The purpose of this master thesis is to present a model that illuminates the important factors when deriving technical information from market data within a company. For companies to be able to become and stay competitive in the market, product quality is an important factor. Whilst good product quality leads to customer satisfaction and loyalty, lack of quality brings costs in service and replacements. To improve product quality, the developers need information and knowledge about what quality issues affect existing products. Most companies gather data from market about known issues, but in order eliminate known quality issues in new products; this data has to be transformed into information and knowledge.

Fantasy literature has a rather strong position in countries with an English-speaking population but not in Sweden. The supply of fantasy in Sweden is much smaller than that in for example United Kingdom. Does this affect the Swedish readers of this genre? If it does, how does it affect them? The aim of this thesis is to find out how a few fantasy-reading students at the Swedish School of Library and Information Science get hold of the fiction they want to read and who and/or what influence their decision of which book to read. In order to avoid confusion we are also going to try to find out how they define fantasy since it varies from person to person what is included in the genre.

The aim of this study is to through six interviews, with six experienced, social workers?, in three cities, understand how the child?s position in the Swedish child protective services? enquiries has change, and the factors behind it. The aim is also to compare if the social workers? view of the child?s position in the enquire has change accordingly to Socialstyrelsens intentions of BBIC. The theoretical approaches that was used is the new institutionalism, the Shier?s pathways to participation and the term discretion.

Recent statistic shows that about 28% of adolescents living in Stockholm drink alcohol at such a high level that their consumption counts as risky drinking. The correct term to use in this matter would be binge drinking adolescents.  In the more wealthy areas of Stockholm this group of binge drinking adolescents counts for as much as a third of the population. In contrast, the adolescents living in exposed areas do not drink nearly as much. Binge drinking adolescents in these areas only counts for 15%, nearly half as much as in the wealthy areas.In light of this the intentions of this study is to investigate which explanatory factors that can clarify the range-rated differences in binge drinking between adolescents in Stockholm.

In all times school has defined and categorized pupils from a hypothetical normality. The National Agency for Education is today critical to how the municipalities provide for the necessity of special support for pupils with difficulties in school.Pupil`s assistants has been a growing profession in school during the last decade and their importance for the pupils is relatively unexplored. The aim of this study is to find out how the pupils think about having pupil`s assistant during the obligatory school on the basis of the ideas of power, knowledge, involvment and understanding. The study is based on qualitative interviews, consisting of half-structured questions, with eight pupils that have or have had pupil`s assistant during their time in senior compulsory school. The result notifies that the pupils feel powerless in school, they have no opportunity to affect and they do not think they are someone that could make any change.

The retailing landscape has become even more competitive with an increasing number of store formats. One result of this can be seen within different retail-chains as they launch different formats that operate under the same name. Thus, consumers now have many alternatives and substitutes when it comes to choosing which format to shop from. This phenomenon has led consumes to shop across stores for the same brand. The objective of this study is to explain how consumers respond to various offers in different store formats and to determine whether the results differ if we compare a familiar brand with an unfamiliar brand.

AbstractThis report was undertaken at the request of the Management and maintenancedepartment of Swedish National Road Authority (Vägverket Region Sydöst) inJönköping.In 1992, the management and maintenance of Swedish roads were laid out onexternal contractors. When putting out a tender for the work, the foundation isfrom a national set of rules which are in constant change. This report is limited towinter road upkeep.The trend in the invitation for tenders is that it is moving from the moreconventional executional demands towards the less controlling demands. Thedownside of functional, less controlling demands is that it is difficult to articulatehow to measure them. The order authority therefore has to find ways to makesure to get what has been paid for.In connection to the invitation for tender of winter road upkeep for 2005, the newset of rules, ATB Vinter 2003 was deployed.The main purpose of this thesis is to see which the big changes in the set of rulesare and how these changes affect the organisation and activities of the contractor.It is also studied how the changes in execution is perceived by road users and howit affects the possibilities of the contractor to come as a newcomer to a new areaof administration.Interviews and examination of sets of rules has led to a list of a number ofchanges that the contractors feel affect their work in any sense.Views from road users that have come in to the order authority have beenscrutinized to see how they have experienced the change.

