How the renovation of the vast Swedish existing building stock with renovation needs will be performed is considered as decisive in order to achieve the target set by the Swedish government of reducing the energy use by 20 percent by 2020. Consequently, the challenge of the building sector consists in reducing the energy use in the existing building stock but at the same time ensuring that the indoor environmental quality is improved and the cultural values are maintained.So far, there have been a few renovation projects which strongly have reduced the energy use and at the same time have taken into account the environmental aspects and the cultural values. The main reasons are that there have been few incentives and a lack of routines in order to steer efficiently a ?sustainable renovation?.The participants in a Nordic project on sustainable renovation thought that it would be a strong advantage to link the concept of sustainable renovation to the Miljöbyggnad certification system. Indeed it is trusted by the Swedish building and construction sectors and can provide sustainability targets in order to steer renovation processes.The objective of the master thesis is to show how the Miljöbyggnad certification system could be integrated in practice in the renovation process of Riksbyggen, an organization which administers housing associations (Bostadsrättsföreningar) and build houses.

This is a qualitative study which purpose is to examine how the social workers in a medium-sized municipality in southern of Sweden are experiencing the different forms of housing that the municipality has for disposal. The purpose is also to examine opinions - belonging to the social workers? representatives - concerning the value of motivational work in changing the lifestyles of assaulted and addicted women. The questions we have decided to examine are; how is the social services' work with assaulted and addicted women designed, how do the social workers experiences the situation on these forms of housing and what the social workers believe is promoting and inhibiting factors for motivation with assaulted and addicted women. The results in this study are built on qualitative semi-structured interviews with social workers where both sexes are represented.

During the last decade, there has been an increase in the use of technology-based self-services within the retail sector. The increase is particularly noticeable within the grocery market. The reason behind the increased use of these systems is partially due to the fact that companies within highly competitive retail markets continually look for ways of decreasing costs while upholding efficiency. The problem is that it is difficult to understand the true economical implications of investments relating to these machines. The purpose of this study is to investigate and contribute with new insights regarding the cost-structures of the stationary self-checkout systems and traditional cashier desks, within the retail grocery market.

Juvenile criminality has been widely discussed in the public debate. But what is there to do about a phenomenon like juvenile criminality in Sweden. Many studies have shown the potential of lowering juvenile criminality if different actors would collaborate. This research aims to explore preventive work and cooperation between different actors working with youth in risk of crime in Angered, with a focus on Hjällbo and Hammarkullen. The study is based on social and situational theory.

The aim of this master thesis is to investigate the mobile library development in Sweden since the start in Borås, Sweden in 1948. We have concentrated on three six-year periods. Our aim has been to describe a part of the mobile library development. We wanted to research the background of the said development. To do this we also studied the library and overall development in Sweden during the same years.

Flustret is a restaurant and an entertainment place situated by Svandammen in Uppsala. It all began in 1842 as a café serving coffee, tea, chocolate and pastry. During the years the building has had numbers of different owners. The owners of today are running Flustret in a same friendly spirit that has been characteristic from the beginning. The buldings history is now approaching an age of 165 years. Throughout the years different historical layers have been placed on top of each other, leaving a layer of patches.

Projektet har genomförts i samarbete med Lokalförvaltningen, Göteborgs Stad.Eftersom behovet av lokaler i en stad förändras över tid efterfrågas en byggnad som kan användas till flera olika ändamål under dess bruksperiod. Ombyggnation av befintliga byggnader kan bli kostsamma och tidskrävande eftersom bärande komponenter eller fasta installationer ofta måste flyttas eller bytas ut. En flexibel byggnad som redan vid uppförandet förbereds för ombyggnation kan enkelt anpassas och användas till flera olika verksamheter. Att bygga mer effektivt och flexibelt minskar kostnader och bidrar till ett mer hållbart byggande. Syftet med arbetet var att ta fram en byggnad som genom enklare omställningsarbeten i byggnadens invändiga utseende kan fungera för tre olika verksamheter.

On the first of January 2012, a new public authority was formed in Värmland, due to a new legislation on public transport. The first task for the new public authority was to produce a plan for the development of public transport. In order to do so, it had to execute an extensive consultation process about the long-term goals of public transport. The purpose of the thesis is to investigate how a public authority can use a consultation process as a means to clarify accountability and produce unified goals. To answer that, I have done a case study about how the new regional public authority in Värmland for public transport has acted in the process of writing a plan for the development of public transport.

