Performance appraisals- a study of the performance appraisals significance as a tool for development in the public sector.Anders Larsson and Åsalill OlssonPerformance appraisals have been given a central role in leading businesses in the public sector and are seen as a tool to create development opportunities and achieve better results. This has resulted that performance appraisal in many organizations takes up capacity and time. This was the starting point of our interest to study whether the time spent on performance appraisals effectively pays for itself in the organization, in other words whether the effects expected actually are achieved. The paper examines first line managers` views on staff appraisal purposes and effects of a function within the Landstinget. The survey design, methodology and transaction are of qualitative and quantitative method with three different sources: literature review of previous research, interviews with first line managers in Landstinget Västmanland and the results from an employee satisfaction survey conducted on behalf of Landstinget Västmanland.

The capability to know what knowledge there is and where it resides within an organization is becoming increasingly important in the new knowledge-based economy. This paper takes on a practise-based view of knowledge in order to decide on a course of action for how to successfully implement knowledge management within a knowledge-based company. By considering all knowledge as more or less contextual and socially constructed, knowledge is divided into three dimensions depending on the degree to which it is tacit, namely: information, knowledge and skills. The paper then discusses inhibitors and enablers for transferring knowledge via these three dimensions respectively. The empirical findings are based upon a case study of Faveo. It is shown that Faveo, like most organizations, has til now focused on the collection of codified knowledge, i.e.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate how consumer advertising has an effect on other groups than the intended, the so-called extended audience of advertising. Previous research shows that consumer advertising can influence investors and employees of a company as well as affect the attractiveness of a company as a potential employer. In addition, research shows that more perceived cognitive effort in advertising results in positive signaling effects for consumers. This study aims to further build on these concepts in order to gain additional understanding of how consumer advertising can influence extended audiences. More specifically, it examines if more (versus less) effort in advertising can improve the future prospects on the labor market for an employee of the advertising company, by looking at recruitment consultants as an extended audience.

The purpose of this article is to examine how social workers may experience fear in their profession, how they and their organizations handle the fear and how the fear may affect their practice. To obtain the purpose, in-depth interviews were carried out with seven social workers from the southeastern part of Sweden. The experiences of fear were many and are summarized in four categories. Fear of treats and violence, fear of the responsibility in complicated situations and without optimal solution, fear of being regarded and judged as worthless and fear of being scrutinized with the risk of being stigmatized. Five strategies were identified to handle the fear: Safety strategies (e.g.

This report is about how HDR (HighDynamicRange) can be created and used in combination with Tone mapping. This work has been carried out together with Kapsch TrafficCom AB in Jönköping.The objective of this project is to:Evaluate and investigate the effects given to pictures by HDR and tone mapping.Evaluate if the technology may lead to improvements in Kapsch?s systems.To construct a program which is able to handle some form of tone mapping or HDR-algorithm.These questions will be answered in this report:What kind of effects has HDR and tone mapping-algorithms on pictures?Can the HDR-technology give better data in Kapsch?s systems?The research method used in this report is called action research. This means the authors has investigated the technology by reading different documentations and by testing different algorithms to see what kind of result they give. The report describes some of the tests made to see if the technology is appropriate in Kapsch?s system.There is two smaller reports made by the authors which documenting some of the work.The first report describes the work with different settings for a camera to create pictures with HDR-quality.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine how Jane Austens Pride and Prejudice, first published in 1813, was established in different literary orbits after the transformation to the television medium in 1995. I also want to find out what this adaptation meant for the popularity of Jane Austen, the circulation of her works and the rebirth of her authorship. It has furthermore been of interest to discuss the reasons why Jane Austen and her works became so popular. Questions posed in the study are: What has the 1995 production of Pride and Prejudice meant for the spreading of Jane Austens literary work and for the rebirth of her authorship? How has Pride and Prejudice moved between the literary orbits after it became a television-serial in 1995? Why did the circulation get the character it got in the 1990s? In order to find feasible answers to these questions I have used Hans Hertels model of the five literary orbits as theoretical starting point.

The purpose of this study is to understand encounter by individual depictions of meetingsperceived by social workers and clients in social services. Thus, we want to understand moreabout how clients and social workers as actors encounter each other in meetings in the socialservices. The study also aims to understand how the two actors affect each other in this typeof interaction and whether there are other influencing factors. We conducted a qualitativestudy by interviewing informants with semi-structured interview questions. The informantswere comprised of three social workers and eight clients.

