The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the functions of the public library for parents of infants and how they see the ideal library. The research questions are: How do parents of infants use the library and what are their experience of it? What opinions and wishes do parents of infants have regarding the library? How can library services be developed to better match the needs of the parents of infants? The theoretical approach is based on Marianne Andersson and Dorte Skot-Hansen?s model of the public library?s functions and the model of classification by Ellen-Merete Duvold and Gunnar Sæbø. To answer my research questions I have carried out three focus-group interviews with parents of infants. The study revealed that the public library functions as a cultural centre, a social centre, a knowledge centre and, to a certain extent, an information centre for the parents.

The starting point for the present study is that the physical environment can enhance the learning processes of children. We want to contribute to more focus being placed on this within library and information sciences. Our main aim is to illustrate how the physical environment can facilitate the learning of children. In order to achieve our aim, we examine a concrete physical environment, namely the children?s department at the main library in Kungsbacka.

Background: Getting older means a series of changes in life, some of which lead toincreased risk of poor health outcomes. Older people who immigrate to a new countryalso need to adapt to new cultures and norms, and having to learn a new language inorder to communicate with their environment. Being older and immigrant thus leads toa double vulnerability. Aim: The aim of this literature review was to examine how olderimmigrants? health is affected by not being able to communicate in a country?s officiallanguage.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to present a survey of how Swedish libraries provide information services for children. In this thesis ?information? means non-fiction material and ?children? do not include preschool children. The method used is knowledge overview and the material (mostly Master theses in LIS published January 2001-June 2006) is related to user studies of children as information seekers.

This study aim?s to examine how conceptions regarding culture and ethnicity influence the daily work of personnel in integration projects financed by the European Social Fund (ESF). The method of this study was individual semi-structured interviews with nine persons working in three different projects. The reason why we have chosen these specific projects was because of their work with immigrant participants. Concepts that our study is based on was culture and ethnicity, but also the theory considering in-groups and out-groups.

This essay has the ambition to examine and compare Croatia?s and Bosnia and Herzegovina?s development towards a consolidated democracy. By applying Linz & Stepen?s theory on how to consolidate a democracy and put focus on political society, behavioral patterns, attitude and constitutional structure the purpose is to find similarities and differences between Bosnia and Croatia within this field.The focus of this study is to compare two similar countries that have developed in very different ways. By applying the theory and a comparative method the purpose is to examine why two so similar countries with so much in common have developed in so different ways?In order to better answer the question there are two part questions and these are:What difficulties, concerning consolidation of democracy, have Croatia and Bosnia faced since the democratic transition in the beginning of the 1990s?What similarities and differences in the area of democratic consolidation (with focus on political society, behavioral patterns, attitude and constitutional structure) are there between the two countries?As the analysis shows, the main reason why these two countries differ so much is that Bosnia is a divided country with different nationalities and each nationality only wants to realize its own interest and does not care about what is best for the country as an entity.

Arbetet är en källstudie över inlägg publicerade på skolverkets hemsida. Studien undersöker reaktioner gentemot förändringar i det samhällsvetenskapliga programmet gällande ämnena religionskunskap, filosofi och psykologi. Skolverkets förslag att slå samman filosofi med psykologi kritiserades utifrån administrativa problem. Ämnena ansågs dessutom vara alltför olikartade för att slås ihop med hänsyn till deras vetenskapliga metoder, innehåll och historik. Resultatet är i linje med Lindes begrepp ämnesprofessionell kod och Hargreaves begrepp påtvingad kollegialitet.

The recent development in society?s structure has given rise to a more complex reality for the Swedishbanks. There is an increased pressure from external stakeholders for the banks to take a greater socialresponsibility in society; the bank must therefore focus on both direct as well as indirect effects of itsactions. The term corporate social responsibility implies that the company does not only focus on itsfinancial status but also on values such as ethics and environment. These commitments are crystalized,more or less clearly, in the banks? lending policy?s, whom are entirely defined by the banksthemselves.The nature of the abstract CSR expression gives rise to uncertainty, both in regards to the banks ownefforts towards social responsibility but also for the external stakeholders, for which it can be quitedifficult to understand what commitments are actually made.This study aims to investigate how the Swedish banks public statements, with regards to their lendingpolicy, correlates with the actual actions carried out by the banks.