This thesis examines the effects of electricity visualization in an office building. The subject was investigated through the creation of a web based visualization tool that was made accessible to the about 1500 employees in a large office building. The visualization was available for three weeks. During this period interviews, user studies and observations took place in order to evaluate what, if any, effects the visualization had on the attitudes and behaviors in the office. Electricity use data was collected and analyzed to see if the project had a statistically significant effect on the electricity consumption in the office.The results from the interviews and the data analysis indicate that no reduction in electricity consumption took place, and a number of factors that could increase the chances of success were identified.

Since the mid 60?s, Germany has seen dropping fertility rates and yet next to nothinghas been done to combat this trend until the current regime led by Angela Merkel andher minister of family affairs, Ursula von der Leyen initiated a number ofcomprehensive reforms of Germany?s family policies.Family policy in Germany is being reformed in three ways. First of all parents arenow eligible to receive substantial financial support in order to compensate the loss ofincome associated with a pregnancy and or parental leave. Second, the all but nonexistentpublic child care services are being vastly expanded with the goal of beingable to offer child care service for every child age 0-3. Thirdly the tradition of schoolsending classes midday is being reformed with the aim of letting kids stay in schoolmuch longer thus enabling parents to work full-time as opposed to part-time in orderto be able to take care of kids returning from school.The hopes for these ambitious reforms are tremendous.

In this paper we take a look at digital applications to help the user with public transportation. The main goal was to evaluate the problem a user can face when aiming to use the public transportation system, and to create a application for Apple Iphone that can enhance and help the user, no matter if he is familiar with the local public transportation system, or if he is less familiar with it. The aim was that the user wouldnt need any previous knowledge to be able to use our application. We combined Location-Based Services with Realtime-travelinformation and trip planning to examine if this combination could make both of the two different user-groups satisfied. To understand the problematics a user faces when approaching the public transportation-scene, Scenario-Based Design is evaluated as a method to grasp this problem.

I have studied the suburban municipality of Botkyrka, south of Stockholm, from a rural perspective. Through that I`ve compared how countryside comes into being with the planning and building of suburbs. I have looked for a definition of Countryside, and found that it is often explained or defined in negative terms, as what it is not. In that it says nothing about what it really is, or about the qualitiies it has to it. Botkyrka is a suburb, but it does in large parts consist of countryside. Apart from defining countryside and rural I´ve been searching for a definition of suburbia, of it´s structure and the mental picture we have of it as a cultural phenomena. In order to understand the role that suburbs have in planning I describe their history from Italian renaissance villas to sprawl. By opposing urban and rural, modern urban planning and how rural areas are created, I´ve come to a definition of rural planning and the making of countryside. To make countryside, planning and building should come from individual needs and desires. A relationship to the surroundings based on continous interaction between the human beeing and it´s environment, a constant process of shaping and reshaping. To put my thoughts to the ground I have collected examples of projects and ideas, that fits into my view of what rural planning and making countryside is all about. They are put in different categories according to the possibilities of influence and to what degree it is put into private hands. The first category is ?allemansrätten?, every mans right. That is the rigt to use private land as long as you don´t disturb or destroy.

This thesis presents a new way of providing library users with reference services, namely chat (text based digital reference service in real time). Our research questions focus on the role of reference service, a comparison of chat reference to other reference forms, and the interest for real-time, digital reference. Our literature review covered the areas of digital reference and reference theory, the results of which showed that an ongoing debate hardly exists among Swedish librarians on the topic of reference work. We interviewed librarians from the three different Swedish chat reference projects existing at the time of our study. Most interviewees were very positive about chat reference.

Kevin Roberts has extended the comprehension of strong consumer brands to a higher level where loyalty beyond reason is established. He calls this new status Lovemarks. As the concept of Lovemark has only been applied in B2C markets, this thesis is directed to find out the applicability of Lovemarks in B2B context. In order to fulfill the research purpose, three main questions are answered based on a cross-sectional research approach: What role do intangible factors play in B2B branding? Is the idea of B2C Lovemarks transferable to B2B context? How should a B2B Lovemark be characterized? The results of the qualitative interviews indicate insights of high investment and involvement, integrated brand communication, balance between function versus emotion, brand?s trustworthy personality, customer partnership, and finally, the potential establishment of B2B Lovemarks.

En av samhällets viktigaste frågor idag rör den framtida energitillförseln till den byggda miljön och dess koppling till miljö- och klimatfrågor. Energitillförseln sker idag till 80% genom fossila bränslen och bygg- och fastighetssektorn står idag för 40% av världens energianvändning. De CO2-emissioner som förbränning av fossila bränslen genererar påverkar jordens växthuseffekt. EU-direktiv rörande en effektivisering och minskning av energianvändningen har implementerats för att minska belastning ur energi- och miljösynpunkt på jorden. Sverige har satt som mål att minska energianvändningen med 20% till år 2020 och 50% till år 2050 i jämförelse med värden från år 1995.