical framework consisted of research on the meaning of the phenomenon and what characteristics a service broker should possess. The method used was qualitative interviews conducted on eight real estate brokers’ from different markets in Sweden. Theory and empirics showed the relationship between customer loyalty, customer satisfaction and image - a connection that can be further investigated in future research with the results of this study as a foundation. The most highly valued loyalty-building qualities were continuous communication, dedication, responsiveness and customization to the customer. As the brokerage service always contains the same, it was according to the respondents important that the broker distinguish in a personal way to get the chance of a broad and loyal clientele. For future research, this study can be used to continue to create a broader insight into how other real estate brokers’ or service providers’ interpret and creates customer loyalty. Further delimitations and more resources could create a more comprehensive study on the subject.

Face à la discontinuité et à l’hétérogénéité essentielles – et non accidentelles – de la communication muséale, le spectre des postures adoptées par les acteurs de la médiatisation investis dans ces processus est très large. La présente thèse cherche à examiner la manière dont ces acteurs (autant ceux qui évoluent au sein des musées qu’autour de ces derniers) s’engagent dans un jeu d’anticipations croisées où chacun cherche à s’assurer des prises sur le continuum de la médiation patrimoniale pour poursuivre ses projets respectifs. Conduite dans le cadre d’un financement CIFRE au sein de l’agence prestataire de musées Mazedia, cette thèse se focalise, dans cette situation d’incertitude plus ou moins radicale, sur le recours aux médias informatisés et, plus précisément, aux architextes ; ces outils d’écriture qui conditionnent l’écriture (et, de fait, la lecture) des autres. Dans une démarche à la croisée entre sémiologie des médias et des médiations et économie politique de la communication, deux architextes font l’objet d’une analyse détaillée : DMA Friends (conçu par le musée d’art de Dallas) et Wezit (conçu par l’agence Mazedia). Le premier a été choisi pour la façon dont il illustre un processus d’architextualisation de l’évaluation muséale (appréhendée comme une écriture des pratiques) ; le second, un processus d’architextualisation des pratiques d’écriture de médiation de type « transmédiatique ». Dans une perspective exploratoire est examinée l’articulation possible entre ces deux processus et la manière dont celle-ci est susceptible de reconfigurer la manière dont la médiation patrimoniale peut opérer lorsqu’elle repose sur l’intervention des médias informatisés. / When dealing with the discontinuity and heterogeneity of museum communication (which is essential and not at all accidental), the broad spectrum of the positions adopted by the actors of mediatization who are involved in the processes is substantial. This thesis examines the manner in which these actors (i.e. those working in museums and those collaborating with them) anticipate complex interactions and seek to guarantee their place on the continuum of heritage interpretation in order to pursue their respective projects. This thesis was possible thanks to a CIFRE grant and was undertaken within a service provider for museums called Mazedia. In this context of relatively significant institutional instability, its aim is to focus on the reliance on digitized media and, more precisely, on architexts, that is, writing tools which condition the writing (and, as a result, the reading) of others. In a process which is situated at an intersection between media and mediation semiology and political economy of communication, two architexts are analyzed in detail, DMA Friends (conceived by the Dallas museum of Art) and Wezit (conceived by Mazedia) respectively. The first was chosen on account of the way it illustrates a process of architextualisation of museum evaluation (apprehended as practices scripturalization). The second deals with a process of the architextualization of practices of transmedia interpretation writing. It is in an exploratory perspective that this thesis examines the possible articulation between these two processes and the manner in which the latter is susceptible to reconfigure the way heritage mediation can operate when it relies on the use of digitized media.

