Portable IT devices such as laptops, smart phones and computer tablets are becoming ever more ubiquitous. At the same time, the population of the Western world is growing older, with aging bringing about changes with regards to individuals' physical and mental capabilities. These facts raises important questions about how well suited these devices are for use by elderly people. This study focuses on the cognitive aspects of the devices' usability, using the concept of mental models to analyze the users' understanding of a computer tablet. It also draws upon theory of graphical user interfaces in its analyses.

The name of the study means ?The short arm - a study in diversity and arm?s length in the cultural collaboration model?. Right now there is a reform in the Swedish cultural administration where the responsibility for handing out state funds and grants to cultural organizations is changing from the state government to the local regional governments. The purpose of this study is to map the organisational changes caused by the reform and investigate how this affects the regional policies concerning cultural diversity and the arm?s length principle.

Att det idag finns flera metoder och modeller för att fatta beslut är inte konstigt då beslutsfattande sker varje dag och i vissa sammanhang kan ge ödesdigra konsekvenser om det blir fel. Denna kandidatuppsats kan ses som en förstudie för hur naturligt beslutsfattande skulle kunna stödjas genom en förbättrad utbildning till beslutsfattare. Uppsatsen ämnar behandla naturligt beslutsfattande och intuition hos experter inom räddningstjänsten, närmare bestämt om de använder intuition och i så fall vad som ligger till grund för denna intuition. Intervjuer utfördes på räddningstjänsten i Motala efter critical decision method som är framtagen för cognitive task analysis. Inom räddningstjänsten använder sig befälen av intuition när de tar det flesta av sina beslut i fält.

The aim of this study is to find and highlight the differences and similarities in the strategic communication in two real estate businesses with different proprietaries. In order to achieve the purpose, theories and previous research on public relations, strategic communication, mediatization, framing and new public management has been used. The study was conducted through interviews with two different organizations, Lerstenen who is based in Umeå, and Övikshem who is based in Örnsköldsvik. The analysis and results showed that the key difference between the firms was the spontaneity that influenced the private one, in contrast to the public firm that relied on solid structures to manage their communication. The results also showed that differences in basis conditions both allowed and hindered the possibilities with the communicative efforts that the two firms could do..

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the degree of influence of holes in the web of steel beams with long spanson weakening of their bearing capacity. Making holes in the web of the beam generally reduces the bearing capacity of the beam. However, it might be necessary seen from both an architectural perspective as well as from a building services perspective by creating an opportunity for building installations.The objective of this thesis is to examine how much an I-beam can be weakened without sacrificing safety and functionality. The investigation has been done by using Finite Element Method through commercial software.The regulation for structural design of building structures in Sweden used to be specified in the document known as BKR. But this was replaced by the European norm Eurocode back in May 2011.

The aim of this thesis is to examine expressions of power and racism in news reporting about the district of Rinkeby, Sweden, in two major Swedish newspapers. News articles are examined using Norman Fairclough?s three-dimensional model for critical discourse analysis. The discourse theory has also been complemented with theories of media in relation to power, ideology and racism. The study has shown that news reporting about Rinkeby largely focused on stereotypical subjects such as violence, social problems and crime.

The Christianisation of Sweden is not much about religion. Instead, there is much to be gained by looking at it as a colonial situation with changing social identities and power structures. This is evident by the prevalence of hybridisations in the archaeological material.Some of the material categories that show the clearest example of changes are the burials from the 9th century up until about AD 1200. This is exemplified by two different Iron Age burial sites in Stockholm county, Uppland, Sweden: RAÄ 59, Valsta, in Norrsunda parish and RAÄ 40, Lilla Ullevi, in Bro parish; They both show hybridisation by involving older elements with newer ones during a time period when the church was not quite established in the region yet.The Christianisation of Sweden is a colonial situation, but the research tradition has often also used a colonial lens from the 19th and early 20th century in its approach to the period. This means that the same questions, interpretations and conclusions, often based on written sources, have been continuously reused for a long time, which has had consequences for the archaeology in Sweden..

