A case study was done of Sthlm Policy Group, a consulting agency that mainly targets NGOs and government agencies in the peace and security sector. The goal of the case study was to explore the tendency of NGOs in Sweden to hire commercial consulting companies. The main interest was to see what the key reasons are for NGOs to hire private consulting agencies, but also to explore what problems that might be associated with such relationships. Interviews were carried out with representatives of the consulting agency, with its clients as well as with other NGOs that were identified as potential clients. The interviewed NGOs and government agencies were found to approve of the use of commercial consultants.

The purpose of this paper was to discuss stigma and stigmatisation in relation to social policy and social work. By discussing welfare systems in social policy I wanted to see if there could be any connection between social policy and stigma. I used case studies of hearing impaired adults to give examples of how the stigma processes work. By connecting the stigma and the social policy theories with the case studies I wanted to see how the social policy could affect the stigma processes or vice versa.In the paper the concept of stigma has been described and discussed, foremost using the theories of Erving Goffman. I have also discussed the welfare system and the connection between residual systems and stigma.

Title: A study about the purchasing process of ITLevel: Master thesis in Information Technology and Business Administration, 15 hp, EIK024Authors: Emelie Johanson and Mikael LindströmTutor: Peter Ekman, Mälardalens HögskolaKeywords: IT-investment, purchase, decisionProblem: In the last decades the amount of IT investments increased and has become an important resource within most organizations. IT gives the ability to compete and could also be a condition for many to be able to compete. In different businesses it could vary in where they put their focus when they choose an IT investment. This thesis examines how the purchase process of IT looks. How does processes differs in a bigger company versus a smaller company? From these two perspectives this study examined these research questions: Who makes the decisions whether or not an IT solution should be purchased? What aspects decide when companies are to choose between different IT solutions? Where in the purchase process do problems usually emerge?Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyze the purchasing process of IT from a business perspective.

The purpose of this essay was to examine six high school welfare officers' experiences and work with students suffering from social phobia and discuss the welfare officers' view on social phobia from a psychiatric, cognitive and a knowledge theory. The study consists of qualitative interviews with welfare officers from several different high schools and attempts to answer the following questions: What previous experiences do welfare officers have of students with social phobia? How do welfare officers become aware of students with symptoms of social phobia and bring forth their problems? How do welfare officers describe their social work with students suffering from social phobia?The welfare officers' experiences of students with social phobia varied but turned out to be less salient than the amount of research in the area would suggest. The theoretical knowledge also varied, as did the acquiring and use of theory. These findings were then analysed on the basis of Rosmari Eliassons thoughts on knowledge, leading to the conclusion that the interviewed welfare officers do not construct their work on praxis-knowledge.

Aim is to investigate from a criminological perspective how the safety questionnaire in Älvsborg police district can be improved theoretically and methodologically, in order for the questionnaire to effectively measure criminal victimisation, concern about crime, safety and confidence in the police.1. What should a good questionnaire contain?- Which methodological problems are related to measuring criminal victimisation, concern about crime and confidence in the police?- Which criminological theories are interesting in this context and how can questions be designed from these theories?2. How will the themes now represented in the questionnaire be measured in the best possible way? Are there any reasons to remove, The material consists of questions from the safety questionnaire, the total analysis report and individual reports for the local authorities, as well the results and technical information from Mind Research.

Threats and violence, or the risk of being subjected to threats and violence in the workplace, is a major health and safety problems that exists in many professions. To be exposed to threats and violence can have serious consequences for the employee's health but also for the organization in question. The aims of this study was to investigate the prevalence of threats and violence at the Swedish Migration Board detention, and to examine whether there were health problems among employees who may be exposed to threats and violence. A web-based questionnaire was answered by 29 employees (response rate = 51 percent). The results showed that more employees had been exposed to verbal threats (66 percent), compared to physical violence (10 percent), and they showed a greater tendency to report physical violence, as opposed to verbal threats.

No abstract.

A clean and affordable energy source for cooking is deficient in developing countries. People rely on fuels that contribute to environmental, social and health problems.Biogas is an alternative energy source and an increased investment in small-scale biogas production can in several developing countries be found. Several projects have started to use the technology in developing countries because of the benefits with biogas. Some cases in the establishment of biogas plants have succeeded and some have not. The study is a literature review supplemented by two field studies.

