With a population of just 329,000 (barely more than Nottingham), Iceland is the most thinly-populated country in Europe, and 80% of it is uninhabited. Despite this, in the 1100 years since humans first settled there, the Icelanders have built a remarkably resourceful, diverse and robust community - and they have never had to go to war. In fact, in 2013 the United Nations ranked Iceland the 13th most developed country in the world. Professor Gisli Thorsteinsson is a Professor of Education in Reykjavik, while Dr David Whittaker is a retired academic specializing in geopolitics. The two authors have written this book to record and explain Iceland's history and its many achievements and to introduce readers who may not be familiar with the country to the range and vitality of Icelandic thinking and achievement.

Existing automotive system is not sustainable, in terms of environment and global economic balance. The End of Life Vehicle Legislation introduced by the European Union is a producer responsibility directive that aims to ensure vehicle manufacturers take responsibility for both the disposal and, more importantly, the recovery of their vehicles. The book is concerned with investigating and concluding the following question: To What Extent Will End of Life Vehicle Legislation Affect Future Car Design? This covers the following sustainability related topics in depth: Context of the legislation, Eco-design, Life Cycle Assessment, Closed Loop, Design for Dis-assembly and Modularity, Producer Responsibility, and alternative ownership methodologies.

Existing automotive system is not sustainable, in terms of environment and global economic balance. The End of Life Vehicle Legislation introduced by the European Union is a producer responsibility directive that aims to ensure vehicle manufacturers take responsibility for both the disposal and, more importantly, the recovery of their vehicles. The book is concerned with investigating and concluding the following question: To What Extent Will End of Life Vehicle Legislation Affect Future Car Design? This covers the following sustainability related topics in depth: Context of the legislation, Eco -design, Life Cycle Assessment, Closed Loop, Design for Disassembly and Modularity, Producer Responsibility, and alternative ownership methodologies.

The practice of toy design and the theory behind it is studied with particular interest in the ways in which these areas contribute, if at all, to child development. The assessment of the ways in which we play and the toys we have as children with respect to its influence on adulthood will be studied. As well as literary research an interview with a senior designer is carried out. This concludes that the role of the toy designer is complex and subject to the demands of users as well as regulations. A questionnaire was given to 28 respondent ages 18- 25 years; the subject was a retrospective view of toys and their influences on the respondent's current lifestyle. The major conclusions draw from this was that toys not only influence the development of key skills, but also of the positive or negative view on our childhood. These findings show that it is important for designers to draw upon academic research, as well as undertaking their own to create influential toys of quality.

Advances in sport shoe design, materials, technology, and their impact on athletes from the early 20th Century are discussed in detail. Research discusses that the involvement of podiatrists (foot scientists) initially sparked the introduction of the first technologically enhanced features. Secondary research consists of a comparison between classic shoes of old and the innovative shoes of today. Touching on the effects they have had on performance as well as the medical impacts Further progression in sport shoe design and their effects on sportsmen and women are discussed. This investigation may provide a history of sport shoe design arid material improvements, and a discussion of experiences and results that show the impacts on athletes.

Toys and play occupy a large portion of a child's lifetime, providing a basis for a magnitude of skills and developmental stages. They can provide solitary amusement or help to facilitate a game with others. Not only are toys considered to be fun, but they can also help a child to learn new skills and progress through their younger years thus labelling them as educational.The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of toys and play on children under the age of 7. It was important to not only use secondary research in the form of books and web journals but to also obtain information from primary sources through the use of questionnaires.Primary research stages address the relationship between toys and child development from a parental view, answering questions and providing information that was not found during the literature review. 2 questionnaires were used to gain answers to a variety of questions about toys, play and child development and consumer habits of parents.

Design strategy allows many companies to develop a plan for what they need to make and do, affecting both their immediate and long-term prospects. In this study, a specific approach has been taken to understand and analyse the role that it plays in the garden power tool market. The study focused on design and marketing of garden power tools. Findings provided the foundations for the development of a generic design strategy framework appropriate to the garden power tool market.

Educators should attempt to create a common and solid strategy in preschool educational institutions in order to sufficiently ensure a safe social environment of children. A research examining health and safety issues in Lithuanian preschools was carried out in Klaipeda. The aim of the research was to analyse the conditions of safe environment creation for children in pre-school educational institution and its development prospects. The following questions were asked: 1. What are the factors that influence the safety of pre-school educational institution environment and could these factors be developed? 2. What difficulties arise in the process of safe environment creation for children? 3. How could the creation of safe environment be developed in contemporary pre-school educational institutions?

The definition of packaging is as follows: "Packaging is the science, art and technology of enclosing or protecting products for distribution, storage, sale, and use. Packaging also refers to the process of design, evaluation, and production of packages and all the development and manufacturing processes that are required to create the packaging. In order to develop consistent successful packaging within the competitive and fast moving food and cosmetics market, premium brands must liaise with consumers in order to maintain an optimised brand design for their products.

