This evaluational study has been initiated by the County Council of Gävleborg (LandstingetGävleborg), politically responsible (and the main economical) authority of BibliotekGävleborg, the regional library institution in the county of Gävleborg, Sweden.The aim of the study is threefolded:1. to evaluate the organization of Bibliotek Gävleborg during the 1990's as we11 as theeffects of a reorganization carried out in 1990, and, through the use of interviews and a questionnaire, to ascertain the attitudes of Bibliotek Gävleborg's branch users (mainlythe municipal libraries in the county) towards the organizational development.2. to evaluate and compare regional library activities in Gävleborg prior to and duringthe 1990's, and to investigate the attitudes of the afore-mentioned branch users towardsBibliotek Gävleborg's activities.3. to investigate and discuss possible future directions of regional library development in Sweden in general, and in Gävleborg in particular.The closing, debating chapter in the study also'contains a few suggestions of measures to enhance regional library activity in Gävleborg..

AbstractTitle: A gaze says more than a 1000 words ? a study of the portrayal of female celebrities in the photographic material on the online portals of Aftonbladet and Expressen En blick säger mer än 1000 ord - en studie av porträtteringen av kvinnliga kändisar i Aftonbladetsoch Expressens bildmaterial på InternetNumber of pages: 58 (59 including enclosures)Author: Sofie BackmanTutor: Amelie HössjerCourse: Media and Communication Studies DPeriod: Spring 2008University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University, SwedenAim: The aim of this essay is to study in what ways female celebrities are portrayed in the photographic material of the Swedish tabloid press. In which situations does she appear? What function does she seem to behold in the pictures? Further the thesis explores whetherthe portrayal of the female celebrity shows signs of stereotyping.Method/Material: The study combines a quantitative and a qualitative method. A picture analysis of photographic material from the online versions of the Swedish tabloids Aftonbladet and Expressen has been conducted.

Abstract P. Hed. (2011) What is health for men? Bachelor thesis. Gävle: University of Gävle, Faculty of health and occupational studies; 2011.

The aim was to examine writing ability and some of its underlyingfunctions in adults with intellectual or communicative disabilities at dailyactivity centres by comparisons with children and adults without disabilities.66 adults with intellectual or communicative disabilities, 39 children and 14adults without disabilities were included. The following tests/tasks wereexecuted: Test for Reception of Grammar-2, graphomotor task, nonwordrepetition, Rapid Automatized Naming and Writing elicited by pictures. Thepicture elicited narratives were examined regarding length, spelling,syntactic complexity, interpunctuation, content and general impression. Theresults demonstrated that adults at daily activity centres performed lowerscores than adults without disabilities. The group generally didn?t differ fromthe children, but they made a smaller proportion of phonologicallyacceptable misspellings and achieved lower scores on nonword repetitionand Rapid Automatized Naming, which could indicate limitations inphonological processing ability.

The purpose of this study was to examine participants' experiences and descriptions of a municipal activation program, and how participants perceive their opportunities for influence on their own needs and requirements. The results are based on statements from six semi-structured, individual interviews conducted by the qualitative method. Empowerment, paternalism and social capital are among the study's theoretical frame of reference. The main results show that more participants are critical of aspects of coercion and involuntary willingness in participation. Motivation for participation seems to mainly be linked to whether the activity is experienced as meaningful, as well as to the attitude of the staff.

An ageing population calls for enlarged needs of care and treatments that is followed by an increased demand on social and medical care. Present organization and structure are not adjusted to these new requirements. Due to this fact, necessary alterations ought to be made between and within the different institutional and non-institutional care actors. This work should be settled locally. In this study, the aim was to describe "Chealth care nearby" as being a new standard of care as well as investigate its significance in the co-operation and collaboration between different care actors.

The objective of this qualitative study was to contribute to the understanding of how musical activities affect the participants' well-being and empowerment and to investigate which fac-tors contribute to that effect. Invitations were sent to 13 adult participants in a rock music school in the middle part of Sweden. 7 persons (4 men, 3 women) participated in the study. 4 themes were discussed in focus groups to highlight how informants were affected by the ac-tivity and what factors were important in the context. Results showed that music activities impact on participants' well-being and empowerment through several factors.Themes that appeared were: 1) focus on the present through music, 2) personal development, 3) meaningful leisure activity 4) the group properties.

