The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of mindfulness training in the treatment of chronic pain, estimate the degree of mindfulness before and after intervention, and to describe the participants experience of mindfulness training. Mindfulness is defined as moment to moment, non-judgmental awareness. After the treatment of chronic pain 16 patients were offered and nine agreed to participate in mindfulness training. The intervention group took part in an 8-week group-program. The comparison group, not randomized, was 16 former patients.

Since the 1980s, the management philosophy New Public Management has resulted in major changes in the public administration system in several countries, especially in the West. A market oriented approach and an increased focus on performance measurement are ideals that are salient in these changes. The aim of this bachelor thesis is to examine the management philosophy?s influence on international relations through a critical analysis of some of its ideals in the management of international development cooperation, where effectiveness, quality, and results have been new dominant concepts. Through a qualitative content analysis of a Swedish Communication from 2014 ? the Aid Policy Framework ? and a debate in the Swedish parliament where this Communication was discussed, different themes that reflect the strategy of so called results based management in Sweden are identified.

The essay that you are now holding in your hand is a survey about how different companies calculate their logistic costs and the activities which are included. We have examined five companies within the county of Kalmar. The research objective has been to study how aware companies are about their logistic activities and costs. The conclusion of the report is that they put their logistic costs together with other costs which they distribute among their products. The companies identify additional logistic activities than costs which regarding to us is one step in the right direction towards the awareness concerning future effectiveness in the business..

Since the nineties the words customer, effectiveness and quality have become part of everyday school life. Municipalities? makes regular customer surveys to measure both independent schools as municipal schools ' quality. A common method for customer research and background studies is that parents and students are asked to respond to simple Web-based surveys. Customer satisfaction and/or customer dissatisfaction options are presented in tabular form, based on the percentage that expresses a particular position within a query.

The last decade has created an increasing pressure on companies to decrease their impact on the environment and to increase their effectiveness of recycling the company?s resources, especially for the steel industry. Companies have also started to realize the economic aspects of an effective internal reverse logistics. In the past the value of an effective internal reverse logistic was something that companies tend to underestimate and there are few academic studies done in this area. The purpose of this essay has been to identify key factors to create an effective in plant storage, transport, sorting and handling of returned steel. From these factors a generalized model for creating an effective return steel flow will be developed.

Constantly growing demands from the costumers in the Automotive industry forces the subcontractors to seek alternative ways to compete. One parameter of quality is the components tolerance against NVH(Noise, Vibraion & Harshness) aspects. Kongsbergs Automotive has developed a new gear shifter platform (Shift-by-Wire) that is sold to Alfa Romeo and used in of their car models. However, the company is not pleased with the components sound quality, therefore the main purpose of this thesis is to develope a number of concepts that is supposed to enhance these NVH-aspects.To get an understanding of the problem an analysis of the causes of the emitted sound has been done parallell to a product decomposition, function decomposition and a Ishikawa-diagram. Together with these methods has a litterature study been performed to get familiar with the physics of an impact and especially the emittment of noise.

The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate 7 different search strategies for content-based image retrieval with respect to retrieval effectiveness. The strategies are based on different levels of resolution implemented by the Haar transformation. The result of the study shows an improvement in both mean average precision and mean recall in strategies based on lower levels of resolution..

Purpose  The purpose of this paper is from a consumer perspective analysis whether or not blogs are affecting a customer?s purchase behaviour to a larger extent compared to traditional marketing methods through TV commercials. Additionally, within the scope of this try to identify the type of consumers that are more influenced to a purchase decision by blog contents compared to others.Methods Through a quantitative approach this study will examine the effectiveness of advertising in blogs. A survey was used in order to collect data where the respondents corresponded to the population in Sweden in the ages 15-79. Initially the size of the blog audience was estimated and thereafter it was examined how many of these that were affected towards a purchase decision by blogs.

Yahtzee is a popular dice game around the world. The complexity makes the game interesting to play and analyze. This report compares the effectiveness of the mathematically optimal strategy with a strategy that can be used for casual play. The rules used are those of the Nordic variant Yatzy, in which a few but important rules are different from the American Yahtzee. To evaluate the everyday strategy 100,000 games was simulated in a java program written specifically for this purpose.

Yahtzee is a popular dice game around the world. The complexity makes the game interesting to play and analyze. This report compares the effectiveness of the mathematically optimal strategy with a strategy that can be used for casual play. The rules used are those of the Nordic variant Yatzy, in which a few but important rules are different from the American Yahtzee. To evaluate the everyday strategy 100,000 games was simulated in a java program written specifically for this purpose.

The level of increased central government that we have experienced during the last decades in school, for the purpose of increasing equality and to adapt the Swedish school to a certain international standard, clearly shows that increased control scarcely leads to improvement.The aim of this paper is to examine whether teachers believe that national tests contribute to equivalent assessment and increased goal attainment. Furthermore the teachers? attitude towards and work with national tests is described. The paper is written from a school improvement perspective, where good examples from current research on what creates increased quality in school meaning increased goal attainment and equivalent assessment are related to research on school effectiveness and increased testing in schools. The study builds upon a quantitative survey among teachers in upper primary - and secondary school in a medium-sized municipality in Sweden.The result shows that the teachers have a somewhat more positive than negative attitude towards national tests, as a whole.

The aim of the study was to look at the differences in groups in Karlskrona Kommun in comparison to a larger population of work-groups in Sweden. The instrument used was the Team Diagnostic Survey developed by Ruth Wageman, J. Richard Hackman and Erin Lehman (2005) in order to diagnose the strengths and weaknesses in work-groups, as well as explore the group?s behaviours and effectiveness. The results show that there was a significant difference between the Karlskrona Kommun groups and the larger population of Swedish groups in the following areas: stable, clarity, challenge, diversity, whole task, resources and availability..

The aim of the study was to look at the differences in groups in Karlskrona Kommun in comparison to a larger population of work-groups in Sweden. The instrument used was the Team Diagnostic Survey developed by Ruth Wageman, J. Richard Hackman and Erin Lehman (2005) in order to diagnose the strengths and weaknesses in work-groups, as well as explore the group?s behaviours and effectiveness. The results show that there was a significant difference between the Karlskrona Kommun groups and the larger population of Swedish groups in the following areas: stable, clarity, challenge, diversity, whole task, resources and availability..

Stockholms stadsteater (Stockholm?s city theatre) is a public theatre in Stockholm, Sweden. During the last ten years, the theatre has increased its audience by 40 percent, has been called a ?success story? by culture politicians in Stockholm as well as others in the cultural field, and is today the largest theatre in the Nordic countries. At the same time, there is a recurring debate, primarily in the national morning papers? culture sections, concerning Stockholms stadsteater.

The transformation within the swedish infrastructure has been a slow process from thebeginning of time. For almost a decade, the traditional form of contracting regardingbuildings and foremost infrastructure has evolved contracting involving the owner to definethe outcome of the product, regardless involvement from the supposed contractor. As forthe swedish market, the traditional design-bid-build (DBB) have been the primary choice ofcontracting. Although changes have been made over time regarding contracting formswithin the road administration, the railway sector has not improved or justified changesregarding choice of contracting, they have conducted same contracting relationshipsbetween them and the contractor.This bachelor thesis, conducted at the Swedish railway administration with supervision ofprofessor Kristian Widén at Lunds University, explores the forces behind the new era ofcontracting within the railway administration. This bachelor thesis focuses mainly oncontracting regarding design-build-operate-main (DBOM), the new contracting formulabetween the owner and the contractor.