The aim of this study is to examine how public librarians in small Swedish municipalities experience their professional roles. As part of examining such an abstract subject as experiences we also examine what tasks they perform, which will function as a support of the analysis. The theoretical frame-work is based on librarian identities worked out by Anders Ørom and a model of professional roles worked out by Maj Klasson. The analytical procedure consists of both deductive and inductive viewpoints. The empirical material consists of qualitative semi-structured interviews with five librarians that work in public libraries located in municipalities with less than 12 500 inhabitants.

Research shows that unemployed´s motivation to seek work affects their health and social life. Employment officer?s motivational work should be based on strengthening the individual's confidence in their abilities. Five motivational theories underpinning the study is Cognitive Theory, Self-determination theory, Expectancy Value Theory, need theory and Goal Theory. The purpose of this study was to investigate individuals' job motivation, and emotional experiences, also in relation to contact with the employment officer.

This study has been carried out in cooperation with Unilever and partly with the EC founded project, Smartdoc IST-2000-28137. In areas of statistics and image processing, both the amount of data and the dimensions are increasing rapidly and an interactive visualization tool that lets the user perform real-time analysis can save valuable time. Real-time cropping and drill-down considerably facilitate the analysis process and yield more accurate decisions. In the Smartdoc project, there has been a request for a component used for smart filtering in multidimensional data sets. As the Smartdoc project aims to develop smart, interactive components to be used on low-end systems, the implementation of the self-organizing map algorithm proposes which dimensions to visualize.

The aim of this study was to investigate a health intervention at a Swedish telecom company, with regards to behavioral, cognitive and somatic stress, experienced health, and absence due to illness. A further aim was to investigate the employees' perceptions regarding the health intervention. Questionnaires were collected from 139 employees at the customer service departments.Results indicated that the health activity bowling to some extent could predict lower behavioral stress. However, the most important predictors of stress and perceived health were lack of meaningfulness and quantitative demands. Lack of meaningfulness was also a predictor of absence due to illness.

In Sweden, prostitution is politically defined as a social problem, more precisely, as a form of male violence against women. The definition is distinctly manifested in the government bill Kvinnofrid, characterised by the unique Swedish law that prohibits the purchase of sexual services.This thesis examines how the Swedish solutions of prostitution are carried out. By interviewing central actors working with prostitution in different ways we aim to answer the question: What measures are taken to decrease prostitution and what implications does the Swedish solution have?The analysis is divided into two parts. First, we analyse the concrete measures taken against prostitution ? what is done, how, and why? Second, we analyse the complexity of prostitution measures by applying complementary analytical perspectives: the symbolic and the discourse perspective.The study shows that measures taken to decrease prostitution vary and depend on individual actors? understandings of the political definition.

The Swedish society has trough decades developed into a multicultural society. Minority groups such as Sami have been a part of the country for a long time. By being separated from the majority through culture, language etc. minorities demand the right to become independent and have the ability to practice their culture. History show that minorities all over the world have been discriminated and abused by the majorities. Democratic procedures are often advantages for the majority.

This Master's thesis examines segregation between Swedes and immigrants in school, and more specifically segregation between the two elementary schools Vikingaskolan and Tunaskolan in Lund. This case provides a particularly interesting puzzle, since Lund doesn?t have any pronounced immigrant districts, and was also recognized nationally as best municipality for its schools (2004). In this thesis we try to understand the segregation between the two schools in Lund as an implementation dilemma.The theoretical framework applies a model designed by Lennart Lundquist, which includes three potential causes for implementation problems: the implementer doesn?t understand the decision, the implementer can?t apply the decision, the implementer doesn?t want to carry out the decision.

This thesis puts focus on Maria Aarts method "Marte meo" (on one's own strength). With the video camera as a principal tool, the purpose of the method is to be a practical working tool to support developmental processes on specific target groups, for example parents and their children. The aim of the thesis was to describe Swedish Marte meo Therapists and Marte meo Supervisors personal- and working experiences of the method, which was introduced in Sweden year 1991. Central questions were: How does Marte meo Therapists describe the essence of the method, it's establishment, development, and future in Swedish social services and psychotherapeutic treatment work? Which are Marte meo Therapists opinions of the methods relation to general problems and issues within social services and psychotherapeutic treatment work, such as the anchorage of theory and practice and the general claim for more research in social services interventions? In order to achieve the aim of the thesis a qualitative study was performed containing semi structured interviews with three Marte meo Therapists (two of them also titled Marte meo Supervisors).

