The aim of this study is to investigate the prevalence of computer consumption among boys in ninth grade, and to see if there were any differences with regards to physical activity, sleeping habits, breakfast habits and BMI. The study has cross sectional design with a comparative and a quantitative structure and is based on a former study called ?Food & Health 2007?.  The respondents were represented by 181 boys in ninth grade, recruited from ten different schools in the county of Uppsala, who were answering questions about media consumption, breakfast habits, physical activity and sleeping habits. Daily computer consumption was reported up to one hour for 12 % of the respondents, one to three hours for 65 % and over three hours for 42 %. The boys who had a high physical activity level were less frequent in computer consumption while those who had a low physical activity level spent more time by the computer.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is widely regarded as a significant catalyst for economic development especially in emerging and developing economies. While previous research has found different effects from foreign direct investments in different countries this study aims to explore the varying effects of FDI in Serbia and Montenegro. The study focuses on how FDI influences key economic indicators, specifically GDP per capita and employment rates, in the context of their aspirations to join the European Union (EU). Employing a comparative approach, the thesis examines the differing trajectories of Montenegro and Serbia in utilizing FDI for economic advancement. The research reveals that while Serbia shows significant positive correlation between FDI and both GDP per capita and employment rates, Montenegro displays no significant relationship in these aspects.

This thesis studies private equity firms' implementation of management control systems in their portfolio companies and whether the systems are affected by cross-national differences. A comparative case study examines five different private equity firms to derive if there are any differences between the private equity firms' management control systems in the United States, Europe and China. The empirical observations are categorized according to the framework developed by Merchant (1985) and further developed by Merchant and Van der Stede (2003). Theory on the effect of multinationality on management control systems, also developed by Merchant and Van der Stede (2003), are used to explain possible findings. The applied theory includes the cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede (1984) and Hofstede and Bond (1988).

In Sweden there is an integration policy and a policy for national minorities. The integration policy aims to integrate newly arrived immigrants (nyanlända invandrare), whereas the minority policy aims to maintain and strengthen the rights of the national minorities. The national minorities are though, at times, included into the integration policy, even though they hold a minority status in Sweden. This paper aims to, through discourse analysis, investigate the research question: ?how is the content of integration referred to, when it is related to immigrants, contra when it is related to national minorities?.

Background: We have identified the combination of Knowledge Management and Human Resource Management as interesting because of this constellation has been mentioned scarcely in previous studies. There also seem to be some interesting correlations with personnel turnover.Aim: The aim of this study is to describe and understand the theoretically best combination of Human Resource Management and Knowledge Management, by creating a model. The model is also going to be tested empirically through consulting firms, to see if they meet the ideal combination. With this model we also want to describe in what way the different combinations of strategies will affect the personnel turnover.Definitions: A huge part of this study concerns the theoretical area Human Resource Management, which we have entitled HRM. Similarly, Knowledge Management has been entitled KM.Completion: The study is designed both as a literature review and as a comparative case study in which empirical data has been collected through qualitative interviews with four Swedish management consulting firms.Results: The best combinations of KM and HRM are according to this study that strategies should consist of a thoroughgoing personalization or codification.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate why the two Swedish municipalities of Frykerud and Östmark were the only municipalities in Värmland that were forcibly merged by the state during the ?Municipality block reform? of 1971, and whether local identities played a role in the resistance against this reform.     The study is designed as a comparative case study and builds on both history and political science to analyze the topic from a broader perspective. Based on the research situation three theoretical theses have been formulated, the durability of which will be tested in the analysis part of the essay.    The study notes that Frykeruds resistance against the ?Municipality block reform? started when the reform prevented a planned retirement home construction in the municipality. In the analytical part of the essay, the author discusses how the discontent can be interpreted as symptomatic of bourgeois centralization resistance, as well as being due to the fact that traditional, local self-government as a political subject was perceived as threatened.

The aim of this thesis is to examine how the EU directive 2004/35/EC on environmental liability impacts the Swedish administrative legal order. The thesis examines the directive through two main EU principles - the principle of good administration and the principle of procedural autonomy. The EU principle of good administration as a concept contains various procedural and substantive obligations that make up the subject for examination of the directive, both as regulated in the directive and as general principles of EU law. The directive is analyzed using a comparative method to determine to what extent the procedural and substantive principles of the directive impacts the Swedish administrative law, and weather or not the Swedish regulations comply with the EU principle of good administration.The results of the study shows that, althought there?s a general principle of national procedural autonomy, the EU principles of good administration do affect the Swedish administrative regulation in various aspects, through the implementaion of the directive on environmental liability as well as general principles of EU law.

