Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to give a contribution to the studies of what strategies those are of importance for challengers in consumer technological markets aiming for the market leader position. To be able to investigate this phenomenon we have chosen to study Microsoft?s second position in the video game console industry. In addition, we want to illuminate Microsoft?s competitive advantages, how Microsoft can take advantage from Sony?s setbacks and what strategies those are of importance for Microsoft in the battle of becoming the market leader.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate whether legal rights are upheld when wording and applying the postponement of payment of tax regulations of chapter 17 section 2 p. 2-3 of the payment of Tax Act. We also investigate how the wording of the regulations relate to the requirement of legal security.It has been questioned if the regulations concerning postponement of payment of tax are compatible with the requirement of legal security. Of course does not a taxpayer want to pay tax that he or she consider incorrect, and that has not been under trial by an impartial authority. If the request for postponement of payment of tax is rejected, the consequences for the taxpayer can lead to huge financial losses.

The purpose of this study was to compare Glasgow/ Scotland and Malmö/ Sweden concerning their efforts towards youth unemployment, in sense of the social policy related to the organization. We have particularly concentrated on; the direct and indirect political strategies for young unemployed; what specific efforts that are provided on a local level; finding explanations to the design of these efforts and describing the development of youth unemployment and labour market- policies in each country. We have based our study on literature studies and six qualitative interviews conducted with representatives from different organizations and the municipality in Glasgow and Malmö. The outcome of our essay showed some differences in the political strategies. Scotland work closer to the employers and labour market compared to Sweden whose policy more promotes education.

Swedish university libraries traditionally collect recreational readingmaterial only to support the teaching and research interests of theirinstitutions. However many university libraries hold a substantial yetunspecified collection of popular fiction. This thesis investigates theextent of these collections and examines academic librarians' viewsabout students' recreational reading in the academic context and theirattitudes towards the role of fiction and of readers' advisory inacademic libraries. The theoretical framework includes literature andresearch about the benefits of reading for pleasure, collections' rolesand readers' advisory strategies. The empirical material was gatheredthrough quantitative surveys sent to academic librarians in Sweden.The results show that academic librarians are positive about thebenefits of recreational reading for university students.

Studiens syfte var att undersöka rektorers uppfattningar om skriftliga omdömen samt hur de tar ansvar för arbetet med dessa. Syftet var också att studera hur de omdömen som lärare skriver ser ut i praktiken avseende innehåll, för att se hur omdömena överensstämmer med rektorernas uppfattningar.I detta arbete har vår utgångspunkt varit de skrivningar i läroplanen (Lpo 94) och de allmänna råden (Skolverket, 2008) som uttrycker något om rektors ansvar samt elevers lärande- och kunskapsutveckling. För att få svar på våra frågor har vi intervjuat tio rektorer som tillsammans representerar grundskolans alla stadier samt studerat innehållet i 1245 skriftliga omdömen. Studien genomfördes i en mellanstor svensk kommun.Resultatet visar att rektorerna i huvudsak är positiva till skriftliga omdömen men att de är kritiska till det stöd de fått för implementering. Ett skäl till att rektorerna är positiva är de pedagogiska diskussioner som reformen medfört.

Preschool is an important social arena for children. This might be the first time that children find themselves in a larger social context and create their first peer-relations. The aim of this study was to examine children?s peer-relations with particular focus on the acts of social exclusion and inclusion, and how children use different strategies to exclude and include each other. Another aim was to investigate how both verbal and non-verbal communication is used in these processes.This study has an ethnographic approach, and the use of video observation as a method enabled us to capture the children?s everyday interactions at preschool.Our results show that children use a number of different strategies to exclude other children that seek access to an ongoing activity to protect the interactional space that they already share.

This study aims to analyse the connection between poverty reduction and sustainable development through strategies used for the reduction of poverty. With the methodology of content analysis of three policy documents to provide and easy overview of how the government of Ethiopia is planning to achieve sustainable and long-term poverty alleviation. The focus of this study will be on Ethiopia, a country with very high economic growth in the past years but still with hight poverty rates. The purpose of this study is to contribute to the already existing and broad knowledge and research of sustainable development and poverty alleviation and contribute with more research in Ethiopia where the research done in this specific area and region is not in abundance. In this study all dimensions of sustainable development, social, economic and ecological are included to get a more holistic picture of the sustainable development in the government?s plans and its challenges.

The research in this thesis attempts to understand what happens when children (3-6 years of age) interact with each other in the context of free play in two pre-school settings when adults are not involved. The aim of the study was to get a closer look at how children create relationships and how they protect and defend their interactional spaces. Data was gathered through ethnographically inspired methodology, using video observation to capture the everyday interactions of the children. Results were analyzed using a phenomenological approach to peer cultures. Previous research suggests that it is very important for children to maintain their interactions with peers and gaining access to play.

