As the number of people owning a smartphone rapidly increases so too does the opportunity for various researchers to exploit this technology. The possibility to recruit people to participate in research studies improves and with it the chance to get more diversified target groups in terms of age, socio-economic status, geographical location, etc.In this essay, I argue that the opportunities smartphones offer in terms of collecting research material is vastly underestimated in several areas, bearing in mind the advantages they present. In order to support my argument, I shall present a case study carried out in the research area of happiness ? an area where the use of smartphones has provided significant opportunities for research.In order to gather the advantages and disadvantages of this method of study from the participants? perspective, I have followed a happiness research study which is a collaboration between Umeå University and The University of Stockholm. I have interviewed the participants of this study in order to assess the advantages and opportunities that smartphones offer in research programs.Overall, the participants? opinion of this research method was generally positive and it was considered to be quite easy to participate in the study and respond to the questions asked.

The following chapters examine landscape architecture which engages in contested territories with an emphasis on the way in which landscape architecture can engage with the issues of divided cities or landscapes with similar social, cultural and physical properties. The project focuses specifically on the potential landscape architecture has for promoting or aiding in the reconciliation process of these areas, by examining the following questions. How can landscape architecture be used to benefit the peace building process of divided cities and landscapes? How can landscape architecture be used in the process of promoting spatial reconciliation in the case of Belfast? The investigation begins with a description of the background to the project in Chapter 1, which functions as a brief introduction to the urban phenomena that is divided cities. It then goes on to introduce the different methods and data employed in order to answer the research questions in Chapter 2. After introducing the problem and the methodology, a global overview of divided cities is performed in Chapter 3. This chapter is divided into two sections.

CSR is a far reaching concept and practice, whose popularity and diffusion has increased rapidly in recent years. Research indicates that CSR has made an evolutionary journey from primarily being characterized by reactiveness to develop into a risk minimizing and proactive competitive advantage and should be looked upon as an answer to heightened societal pressure and awareness. Based on a review regarding different relevant theoretical perspectives, this master thesis discusses CSR as a concept and practical matter in relation to various strategically chosen representatives of a selection of professions.Moreover, the data were collected through in-depth semi structured interviews. The findings show that CSR is a contemporary and highly context dependent phenomenon whose inherent multiplicity brings a distinct aspect of uncertainty to it, in terms of both meaning and practice. And in some parts there is a reluctance to communicate CSR due to a fear of missing out of important aspects.

This essay has an aim to map out the discourses in the debate around local self government and national equivalence, which are both essential democratic values. The essay is delimited to the area of the comprehensive school. Interviews have been made with key persons in different positions in a selected municipality. I also use material that has been written in the context of Ansvarskommittén. The material is analysed using an integrated discourse analysis.

Purpose: This thesis aims to study how students in upper secondary school evaluate sources in their everyday school work and how the role of the school library and librarian officiate in this context.Methodology: A web questionnaire was conducted and 155 students from different schools, with or without school library and school librarian, participated. We coded and aggregated the questionnaires according to the strategies that are used when evaluating sources, identified by Francke, Sundin and Limberg. Cognitive authority, a theory by Patrick Wilson, was also a part of our analysis. Conclusions: The study shows that students use different strategies, separately or combined, as a way to evaluate sources. The teacher is regarded as a cognitive authority and is the main influence concerning source evaluation. It also shows that the role of school libraries and school librarians, in this context, seem to be non-existent.

According to the curriculum the teachers have a responsibility to adjust the activities in the classroom in order to suit the pupils and to give them the means of assistance the pupils need to be successful in their learning. The teachers should also stimulate the interest to learn and support the pupils? self esteem. One of the problems a dyslectic pupil faces is an often weak self esteem. Another is the weak phonological awareness which makes it hard to fully understand the context and to recognize different phonemes when writing.

This thesis deals with an iterative user-centered IT-development project in a bank setting. The aim is to present a solution for deployment of future Internet banking for small businesses. The project features a design of IT-related concepts and ideas with a strong emphasis on scenario-based design and the usage of patterns as a documentation tool.The project plan featured an iterative framework and was carried out by a group of designers in collaboration with a reference group representing the future users of the system. This group consisted of company managers and bank employees, all from the small town of Ã…tvidaberg in Sweden.The method used in the development process was Scrum. A total of three sprints were completed with user meetings at the end of every sprint.

The waveform of a radar signal affects the resolution in velocity and distance. The ambiguity function is used as an aid for analysing narrow band radar signals simultaneously in time and frequency. An analysing tool for wide band radar signals is missing.This thesis describes a generalised ambiguity function to be utilised for study of wide band signals. Waveforms are further synthesised with help of the developed analysing tool. The aim is to start with a certain ambiguity function and find a waveform that reproduces the same ambiguity function.Mathematical formulas are presented and implemented in Matlab to produce the wide band ambiguity function.