One of the key processes of IS/IT service provider is Service Level Management. IT service provider faces a problem how the services should be defined, how a balanced service portfolio should be set up and how the processes covering the service management should be designed to meet strategic goals of the organization. The thesis focuses on IS/IT service portfolio design and management with a particular focus on infrastructure services. General goal of the thesis is to support IS/IT service provider's activities directly linked with service level management, IT financial management and IT service portfolio design. The thesis puts together theoretical sources in the area of IT Governance, generally accepted methodologies and best practices, actual market trends and author's experience. The theoretical part maps current development in the field of IS/IT service management, summarizes relevant theoretical inputs, categorizes IS/IT services, gives an overview of the most commonly used pricing models and presents actual IS/IT market trends, such as SaaS or Utility Computing. The application part, which follows the theoretical part of the thesis, is built upon fundaments of key findings and conclusions of the theoretical part. Application section introduces a method of service level management transformation and a business model suitable for IS/IT service provider. Furthermore a process of IS/IT service portfolio design is introduced. The process is supported by an analytical tool, which enables analysis of provider's financial and infrastructure data. The output of the analysis is a set of scenarios of IS/IT service portfolio including revenue, costs and utilization of resources and technologies. Academic benefit is seen not only in the consolidation of relevant theoretical sources dealing with IT service design and management. The thesis also introduces frameworks for optimization of service level management process and a concept of a IT service provider's business model. A practical contribution of the thesis is seen in a process of IT service portfolio design supported by an analytical tool for provider's real data processing, covering demand, capacity, utilization and financials.

The goal of the thesis is to analyze chosen electronic payment systems. The thesis is divided into two parts -- theoretical and practical. Theoretical part is dedicated to cover types of electronic payment system. Also is devoted to the issues of certain legal aspects that are common to all payment systems; defines the necessary concepts and business entities commonly encountered in the payment processing environment. Practical part focuses on the evaluation of usability, safety and usefulness for merchants mainly working with credit cards and particularly with alternative payment system like PayPal, iDEAL, Sofortbanking and Webmoney. Consider the advantages and disadvantages of certain payment systems. Describes the practical applicability of PCI DSS and 3-D Secure protocol.

行動代理人（Mobile Agent）是一種常被應用於分散式處理及行動運算的技術之一。尤其近幾年在網際網路的普及與Java語言的誕生後，更是結合了這兩者特性，在Web上蔓延開來，許多行動代理開發工具本身便是純Java語言撰寫的，而且亦有為數不少的行動代理人應用系統直接就是建構於Web平台上。 　本研究運用行動代理技術建構一行動代理人服務提供者（Mobile Agent Service Provider，MASP）應用模式，以Web為平台，將各種服務以行動代理人的方式來開發，然後提供給客戶。客戶可藉由這些服務所具備的諸多行動代理人特性，來進行個人資訊管理工作。研究問題主要係針對現今一般人所擁有的金融帳戶過多造成理財困擾，以及目前的網路銀行或金融帳戶管理系統無法做到跨行跨業這兩方面來進行改良。客戶只需連線上站，即可要求代理程式為他服務。不論人在哪裡，便會自動收到代理人從與其有往來的各網路銀行網站中所擷取回來的帳戶最新資料，然後便可用單一帳戶將這些資料加以彙整管理；甚至在離線後，亦能讓代理程式以其預先設定好的工作而自動繼續執行任務，不必擔心作業中斷。客戶可以將其個人帳戶資料儲存於自己的電腦中，而不必擔心若存於系統伺服器可能產生的潛在安全性問題。因此客戶只須利用此單一整合帳戶（All-in-One Account）即可進行跨行整合的個人理財活動，輕鬆達成帳戶彙整（Account Aggregation）管理。 　本研究從使用者主導的角度來發展此服務架構，希望此模式能應用於其他領域上，以使行動代理的發展更加全方位及人性化。

