This study deals with religious independent schools and its impact on society. The purpose of this essay has been to examine what various teachers from both religious independent schools and public schools have for perception of religious independent schools. The questions highlighted in the study is the teachers´ general view to religious independent schools, teachers´ perception of the Education Act " a denominational education, but a non- denominational teaching", and what teachers believe to be segregated or inclusive.The study has consisted of five qualitative interviews with different teachers, where three of them work at religious independent schools, while the other two teachers work in public schools.The study shows that there are prominent differences of approach to religious independent schools. Teachers who work at religious independent schools avert criticism of religious independent schools and argue that teaching in religious independent schools do not differ appreciably from the public schools. Instead can religious independent schools serve as a good alternative to the public school.

The web sites of libraries are to a large extent their public face and to help market their services, the web sites must have interesting and regularly renewed content. They must also be visually attractive and easily used, and thus be well structured and have a well functioning navigational system. The web masters' awareness of the ability of web sites to attract users to the site and also to the library, as well as their knowledge of suitable content and site construction, is crucial for how successful the web site actually is at marketing the library. The research question is: How do the studied web sites function as marketing sources and service providers for the libraries, and are the web masters aware of the importance of the web site? The purpose is to investigate how the library personnel looks upon the web site as a possible way to increase the popularity of the library among the public, and to study the construction and content of the library web sites to find out how well these serve their purpose.

In an attempt to prevent ground damage and to reduce harvesting costs, StoraEnso's districts Värmbodal and Fryken, selected a number of final felling areas where the base roads have been marked by planners in the districts. The parties involved in the experiment are mainly planners, harvester operators and forwarder operators. The purpose of this paper is to determine the findings of this trial and to find cost savings or lost revenue. This has been done with a sample of interviews from the involved parties who logged the chosen felling areas. Literature about the interview process has been used to facilitate data collection, interpretation and analysis of the material. If we look at profitability based on assumed income and expenditure, revenue per MWh would be 63 SEK.

In this thesis, the results of a survey regarding grade progression between secondary and upper secondary school in a municipality in the north of Sweden serve as the starting point for a study of the experiences and expectations of a number of 16 year old girls who are in the first year of upper secondary school. The study is performed by means of focus group interviews with female pupils from the three largest upper secondary schools in said municipality in an attempt to gauge their experiences of grades, grade assessment, teacher practices and perceived differences in how boys and girls are treated. The results show that most of the girls are disappointed with upper secondary school so far. Many of them feel that secondary school was both more fun and more rewarding in a sense of learning. Their appreciation of how this more rewarding atmosphere affected their grades differed between the various groups.

Most people have been forced to throw away a pot-plant after its death. There are many reasons to the death of a plant, but mainly it?s because its owner forgets it, and therefore fails to water it. The purpose of this project is therefore to develop a product which can prevent this from happening, while the product has to have a low manufacturing cost to be able to compete whit other, similar, products on the market. During the project, a benchmarking has been done to give a clear picture of what the product has to compete with. The directives there are for CE-marking, and which of these who concerns the product has also been looked up.

In the world of today, crises and crisis situations are inevitable parts of an organization?s everyday life and it is important for the organization to be prepared for these crises. The organization and its employees have to be in a constant state of alert and they should also have an organized plan for what they will do when (not if) the crisis occurs. The charter tour industry has during a long period of time been active in the global market. They serve thousands of travellers every day and it is the responsibility of the companies within the industry to make sure that their customers are safe and that crises can be prevented, or at least be handled.

The purpose of this thesis was to examine how the build-up of customer relations can be characterized at the end of the industrial selling process and how companies engage their cross-functional selling teams into this relationship building effort. Through a case study of Omega, a multinational company engaged in the selling of products of an industrial character, it was revealed that the build-up and maintaining of the customer relationship is of acute importance, as it presents the company with a window of opportunities. Through its relationship with the customer the company can be able to sell other products, which are related to the original purchase made by the customer. For the company?s competitors the established relationship might also serve as a barrier when attempting to enter the market or increase market share.