The purpose was to investigate how conversationalinteraction is pragmatically affected in Huntington?s disease; whetherthis can be assessed by means of a questionnaire completed by a closepartner and how the close partners consider communicative ability haschanged since the onset of illness. Three dyads, consisting of a personwith Huntington?s disease and a conversational partner were involved.Conversations were analyzed with respect to the parameters in thequestionnaire and through Activity Based Communication Analysis.The results showed word finding difficulties, impaired turn taking,feedback and body language, repair, articulation and prosody.Agreement between communication analysis and the close partnerreport varied between 54-65 %. The close partners consideredcommunicative initiative, articulation, turn taking and sentenceintonation as much changed.

Swedish school children exhibit deteriorating knowledge results in terms of reading comprehension. Previous research shows that a method to increase the level of knowledge is the use of evidence-based learning techniques. Test based learning generates what is commonly referred to as a test effect, which proved to strengthen the relationship between learning and memory, as well as being applicable to various test formats. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether test based learning, in terms of learning english words leads to increased performance in a reading comprehension test, more specifically a cloze test. The study was based on a within-group design and was conducted three times over four weeks.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att berika den befintliga teorin om verksamhetsstyrning inom offentlig sektor med fokusering på överensstämmelsen mellan mål och resurser i den offentliga hierarkin. Undersökningen är av en fallstudiekaraktär där forskningsprocessen bestått av ett antal personintervjuer. Dessutom har vi samlat in en del sekundär data som var nödvändig för att slutföra studien. Vi har valt att utgå från teorier som behandlarverksamhetsstyrning med tillhörande komponenter Empirin består av insamlat material från intervjuer som ägde rum på Malmö Stadskontor, två stadsförvaltningar samt två grundskolor i respektive stadsförvaltning inom Malmö Stad. Våra slutsatser påpekar att det finns klara avvikelser mellan mål och resurser inom de studerade enheterna.

This Master thesis aims to study the relation between Swedish governmental cultural policy and cultural events at two Swedish public libraries. The Masters thesis demonstrates how national cultural policy regulates every part of the public library. This demonstration is a result based upon national cultural policy documents and interviews with employees at two public libraries in Sweden. The conclusion that national cultural policy regulates this part of the public library is drawn with help of the circle of culture as applied in Culture Studies and Michel Foucault theories of power. The thesis contains the answer of four questions, two involving cultural policy and the other two events at the library.

The purpose of this study was to examine the obstacles and problems prescribers of exercise on prescription (EoP) in primary care in Bollnäs and Söderhamn experience when using the method. It also aimed at examining if the barriers identified in previous studies also will be found in Bollnäs and Söderhamns municipalities. A qualitative study was made and four interviews with the managers of health centers in Bollnäs and Söderhamns municipalities were completed. The only inclusion criteria was that it would be a licensed health care professional at the clinic who work with, and prescribe the EoP. A content analysis was performed, which categorized the statements made according to their content.

AimThis qualitative study will provide an insight to different teachers view on handball in two elementary schools. Handball is a competitive sport and has been played for over 100 years in different contexts in Sweden. Are there qualities in the sport that belongs in the school´s non-competitive education? How do they justify this sport according to the governing documents Lgr-11 that gives a lot of room for interpretation by the teachers?How do teachers justify handball based on the curriculum?What kind of qualities do the teachers highlight with this sport in the education?Do teachers perceive any differences with the new curriculum?MethodThe method has a qualitative approach. The interviews in this study had a semi structure character.

The aim of this thesis is to examine how salesperson control can be exercised in a retail store environment. A case study has been performed on a Swedish fashion company emphasizing the relationship between the company?s upper level management and their retail store operations in order to describe, analyze and classify the prevailing management control mechanisms. The paper presents an agency theoretical approach to the relationship applying behavior- and outcome based control theory, performance measurement theory and incentives theory in order to give a comprehensive image of the control system. The main finding is that the company?s management control system as applied to the sales force in its retail stores can be categorized as mainly behavior-based despite several explicit outcome-based features..

This study addresses mandatory non-trading periods for Swedish stock market participants which have implemented an open-market share repurchase program during the period 2000 until 2010. By locating the date of publication of interim reports, these mandatory non-trading periods called silent periods are examined. The result indicates that repurchase trading activity occurs despite the statutory prohibition. By studying the price support hypothesis assumptions about long- and short-term effect on share price and performance, this study tries to explain these tendencies. An average decline of share price and performance is shown among companies entering silent periods.