The aim of this study was to describe and analyze the participation of immigrant organizations to the partnerships in the Equal program in Sweden. The focus of the study was on the significance of the participation for the organizations and its impact on them. The point of view of the participant organizations has been object of study through interviews with the persons who, on behalf of the organizations, have been in charge for the work with Equal. Interviews have been conducted with people representing 10 of the 21 immigrant organizations that have been identified among the Swedish Equal partners. Many organizations have experienced that the participation has strengthen the awareness of target groups about their needs and their possibilities.

The purpose of this thesis is to identify the factors that drive efficiency and effectiveness in technical development projects performed at A?F?s department of product development. In addition to identifying and analyzing these factors, the thesis also analyzes what needs to be taken in to account in order to implement a measurement system that is able to both monitor and control the identified factors.The thesis has been performed in a qualitative manner. It is based on interviews with people from several different technological companies, within different lines of business, all of which are customers to A?F?s department of product development.The results show that there are seven critical factors for project efficiency and effectiveness.

Today  Real  estate  companies  face  the  challenge  where  extensive  renovations  on  existinghousing built before 1980 must be performed. Conditions have changed and the housing need performance-­?enhancing measures that meet today's quality. With a current renovation rate,  it  would  take  30  years  to  meet  the  renovation  needs.  The  renovation  rate  must therefore rise dramatically, which requires the real estate companies to act consistently in accordance with commercial principles and in an economically, socially and environmentally responsible way.The  paper  discusses  renovation  strategies  in  four  municipal  housing  companies  in  the Stockholm  suburbs.  The  report  includes  surveys  of  four  ongoing  renovation  projects; Fastighets AB Förvaltaren in Sundbyberg project Hundloken 3, Stiftelsen Signalisten in Solna project Ritorp, Sollentunahem in Sollentuna project Svalgången och Väsbyhem in Upplands Väsby project Dragonvägen. The main purpose of this study was to analyze the practices of redevelopment projects.

Purpose: In order to curb the prevalence of undeclared work and to improve competi-tion within the building and construction business, reversed charge audit will from July 1, 2007 onwards be applied within the building sector. The new rules entail a consider-able amount of delimiting problems as regards both businesses and services.The aim of this essay is to study the rules as well as direct the light upon various consequen-tial delimiting problems. Furthermore, we will investigate what the effects are on the busi-nesses, as well as their view regarding this. Apart from this, we will also investigate who will benefit and who will be disfavourably affected, respectively, by the new lawMethod: The investigation has been conducted with a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. Firstly, an opinion poll was carried out, directed towards Swedish construction companies, and this was then deepened using three interviews.Result & Conclusions: The essay demonstrates that the new rules have entailed more work to a varying degree for the companies.

With the climate change issues growing in importance on the social agenda, the field of urban masterplanning is of no exception when it comes to minimizing the carbon footprint in a variety of projects. The aim of this thesis has been to prepare the Carbon Critical Masterplanning tool, a software plugin for carbon dioxide emissions assessment developed by Atkins, to be used in Swedish conditions. The main targets were to improve the areas of the tool associated with energy conversion and renewable energy sources, and to test the tool in a real case. A planned construction of a new campus in Albano, Stockholm was chosen for the pilot study. A 3D model was built in the tool and the carbon footprint was calculated for a variety of combinations for energy supply to the future area.

 The purpose with this thesis was to develop a designguideline which will simplify the development of new products that will be laser welded. The need for this thesis has come forward from the quality problems that Volvo Construction Equipment, Components Division is having with their laser welding manufacturing unit. The reason for the problems emerges from the bad communication between the development unit and the manufacturing unit within the company when the products produced today was developed. This resulted in products that were hard to and in some cases almost impossible to weld. To avoid these problems from occurring again it was needed to gather the experiences within this area and compile it and present in a brief a pedagogical manner. The information for the groundwork of our results has been gathered by interviews of several key persons in Volvo Construction Equipment, Components Division.

The aim with this thesis is to examine how childrens librarians apprehend and use the nationally initiated reading project Bokjuryn as an instrument in their work. The main question is as follows: How does Bokjuryn work related to the way public libraries pass on literature? Two questions are asked: How does the childrens librarians use Bokjuryn as an instrument and how do they motivate their work with it? and How do the childrens librarians view the reading project Bokjuryn as a method of passing on literature? The study is based on qualitative interviews with five childrens librarians. As a theoretical starting-point Jofrid Karner Smidt´s work about mediation of literature has been used. A model has been created and used based on Louise Limbergs analyses of the differences between school libraries and public libraries to analyse the result of the interviews together with other literature.

