The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of mindfulness training in the treatment of chronic pain, estimate the degree of mindfulness before and after intervention, and to describe the participants experience of mindfulness training. Mindfulness is defined as moment to moment, non-judgmental awareness. After the treatment of chronic pain 16 patients were offered and nine agreed to participate in mindfulness training. The intervention group took part in an 8-week group-program. The comparison group, not randomized, was 16 former patients.

According to the client, land survey of Sweden, there is no current information regarding other well developed property tax systems. This information is necessary in order to analyze the effectiveness and develop the Swedish system. The purpose of this study is to contribute with improvement proposals to the development of the Swedish property tax system through a survey of the English and Welsh property tax system.Methods used are: (1) a literature review where the English and Welsh valuation methodology and organization regarding property taxation is studied; (2) an interview with the client at the land survey of Sweden regarding existing problems with the Swedish property tax system; (3) An interview with a contact person of the Valuation Office Agency regarding the English and Welsh property tax system.In England and Wales there are two different property taxes for municipals, Council Tax and Rating. All domestic properties are included in Council Tax and commercial properties or part of commercial properties is included in Rating. Council Tax is based on the properties market value and Rating is based on the commercial property or part of the properties current rental value.

  Aim. The aim of the study was to describe how nurses in home care experience to pursue palliative care in ordinary housing. Methods. The study had a descriptive design with qualitative approach and was carried out through semi-structured interviews with 14 nurses in home health care from two medium-sized Swedish municipalities. The material was analyzed with manifest and latent content analysis. Findings. The underlying theme that emerged in the study was: Working with palliative care in the patient´s own homes is positive but challenging. Informants describe among other things that they perceived palliative home care as meaningful and that relatives have a central role in the palliative home care since they are close to the patient around the clock. The stress that emerges from the heavy work load and the long geographic distances are described as strenuous and to affect the care in a negative way. Informants describe the home environment as challenging as it is often not adapted for care and the collaboration with the palliative team is described to be experienced as both positive and negative.

During the last decades the importance of IT has increased for businesses all over the world. It has transferred from only being used in administrative purposes to become more integrated to the core business. Due to the financial crisis in 2009 and increasing globalization, IT is facing the challenge of lower costs and increased efficiency. This requires IT-departments to embrace new strategies in order to fulfill these new tougher demands.Lean is a business development concept that aims to lower costs through more effective processes by removing all activities that does not create any value from the end customer?s perspective.

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate to what a few preschool teachers and mother-tongue teachers consider the influence mother-tongue training has on children. The thesis also looks into how these teachers cooperate and view about the mother-tongue training organization structure and what support mother-tongue teachers get in the concerned preschools. More specifically:What influences do three preschool teachers and three mother-tongue teachers consider that mother-tongue training has on the development of the children?Which support do the three mother-tongue teachers receive from the preschool principals and other preschool pedagogues in their work? - Is there any cooperation between them?In what way do the three preschool teachers and the three mother-tongue teachers think that the mother-tongue training organization structure affect the children?s status in the group?Method: In order to achieve a deeper understanding of the context, a qualitative method based on interviews and observations was employed and relied upon. Three preschool teachers and three mother-tongue teachers from two different preschools in the same municipality were interviewed to acquire answers to the questions concerned.Result: The result of this enquiry shows a direct and explicit comprehension that mother-tongue is immensely important for children?s development.

The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of activities, flows and waste in a company's production process. By performing a value stream analysis, non-value adding activities are identified in a production process and then the suggested improvements that can reduce lead times will be stated. The value-stream mapping identifies the flow of information and the flow of material in a production process and this provides the basis for the identification of non-value adding activities.We conducted the study at Lammhults Möbel AB in Lammhult Sweden, where the production flow of Spira-21 has been investigated. This to identify any non-value adding activities that affect the flow negative and consumes time and money in a non-value adding way.A reasonable approach for the project was taken by studying the methodologies and theories. We conducted interviews and site surveys at Lammhults Möbel AB where the flow of information and material in the production process were investigated.

Syftet med detta examensarbete var att undersöka vilka faktorer som krävs för en lyckad implementering av ett förbättringsprogram i en organisation, oavsett vilket förbättringsprogram som används.Förbättringsprogrammen har vuxit fram ur kvalitetrörelsen och har sitt ursprung i ständiga förbättringar och PDSA-cykeln. Förbättringsprogram används av ledningen för att uppnå en högre grad av kundtillfredsställelse, på ett strukturerat sätt.En implementering av ett förbättringsprogram måste successivt lanseras i en organisation genom introduktionsfas, försöksfas, införandefas, expansionsfas och integreringsfas. I införandefasen används tre olika typer av införande av förbättringsprogram totalt, delvis och införande under befintligt koncept. Implementeringsprocessen måste mätas för att det ska kunna avgöras om den blev lyckad eller inte.Metoden som använts i detta examensarbete är en kvalitativ forskningsprocess med hermeneutiskt ideal av kvalitativ metod med en kombination av etnometodologisk tradition och naturism. Författaren har använt sig av en tvärsnittsdesign i tidsaspekten.

