Due to poorly functioning local and regional markets, the smallholders in San Francisco, Petén, were dependent on intermediaries that took advantage of the smallholder?s distance to markets. In an attempt to secure income and strengthen their bargaining position, 189 smallholders joined forces through the creation of a social smallholder network, held together by a community based enterprise. This enterprise was initiated in 2011 with the help of government incentive programmes and NGOs that within a few years will leave the enterprise to auto regime. This study treats the sustainability of a community forest based enterprise, Chachaklum, in northern Guatemala. The study identifies factors that enable smallholders to organize themselves in order to obtain business practices that support an improved standard of living.

This thesis is composed within the framework of the supplementary course in psychotherapy concentrating on family therapy (60 credits) arranged by Lund University's affiliate in Västerås, Sweden.The purpose of this thesis has been to explore how the idea to initiate evidence based methods in the workings of the Individual and Family Care Department of the City of Västerås was born. Furthermore the thesis will explore if consideration for methods of theoretical implementation are implied. The study assumes a qualitative attempt and is based on semi-structured interviews from three levels within the organization, including both management and operation.Theories on organization,implementation and the theory on change strategies have been used as a theoretical starting point.The study result shows that introduction of evidence based methods in the City of Västerås is based on the experiences of the organization regarding the need to develop and increase social services contributions to non-institutional care. Experiences from expensive transferrals to institutions which only occasionally produced satisfactory results were a contributing factor. New published research and a strong interest and desire inside the department to improve and change social services contributions have naturally been a positive influence for the development.

This study aims mainly to investigate what kind of role the public library plays in the regional and local development. The aim is also to investigate how the public library can strengthen the role as a factor of regional and local development. To explore the subject, the study is focused on the Swedish region of Västra Götaland. Three officials along with two policy documents, are included in the study as representatives of the region. Four public library managers are also interviewed but as representatives of the local perspective.

The intention of this essay is to study the Swedish General Staff as a learning organisation during the period of 1914-1918 based on the theoretical work developed by the philosopher Bertil Rolf. Previous international research on the Prussian/German General Staff has shown that it is considered to be the first learning organisation in history. The Swedish General Staff was based on the German General Staff model and the focus of this study is to compare the development the tactics in Germany and Sweden regarding defence and attack in trench warfare. The questions are: How were the possibilities for gathering and analysing informa-tion affected by the war? Which conclusions were made for trench warfare in Swedish conditions? What experiences from the war and exercises in Swedish army were implemented in manuals and training?The conclusion of the study is that the Swedish General Staff was functioning as a learning organisation during the WWI through the ability to follow the international development, mainly in the Central Powers, and by modifying the experiences to the prevailing Swedish strategic and tactical conditions.

This essay is a study that takes interest in technical and technological change essential to philosophy of science. What is shown is the importance of an active attitude towards this change, by the articulation of the question: Does technical development lead to new ontological questions for science? - and by the answer that such questions do appear.It is clear that passive assumptions in this matter might prohibit science in the proceeding search for truth.By examples of ways in which technical development helps and challenges science, it is concluded that scrutiny of the relationship between technical development and ontological suppositions and hypotheses within science is well motivated..

This survey aims to investigate and analyze how six teachers on a high school in Stockholm reflect on pedagogical aspects of problem based learning( PBL). The survey focuses on ana-lyzing how the teachers relate to the benefits and problems of PBL and how they reflect on the students development. The survey was conducted on a high school and the method used for the study was interviews, each taking 30-45 minutes. The outcome of the survey indicates that the teachers sees problem based learning as an alternative to what they define as tradi-tional education regarding its epistemology. They indicate that PBL allows the students to define their own questions, to be carriers of knowledge and to evolve analytic skills in relation to the basegroup.

The increase of complexity in embedded programming is forcing the development of higher level programminglanguages. These languages not only consist of traditional text based programming but also with graphical programminglanguages such as the programming language G from LabVIEW which is developed by National Instruments and havebeen around since the mid eighties. However since 2004 this language has also been able to program embeddedhardware, using the modules LabVIEW SDK and LabVIEW for ARM. This thesis shows how LabVIEW for ARM converts itsgraphical language G to C and then how C is flashed into the microprocessor. The thesis also takes up the pros and consof using G for embedded development.

