Background: Quality of life is a concept of individual meaning which is perceived differently depending on the person experiencing it. To have a chronic disease in the lung, such as asthma, has an effect on the quality of life. Asthma affects people of all ages. It is a disease that causes a constriction in the patients? airways which leads to a feeling of suffocation which in turn produces a feeling of anxiety.Aim: The purpose is to illuminate which factors affect the quality of life in adult patients with asthma.Method: This is a literary review based on ten articles, both quantitative and qualitative, from four different continents.

This thesis takes as its starting-point the different stands on the ever ongoing growth of multinational corporations (MNCs) and its consequences. Two opposing branches of theories, arguing that the establishment of MNCs in developing countries is good respectively bad for these countries, are tested for the aspect of state capacity. A quantitative method is then used to test if there exists such a relationship at all and if so, which of the two notions that are right.The presence of MNCs is measured as FDI of GDP while state capacity is defined as a combined index for three of ICRG's Political risk indicators. The two variables are analysed, mainly by cross tabulation, using an extensive dataset of 130 developing countries measured for a period of 20 years.The outcome is though ambiguous: No solid correlation can be found, but countries with a higher rate of FDI of GDP tend to have a slight worse rate of state capacity throughout the analysis. Thus the result points in favour of the notion that MNCs are bad for developing countries? state capacity.

This thesis reports on the methodology and results of a study with one retailers 73 units to investigate factors of the store managers leadership that influence productivity performance in store. The study determine the impact of ten independent variables in terms of the store managers leadership on four performance measures: (3) three productivity measures: Sales Over Labor (SALOL), Sales Over Inventory (SALOI) and Sales Over Square-metre (SALOS) and (1) one profit measure: Contribution Income Over Square-metre (CIOS). The result shows that the leadership factors give no more explanation to the economic results after factors of local market condition and the store attributes are taking in to account. The store manager's leadership can though influence his or her decision-making in-store. The store manager's decision to staff the store more intense (higher service-intensity) can increase the level of contribution income over square metre in-store..

The objective of this report was to analyse and compare vulnerability and preparation in Swedish municipal drinking water production, in case the commonly used water sources were inoperative. Methods used were a questionnaire and a less extensive study of regulations for water protection areas. The questionnaire was answered by 41 Swedish municipalities. A handful of them were companies co-owned by a few municipalities. Only one out of four municipalities had source protection areas to all their water sources and for many sources the protection was not satisfactory.

In recent years, the penetration of new players on the telecom market hasdrastically increased the work pace, affecting both design and production. Inthis report the technical and economical potential of a DC/DC converterplatform is investigated, in order to shorten the time of the design process.This is done in comparison with the present discrete type designs. PowerIntegrations offers a product, the DPA-Switch?, enabling this.By developing a wide DC/DC converter platform based on the DPA-Switch?,many advantages are gained. The component count is decreased by up to48 % and the yield increases by up to 2.9 % which in all yields a costreduction by up to 43 % or ?390 000 for 100 000 manufactured units.

The purpose of this study was to find out how special needs users ' autonomy and influence in their daily routines is described by their assistants. What interpretations of the concepts of self-determination and influence on special needs users' daily routines emerge from the assistants statements and what conditions can be seen? To reach a conclusion, focus group as a method was used. The focus group met twice to discuss this topic. The diamond method was used as stimulus material to support the discussion in the focus group.

The focus of this thesis is to examine posts on library?s Facebook pages and to investigate possible connections between posts and user response. The study examines posts published from thirty different libraries Facebook pages over a two week period to examine if any correlation between different subjects or types of posts affects the degree and type of response from the users.The findings show that photos stand for the majority of the published post concerning its type and that activities at the library was the most common subject of posts. After using eta as measure of association a tenuous connection between degree of response and the posts subject and between the degree of response and the type of post was found. The standard deviation, however, was high in the majority of the variables used.