This study aims to highlight the crisis and adjustment process in individuals who suffered myocardial infarction. The research questions focus on the informants? experiences of the crisis and life adjustment process, and illuminate the coping strategies that the informants describe important. By using a narrative method and applyingthe crisis theory and coping theory as theoretical guidelines, this study endeavors to illuminate individuals' experiences of the disease from their own perspective. The empirical material consists of four life stories gatheredthrough semi-structured interviews.

 Background: Earlier studies show that 30-92 % of ACL reconstructed return to their pre-injury physical activity. It is not clear why some people do not return.Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the return rate to pre-injury sport among ACL reconstructed men. Another purpose was to characterize those patients who return and those who do not.Metod: A Web-based questionnaire with questions about returning to physical activity was sent out during the spring of 2012 to 93 men who had undergone an ACL reconstruction 6-40 months earlier and who, after 6-40 months after surgery, were evaluated with validated strength tests and self-assessment outcome measures.Results: At 12 months after surgery 56 % of the subjects had returned to their pre-injury sport. If the criteria were set higher ?back to the same- or a higher level? 14 % had returned.

The aim of the study is to get a better understanding of leader's reactions in a crisis situation, and to examine whether locus of control and coping strategies can be related to leaders need for social support. The role of a leader in a crisis situation is complex and includes several aspects which must be illustrated to understand the leader's situation. Four leaders have participated in the study. The methods that have been used are questionnaires for measuring locus of control and coping and semi-structured interviews. The results show that search for social support cannot be seen as an outcome of a specific locus of control or coping strategy.

The Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) engine is promising in terms of lowNOx, low particulates and high efficiency. Due to its homogeneous charge, where thecombustion starts almost simultaneously from a number of points in the combustion chamber,only lean mixtures are possible to burn because of the resulting rapid combustion, which is muchfaster than the combustion in an SI-engine or a diesel engine. When richer mixtures are used thecombustion will start earlier and also be more violent.To phase the combustion later and lower the combustion speed, external cooled EGR can beused. The EGR-system used in this thesis uses a divided exhaust channel where one channel andits corresponding valve are used only for transporting EGR back to the intake system.Consequently the EGR-valve is connected to the intake pressure. This system is called Direct-EGR (D-EGR).Engine tests verified that the CA50 indeed is phased later when cooled EGR is used.

Swedish farmers have the possibility to be subsidized by EU rural development programme for grazing animals on pastures to promote the biodiversity of flora and fauna. The environmental remedy sometimes does not allow supplementary feed and at the same time the Swedish Animal Welfare Act and the Swedish Agricultural Board?s regulations for animal welfare and protection states that animals, in this case horses, shall be fed with food of good quality and adapted for the species. The regulations also state that they should have an individual feeding regime that enables them to maintain a normal body condition. The aim with this master thesis has been to investigate if it is possible to keep Gotland ponies on extensive pastures, during late spring and summer and still maintain animal welfare. The horses were assessed every fourth week using a welfare assessment protocol developed in line with the Welfare Quality® project (submitted, Viksten et al) where physical, behavioural and resourcebased parameters were observed. Twelve one-year old stallions of the breed Gotland ponies purchased from different breeders were used in the study.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate how well vision and strategies communicates from division level to underlying business unit levels with focus on the Balanced Scorecard Concept. The investigation was carried out within the ANS division and two of its underlying business units at the LFV Group (Swedish Airports and Air Navigation Services). ANS is responsible for the air navigation services in Sweden and the production of the services is carried out of the business units AER (En Route) and ATA (Tower and Approach). With Air Navigation Services means supervision and conducting air traffic mainly within national air space. The purpose of the services is to insure that air traffic could be carried out in a safe way.The Balanced Scorecard was introduced for the first time in the beginning of the 1990´s.

Bakgrund: Med bakgrunden av företags behov att utvidga sin verksamhetssfär, har företagsförvärv blivit alltmer frekventa och mer omfattande. Speciellt i branscher med snabb utveckling såsom IT-branschen, är detta av aktualitet. Med förvärvsvågors uppkomst, har även ett stort antal av dessa förvärv resulterat i misslyckande snarare än expansion. Förklaringen till detta är mångfaldig och kopplas till områden kring före, under och efter förvärvet. Det som förväntas av ett förvärv, är synergieffekter, det vill säga förmågor av förvärvsobjektet som bidrar positivt till moderbolagets verksamhet.