This Master?s thesis is one of two parts of a combined project called Sustainable development around the Lake Victoria, the purpose of which is to investigate the importance of local anchoring and active participation in the work towards sustainable development. The present study aims to investigate whether men and women are empowered by the participatory rural appraisal (PRA) process promoted in their villages by the VI Agroforestry Project Masaka/Rakai. The study is primarily based on interviews with farmers within the project area and brings up a local perspective on the concepts sustainable development, active participation and empowerment. The study shows that to improve the farmers? livelihood and to create a sustainable development in the community, the farmers have to be actively involved in, and in control of, the process.

Idre Fjäll currently has not full control of how visitors experience their site or if it has good usability. I have helped the company to do a usability test on their website to see how and where any improvements can be made on the page before the winter season 2010. I have also done a survey to investigate how users perceive Idre Fjälls website. Ten people of various ages participated in the survey. All test subjects was recorded with both audio and screen activity during the tests.

This essay aims at understanding the experience of the use of ayahuasca, and similarities and differences between interview protocols and socio-cultural identities. The work is based on field studies conducted in the Peruvian Andes, in the village of Pisac September to November 2009. What has emerged is that the experience does not seem to be dependent on cultural manifestations as much as it is dependent on general human cognition. Theories have been applied on an empirical phenomenological descriptive study. Various brain activities, along with mental mechanisms contribute to a deeper understanding of the findings in the descriptive analysis.It seems that the cultural differences, which I have classed as typological in the phenomenological study, mostly are expressions of meaning for the informants.

In this degree project we wanted to investigate if there are any possibilities to get a higher income from grain growing by giving the grain to hens instead of selling it. We were also wondering if the manure has any value or if it only cost the egg producer money. If the egg producer cultivate his own grain and is able to store it in layer is there quite much money to earn. Expensive pasture makes it profitability to pay up to 1,35 Swedish crowns for a kilo of wheat. In our calculating we?ve used calculation from the company Lantmännen.

This two years master's thesis examines the experience of children who read to a dog. The theoretical framework is inspired by sociocultural theory developed by Roger Säljö and the concept carnival inspired by Mikhail Bakhtin. The sociocultural theory has been chosen because it emphasizes the role of practice, instruments and communication in learning and the concept carnival has been chosen to analyze the experience of reading to a dog.The method used is qualitative interview and observation. A total of eight interviews and two observations when children read to a dog have been collected. One interview is with a teacher and seven interviews are with the children (six children participated and one child was interviewed twice).

The main objective in this study is to examine the pupil?s possibility to affect the upper secondary schools in Stockholm, Sweden. I was once active in the pupil?s council and experienced some hardships, feeling a great dissatisfaction among teachers and principals against pupil?s suggestions and chances to affect their school environment. Thus I wanted to do a contemporary study of where schools in Stockholm stand today within this issue.

AimThe aim of this essay is by using a motor skill track to see if there exists any remarkable difference in the motor skill profiles between pupils from our montessori school and the mean score in the "Nytidstest". The questions at issue we had were: How is the motor skill profile on pupils in year 2 and 3 practicing montessori pedagogy? Is the motor skill profile superior or inferior to the mean score in the "Nytidstest"? What factors, if any, concerning the montessori pedagogy affects the results of the test?MethodWe used a motor skill track consisting of 8 stations sellected from the "Nytidstest" adapted for year 3 (the original test consists of 16 stations). Pupils from year 2 and 3 in our chosen montessori school were tested in groups of 4-5 persons each. We made the tests on two occasions each lasting for 100 minutes at the time.

Many corporations turn to IT-outsourcing to focus more on their core competence or to cut the IT-budget. There is one caveat, the costs presented at a first glance does not always present the entire truth. Instead the costs run deeper and so-called hidden costs exist beyond the contractual cost. Reducing these hidden costs may very well be crucial to the entire IT-outsourcing endeavor. However many firms are not aware of these costs and as such they have a reduced chance of success.

The purpose of this essay is to examine for the age discrimination towards older people in the working life. The essay practice EU-law and national law to examine the age discrimination. It also looks for the limits towards age discrimination. A presentation of the rules will make it easier to see how employers are possible to get around the ban against age discrimination. This essay also illustrates how age discrimination emerges in recruitment processes and then how to discourage age discrimination.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the electric solar potential on the Swedish island Gotland. The Gotlandic habitations have been divided into four house categories. For each category energy demand, roof area, geographic orientation androof tilt have been decided. Solar radiation data have been collected from the Swedish solar radiation model STRÅNG (STRÅNG, 2012).The buildings characteristics and the solar radiation have been used as input values in common solar formulas, the solar potential for each building category have been summed up to a total electric solar potential for the region.The electric solar potential on Gotland was calculated to 242 GWh/year with solar data from 2010. Gotlands largest city, Visby, is marked as cultural heritage by UNESCO (UNESCO, 2012).

