The aim of this master?s thesis is to examine how managers in some public libraries are using performance measurements and to what extent decision making is based on the results. The main questions posed are:??What performance measurements and indicators are used in the libraries examined???What is the attitude towards performance measurements among library managers???How and to what extent are performance measurements and indicators used in the process of decision making???What improvement would library managers wish regarding the development of performance measurements in public libraries?The theory is based on a model of evaluation of the public sector in addition to general steps of evaluation of quality and performance measurement results. The investigation is based on qualitative interviews with seven managers of public libraries in Sweden.

Introduction and background: The 1990s crisis and the global financial crisis year 2008 shows the same indications that the property market was affected negative. The Swedish Property companies had a difficult time on the market when the crisis led to decreased property trade and financing problems for the Property companies. The Swedish property companies became less attractive on the market and contributed to a drop in prices on investment property.Purpose: The purpose of this essay is to examine if there is any relation between the Swedish Property companies impairments on their investment property and the global financial crisis year 2008.Method: The essay is based on a quantitative study where we examined Swedish Property companies? annual reports. We answered our questions and our purpose from the empirical data that we collected from the annual reports.Conclusions: The study resulted in that we found a correlation between the Swedish Property companies? impairments on their investment properties and the global financial crisis year 2008.

Genom att testa tre olika analysmetoder, och med hjälp av aktuell litteratur, studeras utvecklingspotentialen i det peri-urbana landskapet. I gränszonen mellan det urbana och det rurala finns ett landskap som känns igen genom dess industrier, shoppingcentrum och stora vägar. I dessa områden förkommer s.k. ickeplatser, som kan hittas mellan olika bebyggelseenklaver, på rivningstomter eller på f.d. parkeringar.

In this thesis an explorative study was undertaken with the aim to study how a number of private care providers, as well as politicians and officials from councils in and around the Stockholm and Uppsala counties, think about the future of the Swedish elderly care from a property perspective, i.e. homes for the elderly. The analysis shows that there is a demand for capacity in 6 out of 16 municipalities, and that the property is an important part of this capacity, and the fulfillment of it. This was mainly due to the cost of capital, but also because of several other factors such as lack of land, a wish to guide the design, ideology, and in many cases a wish to use the property as an instrument of domination to control private health care providers.Also, the property was show to be connected to economic competition, to freedom of choice, and to quality. The problems related to the property in the market for elderly care still remains to be solved.

SammanfattningMed tanke på dagens marknad där allt större konkurrens finns gäller det att som företag ha en flexibilitet och lyhördhet som tillfredsställer kunden med rätt produkter, kvalitet och kvantitet. En låg leveransprecision kan orsaka problem i en verksamhets produktion, vilket innebär att företag bör kontinuerligt förbättra de interna processerna.Aros Quality Enclosure Systems AB (AQ AB), där projektet utfördes, är en del av koncernen Aros Quality Group. Företaget bearbetar plåtdetaljer och färdigställer produkter inom till exempel telekommunikation, bensinpumpar, kaffemaskiner och bankomater.Syftet med denna rapport är att presentera förbättringsförslag och rekommendationer som AQ AB kan genomföra för att förbättra den interna leveransprecisionen på den produkt som har studerats, den så kallade Ericsson-ram. För att uppnå syftet behövdes två frågeställningar besvaras, nämligen ?Vilka förbättringsområden i produktionen för Ericsson-ramar kan identifieras?? samt ?Vilka förbättringsförslag, utifrån de identifierade förbättringsområden, kan presenteras för företaget??.För att uppfylla detta syfte och svara på frågeställningarna har 14 besök på AQ AB i Vaggeryd gjorts.

Syftet med denna litteraturöversikt var att beskriva den hälsorelaterade livskvaliteten hos patienter med en implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD).  Studien genomfördes som en litteraturöversikt, där tolv vetenskapliga artiklar av kvantitativ karaktär analyserades och användes i studiens resultatdel.  Sökorden som användes var Defibrillators, Implantable, Quality of Life och health related. Inklusionskriterier var artiklar skrivna på engelska, peer-reviewed, publicerade från år 2000 och framåt samt deltagarna i dessa studier skulle vara 19 år eller äldre. I studien framkom det att ICD-patienter undvek specifika platser, objekt och fysiska aktiviteter relaterade till ICD:n. Också en oro över bilkörning framkom.  ICD-patienter utsätts för en förändring i livssituation och är i behov av stöd och individuell informationsgivning gällande deras medicintekniska anordning.