The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyze how the mining equipment producers on a global market manage to handle the changing conditions concerning customer value. Our approach has been a comparative analysis between two different sites in order to answer the purpose. The case studies at Metso Mining have been made through interviews and visits at two geographical markets, South America and Scandinavia. The theoretical framework applied on our empirical findings is based on Blue Ocean Strategy, Customer Value and Resourced Based View. The empirical foundation is based on interviews with Metso Mining employees at Sorocaba in Brazil and Kiruna/Gällivare, Trelleborg and Staffanstorp in Sweden.

The purpose of this master?s thesis is to examine how comics, here defined as a combination of text and images, are handled by the libraries in regards to subject analysis, classification and indexing. A comparative approach has been used in this study. First, common practices, methods and theories concerning subject analysis developed for documents consisting of text or images are presented. Then the current systems at two special libraries, specializing in comics and consequently dealing with both text and images, are examined and related to the above mentioned practices, in order to discover differences and similarities.

This thesis deals with classification of the subject field history of medicine. The two classification systems SAB and NLM are compared in order to find out which one is the most adequate to organize a small collection of history of medicine. SAB and NLM are the two most commonly used classification systems in medical libraries in Sweden today. NLM classification system specializes in medicine and SAB is a universal classification system. Our purpose with this study is to find out the pros and cons of each system, whether the systems treat the subject history of medicine in a satisfactory way and what kind of classification system that is better for this assignment, a specific one or a general one.

The objective of this thesis was to investigate factors that influence local government implementation. The study is a comparative case study between two local governments in Sweden; Hässleholm and Landskrona. Primarily the thesis aimed to look at the conditions faced by those implementing a new government directive aimed at supporting women who face violence, and their children who bear witness, by focusing on three key aspects for successful implementation: Implementers level of understanding, knowledge and will to implement decisions. Material in the form of documents and 14 interviews with key actors in the two authorities constitute the empirical foundation of the analysis. According to the results, are the two local governments pretty equal in achieving their projectgoal but the local government of Hässleholm had better policy-making, policy-design and policy process.

This study explores the effects of two different post-treatment methods on stain reduction in glazed creamware from the late 20th century. The objects stains have been characterized by type one and type two stains which is the result of prolonged contact with food residues, were subjected to the same initial stain reduction. The two post-treatment methods examined are soaking the objects in deionized water and surface rinsing with deionized water. The comparative analysis included photographs under normal and UV-light exposure to assess stain visibility, weight measurements before and after treatments to monitor the absorption and evaporation of liquids, and observations throughout the experiment. The results revealed that while type two stains showed significant alterations after treatments, specifically after soaking, type one stains remained unaffected by both methods.

The aim of this study is to investigate wether the participatory democracy is a threat or a complement to the representative democracy. To achieve my purpose I will focus on two different lokal councils, the civil council in Hovsjö and the youth council in Västra Skogås, which have been objects of the urban policy in 1998. The theoretical framework on which this study is based consists of the participation democratic theory, representative democratic theory and implementation theory. By problemizing these theoretical frameworks in comparison with eachother I will mapp how these two lokal councils were implemented. The research question is: In what way was the civil council and the youth council a complement or threat to the representative democracy? In which way was it difficult to implement them?The method used for this purpose is a qualitative comparative case study.

This is a comparative study of six public libraries in the city of Gothenburg and its neighbourhood. The main purpose of this master thesis is to describe these libraries relating to a reform in the city council of Gothenburg and its neighbourhood. The comparison deals with a period of ten years, 1990-2000. In order to respond to this I formulated two questions: Are there any differences in the activities of these libraries? Has this reform influenced the librarians in their way of working and if so, why? I have studied relevant literature such as annual reports, investigations and analyses in order to be able to formulate the questions.

This thesis seeks to investigate the relationship between municipal policy for housing supply and the planning of new housing in Sweden. Through a case study of Göteborg municipality and a comparative content analysis of Göteborgs policy for housing supply and a number of plans featuring housing the analysis seeks to investigate the effect of policy for housing supply as a tool for securing the demand for housing in the Swedish municipalities. The thesis also seeks to discuss its findings using theory concerning the implementation of policy and the general planning situation for Swedish municipalities today. The result of the analysis shows that most plans fail to regulate most of the content suggested in the policy for housing supply, particularly regarding aspects such as pricing, type of housing and type of ownership. The result also points towards a relationship regarding the prevalence of municipal land contracts and compatibility to policy for housing supply as well as a connection between how extensive the plans are in their proposed land use and their compatibility with policy for housing supply. Using theories of policy implementation and the municipal planning situation, possible explanations for the findings of the analysis could be a split in responsibility between the formulating and implementation of the policy for housing supply and its contents, a lack of resources of means for implementing or the prevalence of special interests when attempting to convert policy to plans..