Prior pedagogical models have failed to take into account new contextual and mobile methods of learning with the advances in technology-mediated learning. This book puts forward a pedagogical approach, namely, future innovative in-service teacher education in Europe. It is concerned with the educational use of information and communication technologies, specifically with the development and dissemination of a new pedagogical strategy for open and distance learning through in-service teacher education in schools across Europe.

Sport is a very subjective topic; people's opinions will often differ, and therefore encourage debate, frequently resulting in disagreement and argument. Many traditionalists will declare that technology should not be introduced into sport; it should remain how it has been since its creation, played how it was designed to be played. After all, controversies make sport more interesting and ultimately part of what it is today. Others will, however, argue that technology needs to be introduced to aid the official's decisions, to add another interesting dimension, and develop the sport, taking it forward, adapting it to today's modern world. This study, fully analyses whether the introduction of technology into sport is advantageous.

Previous pedagogical models have failed to take into account new contextual and mobile methods of learning with the advances in technology-mediated learning. This book puts forward a pedagogical approach, namely, future innovative in-service teacher education in Europe. It is concerned with the educational use of information and communication technologies, specifically with the development and dissemination of a new pedagogical strategy for open and distance learning through in-service teacher education in schools across Europe.

This book demonstrates an investigation to distinguish what factors make premium packaging more premium than that of the mass products. The following questions were used to lead the work: 1. How much influence does packaging have on a consumer's decision? 2. What specific techniques are used by the premium packaging products? 3. Which of the techniques are most effective in making the packaging premium? 4. How can these techniques be measured empirically?

This book investigates if there is any correlation between the symmetrical aspects of a product and their impact on the desirability of it. Research studies carried out include; a survey of 40 questionnaire participants and a focus group consisting of 6 individuals who commented upon a range of products, both symmetrical and asymmetrical. This was carried out in order to obtain reasons why people find products desirable and what it means to them, find out how people react to the form of a product as well as investigating if there is an effect on the symmetry of a product due to its purpose or function. From this it was possible to deduce examples of desirable products that were popular in culture today such as Sony's Playstation 3 games console and the iconic Apple iPhone. By understanding how the products are manufactured and how processes have changed over recent years, helped to indicate if this has had an impact on the symmetry of a product.

This study explores consumer's attitudes and behaviour to the concept of sustainability within products in the bathroom industry. Scrutinising these against the actual product development and marketing which is pushing these products as green consumables. 'The possibility that sustainable development may not actually be achievable in any practical sense does not, however, make it any less important' (Walker, 2006). Even if this is true huge steps forward in sustainability can be made within the bathroom industry.

This work investigated if there was any correlation between the symmetrical aspects of a product and their impact on the desirability of it. From this it was possible to deduce examples of desirable products that were popular in culture today such as Sony's PlayStation 3 games console and the iconic Apple iPhone. By understanding how the products are manufactured and how processes have changed over recent years, helped to indicate the impact on the symmetry of a product.

Most research on the bottled water industry only addresses environmental or quality issues. This research, however, examines how tap water can be made more appealing to consumers. It, furthermore, explores in detail why consumers favour bottled water over tap water and why consumers choose certain brands of bottled water over others? Finding answers to these questions enables strategies to be formulated to make tap water more appealing through design and marketing.

There are many research reports regarding packaging and its guidelines of design and development being well designed to maximise consumer interest, but premium and mass brands with their split in the market is not a well explored subject matter. This book examines packaging techniques and methods, moreover on psychological reasoning behind user and consumer decisions. It also uncovered strong links to standard pack design within both industries being a foundation for brands to build upon with special decorations and finishes to customise and dictate what user market the product is aimed at.

This book will identify how the development of modern technology has had an effect on sports. Sport is part of a multi faceted society which constantly evolves. It is only natural therefore that sports will need to develop in order to be able to keep up with other aspects of society. The authors look for answears to the question: Why do we need to develop sports technology? They look at sports on an elite level, but also consider how any changes might have affected the recreational athlete.

From new research and increased public awareness into the affects of lighting in the workplace, an investigation was undertaken to discover whether Photobiologists or Light Design Engineers were correct in their perception of necessary light for the healthfulness of office workers. Results from objective and subjective investigations proved inconclusive as they showed that elements of thinking from both parties had some truth. This implied that, at present, there is no one method that can be used to gauge the complete healthfulness of lighting, and so a compromise of both objective and subjective methods from both bodies of thinking must be used. This is obviously not an ideal situation as it cannot guarantee a consistency of quality and healthfulness. However, this will remain to be the case until Photobiologists can prove beyond any doubt that light type e.g. types of artificial lighting, affects human health, and force long awaited reform of lighting regulations in the workplace.

Manufacturing industry is continuously looking for innovative means of improving their operations to meet the ever growing consumer demand, and achieve this at the lowest possible cost. This investigation explores the role that automated design and products have had in expanding the horizons for such companies. The discussions and conclusions drawn from this investigation represent the predictions for future involvement and development of automation. This investigation has used research methods such as questionnaires and interviews to collect data which has been analysed using such tools as charts and coding and clustering tables.