The resting area is the most important place in the barn for the dairy cow, sometimes called the heart of the free stall system. Inadequate design of the lying area, and lack of or poor quality of bedding materials may reduce the hygiene of the stall. Poor management regarding the cleanliness of the resting area may lead to poor animal hygiene and increased bacterial growth. This in turn will lead to increased risk for environmental mastitis as well as impairing milk quality through contamination with spores. In this literature study the most commonly used bedding materials; straw, sawdust, wood shavings, clean sand, recycled sand, peat and recycled manure solids, are compared to one another with regards to their ability to resist bacterial growth. Effects of adding hydrated lime to bedding materials have also been studied. Most bacteria need humidity and prefer a quite high water activity to be able to grow.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to analyze the application of sensory marketing in malls.Problem discussion: The competition between malls is increasing, where visitors are increasing demands on the shopping malls layout. Shopping malls surface and its atmosphere becomes essential in the design of a mall so it will be attractive enough. Sensory marketing can be an appropriate method to stand out from the crowd and attract visitors. Sensory marketing is a process of engaging visitor?s senses to create a strong relationship between the brand and visitors.

This report was written by Lisa Bengtson and Hanna Paradis and describes the degree thesis "Environmental impacts of solid waste treatment in the Metropolitan Region, Santiago, Chile ? a comparison between current system and incineration with energy recovery". The purpose of this thesis was to investigate if incineration with energy recovery could be motivated through an environmental perspective as an alternative to landfilling of solid waste in Santiago, Chile. The study was performed with Life Cycle Analysis as a theoretical base. In Santiago, situated in the thirteenth region of Chile, Región Metropolitana, lives 6,5 million inhabitants. The major part of the solid waste produced in the region is landfilled on three different sanitary controlled landfills situated outside the city center.

The overall aim is to examine how the European Union Water Framework Directive has affected the local water management in the catchment Märstaån situated in the eastern part of the lake Mälaren river basin, Sweden. The first part of the study gives an historical overview of the area with focus on how the old agricultural landscape was handling the nutrient load from farming activities by means of different kinds of wetlands. By using the concept of the procedural landscape, introduced by Torsten Hägerstrand , together with historical maps with dates starting from the 17th century, the pre-modern landscape is analyzed.  The second part is an investigation, based on qualitative data, on how the different actors in the catchment area work together to secure the water quality for the Märstaån river. The analysis shows that the Märstaån catchment river systems are mostly unchanged in the rural areas.  The exception is the mainstream section of the Märstaån river running partly underground today and the Halmsjöbäcken river that is heavily affected by the Arlanda airport situated within the catchment area.

The governance and control of healthcare organizations has traditionally been run byprofessions inside the organization (Fölster et al., 2003). During the last decades Swedishhealthcare has undergone an institutional transformation where the governance has changedfrom professional governance to a more market like one (Sahlin-Andersson, 2006). Governingof healthcare can however be problematic as professional work is characterized by a highlevel of autonomy and tacit knowledge (cf. Tsoukas, 1997, Freidson, 2001). An expression ofthe new kind of governance is the annually published report ?Öppna jämförelser av hälso- ochsjukvårdens kvalitet och effektivitet?.

AbstractInterest in the subject appeared from real events. We seemed to discern a trend in society. Wehave noted that the amount of social enterprises to a greater extent is formed in Sweden.Companies like GodEl, Postkodslotteriet and DEM Collective are typical illustrations ofcompanies included in the category of social enterprise. It seemed as socially profiledcompanies is the new generation companies. The purpose of this essay is to make aninventory of possible competitive advantages that arise from social branding.

The aim of the thesis is to analyse and understand resolution, repeatability and reproducibility of the measurement system for package distance. The measurement system for package distance is already in use, no Gage R&R has been performed on the system and before spreading use of the system the quality of the system has to be understood and approved.

Smartphone applications, or apps, are an increasingly important part of omnichannel retailing. While the adoption and usage of apps for communicating with consumers has grown exponentially over the past few years, there is little academic research in this area. The primary purpose of this thesis is to describe how the involvement in a product category affects consumers' intention to use a retailer-branded smartphone application during their shopping trip. Drawing upon recent IS-literature with models TAM and UTAUT, our results indicate that product category involvement constitutes an important factor on the intention to use a retailer-branded smartphone application. By viewing involvement as a multidimensional construct, our study shows that the degree of hedonic and expressive value a product cateogry provides consumers with has important effects on intention, and these relationships are not moderated by consumers' age.

The purpose of this thesis was to describe what factors influence consumers? choice when buying probiotic products. Functional Foods have been predicted a bright future on the food market but so far the concept have not been embraced by the consumers. The reasons for this are many and not clearly understood. Positive health effects are what set a functional food product apart from traditional food stuffs of the same type.