This thesis examines organisations as mediators and how different kinds of organisations have different prerequisites to act as mediators. Global, regional and subregional organisations are often asked to mediate in conflicts, but considering the circumstances, who should mediate?In a mediating process the mediator should be considered as important an actor as the disputing parties and should hence be scrutinized as one. Mediation is a complex subject to study and theoretically the opinions differ on what characterises a good mediator. I have taken many of the different views in consideration and constructed a model from which organisations and their prerequisites can be compared and evaluated.

This thesis intends to analyse conditions for a successful implementation of consociational democracy, as a democratic model in Afghanistan. The lack of critical reviews regarding the democratisation-process in Afghanistan initiated the purpose of this study.Lijpharts democracy model was used as the basis in the comparative study. Along with empirical evidence regarding how the complex process of democracy in Afghanistan is progressing, the study investigated whether the identified conditions occurred or not.The choice of which democracy model to use can be crucial for the democratic possibilities to even survive and become established in conflict-affected communities. The principle of consociational democracy is that it is an empirically based normative model that aims to organise the state in a way that works against the risks of majority domination and oppression against the minority.The empirical case study revealed that a majority of the conditions were not met, which then can counteract the possibilities for consociational democracy in Afghanistan. The study has critically examined the prospects for the success of consociational democracy in Afghanistan, and it can be assessed that there is a limited probability for a successful applying of this model..

This essay concerns the possible tabloidization of Swedish daily newspapers. To investigate if tabloidization theory could be supported, a case-study is made using the isolated crisis of an especially big forest-fire in the county of Västmanland in Sweden in the summer of 2014. One local paper of the daily press, Vestmanlands Läns Tidning and one tabloid-paper with a national spread, Aftonbladet, are compared using quantitative content analysis to see whether there are similarities or differences enough to support or reject that the daily press is under influence of tabloidization. The results of the two papers news coverage of the fire are compared in three main categories; Theme, Source and Value-words. These categories represent three of tabloidization?s main criteria; ?soft news?, personification of sources and more use of words that connote strong values as signs of a lower quality in journalism.

Through analysis of the work of scheduling the doctors at the hospitals of Sundsvall,Gävle and Karolinska in Stockholm this thesis presents some conclusion about howand why a computer system would benefit these very tasks. The reason for doing thisis mainly to save money through more efficient scheduling, but also to minimizeerrors and maximize comfort for scheduler and doctor alike.Scheduling consists of collecting doctors? requests, assessing the need of staff,distribute the available doctors and make sure all tasks are covered throughout thescheduled period of time. The work is often very complex and involves manyvariables ranging from competence to personal whishes and economical constraints.Solving these problems takes a lot of time and energy which could be better spentcuring patients.The conclusion of this thesis is that there is reason to develop such a system to savetime and optimize resources. A description of the system is found in numerous lists ofroles, tasks and prototype sketches which combined shape the content andfunctionality.

AbstractIn 1998 the Swedish legislation was sharpened, and active educationalists were legally bound to report any suspicion of child maltreatment. Nevertheless, there are a number of unrecorded cases of maltreated children, and research reveals that less than half of these children are reported to social services (Olsson, 2001). The purpose of the present study was to illustrate the problems with the mandatory reports in schools, as well as to study how educationalists proceed when they suspect that a child is maltreated. The method consisted of semi-structured interviews with five educationalists. The results revealed complex problems regarding educationalists mandatory reports.

The number of locals in Stockholm who chooses the bike in front of public transport has increased significantly in recent years. The product purchaser of this project, Joakim Victorin at Sigma AB, has a keen interest in cycling, which resulted in a fairly obvious topic of this project; through a web application Sigma AB wanted to make it possible to handle results from professional as well as amateur competitions in cycling.The purpose of this web application is to simplify reporting and handling of competition for both small and bigger bicycle races. By providing the users of the system a platform independent client, any available device may be used.This thesis has followed the development principles which prevail on the ASP .NET MVC 3 concept. When developing the system the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 development environment was used. The framework and the pattern of ASP .NET MVC 3 is a prominent part of today?s web development.

This thesis concerns partial discharges in stator windings and the possibility of analyzing data using statistical methods. Partial discharges, or PD, are a physical phenomenon in which discharges occur locally due to large electric fields. PD can occur in or adjacent to the insulation of stator windings and causes breakdown of the insulating materials. PD measurement can provide an idea of how widespread the PD activity is. A technique to measure and analyze PD that has become very popular over the last few decades is phase resolved PD patterns.