The first information recruiters have access to, when recruiting a new co-worker is the applicant´s CV. It may even happen that the applicants are sending a photo with the CV, which can lead to the possibility that the appearance of the applicant will affect the assessment. Previous research shows that individuals who are regarded as beautiful get a better assessment than those who are considered to be ugly or mediocre looking, but if this can be prevented through awareness, the problem can easily be counteracted. The purpose of this thesis is to, through an experimental study, investigate whether recruiters can avoid being affected by the applicant?s appearance in the assessment of their CV if they receive information about the stereotypical thinking that is tied to a person's appearance.

The aim of this thesis is to study the reading habits of Swedish librarians visualized by librarians from Götabiblioteken ? a collaboration of 14 public libraries in mid-Sweden ? focusing on the reading done on their spare time, even if work-related. We started with a survey sent out to 74 librarians in October 2013, answered by 56, and followed up by interviewing 7 of them in November.We tried to answer these questions:To what extent does the working librarians read on their spare time compared to before they started working?What literature do they read, now compared to before they started working?To what extent does their perception of what they should have read affect their private reading?In what way does a librarian in the beginning of their career differ in reading habits from the reading habits of a librarian with many years in the profession?The result of our study shows that most of the librarians read as much or more than before they started to work. They are more selective in their choice of literature and are affected by their work in it in different ways.

Studies have shown that politicians are significantly more likely to become victims of violent crime than other citizens in Sweden. In fact increasing political rank and engagement are directly proportionate to increased risk for violence. Threat towards politicians is not only dangerous to the individuals involved but also to the democratic system as a whole.Political scientists the world over have done a lot of research on democracy, but I have been unable to find a single method or theory that examines how violence, threat and harassment affect political leaders and democratic systems.The aim of this study is to expand the existing model made by Tommy Möller, professor in political science. In his model he presents 11 factors that affect political leaders ability to act. My aim is to develop his model by adding a 12 th factor ?violence, threat and harassment?.

In 1994 the EU directive of packaging waste was adopted. The result was that all EU member states developed different systems to manage packaging waste and recycling. This paper examines the various systems and the factors that affect the level of recycling. This is done by a cross-sectional study between countries. The results of my study suggest that take-back system generates less recycling than other systems, the mandatory deposit system can affect the recycling in a positive way.

The purpose of this study is to explore active after-school teacher?s perceptions of the concept of meaningful leisure time. The purpose of the study is also to investigate if the interpretations of meaningful leisure time affect the perception of their work roles and after-school teacher?s actual work in a leisure activity. The study also provides an insight into how afterschool teachers perceive their roles in general.

The purpose of our study is to get more knowledge about how moral dilemmas affect social workers in their work. This because we find that a big part of social work involves ethic reflections and that is why we find it important for social workers to have knowledge about how they should and can think and act in these situations. Ethic statements exist for social workers to use in their work but we haven?t found any guidelines for concrete situations and that?s why we decided to study this area. Questions we want to answer are how do the social workers define moral dilemmas in social work? How do the social workers deal with moral dilemmas in their work? How do moral dilemmas affect social workers in their work? This is a qualitative study with interviews from seven social workers from one social service office although they are from different units.

Landscape architecture is a visual profession, but other senses also affect our interpretation of a place. Sounds can give us a lot of information about an environment, and they are often perceived as positive. Despite this, research about outdoor sounds most often focus on the reduction of unwanted sounds ? noise ? but the absence of noise does not result in a good soundscape. To accomplish this, sounds we appreciate are needed.

The food prices in Finland and Sweden have been a subject for discussion for several years back in time. From the opponents against further European integration one have often heard that the EU and EMU entrance have made an negative impact on the food prices. This study show us that the impactof the entrances was extensive in the short run but rather finite and insignificant in the long run.Other important factors that describe why food prices fluctuate is also discussed. The mainconclusion is that other factors than the EU and EMU entrance should be seen as more likely whenit comes to the development of food prices. The essay is principally based on quantitative statistics of food prices, analysed in the light of economic theory..