Traditionally risk-based measures have been used to assess animal welfare in legislation and certification schemes. With increased knowledge and research, debate today tends to focus on and advocate the use of animal-based measures. However this is not a panacea for welfare and the most sound conclusion should be that assessment of animal welfare needs both. The aim of this thesis is to identify the points that need to be taken into consideration to find the optimal balance in the use of input and outcome measures according to the aim of the assessment and how these should be applied when designing a certification scheme? To answer this, a comparison of the use of resource-based, management-based and animal-based measures in two certification schemes for dairy cow welfare, Freedom Food (UK) and Svenskt Sigill (SWE), was made.

Almost every company sooner or later ends up in a more or less difficult economical situation. The reason for the economical crisis varies for each individual case but common for them all is that it is the management group that has failed in their work to guide the organisation to avoid a negative result. The next common denominator is that it is the management group that has to handle the changes in the company's environment and lead the company out of the crisis. But how can they do this and take decisions in a rational and effective way and is there warnings signals that the management group missed before the crisis was a fact? This is some of the questions that this study is going to discuss and analyze. The aim of the study is from a management perspective chart the strategic work of the company's management work when handling an economical crisis.

Income support is often described as the community?s farthest protection, as a last economic way out. From the clients perspective it´s very important to get possibility to an equivalent and correct assessment. Even if it´s an individual assessment the individual social worker´s assessment should not be different than other social worker´s, this from two aspects ? quality and the rule of law.

This thesis investigates if a system for small scale electricity production located in anurban environment can be profitable. The work has been divided up into two parts,one extensive literature study and one case study. The purpose of the literature studywas to investigate the area, resulting in a choice of which technology to be studied indepth in a case study.In the case study a system containing small scale wind turbines and photovoltaicsmounted on Gränby Centrums roof was examined. From data containing wind power,wind direction and total irradiation, possible production from a system weresimulated. Three products of each technology were examined in the simulations.From the simulated production an economic analysis was carried out, this toinvestigate if a system is profitable.

Handling product returns has become a critical activity for organizations as the volume of gods flowing back through the supply chain rapidly increases. Few research studies have published specific empirical data concerning the reverse logistics practices of companies. Information technology and information support has long been recognized as a competitive weapon ? capable of enhancing company performance and achieving efficient reverse logistics. Reverse logistics is very unlike the forward, as it is more reactive and also has less visibility.

The purpose of this essay is to apply Activity Based Costing on a Service and Support function in order to identify and allocate costs for providing support for IT deliverables..

This case study is based on a previous documented method of manufacturing artificial nest containing pre-colored hen eggs. This method is going to be used to find, if the wild boar population, which is growing in number, is a threat to the capercaillie population.  In comparison to the wild boar population, the capercaillie population is diminishing in different parts of Sweden.  In order to find out if they are affect by each other, the case study was carried out during the months of April to May 2009. 100 artificial nests were placed out on various locations on the Södertuna estate just in the outskirts of Gnesta. The unique aspect of this study is that a fenced environment to keep out wild animals is used to conduct this study, which has been previously known to be free from wild boar, but the area outside has sittings of wild boar. So to fully understand how this affects the capercaillie population, 50 of the nests were placed outside the fence area, while the other 50 nests were placed inside the fenced area. The sites were visited on two separate occasions, and were noted of the changes inside and outside the fenced compounds.

This bachelor thesis is a study in the analysis of paintings with focus on the technical exami-nation within the framework of ATSR. ATSR is a methodology based on an interdisciplinary study with the aim of putting the object in its context.The study is based on questions concerning which information the object can give, how we access this information and how it can be put in a larger context. My thesis contains three major parts. First a short overview of methods of analysis used in this form of investigation is presented. This is followed by two case studies which exemplify the technical investigation.

Background:Alzheimer's disease is a disease that primarily affects the elderly but also younger people. Alzheimer's disease is a type of dementia which means that you get changes in the cerebral cortex and cells gradually die. The disease causes memory loss and things that were obvious before will be difficult for the sufferer. Alzheimer's disease also affects next of kin to a large degree; they will have to take a great responsibility. The next of kin are entitled to support from healthcare.Aim:The aim was to highlight next of kin' experiences of healthcare to their family members with Alzheimer's disease.Method: The study was based on narratives, which in this case means analysis of autobiographies.

This essay examines the European Union?s (EU) ability to play a leading role as a global actor on the world stage in international relations. Specifically, this essay studies the EU?s role of negotiator in the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009.  This essay also analyzes explanations for this role. Research is based on case studies, with conclusions drawn using an inductive approach.

Many researchers emphasize the increasing strategic importance of supply chain management, but there is still a lack of concrete guidance for managers faced with strategic decisions in supply chain. Within decision-making theories, the rational decision-making model is the most commonly used. This because of its suitable foundation, enabling a structure to the complex decision process. The rational decision-making model is today not developed to include the aspects of strategic decision-making made in supply chain. The purpose of this research is to adjust a structured rational decision-making model, making it applicable for strategic decision-making in supply chain.

In 1984 the Swedish government introduced a special law which gave tax benefits to foreign researchers who for a limited time was engaged in research or development work in Sweden. The purpose was to facilitate for companies to recruit skilled employees from outside of Sweden and to make Sweden more attractive to this important group of researchers and to strengthen the Swedish competitiveness. In 2001 the law for foreign researchers was reformed to include foreign experts, researchers, managers and other key personnel. In Sweden called ?expert tax?.As a result of this; problem with the predictability of who may have the potential to apply for the expert tax benefits was developed.

The Uppsala based company Q-linea develops procedures, instruments and systems for protein and nucleic acid analysis. The components in such an instrument are controlled by microcontrollers. Microcontrollers are computers in one singular chip that can be used in a wide range of applications such as cars, toys or in this case an analysis instrument. When developing a new instrument for biochemical analysis, Q-linea needed new software for controlling and communicating between the components in the instrument. The process of developing this software is the subject of this thesis.The project included research of microcontrollers and the components in the instrument.

The purpose of this study was to examine how the social services are applying the sections of the law concerning custody transfer within foster care. More specifically the aim was to find out what circumstances are underlying the social services decision to go through with a custody transfer within the foster care, and to find out which difficulties and possibilities the law offers when it comes to this process. The study was based on interviews with six respondents, within the social services, who have great experiences working with these issues. The study concluded that there are several factors which affects the decision whether to implement at custody transfer or not, and some of these are the child?s attachment, the child?s fundamental needs and consent from the involving parties in the case.

The aim of this study is to explain the paradox of the memberstates willingness to surrender power of important issues such as asylum and refugee policy and therefore partly abandon its sovereignty. We also discuss the relation between internationalization, regionalization and globalization since these processes form the context in which our research problem is found. A case study is used as a method in this paper.In our quest for answers we use a theory of internationalization that we place in its context by primarily discussing the relation between globalization and regionalization. The theory is used as an explanatory force and to give it a concrete form we operationalised its three processes; internationalization of problems, internationalization of the societies and internationalization of the descisionmaking.The result of the case study shows that the increase in asylumseekers leads to a higher risk of negative competition wich give rise to the memberstates need to coordinate their politics.We found that when societies and problems are being internationalized, the state finds it difficult to resolve problems on their own and this leads to the internationalization of the dedescisionmaking. The internationalization of the decision-making process is therefore natural, which in this case means the decisions are taken by the EU rather than by the member states..