Visualization plays a key role in the concept of Lean. Lean was developed in Japan as a business philosophy in order to lead to an activity, where only steps that contribute to customer value of the final product are being performed. By defining the customer value and establish visualized standards, it is possible to see when situations differ from the standard. Then it?s possible to lead the process back on track.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate and increase the understanding of a present function of today´s public library, namely the function of meeting place; here called the social function or social space. Two small town libraries are included in the study, and the questions examined are:How is this function described at the two libraries and what similarities and differences are there between the two? How can one describe the relation between how the library as social space is described in research and at the libraries? The theoretical framework used in examining these questions, consists of three different discourses in culture policy (the discourse of state, market and civil society) and theories on civil society and the public library. A summary of current research makes visible eight different aspects of the public library as a social space. These aspects functions as parts of the theoretical framework as well.

The main purpose of this master thesis is to investigate how six elderly individuals, 65-75 years old, use and perceive Internet in their everyday life. The focus in this study is to enlighten elderly people as Internet-users.In 2010 many elderly people are still digital excluded. In Europe and in Sweden efforts are made to educate citizens to use the Internet, and that benefits of the digital society should be available to all.This study is based on the following questions: what made the informants take an interest in the Internet in the first place? How and for what purpose do they use it? And how do the informants regard to their own Internet usage and its importance in society?We interviewed six people aged 65-75 years old, using semi-structured questions. The data was analyzed by using the theory developed by Hektor concerning Internet and information behaviour in everyday life.

Poverty among children has received a great deal of attention in the media the past few years. The group in which poverty among children has increased most is among single parents; therefore we have chosen to examine this group in this study. The purpose of this study is to take part in single parents and their children?s experiences of living within a very tight budget and the strategies they use. We found it interesting to put this information in relationship to the consumer society we live in today.

This master thesis is a study of a new electronic library reference service-project called Speak instantly to a librarian and the purpose of the thesis is to investigate a new electronic reference service and how the librarians who work with it experience it. This should be seen from an informational society point of view. The study is conducted from two questions: - What needs do the libraries have and how do they argue for the project and the chat-reference service Speak instantly to a librarian? - How do the librarians experience the personal work situation in the new reference service, and its use of chat technology? Together with interviews of a selected group of librarians from the public libraries of Göteborg, Malmö, Nacka and Stockholm, this thesis includes aspects such as the theory of the informational society by Manuel Castells, as well as literary studies of the history of library reference, the development of electronic reference service and the virtual library, and the background and the beginning of the studied project Speak instantly to a librarian. The thesis also contains an overlook of other similar library projects in the United States of America.

This study is an institutional analysis of the firm both as it is theoretically conceptualized and how it takes shape and changes. The role of power relations between manage¬ment and employees is especially examined with the aim of evaluating pos¬sible connections between the firm as an institution and power relations within it. Based on a comparison of two cases (two selected periods of the same organization) it asks ?How closely does each case match the conceptual characteristics of the firm??; ?What are the power relations between management and employees in each case??; and finally ?What factors account for the resulting differences??. It is found that there is a negative correlation between employee power and proximity to the firm as a concept.

Örebro UniversityThe Department Behavioural, Social, and Legal SciencesEducation of social workC-essay 41-60 pAbstractTitle: Work for everyone? An interview study of how three professions within the introduction programme in the local-government in Falköping looks at structural obstacles and discrimination in immigrants? access to the Swedish labour market.Authors: Emma Gustavsson and Sandra TjärnbergTutor: Rúna Baianstovu Deniz and Urban KarlssonToday many immigrants stand outside the labour market. To get established on the labour market and to get self-sufficient are important factors to a rapid integration process. The main purpose of this study is to investigate how three professions within the integration work in the local-government of Falköping looks at structural obstacles and possibilities with immigrants? access to the Swedish labour market.