AbstractSwedish tuition for immigrants (SFI) is a public adult education program in Sweden that was created in order to provide the immigrants with basic skills in Swedish. People with different backgrounds speaking different languages learn together how they should communicate in Swedish, both orally and in writing. For those who teach SFI it is important to know which factors have positive effects on the Swedish language acquisition. One of the questions to be asked is if the learning materials´ genre has any effect on the SFI students´ proficiency, in particular, oral proficiency. Scientists as von Franz, Vygotskiy and Bettelheim argued that fairy tales, as a genre consciously or subconsciously recognizable by all the people, present texts that are easy to acqiure.

AbstractAimThe aim of the pilot study was to compare short- and long-term effects from group exercise in water with land-based exercise on pain at rest and pain with movement, along with the effects on function in daily life and practice of sports and leisure activities in patients with knee osteoarthritis. The aims were: Is there a difference in short- and long-term effects on pain intensity at rest and pain with movement after exercise in water or land in patients with knee osteoarthritis? Is there a correlation between the degree of pain intensity at rest and with movement, respectively and long-term effects from the two different exercises on function in daily life and practice of sports and leisure? MethodThe study was a randomized intervention study without a control group. Twenty patients with radiographic knee osteoarthritis were under a total of eight weeks treated with either land- or water-based exercise lead by a physiotherapist. The patients rated pain intensity at rest and with movement on a numerical rating scale (NRS) before and after the first training session, before and after the eighth training session, before and after the fifteenth training session and before the last and sixteenth training session.

AbstractBackground: Pain is usually common patients who undergo high-dose treatment in combination with HSCT. Pain is usually associated with side effects as for example mucositis. The purpose of this study was to examine patients? experiences of pain in relation to stemcellstransplantation. The purpose was also to examine how patients experience that they have been treated by the personnel regarding their pain, and also if the pain relief correspond to the patients expectations.Method: The study is a descriptive, longitudinal study.

ABSTRACTThe aim of this essay is to analyze and discuss the razors? and tweezers? roles and dualism between them in the Nordic Bronze Age societies. This paper is an attempt to investigate what these little things can tell us about the people that were buried with them. For this purpose I have examined material of burial that consist of finds of razors respective tweezers and their connection with artefacts in the graves. I have done a comparative and contextual study together using quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate their roles and dualism.

January the 1:st 2010 Veterinary Nursing became a registred vocation in Sweden, this paper attempts to give some back-ground to this decision and tries to gauge the opinions of companies and organisations representing workers and employers in the animal health-care field on the possible effects of registration. Working Veterinary Nurses and Veterinarians have been surveyed to find out what they think the responsibilities and education of the Registred Veterinary Nurse should be..

 Performance appraisals- a study of the performance appraisals significance as a tool for development in the public sector.Anders Larsson and Åsalill OlssonPerformance appraisals have been given a central role in leading businesses in the public sector and are seen as a tool to create development opportunities and achieve better results. This has resulted that performance appraisal in many organizations takes up capacity and time. This was the starting point of our interest to study whether the time spent on performance appraisals effectively pays for itself in the organization, in other words whether the effects expected actually are achieved. The paper examines first line managers` views on staff appraisal purposes and effects of a function within the Landstinget. The survey design, methodology and transaction are of qualitative and quantitative method with three different sources: literature review of previous research, interviews with first line managers in Landstinget Västmanland and the results from an employee satisfaction survey conducted on behalf of Landstinget Västmanland.

The purpose of this thesis was to describe what factors influence consumers? choice when buying probiotic products. Functional Foods have been predicted a bright future on the food market but so far the concept have not been embraced by the consumers. The reasons for this are many and not clearly understood. Positive health effects are what set a functional food product apart from traditional food stuffs of the same type.

This article presents a survey of male dogs treated with the gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) agonist deslorelin (Suprelorin®, Virbac) at three animal clinics in central Sweden. Filled-in questionnaires from 110 dogs were received. The paper also includes a review of existing litterature concerning reproduction in male dogs, focusing on endocrinology, the effects of gonadectomy and the GnRH agonist deslorelin. Continuous treatment with deslorelin produces infertility in male dogs. The pituitary is initially stimulated by deslorelin leading to a rise in luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) secretion. As a consequence the testosterone levels also increase temporarily.