Many research reports mention the fact that a huge number of all system development projects never reach a successful ending; with other words never fulfil formulated goals. By identifying and forming success factors (and in some aspect risk factors) that the project manager in practice can use, this study may be seen as a step in the direction towards minimising the high number of failed system development projects. The purpose of this research report is to investigate how a system development project, where the development process is based on a specific development or process model (in this case the Waterfall model), can and should be driven. I aim to clarify what is demanded of a project leader for the specific development process and give an account for which eventual leadership qualities that can be well suited for given situation in relation to the need for technical competence. Among other things the project manager should inspire confidence, drive, be a decision maker, engage and own some form of basic knowledge in the field of system development.

More than half of the implemented IT-projects go over budget, deadline or simply fail. The processes in an IT-project requires technical competence to be present among the project participants to ensure the achievement of business goals and to make organisations competitive. The success of an IT-project largely depends on the project manager which makes it interesting to further investigate what impact the project manager?s technical competence has on the project. Previous research shows differing opinions whether technical competence is considered important for the project manager to be successful or not.

This essay is a qualitative study concerned with questions about disability. I set out from a definition of disability which highlights non-disabled peoples´ participation in making a disabled person ?the Other?. My aim is to contribute to an understanding of the experiences of disabled people as well as problemize the way that normality and disability is socially constructed. The empirical material of the essay consists of qualitative interviews with disabled men and women and the essay is written with a critical perspective.

A vehicle that carries a person sitting in a wheelchair has been rebuilt. The original vehicle was provided with a petrol engine, hydrostatic drive and a mechanical steering rod, making it noisy and hard to maneuver. The purpose with this project was to convert the vehicle to make it more environmental and easier to drive.A new design has been proposed where an electrical drive has replaced the noisy combustion engine and an electrical motor with joystick control has replaced the manual steering.The project was divided into two parts. One mechanical part where the construction of the drive and steering were to be decided. The other part involved programming the microprocessor and implementation of all the necessary electrical for the control system of the vehicle.

During the past few years an increased attention has been paid to environmental issues in the construction and property sector in Sweden. In order to simplify the work with these issues a Swedish environmental certification system for buildings called Miljöbyggnad has been developed. This thesis aims to investigate the opinion of a selected number of selected property owners of Miljöbyggnad. From that basis recommendations and actions for the future work with the system will be presented.The investigation has been conducted through personal interviews with five property owners. The main issues that the interviews have been based on are their purpose, experiences, perceived complications and future prospects in terms of certification using Miljöbyggnad.The system intends to be cost-effective, simple and to offer a relevant environmental assessment of buildings and the result from the report indicates that this is largely fulfilled.

The purpose of this study has been to examine how the image of the gambler is described by studying a report published by Folkhälsoinstituet [FHI] and a number of chosen articles from the Swedish Evening Press. Discourse theory has been used both as theory, together with social constructionism, and as a research method. The main conclusions of the study are that three different discourses can be identified: the normal gambler, the professional gambler and the problem gambler. The image of the problem gambler is described as a deviant and problematic minority characterized by loss of control, irrational thoughts and dissociative behaviour. The construction of the problem gambler fills three possible purposes for the state: As a solvable problem to handle criticism against negative consequences of gambling, as an argument to avoid competition on the market and as an individual characterized by loss of control in order to legitimize and make the construction of the normal gambler possible..

The production costs have steadily increased within the construction industry during the 21st century. Voices are raised meaning that the construction industry is too unsuccessful in making the production more efficient and to develop it?s way of working. One way to deal with the production costs is to minimise the waste, with waste meaning activities that doesn?t add value to the finished product.

The result of this work is a plan for the development of an 1128 m2 elderly raised garden. The purpose has been to create an overall plan covering the long-term development of the garden. The work process has covered a description of the garden of today, review of requirements, analysis of the garden sections, design of a new plan as well as starting the construction of the new garden. The plan covers a time period of a couple of years to create the new garden since the construction work is carried out during spare time with small resources available. The planning must contain review of functions such as protection from insight, eating area and compost area. Also the esthetic expression must be planned. Colors, shapes, choice of material and plants together make up the esthetic expression. It is recommended to include anything you wish to create in the garden. In a raised garden one has to overcome the step to remove trees and shrubs and think different.