Place is on the one hand a commonsense everyday word with diversely connotative meanings, and on the other a contested concept with different interpretations across a broad range of academic disciplines and discourses. This thesis researches theories of place and their implications for the theory and design practice of landscape architecture. Responding to problems of insufficient theoretical grounding and inconsistent use of the concept of place within the discipline presently, it argues the need for a theory of place better articulated in relation to landscape architecture. It seeks to contribute to such theory formation by drawing on ideas from related disciplines ? tracing diverse understandings of place beyond the commonsense meanings of the word and into the deeper reaches of place theory as tools to explain physical, social and spiritual aspects of the environment, and human relationships with it.

This bachelor thesis contains the findings of an investigation into the laying of wedge sawn wood flooring. The advantage of wedge sawn wood flooring is the usage of more material from each board reducing waste. The boards follow the natural profile of the tree where the root part of the board is wider, and the top part is narrower. The technique involves placing boards side by side with adjacent boards in opposite directions. The thick base of one board is neighbored by the narrow top of another, this creates a pattern of wedges in alternating directions, known as a ?root and top? system. Existing literature into this type of flooring is sparce.

AbstractThe overall purpose of this thesis was to investigate to what extent new research findings, in neuroscience and learning, may be useful in a school improvement context. In a qualitative interview study combined with questionnaire, we have investigated the approach to school improvement that exists in a municipality. Informants have been head teachers in preschool and primary school, special education teachers in a student health team and a development manager. The outcome of the study showed that all of the study participants, all of which have a formal mandated to work for school improvement occurs. It also shows that informants, according to their professional position, express different goals when relating to school improvement.

Since the 1990?s Open Access has developed into an alternative model for scientific publication. Today an increasing political interest in promoting Open Access is commonly channeled through the implementation of policies by research funders. However, in the scientific community the uptake and acceptance of the model has been of notably different character.This Master?s thesis examines the understanding of and attitudes towards open access among eight senior Swedish researchers and how these have been affected by the implementation of the Swedish Research Council?s Open Access-policy as implemented in 2010.

Aim: The aim of this study was to explore the care providers' experiences in enabling communionship and solitude in daily living for elderly living in old age homes in a South African context. Method: This study was done using a qualitative analysing method, with empirical data obtained from nursing staff of elderly. The study was phenomenological which aims at deepen the understanding of human experiences as phenomenon. The data was collected by using a groupinterview which included five informants from an old age home in Pretoria. The analysis included two steps; Naive reading and structural analysis in order to transform the individual elucidations into an abstract which had no individual touch.

Bakgrund: I vårdandet av personer med svårläkta sår finns det en risk att fokus hamnar på såret i sig, istället för den enskilde individen. En avgörande faktor för framgångsrik sårläkning är att vårdaren intar ett helhetsperspektiv av personen. Tidigare forskning visar att livskvaliteten hos personer med bensår påverkas negativt av olika faktorer såsom smärta, nedsatt rörlighet och sömnstörningar. Sjuksköterskan bör bedöma och se till de faktorer som påverkar livskvaliteten hos varje enskild person, samt agera för att såret skall läka och lindra symtom. Syfte: Att belysa den personliga upplevelsen av att leva med svårläkta bensår ur ett livskvalitetsperspektiv.

In today?s technological society, there are increasingly less physical demands on the locomotor system. However, despite that notion strength and function in the hand?s complex biomechanical system are in fact both needed to cope with daily life. The grip function is a main function in the hand and is used in many examples of scientific research, for instance when assessing physical health and predicting the probabilities of premature mortality.

This study was conducted at Glimek AB, a company that has chosen to decentralize its central storage unit in order to increase production efficiencies. The purpose of the study was to identify the problems in the production cycle that lead to the decision to decentralize the central storage unit, as well as identifying what the decentralization entails. The effects of the decentralization have not been analyzed in the study, and consequently neither financial nor production disadvantages have been considered.Appropriate questions were formulated based on the chosen underlying theories, and were asked to selected individuals with relevant knowledge. The study is based on the information that was gathered from interviews with management as well as staff within the company. In addition, supporting information such as flowcharts, drawings, orders and decision support documents were supplied by the company.