Location-based services (LBS) contains of services helping users of finding positions of themselves or other objects. LBS applications can present information in varies types of ways, these could be threw speech, text, geographic symbols, photos etc. Not many studies have been done to examine the aspects of LBS communication and there is a demand for user and context centered mapping.The purpose of this report is to present a model for the development of user and context based services. The model will give guide lines of recommendations when implementing LBS. The different technologies that support LBS will also be noticed.

This study is based on the notion that the most widely cited and used instrument for assessing volunteer motivations, the Volunteer Function Inventory (VFI), might not be sufficient in its aspiration to aid, streamline and benefit the recruitment and retention process within volunteer organizations. Understanding volunteers? motivation is a crucial component in the process of securing future volunteer engagement in a world where their efforts are desperately needed.This study aims to explain motives and motivation behind volunteer efforts in extreme situations as well as to examine the dependability of the theoretical framework in relation to the forthcoming result, based on the following research questions:What motivated Swedish medical personnel to volunteer during the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa?How could the motives and motivation of Swedish medical personnel be categorized in accordance with the Volunteer Function Inventory (VFI)?Is the Volunteer Function Inventory (VFI) a sufficient tool for analyzing the motives and motivation of Swedish medical personnel in the given case?The presented research questions will be answer through a qualitative theory-consuming study, based mainly on interviews. The interviews are, however, complimented by various written sources in the field of research.The result and subsequent analysis confirms the authors? notion on the VFI and highlights certain deficits in the tool?s execution and its succeeding result.

The overall purpose of this study is to examine how preschool teachers make use of digital tools in correlation with pedagogical documentation. More specifically, the purpose is to interview preschool teachers about their ideas and their use of the digital tool Förskoleappen to record and document childrens learningprocesses. The purpose will be answered with help from the following questions: In what way do preschool teachers use Förskoleappen in pedagogical documentation? What ideas and views do preschool teachers have about digital technology in general and Förskoleappen in particular? In order to find the answers to our questions we carried out a qualitative study in the form of interviews with six preschool teachers from two different preschools. We have used the designtheoretical perspective as our theoretical frame.

The aim of this study is to explain the paradox of the memberstates willingness to surrender power of important issues such as asylum and refugee policy and therefore partly abandon its sovereignty. We also discuss the relation between internationalization, regionalization and globalization since these processes form the context in which our research problem is found. A case study is used as a method in this paper.In our quest for answers we use a theory of internationalization that we place in its context by primarily discussing the relation between globalization and regionalization. The theory is used as an explanatory force and to give it a concrete form we operationalised its three processes; internationalization of problems, internationalization of the societies and internationalization of the descisionmaking.The result of the case study shows that the increase in asylumseekers leads to a higher risk of negative competition wich give rise to the memberstates need to coordinate their politics.We found that when societies and problems are being internationalized, the state finds it difficult to resolve problems on their own and this leads to the internationalization of the dedescisionmaking. The internationalization of the decision-making process is therefore natural, which in this case means the decisions are taken by the EU rather than by the member states..

The governing set of regulations for structural engineering in Sweden used to be Boverket, BKR. However in the beginning of the 21st century a changeover to new regulations, the Eurocodes, started.The transition was completed in year 2011 when the Eurocodes became the mandatory design work policy for all countries within the European Union. The Eurocodes were implemented to simplify and remove potential barriers to trade that may exist when countries have different design rules.  Since the changeover it has been important for all construction companies to update their knowledge base and their design software.When comparing the two calculation processes they seem similar, but there are a couple of differences worth noting.  With the new regulations, engineers will find that the process when designing joints in timber structures has changed.  What used to be a fairly easy and straight forward calculation procedure has now become tedious and time consuming.The objective of this degree project is to present a product, a dimensioning tool that will help structural engineers when computing lateral load carrying joints in timber structures.The degree project is made up of two parts where the first part is the written report describing the background and theory behind load carrying computations. The second part of the project is the actual dimensioning tool which includes several worksheets in Microsoft Excel. The program treats single and double shear connections of the following:Nail jointsScrew jointsSteel plates (thick and thin types) The user can edit the following parameters:Type of plate/ number of shearsStrength class of timber membersMember and plate sizeType of fastenerDiameter of fastenerLength of fastenerYield moment of fastenerkmod and partial factors for design load carrying capacityThe dimensioning tool was created and developed in collaboration with structural engineers at the company Byggteknik AB.

The purpose of this thesis is to see how film can be used to invigorate children?s language development. There is not much research regarding this, which is why we have chosen to study this particular topic. The study consists of questionnaires, an interview and a pilot study. We have chosen to proceed from a socio-cultural perspective, language perspective and learning perspective, thus we are interested in the teacher?s views and thoughts about film as a learning tool complemented by what children can gain through film.

In 2006 the government assigned the Council of Cultural Affairs the task of making an update, consisting of 50 literary titles, to be added to the existing list called Alla tiders klassiker ? en klassikerserie för skolan (All-time classics suited for school).      The idea of ??a literary canon can be considered to be a tool for transferring socially, historically and culturally constructed norms and values ??from one generation to the next in order to create and maintain a common frame of reference. The common frame of reference affect the individual's thoughts and actions as well as their sexual desires and their own perception of self as a sexual being.