This research investigates the impact of the interaction between the consumer and mobile service provider on the adoption of advanced mobile commerce services by existing consumers of mobile technology. These factors include: 1) Perceived Relationship Quality (PRQ), which is the consumer’s evaluation of the quality of his/her relationship with the mobile service provider, and 2) Perceived Value of the Adoption Incentive (PVI), which is the consumer’s evaluation of the value of incentives that are offered by the service provider to entice him/her to adopt the mobile service. The influence of these factors on consumer attitudes and intentions towards adopting mobile commerce services is studied and compared with three other well-known adoption factors including perceived usefulness, ease of use and the subjective norm. / This study was undertaken in three parts. Firstly, a conceptual study was conducted to investigate and analyse the existing literature on consumer adoption of mobile commerce services. This phase started with a general review of the existing studies using a novel model: the Entities-Interactions Framework, EIF. The EIF explains adoption behaviour in terms of interactions between the consumer and the other entities including the mobile service, the service provider and the social system. This framework was used to analyse the extent to which important adoption factors have been covered by past research and therefore identify the research questions. The conceptual study resulted in the development of a research model and relevant hypotheses. / Secondly, a large-scale questionnaire survey was conducted to test the research model and the proposed hypotheses. This part of the research helped give a broad picture of the influence of consumer-service provider factors on consumer adoption of mobile commerce services. Thirdly, face-to-face interviews with mobile phones users were conducted in order to validate the survey results and provide an understanding of the mechanisms that control the impact of the investigated factors. The research found that PRQ and PVI have an important influence on the attitude and intention of existing mobile phone users towards accepting and using advanced mobile commerce services. Furthermore, the research found that these newly introduced factors are more influential on consumer adoption perceptions than other well-established factors. / The study enriches our understanding of technology adoption by individuals because it explains why an existing user of a technology, such as mobile technology, will or will not adopt advanced versions of that technology. The findings affirm that in the context of communication technologies, which are interactive by nature, understanding the interaction between consumers and service providers is a key to understanding the progressive adoption by consumers of advanced forms of these technologies. The thesis provides practitioners (particularly mobile service providers) with a better understanding of the impact and implication of their interaction with consumers on consumers’ acceptance and use of mobile services. The study emphasises the importance of incorporating this understanding throughout the mobile service provision process, starting from the conceptualisation of the service to the actual provision of the service to the market. The study also offers a novel comprehension of how to view each mobile service offer as a consequence of the previous offer and a precedent of the next in order to enhance consumer adoption of mobile service in the short and long runs.

<p>The objective of this thesis is to design and implement a small scaleInternet Service Provider (ISP) for the NetCenter sub department atMälardalen University. The ISP is intended to give NetCenter a networkseparate from the University’s network, providing them with a moreflexible environment for lab purposes. This will give their students anopportunity to experience a larger backbone with Internet accessibility,which has not been previously available. At the same time it will place theteachers in control of the network in the NetCenter lab premises.The network is designed with a layered approach including an Internetaccess layer, a larger core segment and a distribution layer with aseparated lab network. It also incorporates both a public and a privateserver network, housing servers running e.g. Windows Active Directory,external DNS services, monitoring tools and logging applications. TheInternet access is achieved by peering with SUNET providing a full BGPfeed.This thesis report presents methods, implementations and results involvedin successfully creating the NetCenter ISP as both a lab network and anInternet provider with a few inevitable shortcomings; the most prominentbeing an incomplete Windows Domain setup.</p>

The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is the dominant transport protocol in today?s Internet. The original design of TCP left congestion control open to future designers. Short of implementing changes to the TCP stack on the end-nodes themselves, Internet Service Providers have employed several techniques to be able to operate their network equipment efficiently. These techniques amount to shaping traffic to reduce cost and improve overall customer satisfaction. <br /><br /> The method that gives maximum control when performing traffic shaping is using an inline traffic shaper. An inline traffic shaper sits in the middle of any flow, allowing packets to pass through it and, with policy-limited freedom, inspects and modifies all packets as it pleases. However, a number of practical issues such as hardware reliability or ISP policy, may prevent such a solution from being employed. For example, an ISP that does not fully trust the quality of the traffic shaper would not want such a product to be placed in-line with its equipment, as it places a significant threat to its business. What is required in such cases is third-party rate control. <br /><br /> Formally defined, a third-party rate controller is one that can see all traffic and inject new traffic into the network, but cannot remove or modify existing network packets. Given these restrictions, we present and study a technique to control TCP flows, namely triple-ACK duplication. The triple-ACK algorithm allows significant capabilities to a third-party traffic shaper. We provide an analytical justification for why this technique works under ideal conditions and demonstrate via simulation the bandwidth reduction achieved. When judiciously applied, the triple-ACK duplication technique produces minimal badput, while producing significant reductions in bandwidth consumption under ideal conditions. Based on a brief study, we show that our algorithm is able to selectively throttle one flow while allowing another to gain in bandwidth.