Today, companies can take advantage of mass intelligence by making use out ofcrowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing is a business model that uses the power of the collective bythe offer of a problem by means of competitions in various social media. The benefit ofcrowdsourcing is that the company gets more creative and creative solutions to the sameproblem, which would not have been possible if the company solved the problem internally.The larger mass gains an insight into the company, which in return also releases power tothe company's development. The study aims to examine the way in which citizens can beattracted to participate in the development of public transport using crowdsourcing. The studyis based on both qualitative and quantitative approach since the study has a qualitative pilotstudy.

The ongoing construction of Kristianstad is a trade mall in the city center, the City Hall and the railway station neighborhood is rebuilding, new residential projects are planned and "The healthy garden", "Accessibility for everyone" and "ERA-farms" are also current. Kristianstad has always a sustainable way of thinking in the background during the development and they are trying to meet all three perspective of sustainability: economical, ecological and social. The municipality seeks knowledge both by sharing their own and takes part in other municipalities in the development process..

This thesis investigates how recipient countries' domestic type of democracy affects its inclusive ownership in international development cooperation. This is done by examining Swedish development cooperation with Rwanda and Tanzania during the period from 2010 to 2014, a time when ownership - a concept which emphasizes recipient countries' leadership over its own development - was a central part of the international development agenda. The two cases were selected through a most similar case design where the value of potential explanatory variables was similar, except for the recipient countries' types of democracy. Furthermore, the case study uses a comparative analysis to analyze strategies and reports done by SIDA and the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Previous research focuses on the exclusion that national ownership can result in, in undemocratic national contexts. The main argument for this should be seen as the fact that ownership can not be representative if the power of the recipient's development agenda is limited to a decision-making elite.

Since the beginning of the new millennium, China has opened itself to the outside world and in an enormous pace increased its contacts and relationships with other countries. The trigger to these dramatic changes of economic and foreign policies is the insight that China can no longer sustain its rapid economic growth, largely based on industrial production, on energy and raw materials from China alone.Good relations with African countries have been of highest priority in China?s strategy of ?Going global?. The new African policy is based on the two principles of mutual benefit and non-interference in internal affairs ? as opposite to the West?s strategy of structural adjustment programmes (SAP), which include massive interference in internal affairs.

Within system development users have rarely been involved or received much attention during the development. Most of the times, the primary focus within system development lies on insuring functionality, rather than making the system usable. The literature specifies that a non user-centered approach can contribute to a product with low usability, which can lead to an ineffective and unsatisfactory experience for the end users.The purpose of this thesis is to begin an investigation to see if the use of non user-oriented system development methods is a possible cause of low usability in the final system.To achieve the purpose of this thesis, we have conducted a case study. Within the case study we examined the usability of a time reporting system. The case study included seven minor studies; an investigation concerning the development of the system, an expert evaluation of the system, interviews and observations of users, developed paper prototypes and executable prototypes, both which user testing was performed on.The result of this study shows that by working with user-entered methods, the usability in the time reporting system increased after the design had been revised.

Animal welfare can be measured in several different ways; for example by using animal-based measurements. It has been shown that register data from the Swedish Official Milk Recording Scheme can be helpful when identifying herds at risk of having poor animal welfare, which led to a development of the advisory service of ?Ask the Cow? and the web report ?Animal Welfare Signals?. The aim of this project was to find out if register data from ?Animal Welfare Signals? can be used as a screening tool for detecting herds at risk of having poor animal welfare and in need of an ?Ask the Cow?.

This paper examines dialect as a rhetorical means of persuasion. A survey containing inquires about four different Swedish dialects have been handed out mainly in Södertörn University and Stockholm University, in order to research the values and connotations of theese dialects. The four chosen dialects are as following: Göteborgska, Stockholmska, Norrländska and Skånska. The results of the survey are processed and compiled to see which attitudes these values and connotations may indicate to each dialect. These attitudes and values are then discussed in correlation with five rhetorical theories: Attitude as a means of persuation, Ethos, Persona, Rhetorical Agency and Pierre Bourdieu?s theory of Field and Habitus.

This research is conducted on one of the world?s largest deposits - Shtokman gas and condensate field located in the Barents Sea. The development of the field is operated by the Special Purpose Company Shtokman Development AG - the international consortium of Total, Statoil and Gazprom. This research is aimed to analyze the value chain of the Shtokman project and to study the socio-economic capacity of the Murmansk region in order to examine the perspective fields of work for local companies, as well as the socio-economic potential of the region related to the gas industry that can be applied to the realization of the Shtokman project. The research is based on qualitative and quantitative data collection that involves the results of 24 semi structured interviews conducted in the Murmansk region, including the interviews with representatives of the Shtokman Development AG and the industrial committee of the Murmansk region government.