Denna studie behandlar arbetet av laborativ matematik för grundskolans senare år. Enligt läroplanen och kursplanen är undervisningens syfte att utveckla elevers kunskaper om matematikens användning både i vardagliga situationer och inom andra ämnesområden. Undervisningen ska även bidra till att elever kan reflektera över matematikens användning i vardagslivet. Många elever är idag omotiverade, uttråkade och har tappat lusten för att lära, vilket kan bero på att lärobokstyrd undervisning domineras i grundskolans senare år. Studien är ett konsumtionsinriktat arbete med litteraturstudie som metod.

Environmental management systems are a way of systematizing and streamlining an organization's environmental efforts. Within its EMS the organization determines it´s environmental policy and various environmental objectives. In order to achieve their environmental objectives the organization produces action plans that describe how they will work towards the objectives. Stora Enso Skog AB´s districts have been assigned to produce action plans for the company´s environmental objective of 90 % approved everyday nature consideration in final felling and any targets included within this objective. The purpose of this study was to investigate how the districts work with these action plans and how this could be improved.

Syfte: Att belysa den unga kvinnans upplevelse av beslutsprocessen vid valet av abort, som underlag för helhetsförståelse vid omvårdnaden av denna. Metod: Litteraturstudie som redovisar resultat från artiklar med kvalitativ- och kvantitativ ansats samt två systematiska litteraturstudier. Datainsamling skedde genom databaserna ElinDalarna, Academic Search Elite (EBSCO) och SveMed+. Sökord som använts är - abortion, psychological aspects, decision-making, experience och omvårdnad. Huvudresultat: I beslutsprocessen präglades kvinnorna av ambivalens.

The purpose of this work has been to understand the reading group from the perspective of the society. The studyhas taken place in the city of Västerås and the results can thus not be used in a more generalized sence. Byfocusstudies conducted with members from four different reading groups connected in different ways to the libraryin Västerås I have reached the following conclusions.According to Jürgen Habermas theories the reading groups, with their ideals regarding education and meetingswhere everybody are equals, belong in the part of the public sphere that he calls literary. There are someconnections to the political sphere, for exempel the down to earth quality of the literature that is the choice ofthe groups and their way of discussing it.One problem that occures when one tries to apply Habermas idéas regarding the public sphere on readinggroups is that the criteria Habermas considers as vital to sphere for it to work properly does not seem to workon the reading groups. Inclusion, eqality and freedom of subjects are necessary to create a public sphere.

AbstractMatchmaking on an organisational level? about co-operation between municipal introduction-units and voluntary organisationsEssay in Political Science D, by Rebecka Johansson, spring 2006The aim of this study is to examine co-operation between municipal introduction-units, which work to integrate newly arrived immigrants and refuges, and voluntary organisations in Sweden. The essay is a comparative case study which examines three local authorities and the main questions are;- Do voluntary organisations constitute a functioning co-operation partner to the municipal introduction-units? Are there conditions for future co-operation?The answer to the questions is that there are no, or rarely any, co-operation between voluntary organisations and municipal introduction-units. It is difficult to judge whether there are conditions for future co-operation.

Digital games are today avaliable on all kinds of different platform. Games and game thinking is also increasingly being applied within non-traditional contexts. This thesis explores the term "gamifiation" which can be defined as "the use of game design elements in non-game contexts". The purpose of the study was to identify and give perspective on the discourse surrounding the use and applicability of the term today. More specifically, it explores the possibilities of the potentially value creating ability in the context of work, and focused on the application of gamified software in the context of project work.

Business Intelligence (BI) is a competitive concept for enterprises to consider. The concept is based on the idea of using business data in order to effectively analyze activities within an enterprise in order to enhance decision processes in the organization.The purpose with this study is to help Akademibokhandeln AB to analyze what BI-requirements they may have, and to create a recommendation on what sort of BI-tool that would fit the enterprise's needs.The requirements analysis was conducted with the help of internal personnel. Four different tools on the BI-market have been examined, analyzed and compared: IBM Cognos 8 (IBM Cognos), Microstrategy 9 (MCST), Qlikview 9 (Qlikview), and SAP Business Objects BI (SAP BO). These tools have been compared with the help of two models (BRI and BCI) that is based on the BI-requirements analysis, with the cost aspect taken into consideration in the BCI-model.Using the BRI-model, the comparison results in a technical evaluation. Here, IBM Cognos gets the highest result just ahead of MCST and SAP BO.