A real option model is developed to examine the crucial factors affecting the agricultural firms? decision to quit the production and rent out the land to a company building a PV power plant. The public policies in support of investments in renewable energies have created the conditions for a market regarding investments in PV installations in agricultural areas.The decision to switch offers to the agricultural firm and to society several economical, social and environmental benefits, representing sustainability. However, PV installations in agricultural areas require the allocation of a certain land area. By assigning a part of land to PV installations, thereby the area of land allocated to agricultural production decreases.

Several factors affect the heifer´s growth and development, the newborn calf´s feeding of co-lostrum during its first hours of life is one important factor. The colostrum contains higher amount of immunoglobulins and insulin growth factors compared to matured milk. A high intake of immunoglobulins from colostrum results in a high blood concentration of immuno-globulins until the age of eight months. This leads to a lower incidence of diseases that can affect the growth and development negatively. Diarrhea is the most common disease in calves younger than 30 days.

In contemporary global environmental governance stakeholding, as a means for defining legitimate participants in democratic decision-making, has become of great importance. In this essay I deploy the concept of ?the stakeholder perspective? to denote arguments that all stakeholders ? defined as carriers of particular interests ? should be able to participate in political decision-making affecting their interests. The purpose of the essay is to analyze the stakeholder perspective's potential to change environmental politics. Departing from the philosophy of Heidegger, I develop a theoretical approach that separate the concept of the political from that of politics.

This master thesis in economics discusses the time use of today as well as the observed trends in time use over the last 20 years in Sweden. This is done by analysing time-use and consumption data at the microeconomic level, i.e. by explaining individual behaviour given the economic assumption of a rational behaviour. We reach the conclusion that the value of time is an important explanatory variable concerning the rationality in that time is used differently by different individuals and in the changed use of time. Furthermore, other variables such as social norms and the process benefit of a certain activity, i.e.

The purpose of this study has been to examine and analyze school counselors? experience of collaboration with other professions in the student health team and the preconditions for their work. The study is based on qualitative semi-structured interviews with six elementary-, and two high school student counselors in a medium-sized town in Sweden. The theoretical approach being used is: role theory, theory of professions and theory about collaboration. The study´s result shows that the school counselors? experience an unclarity in their job assignments and their role is often described as diffuse and vauge.

Blood-borne infectious diseases such as Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)and Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) spread when the addicts share needles and injecting equipmentwithin contact networks. A quantitative cross-sectional study was conducted in Winnipeg,Canada in December 2003 - September 2004. Through a special questionnaire, respondentswere asked to answer questions about themselves and about their contacts, about relationshipsand how they shared syringes and other injection supplies. Blood tests were used to identifywhether they carried any blood-borne infectious diseases. We selected some variables from theoriginal data set.

 Becoming an adoptive parent is not always easy. There are positive and negative factors affecting the parent?s experience. The aim of this study is to examine being an adoptive parent to an internationally adopted child based on association, parenthood and ethnic belonging. Frame of interpretation consists of attachment and separations, parenthood and family and ethnic origin and belonging.

The similarity between the Russian and the Indian, in a Cold War context, may be ambiguous considering the ethnic-social variables and the period in time from where the Indians relate. However, by analyzing these, as well as other, characters in the exhibition of movies, we could learn something about the ideology of the time from which the movies derive.This study examines ideology and movies in the Cold War era and concludes that the Indian, for example, may be representing the values of the common public enemy, originating from the Cold War ideology. The movies examined, regardless of influence of distinct Cold War themes or lack of such themes, carry attributes that give evidence of typical Cold War ideology. The fear of communism and common enemies connected to a Cold War context, the thought of America as the land of the free ? with the horizon in the ending of the movies as metaphoric to freedom ? and the moral rhetoric that connects to the American thought of a duty as a global savior, are all signs of the Cold War ideology.Even though the messages are somewhat clearer and more distinct in the movies with Cold War motifs, the fact that ideology is projected through other movies as well should be considered essential for the continuing study of movies as cultural artefacts..