Biological diversity is one out of four dimensions, characterizing the subject of Biology ac-cording to the school curriculum. As a concept, biological diversity had its break through at the UN environmental conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, where the convention about bio-logical diversity, named CBD, was signed. According to the convention, almost all the na-tions of the world have engaged themselves to preserve the national diversity of species, in-cluding the diversity of genetics and ecological systems.This thesis focuses the biological diversity from the perspective of school books. The aim is to find out how the biological diversity is presented in biology books for students aged 12-15 years.In 1994, the current Swedish secondary and high school curriculum called LPO-94 was pre-sented. The biology books used in this study were published between 1994 and 2007, all of them exist in many editions and are published by three different publishers.The conclusion of the study is that all the biology books that were examined have reached different levels of the development in the field of biological diversity..

Recently, there have been intense discussions about the humanities and their role in society. Internationally, as well as in a Swedish context, the humanities have been regarded to be in a state of crisis. However, these discussions usually demonstrate a lack of historical perspectives based on thorough empirical research. The notion of a crisis needs to be historicized.In this study, a case is being examined where the relationship between science and society was renegotiated. In the context of World War II, a discourse has been identified in a borderland between science and politics through an analysis of Swedish journals and anthologies during the time period 1937-1947.

The study discloses unaccompanied children´s socialization in their new society. The purpose of the study is to investigate how unaccompanied children's schooling is an important factor in their socialization and skills development in their new society. For example, we have chosen to illustrate how their school works and if and whether the teachers receive the support they need in order to help children develop their skills so they can find their way in society. The research is based on three different methods. The first method is based on literature research.

There is a lack of consensus within politics on how to deal with the so-called youth problem that exists in vulnerable areas. The politicians' positions are communicated in speech and writing and influence the majority society's attitude to children in vulnerable areas. Children are at the same time a vulnerable group in society. They are dependent on adults and need their guidance and support throughout their upbringing. In vulnerable areas live children whose health is affected by social and economic vulnerability and discrimination from the outside world. By looking into how hegemonic masculinity as norms are formulated in Swedish political documents, in relation to experiences of stigmatization and violence among children from vulnerable areas, this study wishes to examine if children?s right to a life without violence is being respected in vulnerable areas.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how masculinity and femininity are constructed in the magazine Veckorevyn, through a critical discourse analysis of 18 articles from six issues in 2011. This is done by using a variety of theories and previous research results, which is gender theory, the theory of late-modern society and media theory. The analysis shows that Veckorevyn depicts virility and feminine differently. Furthermore, pointing the results from the analysis that a change of manhood and womanhood takes place in the social practice. The selection of articles from the magazine also shows that Veckorevyn seems to promote gender equality. .

Norrborns Industri AB in Bollnäs manufactures truck trailers with the brand Parator. One of their trailers is Parator LX 10-20. The trailer is designed to transport hooklift containers with the option to tip loose goods such as gravel, asphalt and seed. The container is mounted on a frame which is placed on the chassis. To reduce weight a redesign of the trailer is needed.

Following the wake of the AIDS-catastrophe in the beginning of the eighties, homosexual men or 'men who have sex with men' (MSM) have been barred from donating blood throughout the planet. In this thesis I look into the different discourses at play in the context of creating the legal framework for blood donation in Sweden. Genealogically tracing the emergence of the category of MSM and mapping how the category is brought to use in contemporary negotiations on blood safety, I scrutinize how scientific truth is established within blood transfusion practice. I argue that the rationality of risk group exclusion is contingent on economical grounds, and that the foucauldian concept of biopolitics could productively be used to understand this rationality. In particular, the concept of the 'biopolitics of blood' can be employed in order to understand the reluctance from the involved actors to acknowledge the heteronormative consequences of the legal framework of contemporary blood donation..

The main objective of this paper has been to construct a way to measure the level of social capital in a society. Based on a theory which describes the ideal society have I herein tried to find out to what extent the Swedish and Danish communities correspond to this model. The theoretical foundation consist of several different levels of analysis, and I have indeed found there to be consideral differences between the two nations on these different levels. The paper however conclude that these differences even out to add up to a Social Capital Index that is remarkably similar. A result which is to be interpreted as one nation being about as close to the ideal situation from a social capital point-of-view as the other..