Purpose:The background to this study is an upcoming sale of a property. Owner of the property is currently city of Gävle and tenant is Jan Ekroth who runs the hostel Gamla Gefle in the buildings belonging to the property. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether Gamla Gefle AB has the financial ability to acquire the property and if it can be defended in a commercial plane.Method:In this study a qualitative method has been used, in which empirical data has been gathered from interviews and financial data taken from annual reports. These empirical data have been put against our theoretical framework and led to our analysis. In the analysis, cash flows and discounted future values have been calculated to determine the outcome of the investment.Results & conclusion:The study reaches the conclusion that the hostel Gamla Gefle should complete its acquisition of the property, in spite of an decrease of the annual cash flow.

Nowdays an efficient production is critical to achieve for companies competing on the market for steel cutting tools. One of such companies is Halmstad based Tooling Support Halmstad AB that manufactures threading-taps, threading-dies and parting off tools, towards a centralized warehouse in Schiedam, Holland. The large amount of different products, approximately 2500 is a big contributor to the problem along with a new order system that creates a demand of low setup times. Previously the company was forwarded orders through quarter based prognoses which enabled planning of the production over a longer time span. Currently the newer order system ZENIT is in use and the company thereby gets their orders weekly.

The project was conducted during a period from November 2014 to January 2015 at the company Westermo Teleindustri AB (WTE). The subject of the project was to make an inventory more efficient. The inventory was located at WTE, but was owned by the subsidiary Westermo Sverige (WSE).The inventory had a high amount of tied up capital. This was due to products that hadn?t been sold.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the regulatory power, efficiency and impact of export control on Swedish arms export from the 1980s onwards, linked to the delegation of authority of permit license to the Inspectorate of Strategic Products in 1997. An increase in the administrative sector, based on a collective decision making process and established criteria and guidelines, aimed to strengthen the control of arms export to non-democratic and problematic states. In short, the aim of the study is to investigate and analyze whether there was a decrease in the arms export to problematic states or not. On one hand, it is reasonable to assume that the introduction of the new regulation entailed a more strict arms export policy. However, previous research has showed that regulations are sometimes not effective since incentives to breach these may be present.The study begins by examining the Swedish case and situation in terms of arms manufacturing and export, as well as the delegation of authority and legislation applied to the field over time.

Background: Relatives to people with schizophrenia often experience a great burden and inmany cases takes a lot of responsibility for the person suffering from schizophrenia. Nationalguidelines emphasize the importance for relatives to be involved in mental health care, butunfortunately that is not always the case. Objective: The aim of this study is to investigateand describe how relatives to people with schizophrenia have experienced collaboration andsupport from mental health services, and what requests they might have for the futureregarding the design of collaboration and support. Method: Qualitative approach. Interviewbased study with qualitative content analysis as a method.

Medieföretaget AB is a Swedish Media Company that covers several different business areas.The company daily produces one of the biggest newspapers in Sweden and publishes editorialnews on one of the country?s most visited news homepage. The company also has smallerfirms that produce new business models. Due to big changes in the media climate over theworld and a new company management team the company in November 2008 started adepartment for innovation. The main purpose of the department was to create a structuredway for managing ideas and to promote innovation.

Companies become more and more aware of the added values of the packaging. A well chosen and developed packaging can reduce the costs for the companies through reduced costs for transports, reduced quantity of waste and discards and increased goodwill for example. The companies? costs for salaries can also be reduced due to the increased packaging handling efficiency and the reduced costs for sick leave, reduced work capacity and rehabilitation etc. that can arise when handling poorly developed products and packaging.

The consumption and energy use in today's society contributes to the on-going climate change that creates a debt of life quality for future generations (www, DN, 2007, a). The resources that are used by humans exceed by far what is sustainable (www, Regeringen, 2007, a). The purpose of this paper is to examine how a message about energy conservation should be designed to reach youths. This will be attempted by showing their thoughts on energy and environmental issues and also what it would take for them to get more involved in these issues. The views of the youths are gained by a number of focus group-interviews, which where carried out in the fall of 2007, with kids in the ages 12 to 19. Apart from these interviews, interviews where also conducted with representatives from different youth organisations in Sweden, which gave their views on how to get a message across to kids.