This research study constitutes a critical stand, which departure from the increase in welfare, and decrease in quality of life, and is further directed to the sphere of consumption. Contemporary consumers appear to seek for components to construct their self with through consumption, consumerism has become a sphere of life, and has consequently also become a victimizing force steering the identity and self construction of consumers. The alarm bells however are echoing in Western society, and consumers are experiencing dilemmas such as fragmentation, powerlessness, uncertainty and meaninglessness.In this respect we have presented spiritualism as an applicable path of escape or alternative to the scheme of the material oriented consumption sphere. We intend to broaden the scope of the interplay between spiritualism and consumerism in the act of yoga, and we have therefore been researching: what yoga is doing to consumers, and what consumers are doing to yoga. The study is based on an existential epistemology paradigm, which emphasis on the meaning of the yoga experience attained from the subjects of research; the yoga practitioners, and therefore we have carried out three focus group discussions.

The purpose of this Masters thesis is to examine the attitudes of deaf and hear-impaired people towards libraries, information, and culture. The issues are: What are the attitudes of the informants towards libraries and culture? What do reference group theory and the theory of information access-/avoidance implicate concerning the information behaviour of the informants? In-depth interviews with five deaf and hear-impaired university students have been carried out in this qualitative study. The world of deaf and hear-impaired people is presented as well as a survey of political guidelines to make, for example, libraries and theatres more available to disabled people. The research overview analyses scholarly studies on deaf and hear-impaired people.

This thesis describes new methods for automatic crack detection in pavements. Cracks in pavements can be used as an early indication for the need of reparation.Automatic crack detection is preferable compared to manual inventory; the repeatability can be better, the inventory can be done at a higher speed and can be done without interruption of the traffic.The automatic and semi-automatic crack detection systems that exist today use Image Analysis methods. There are today powerful methods available in the area of Computer Vision. These methods work in higher dimensions with greater complexity and generate measures of local signal properties, while Image Analyses methods for crack detection use morphological operations on binary images.Methods for digitalizing video data on VHS-cassettes and stitching images from nearby frames have been developed.Four methods for crack detection have been evaluated, and two of them have been used to form a crack detection and classification program implemented in the calculation program Matlab.One image set was used during the implementation and another image set was used for validation. The crack detection system did perform correct detection on 99.2 percent when analysing the images which were used during implementation.

In the beginning of the 19th century, Swedish was the only official language of Finland, and thus the dominating language in administration and higher education. However, during the latter part of the century, efforts were made to develop Finnish into a language which could be used in every part of society. In 1881, the medical society Suomalainen Lääkäriseura Duodecim was founded with the development of a medical terminology in Finnish as one of its main purposes. In 1885, a medical paper, Duodecim, and a medical dictionary were published. The aim of this study is to illuminate the vocabulary of the dictionary.

The focus of this essay is set on a number of processes that affect the challenges of the tourist trade, to be more precise ? an analysis of the attitudes towards tourism and sustainability within this line of business ? from an ethical and moral as well as social view. These issues are examined with reference to the concept of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility). Thus, acquaintance with theories of social constructivism, post colonialism, globalisation and global civil society is essential in order to understand the analysed material. The essay is mainly based on the outcome of qualitative interviews with various kinds of persons working with CSR related questions.

As a result of a successful human development around the world an extensive urbanization of societies are taking place that are networked in various ways. In these networks, increased travel and digitization are central where individuals and organizations converge in a constant and immediate wireless and mobile technology flow. An example of this is Stockholm and its public transportation company Storstockholms Lokaltrafik (SL). Although most participate in most of the network society, SL is struggling with an audience that seldom travel with them: families with children. We intended to find out how the communication of SL´s digital platforms could get families to travel more with public transportation.

Journalists´ role in society has traditionally been of representative nature with a task to distribute news and scrutinize those in power. But technological changes have created a new publishing world outside the traditional media institutions. In today?s redactional society anyone can become a publisher in a blog or through other channels on online. This process can be seen as contributing to increased democratization giving everyone the opportunity to publish.