The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is the dominant transport protocol in today?s Internet. The original design of TCP left congestion control open to future designers. Short of implementing changes to the TCP stack on the end-nodes themselves, Internet Service Providers have employed several techniques to be able to operate their network equipment efficiently. These techniques amount to shaping traffic to reduce cost and improve overall customer satisfaction. <br /><br /> The method that gives maximum control when performing traffic shaping is using an inline traffic shaper. An inline traffic shaper sits in the middle of any flow, allowing packets to pass through it and, with policy-limited freedom, inspects and modifies all packets as it pleases. However, a number of practical issues such as hardware reliability or ISP policy, may prevent such a solution from being employed. For example, an ISP that does not fully trust the quality of the traffic shaper would not want such a product to be placed in-line with its equipment, as it places a significant threat to its business. What is required in such cases is third-party rate control. <br /><br /> Formally defined, a third-party rate controller is one that can see all traffic and inject new traffic into the network, but cannot remove or modify existing network packets. Given these restrictions, we present and study a technique to control TCP flows, namely triple-ACK duplication. The triple-ACK algorithm allows significant capabilities to a third-party traffic shaper. We provide an analytical justification for why this technique works under ideal conditions and demonstrate via simulation the bandwidth reduction achieved. When judiciously applied, the triple-ACK duplication technique produces minimal badput, while producing significant reductions in bandwidth consumption under ideal conditions. Based on a brief study, we show that our algorithm is able to selectively throttle one flow while allowing another to gain in bandwidth.

Multicast has long been considered an attractive service for the Internet for the provision of multiparty applications. For over a decade now multicast has been a proposed IETF standard. Though there is a strong industry push towards deploying multicast, there has been little multicast deployment by commercial Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and more importantly most end-users still lack multicast capabilities. Depending on the underlying network infrastructure, the ISP has several options of implementing his multicast capabilities. With significantly faster and more sophisticated protocols being designed and prototyped, it is expected that a whole new gamut of applications that are delay sensitive will come into being. However, the incentives to resolve the conflicting interests of the ISPs and the end-users have to be provided for successful implementation of these protocols. Thus we arrive at the following economic questions: What is the strategy that will enable the ISP recover his costs ? How can the end-user be made aware of the cost of his actions ? Naturally, the strategies of the ISP and the end-user depend on each other and form an economic game. The research problems addressed in this thesis are: A pricing model that is independent of the underlying transmission protocols is prefered. We have proposed such a pricing scheme for multicast independent of the underlying protocols, by introducing the concept of pricing points* These pricing points provide a range of prices that the users can expect during a particular time period and tune their usage accordingly. Our pricing scheme makes both the sender and receiver accountable. Our scheme also provides for catering to heterogeneous users and gives incentive for differential pricing. We explore a number of formulations of resource allocation problems arising in communication networks as optimization models. Optimization-based methods were only employed for unicast congestion control. We have extended this method for single rate multicast. We have also devised an optimization-based approach for multicast congestion control that finds an allocation rate to maximize the social welfare. Finally we also show that the session-splitting problem can also be cast as an optimization problem. The commonly used "max-min" fairness criteria suffers from serious limitations like discriminating sessions that traverse large number of links and poor network utilization. We provide an allocation scheme that reduces discrimination towards multicast sessions that traverse many links and also improves network utilization.