During the last 100-200 years people have change their way of living and the condition and need for survival is no longer depending on the agricultural work. The forestry has replaced the farming and a lot of the natural pastural have been lost. Wessmantorp in the north part of Skåne is an old place for forestry and farming where people have been living for several hundred years. Studies of selected parts of the everyday landscape, that earlier have been settlement with small crofter?s holding, show that the changes in the landscape mostly depends on the human factor and that a lot of the cultivable soil have been replaced with spruce. Some of the areas, which the earlier dwellings were placed, still contain some remains of old house foundations and stone fences and can regard as being of an historical value. The studies provide the reader with a short background, the place as it is today and the changes of the land use in Wessmantorp.

Masters thesis in Business Economics IV, VT 2012Linneuniversity in Kalmar Authors: Johanna Susaeg and David JohanssonTutor: Petter BoyeExaminer: Karin JonnergårdTitle: Fair value - How real is it? Background and research discussion: The concept of fair value is today connected with great uncertainty, which may be a result of the various guidelines developed during recent years. Hence, auditors have an important role in situations where they have to make projections concerning fair value and also do inspections of the management´s own assumptions.     The critique that has been shown regarding fair value is that it can be difficult to estimate, especially when there is no active market to proceed from. This problem has been confirmed through that the management often uses the estimations subjectivity to deliberately show higher or lower values in the accounts. Purpose: The purpose of this essay is to study and describe auditors, appraisers and real estate companys interest and procedure in valuation of real estates.  We also going to describe theirs view on fair value of real estates plus analyze and explain the actor?s roles in the valueprocess and how their particular interests can affect the final valuation in different situations. Methodology: The study is characterized by a qualitative method containing a pilot interview and several personal interviews with auditors, estimators, and real estate companies.

The essay describes the bachelor project by Marie Hanås, in collaboration with Skälsö Arkitekter. Skälsö Arkitekter are currently developing an area in the north of Gotland, Bungenäs; previously home to lime stone quarries and military bases.The brief was to design a set of outdoor furniture to complement the new development. The main effort of the project was in designing furniture that would fit the environment visually but construction issues were a major secondary concern, to ensure the easiest possible manufacturing. A reference group of coastal house owners were interviewed, and their feedback, together with an analysis of functions, trends and target groups, were the base for the ideas.Of the five concepts presented, Skälsö Arkitekter chose one to develop further. This was done through sketches, models and 3D models and led to the final result which is lightweight furniture of Gotlandic pine wood with an industrial touch.

Vid kemisk massatillverkning finns behov av mättekniker som möjliggör ytterligare optimering av processen. Möjligheten att analysera svartlut med hjälp av aktiv akustisk spektrometri utreddes genom att ett online instrument konstruerdes och installerdes på ett pappersbruk. Analyser med multivariata metoder utfördes på resultaten. På grund av yttre omständigheter försenades arbetet, och ett tillräckligt dataunderlag för en definitiv slutsats erhölls ej. En rad vidare arbeten föreslås..

Beachcenter på uppdrag av Designservice, är ett projekt som på ett design- och ingenjörsmässigt arbetssätt med hjälp av dess metoder och verktyg arbetar med flera olika delar som underlag för utveckla och skapa ett flyttbart helhetskoncept. Projektet utförs på uppdrag av Designservice i Karlstad, där slutkunden är Beachcenter Varamobaden.Beachcenter Varamobaden ligger i Motala och kommer att vara utgångspunkten för flertalet aktiviteter, som t.ex. vindsurfing, stand up paddeling, kajak och höghöjdsbana. Utöver aktiviter vill Beachcenter också erbjuda sina kunder en miljö som speglar deras vision och verksamhet, som välkomnar alla precis som de är. Att undersöka samt att formulera Beachcenters vision och sedan implementera den i restaurangens och områdets layout samt infrastruktur utifrån ägarens vision men också ur ett kundperspektiv.Förstudien går ut på att hitta de beståndsdelar som kan skapa den sökta visionen.