Previous studies have shown positive results on the use of music as postoperative pain relief. Quantitative studies have examined the effect of music on rated pain and otherparameters such as anxiety, relaxation and blood-pressure. The purpose of this study was to investigate the expectations and experiences of patients and nurses onimplementing music as postoperative pain relief in an orthopedic unitQualitative design and semi-structured interviews were used to examine expectations and experiences. Five patients and five nurses in the unit were interviewed.Four themes developed during the data-analysis. These themes were ?Expectations on music as postoperative pain relief?, ?Experiences of music as postoperative pain relief?,?Effects of music as postoperative pain relief? and ?Continued implementation of musicas postoperative pain relief?.

The purpose of this study is to examine the usage of IT technology within preschool and study how IT tools are used by preschool staff for administrative as well as pedagogical assignments. Several aspects affects the work preschool staff do with IT which concerns availability to technology, how technology is used and how technology is made available for the children. There are a number of questions linked to these aspects where some examples this study examines are which advantages, disadvantages, obstacles or other limitations that comes with introducing IT? This study also examines how, when and in what contexts IT is being used? Other questions examined are the pedagogue?s general views of IT, competence development and eventual needs of investment? Further on this study examines to some part how children interact with IT during pedagogical activities? The overall objective is to shed light on problems that preschool staff encounter  in their daily work and on the basis of identifying important questions at issue that could constitute a basis for further research. The results of this study are based on both a literature review and a field study.

Denna uppsats är, precis som titeln anger, en analys av sambandet mellan motsägelser och ångest. De nutida vardagsuttrycken för begreppen utreds och granskas med hjälp av känslo- och rationalitetsfilosofiska teorier och distinktioner ifrån Arne Næss och Jean-Paul Sartre. Författaren föreslår en egen definition av ångest och jämför denna med andra filosofers och tankeskolors definitioner av begreppet. Författarens syn på ångest skiljer sig från Sartres, då han menar att ångest kan lösas upp och att den ofta är väldigt specifik och konkret till sin karaktär, medan Sartre menar att ångesten är omöjlig att lösgöra sig ifrån och att den är av ett mycket mer generellt slag. Detta konkreta och specifika element i den ångestdefinition, som författaren vill lägga fram, består i att ångesten uppstår i vissa valsituationer där valalternativen, i någon form, är sinsemellan motsägande och där ett val är tvunget att göras..

This thesis approaches the problem of estimating the arm angles of an industrial robot with flexibilities in joints and links. Due to cost-cutting efforts in the industrial robots industry, weaker components and more cost-effective structures have been introduced which in turn has led to problems with flexibilities, nonlinearities and friction. In order to handle these challenging dynamic problems and achieve high accuracy this study introduces state observers to estimate the tool position.The observers use measurements of the motor angles and an accelerometer and the different evaluated observers are based on an Extended Kalman Filter and a deterministic variant. They have been evaluated in experiments on an industrial robot with two degrees of freedom. The experimental verification shows that the state estimates can be highly accurate for medium frequency motions, ranging from 3-30Hz.

To get rid of our dependence on fossil fuels we need to make use of renewable energy sources like wind power to a greater extent. Even though wind power is a renewable energy source it can still cause some problems for the close environment. One of the problems is shadow flickering. When the sun is low and the wind blows in a direction so that the rotor blades are positioned at right angles to the sunbeams and ?cut? the sunbeams off.

Då antalet motionärer och utövare av tävlingsidrott ökar finns det risk att antalet skador ökar i motsvarande grad. Syftet med denna interventionsstudie var att undersöka om det gick att minska antalet skador hos manliga elitishockeyspelare under en säsong genom implementering av somatiska och kognitiva interventioner. Undersökningsdeltagarna bestod av en experimentgrupp och en kontrollgrupp med 9 respektive 13 ishockeyspelare. ACSI-28 och SAS användes som mätinstrument för copingresurser och personlighet i form av ängslan/oro genom en före- och eftermätning. Interventionerna bestod av avslappning, stresshantering, målsättning, självförtroende och attributioner.

This paper is about research carried out at a hospital at which managers had taken a course in gender equality. The aim was to get a deepened understanding of them and their work on gender equality. I wanted to find out if they themselves felt that they had obtained any new knowledge and if they had changed anything at their workplace because of this new knowledge. I also wanted to know if they had experienced any problems in this process. I found that the course has been more or less decisive in order for them to start working with questions concerning gender equality.