The aim of this paper is to examine how boys in grade nine experience and handle stress, to find reasons why stress occur and what help the boys can get to handle stress in a good way. Our supervisor was Gunilla Lindén. In our study we used qualitative interviews to answer these questions. We interviewed four fifteen- to sixteen-year-old boys and two recreation in-structors. We also conducted a group interview with the boys.

As technology have continued to develop over the latest decades and become more advanced the pressure on the general citizens understanding of technology becomes a essential part to live in our society today. The transition have affected our society in great ways and have made a great impact on different groups, one of them being the elderly population in our society. The purpose of this study is to examine how the fast technological development in the latest decades have affected the elderly in our society. This from their perspective by gathering empirical data through semi-structured interviews with elderly people involved in the Agnes-project, a research project focused on improving the general quality of life for older people and increase their knowledge about technology. The study has shown that after the older peoples time involved in the Agnes-project their quality of life had improved in different areas. Areas such as increased cognitive activity, increased interest in new technology and an improvement in their communication with friends and family.

Successful companies are built upon successful individuals. It is these individuals that will create, developand grow the companies and organizations of tomorrow. The primary aim of this paper is to highlight someof the key characteristics of extraordinary entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs, as well as gain a deeper understandingof what motivates them, from a time and goal-oriented perspective. Despite the importance of theseindividuals and their massive impact on society's future, there is still a lot that hasn't been investigatedregarding their entrepreneurial drive, from an academic perspective. A comparison between two groups ofindividuals was made, with a total of twenty in-depth interviews.

Schizophrenia can cause symptoms such as auditory hallucinations, delusions, emotional blunting, apathy and lack of motivation. These result in a diminished ability to participate in daily activities and bring the client group into the domain of occupational therapists. The purpose of this literature review is to compile the latest findings in occupational therapy interventions for individuals with schizophrenia. Furthermore guidance regarding the utility of the interventions will be given based on the author?s assessment of the evidence in the 22 articles included.

The purpose of this study was to examine how youth useFacebook and how Facebook perceives construct their own identity. Anotherquestion was if the construction of the self-identity is different between thegenders.The study is based on empirical material that has been collected by usingquestionnaires. The questionnaire was handed out in three different classes in3rd grade in secondary school in southern Sweden. The analysis in this studywas based on two different kinds of theories, Erving Goffman?s social theory ofdramaturgical analysis and stigma and Yvonne Hirdman?s gender studies.

The aim of the paper is to explore the dominating perception of the Other after the conflict regarding the Danish Mohammed caricatures. How Swedish newspapers have portrayed Arabs, which role they have been given in society and what problems they are struggling with is going to be the focus of this thesis.As methodological approach I chose discourse analysis, since it presents a view where language defines and structures our understanding of reality. Through the study of various Swedish newspaper articles, this essay tries to illustrate the implicit yet existent negative image of the Arabs as a group and potential alternative ways of understanding the Other.The perception of Arabs is a product of a necessary imaginary foe, a mirror image of the bad and strange in contrast to the idyllic and safe Swedish nationality. The rhetoric?s of the discourse are therefore constructed between a politics of acknowledgement and a will to culturally dominate the Other.

Previous research has suggested that there is a strong and positive relationship between being an entrepreneur and possessing a high degree of subjective well-being as well as job satisfaction. The big five personality traits have also been argued to be significantly related to both subjective well-being and job satisfaction. Little is however known if personality affects entrepreneurs and regular employees differently. In this paper the impact of personality traits on the cognitive part of subjective well-being as well as job satisfaction are investigated separately among entrepreneurs and regular employees. This is done through OLS-regressions using a Swedish nationally representative survey Employment, Material Resources, and Political Preferences (EMRAPP), where entrepreneurs were oversampled in order to be able to compare entrepreneurs (N = 2483) and regular employees (N = 2642).

This qualitative study focuses on the investigation of different actor?s ideas concerning gender and womanhood in a post-socialist nation Bosnia and Herzegovina. The aim of this study is to try to provide experiences and attitudes of one not a new, but definitely one constantly changing phenomenon, trafficking in women for sexual exploitation. The qualitative data is mainly collected through nine interviews with people from Bosnian Governments, International organizations and NGOs during my stay in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The causes to trafficking are complex and intertwined but it directly relates to gender discrimination and attitudes on sexual relationships between women and men.