Toxic metals contaminate soil worldwide and thus serve as sever environmental threat. Therefore the purposes of this study were to investigate in which soil fractions that different heavy metals (Fe, As, Cu, Zn and Pb) could be found in contaminated soils and if it is possible to use sieving as a method for decontamination. Soil samples were collected from three different locations, the Nasa silver mine, the Blaiken-mine and Svalget environmental station. The samples were oven dried and later on sieved into six different fractions 8mm, 4 mm, 0.5 mm, 0.250mm, 0.063 mm and <0.063 mm. The fractions 4 mm, 0.5 mm and <0.063 mm from each location were analyzed in an x-ray fluorescence detector.

The purpose of this bachelor?s thesis is to examine video games, gamers and gaming from an information science perspective. The purpose of the study is partly to study video games as a type of information system and partly to study gamers information use, information seeking and also the experience of gaming. A selection of five games have been analysed using a topology for video game analysis created by Espen Aarseth. A quantitative investigation has also been made, in the form of a web survey distributed through four Swedish online forums, the result of which was analysed using Carol Collier Kuhlthaus model of the information seeking process.

The purpose of this master?s thesis is to examine virtual reading groups, and which meaning the users perceive that the virtual reading groups offer. In addition, the study inquires which details can be improved to further amend the needs and wants among the users of virtual reading groups. Through these outlines, it is discussed how libraries and librarians can make use of virtual reading groups as a resource. The study is based upon qualitative interviews, consisting of asynchronous e-mail interviews with a total of sixteen members in two different virtual reading groups.

A large number of system development projects are allowed to proceed for too long, and leads to undesirable project outcomes. Research shows that more than half of the authorities involved reported that at least one of their projects have exceeded their budget, and that a third of all the projects had exceeded the budget. This problem led to the following research question: ?Which factors can explain projects continued escalation within public authorities?? To answer the question, a qualitative case study of the Swedish police?s implementation of PUST, a sort of case management system was conducted. The project received considerable media attention and a large amount of criticism was directed towards the project, partly because the project exceeded the timeframe and budget set at the start.

Scientific studies show that good leadership is a key factor for group- and individual development. Studies have also shown that the contrary can curb talented individuals and/or cause stagnation, or even cause groups to halt their progression. This essay studies how leaders in musical and athletic environments look on their own leadership. In interviews, the leaders reflect upon experienced issues related to their profession, their views on difficulties in their leading role, as well as individual, and group development. This study also includes two observations, one in each field of profession.

This project was led on behalf of Bombardier Transportation in Västerås, Sweden, incollaboration with KTH Stockholm and EPFL Lausanne. This project is connected to thedevelopment of a new and simplified tilt system for rail vehicles.Growing competition from other means of transportation has forced railway companiesthroughout the world to search for increased performances.Travelling time is the mostobvious performance indicator that may be improved by introducing high-speed trains.They require very large curve radii and long transitions curves not to impairridecomfort, another performance indicator. Building new tracks adapted to high speedtrains is very costly and can only be justified where the passenger base is large.Trains with the capability to tilt the carbodies inwards the curve is a more cost efficientalternative. The tilt inwards reduces thelateral force felt by the passengers allowing thetrain to pass curves at enhanced speed with maintained ride comfort but increases thefrequency ofmotion sickness.The benefits of tilting trains are improved speed capability in curves and enhancedpassengers comfort, but at higher buying and maintenance cost. As the conventionaltrains increase their speed in curves, the performance advantage of tilting trains isreduced while their prize is still kept significantly higher and constant.

A performance measurement system can be used as a means to evaluate past performances and to communicate prioritizations. It has also been proposed that a performance measurement system can serve as a method to execute strategies, guide in operational decisions and constitute a tool for making the organization more efficient. Yet one may question if such a system will ever reach this capacity if operating managers do not utilize it as a management tool, but rather treat it as a mere report in the bunch. This paper explores how middle managers in fact apply performance measures and what obstacles there are to integrating them in the management of subunits. Furthermore it serves to investigate whether these managers experience a conflict between how they are expected to use the measures and what they deem possible to adopt.

Through the growing use and availability of information technology the dependency of Internet is today increasing. Internet makes ways for a more mobile business communication that cost less. One of the latest applications of Internet technology are intranet and extranet. I have asked myself the question how intranet and extranet can affect companies efficiency and competitive advantage. In order to answer this question I performed a case study at Ericsson and ABB.