Of all observable societal trends, the proliferation of standardizing processes is striking. Auditing standards are an illustrative example of this. Not only privately owned companies must today make available numbers and key figures to satisfy needs of information and knowledge. Government agencies are increasingly conforming to this trend, adopting standards for quality assurance and monitoring, producing numbers and annual reports ? despite their somewhat ambiguous task and role.

Latvia has been an independent state twice, the first time during the years 1918-1940 and the second time from the year 1991 and ahead. During these two periods Latvia has been a destination for tourists. The aim of this study is to describe how Latvia as a destination has developed during the years of independence. One further aim is to compare what Latvia?s tourism industry looked like during the same periods to descry similarities and differences.

Background: The most energy efficient houses today are so called passive houses. These houses achieve high energy-efficiency partly by having well insulated walls. U-value describes the amount of heat transfered through a building element, the more insulation, the smaller U-value. A typical passive house wall have a U-value of 0.10 W/m2,°C. The passive houses are primarily made as small family houses and not as a block of apartments.

Pigs are often mentioned as relatively intelligent animals when compared to other nonhuman species. Despite this knowledge, the vast majority of pigs are kept under conditions that lack opportunities to satisfy their cognitive needs. Therefore, a need to evaluate the present scientific studies about pig cognition was acknowledged, in order to evaluate to what extent the knowledge is applied in the husbandry of finishing pigs. If a considerable lack of application was determined, suggestions about how to use the obtained information to improve pig welfare were also to be made. A synthesis of the present literature was made, and it could be concluded that a considerable amount of studies had been carried out in the present area. The pigs of today appear to have the same behavioural and cognitive needs as their ancestor, the wild boar.

Wastewater treatment is increasingly controlled by the Swedish environmental quality objectives, adopted by the Swedish parliament. There is a need for a sewage system that can fulfill stringent requirements concerning the environment, recycling and resource use and hygiene. Additional environmental aspects in recent years are the impact of climate change, new knowledge about the effects of pharmaceuticals in water, the need for improved wastewater treatment and increased recycling of nutrients to agriculture. This report has, from a future scenario of the year 2050, analyzed seven different systems for wastewater treatment and treatment of compostable biowaste from households in Eskilstuna. A future scenario was chosen based on that within a forty year period new challenges may arise which can result in higher demands on sewage treatment than those we see today. Another reason why the future scenario was established is that changes in wastewater treatment systems are slow to establish. The analysis is mainly focused on the economical aspects but environmental aspects such as emissions to receiving waters and potential recycling of plant nutrients has also been evaluated briefly.

Bakgrund: Enligt WHO beräknas det vara 448 miljoner nya fall av STI årligen hos personer i åldrarna 15-49 år. Under de senaste tio åren har STI ökat kraftigt.  Det är framför allt ungdomar och unga vuxna som drabbas. Attityd- och beteendeförändringar bidrar till fler partners och fler tillfälliga partners. Idag finns ett annat synsätt på relationer vilket leder till en ökad risk för spridning av STI.

The title of this Master´s thesis is Multicultural librarian competence - a literature study and interwievs with librarians and managers in Malmö Public Library.Every fifth Swede is born abroad or has at least one parent who are. The migration flows of today reach out longer, there are more efficent ways of communication and travel. This has made previously ethnic homogeneous populations as the swedish more and more hetergeneous. Library services to inmigrant users started out as a specially directed activities. The political view of migration has changed over the years and the current perspective is the one of mutual integration and cultural diversity.

Background Svenska Spel is a regulated company run by the state and government, where CSR, community and social responsibility is in focus. The highly regulated Swedish gaming market has in recent years become more exposed to competition by foreign unregulated betting companies thru Internet.Problem discussion There are two views regarding CSR and how they are affecting competitive advantage and profitability. On one hand, it suggests that companies foremost shall focus profits and act in the best interest of the shareholders. On the other hand, it connects CSR to be a contributor to competitive advantage that increases the company?s profitability.Problem formulation Svenska Spel is competing with other betting companies who doesn´t act under the same conditions, betting companies that don´t have a responsibility to the state.

AbstractWe decided to explore former school pupils? experiences of not conforming to the norm. Earlier studies have focused on the children as ?the problem?.  We see this as worrying, especially since there is very little research focusing on the pupils? own experiences. The children?s own perspective needs to be brought to the fore.

Background: Small- and medium- sized businesses have during a long time had difficulties in raising long-term funding from external financiers, a reason for this is that these companies may have more information about their own business than the bank has. One way to reduce this problem is to hire a certified public auditor or a certified accounting consultant. Much has changed in recent years in the accounting profession. Mandatory audit has been abolished for small- and medium-sized businesses, which has led to major changes. Auditors are now not mandatory for these companies, which opens up the market for accounting consultant´s.

Ofrivillig barnlöshet är ett stort problem i Sverige idag och av kvinnor i barnafödande ålder är ca 1 av 10 drabbade. De flesta som lider av infertilitet använder sig av medicinsk hjälp som förstahandsmetod. Misslyckas man med den medicinska hjälpen går vissa par vidare med adoption direkt medan andra ser detta som en sista utväg. Adoptionsprocessen, som den oftast beskrivs i media, är en arbetsam process och upplevelsen av väntan är central. Tidigare forskning kring adoption fokuserar mest på adoptivbarns upplevelse.

Fair trials? rights under Swedish law of public administration (FL) are regulated by Article 7 of the Statute. Similarly, fair trials? right under the European Convention of Human Rights (EU Convention) is regulated by Article 6.1. The essay conducts a comparative study of the two legislations and seeks to determine whether Article 7 of the Swedish law of public administration is consistent and compliance with Article 6.1 of the EU Convention.

Predicting corporate failure is an increasingly important topic in the world of economics today. This paper, with the help of the credit ranking company Syna AB, aims to investigate a few different statistic strategies to do just that. This task is accomplished by using a data material of 250 000 Swedish companies divided into two subsamples. The first sample is used to develop the model and the second as a validation sample. The model developing sample holds 160 000 companies divided into five different subgroups based on size and age.

A majority of the payments that are carried out today are executed through the electronic payment systems. Payments that are executed through these systems are administrated by payment service providers, these providers are, in general, banks. In spite of the socio-economic importance of payments and payment intermediation, there is an uncertainty regarding the legal status of payments and payment intermediation. Some describe payment intermediation as transport of means of payments, while some describe it in terms of claims and intermediation of information. There is, in other words, a need for clarification.

Intense competition among companies and luck or unavailability of certain resources in country of company?s origin force last to cross the borders, and start to hunt for new markets and cheaper inputs. However, by investing abroad the company is not only facing and dealing with cultural differences and new regulatory framework, but also becomes dependent on decisions and actions of different and to large extend unknown government. Moreover, the majority of the investments? flows are directed to developing countries, where power and capabilities of state authorities are considered to be more extensive than in countries of developed economies.