This thesis provides a systematic literature review of a selection among current papers andarticles on Green Information Systems (IS). The main focus is on the current state of Green ISin academic research. This study aims at gaining a deeper understanding and a clearer view ofthe state-of-the-art of IS for environmental sustainability research, with the goal of clarifyingthe diffuse idea of what Green IT/IS is, and what differentiates Green IS from Green IT.To support the objective of this study, the articles selected for data analysis were collected byusing a systematic literature review as research and analytical method. Within the thesis, adescriptive angle with an interpretative character is used to analyse the data extracted.A theoretical framework based on concepts from sustainability, Green IS and Green IT isemployed in order to analyse and compare terminologies and frameworks used in the studiedarticles. Furthermore, the different dimensions of sustainability and the various terms used todescribe Green IS are analysed comparatively.The result and analysis are discussed in a conclusion confirming the on-going ambiguity ofthe terms Green IT and Green IS and the transformative power of IS.

Abstract The present study examined if early deaf people and people with severe hearing loss perceive visual information differently than hearing people. An experiment was conducted with eight deaf participants and eight participants with normal hearing. The participants were between the ages of 18-74 years. The participants were asked to look at fifteen different images portraying manipulated illusions, and then assess if the images were of the same size. Subsequently another image depicting a different illusion with a face hidden in it was presented to the participants.

En kvalitativ studie genomfördes med syfte att undersöka personalvetares upplevda yrkesidentitet och dess utveckling med ökande erfarenhet i rollen.Ansatsen är interpretativ och materialet samlades in genom sex semistrukturerade intervjuer med personalvetare. Materialet transkriberades för att genom meningskoncentrering och tematisering kunna analyseras.Studien visar att yrkesrollen är tydlig men att den i låg grad internaliserats av intervjupersonerna. Två spänningsområden framträder; den beteendevetenskapliga kunskapen kontra arbetsrättens dominans och humanism som värdegrund i relation till förväntan att företräda arbetsgivarens nyttotänkande. Diskrepansen mellan förväntningar och verklighet försvårar socialisationen in i yrket och kräver en re-identifikation. Avsaknaden av verifikation från omgivningen visar på att professionen inte är institutionaliserad i samhället vilket ytterligare försvårar identifieringen med yrket.

In this Master thesis interest is directed towards approaches toinformation literacy (IL) and critical thinking in the educationalactivities of university libraries. The aspiration of universitylibrarians to promote the critical abilities of students isproblematized. At the center of attention is the project?Lärandemål för informationskompetens? [Learning outcomes forinformation literacy], which in 2006 was carried out incollaboration between the Swedish university libraries, in responseto the educational reforms connected to the Bologna Process.Through the discourse analytical framework of NormanFairclough, documents related to the project ?Lärandemål förinformationskompetens? are studied in order to identifydominating approaches to IL. The purpose is to investigate anddiscuss the possible implications of the dominating perspectives,with regard to the development of critical thinking amongstudents.The study results in the identification of two main discourses, thestandardization discourse and the discourse on employability.

Subjektivt välbefinnande är en del av den positiva psykologin och utgår ifrån människors subjektiva bedömning av hur nöjda de är med sitt liv. Forskning inom området har visat att god livskvalitet har betydelse för högre grad subjektivt välbefinnande och andra studier relaterar till betydelsen av bra självkänsla. Studien undersökte hur gymnasieelevers kön, självkänsla och livskvalitet står i relation till subjektiva välbefinnandet. 92 elever deltog, varav 44 var män. Enkäten bestod av The PANAS scale, Satisfaction With Life Scale, The Self-esteem scale och Life Satisfaction Questionnaire.

Ett livslångt intresse för psykologi och landskapsarkitektur ledde in på spåret att diskutera vad två av dagens stora frågor inom ämnet kunde erbjuda om de slogs samman; positiv psykologi (?Positive Psychology?) och hållbar stadsutveckling. Alla människor utsätts emellanåt för stress, vilken vi är konstruerade att kunna hantera. Trots det är en av de största orsakerna till sjukskrivning i vår tid just stress- och relaterade sjukdomar. En välkänd källa till restoration eller återhämtning är grönska och natur. Så frågan i denna uppsats rör huruvida små grönområden i den täta staden kan verka restorativt på människorna som besöker dem.

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine and question the use of mindfulness in the workplace. Mindfulness in the workplace can be understood as an organization recipe and is now a so called trend. We believe that there may be an issue of how mindfulness at work is advertised when it is described in such a way that it could be the solution to many organizational problems, such as reducing stress, increasing efficiency, creativity and productivity. To get a better understanding of what mindfulness is and what it can bring to a stressful work, we conducted semi-structured interviews with four mindfulness instructors. We analyzed the interviews from a theoretical analytical framework consisting of both a constructivist perspective and a power perspective.