In these days of globalization, with a higher level of openness and interaction over geographical, cultural and economical borders, the importance of the company?s intangible asset, its brand, is gaining importance as a differentiating factor. Building a strong brand and the emphasis on strategic brand management is something that before was given less attention in firms but today we can see a general increase in awareness and relative emphasis in the strategic work of companies.Countries as brands: Is it possible to consider a nation or a country as a brand the same way you consider a product? Well, looking in to the subject it seems to be a rather complex matter and there are many questions to be asked and answer. Nations around the globe are indeed marketing and positioning themselves for several purposes.

The aim of the study was to understand limitations and possibilities to the discretion of managers in order to fulfill wishes of users. The study is based on six interviews, three with managers and three with staff in common homes for mentally disabled people. The study took place in a municipality in Sweden in the spring of 2010. We used an interview guide with specific themes and questions. The theoretical framework was based on organizational theories as well as theories about management and discretion.

Background: The standard of living should be the same for everyone, whether the apartment is placed in an old or new building. The residential properties that were built from 1965 until 1974 is now beginning to become old and in need of restoration. The financial crisis during the nineties contributed to the lack of maintenance on the buildings in Sweden. As the public buildings gets older more and more defects occurs. The coordination and maintenance will therefore have a more significant role in the housing company ?s work.The increasing interest about how old a building can be, attract much attention.

The population of asylum seekers puts new challenges on the Swedish health care since their difficulties are complex; having both atraumatic background and a continuing worry about the asylum process.This study aims at investigating how health care professionals working with asylum seekers are affected emotionally using the theoretical concepts of empathy, compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction. Nine qualitative interviews with health care professionals were conducted and the material was analyse dusing thematic analysis. Results were deductively found in thematerial, using the asylum process itself along with the concepts of empathy, compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction as themes. Previous findings regarding empathy and its relations to compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction were confirmed. This was furhter developed in this study through its focus on health care professionals working with asylum seekers..

Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka vad stress innebär, hur det upplevs och orsakas inom Räddningstjänsten, samt hur det kan förebyggas. Enkäten gjordes utifrån ett kvantitativt perspektiv och skickades till larmoperatörer och brandmän på Räddningstjänsten. Enkäten besvarades av totalt 33 respondenter. Deltagarnas ålder togs inte i beaktning, enbart antalet år av yrkeserfarenhet. Datan analyserades I SPSS, med hjälp av ett Chi-tvåtest och ett Pearsons's r-test.

The health care is an important part of the welfare services in Sweden. Therefore it is of large interest that it is well performing. A part of this is related to how the health care is organized. This essay examines how the Swedish health care has been organized between 1960 and 1990 and what organizational changes that have been made to the health care. It shows that the Swedish health care has un-dergone many organizational changes the last decades.

Outsourcing in IS/IT offers organizations the possibility to use external resources, maximize flexibility and focus on core business, this prompts many organizations today to be less keen on developing IS/IT-services in-house. Sourcing IS/IT is however a complex activity in itself thus requiring competencies in many areas of expertise and lots of organizations has experienced the challenge of managing the necessary competencies to ensure successful Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO). A literature review in the field of outsourcing revealed the lack of a comprehensive competency management framework with the ability to guide competency resource planning in ITO projects. In order to highlight the problem area, an extensive and thorough literature review and an empirical case study which investigated the skills and assets in ITO projects at ten major Swedish organizations was conducted. The study found that it is possible for organizations through structured analysis of their intellectual capital, using the competency framework developed within the study, to plan sourcing processes and prepare the necessary changes to ensure the ITO projects can be implemented with the desired effect..

I chose to do this work because I believe that today?s industrial designprofessionals lack in their task of creating aesthetic experiences and aestheticdiversity.With my work, I want to question why the majority of today?s technical, massproducedeveryday products have such a similar design expression, andwhy alternatives are so few. Most of all, I take a critical attitude to today?sstereotypical industrial design aesthetics that I would describe as technical,masculine, and unnecessarily complex.I have designed a number of products that show alternative aesthetics in thissegment and as such I have chosen the vacuum cleaner. The idea is that mydesign will serve as an eye opener and demonstrate that there are alternativesto today?s homogeneous market.The result is three vacuum cleaners claiming three alternatives to currentofferings.