Title: Management control of facility efficiency in municipalities - A case study of Halmstad municipalityLevel: BachelorSeminar date: 2012-05-31Authors: Markus Nilsson & Sara MattssonAdvisor: Sven-Ola CarlssonKey words: Control management in municipality, facility efficiency, management by objectives, internal rents and incentivesBackground: The public sector owns and manages a large property portfolio and in the municipalities, the properties are always a big cost item. Because of the outside world changes and the public interest, the properties should be used as efficiently as possible.Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe how control management of facilities looks like a municipality. The paper also seeks to explain how employees work to make the facilities more efficient in a municipality.Methodology: The authors use a qualitative method with open interviews.Theoretical perspectives: The choice of theory was made with the field of management control and facility efficiency in mind. The theory therefore includes management by objectives, internal rents and reward systems, motivation and communication within organizations.Empirical foundation: The organization has undergone a reorganization 2010/2011. There are no clear incentives to reduce facility costs.

This bachelor thesis examines the library as a public sphere in the notion of Jürgen Habermas? theory from 1962. The questions asked concerns how the public sphere is discussed in relation to Swedish public libraries today in our late modern society. The analyzed material consists of the Swedish Cultural Bill of 2009 and five qualitative interviews with librarians. The material is analyzed with two of the four social actions presented by the sociologist Maw Weber: value-rational and instrumental.

The way to acquire forest in Sweden from parents has been unequal, men were prioritized over women, which was the traditional inheritance pattern. Research has made this clearer by using gender, which ?values? our stereotypes of sexes and can help us understand inheritance patterns. The gender determined who would inherit but also the form of ownership, praxis, property rights, regulations, power and work invested made by a sibling could influence. The purpose with my study was to find what conditions governed inheritance of forest on the properties I investigated and what influence gender had.

Children and young people's right to culture is a priority in the Government's cultural policy. Creative school was introduced in 2008 with the aim that children and youth should receive professional culture in school and increasing access to culture in all forms of expression and possibilities of their own creation, with starting points in the school curriculum. The purpose of this bachelor is to explore the view, the treatment and the use of Creative school in Värmland. A comparison has been made between professional culture, which conveys the culture and culture Coordinator who develops and co-ordinates the work of culture in schools, based on their experiences of creating school. I have looked at what barriers and opportunities there are in liaison with the school and how creative activities can be integrated into the school's other subjects.

How can man´s place preferences be explained? What aspects influence our experience of place? This essay attempts to define a good place to be drawing from sources of environmental psychology as well as other landscape theories and relating these findings to the landscape architect?s field of work. Physical place properties, like physical elements and their juxtaposition in space are examined in relation to place preferences as well as psychological properties, such as place attachment and place identity due to cultural or social aspects.There are strong cross-cultural similarities in our place preferences but there are also some differences. Natural elements, like trees or water, are widely preferred over man-made ones, like buildings, roads or fences.Man seems to be sensitive for the balance between different place characteristics, like the balance between ?soft?, natural, elements and ?hard? man-made ones or the complexity versus the legibility of place.

Background: The standard of living should be the same for everyone, whether the apartment is placed in an old or new building. The residential properties that were built from 1965 until 1974 is now beginning to become old and in need of restoration. The financial crisis during the nineties contributed to the lack of maintenance on the buildings in Sweden. As the public buildings gets older more and more defects occurs. The coordination and maintenance will therefore have a more significant role in the housing company ?s work.The increasing interest about how old a building can be, attract much attention.

The globalisation of the world is believed by some to homogenise individuals from different national cultures. However, the values and norms of an individual are deeply rooted in their national culture and are therefore difficult to change. Since birth these values and norms are learnt through interaction with others within a specific national culture. The differences in values of a national culture are shown in the cornerstones of the nation. These cornerstones are language, aesthetics, religion and social institutions.

Nitrogen deposition leads to environmental damage in areas where the nitrogen deposition is high. Southwest Sweden receives an annual nitrogen deposition of up to 20 kg N/ha. Nitrogen that is not assimilated by the vegetation is accumulated in the soil, which may lead to nitrogen saturation and an elevated risk of nitrogen leaching. Nitrogen leaching from forest areas in southern Sweden has proven to be higher than from agricultural areas, which have been thought to be the main contributors to elevated nitrogen levels in rivers and lakes. The amount of nitrogen that leaches depends on the fraction of the total nitrogen in the soil that consists of nitrate, since nitrate is easily transported through the soil.

This study deals with some contested issues regarding prehistoric cultural development in Amazonia and the colonial impact on the native inhabitants of the area. It focuses on the relation between groups belonging the language families of Tupí and Gê, on one hand, and the different ecological zones that they inhabit, on the other. GIS mapping is used to visualise the distribution and movements of these groups in relation to ecology and the impact of European colonization. GIS is shown to be a useful methodology for analysing historical data derived from written sources and maps. The results of these analyses are discussed in the light of different theoretical perspectives.

In southern Sweden, beech (Fagus silvatica) and spruce (Picea abies) are two species with similar demands on soil properties. With increased global warming and high acid deposition the future may bring larger areas were the two species are overlapping, competing for the same soil. The aim of this study was to compare spruce and beech concerning distribution, cultivation and soil properties. From available data comparisons were made between spruce and beech forests in Sweden. Soil analyses were made on samples from beech forest in southern Sweden, with and without natural regeneration of spruce.

This thesis aims at; describing and creating an understanding of how Friskis&Svettis internationalization process, at the start-up in England, can be seen as entrepreneurial, to describe and analyze how various cultural factors can be identified and the impact they have on the internationalization process. The empirical data were obtained through two interviews and it appears that both the organizational culture and national cultural differences can be identified and that these affected the process. The results show that the entrepreneur is both a starting point and a key driver of the process and because of this it can be considered entrepreneurial..

Due to an increased population in cities the need of densification of cities increases. This means that the amount of ecological elements in the city is at risk of decreasing. Ecological services contribute to the city?s climate by softening the negative impacts that densification of cities means. Thus increases the will and ambition in city planning in to preserve greenery.This is an interdisciplinary thesis within the subject of geography that studies Biotope Area Factor (BAF), a planning tool that is used in city planning with the purpose of compensating for lost ecological services associated with new housing estate.

This essay is from a student at the cultural science program in Karlstad University. The essay in Culture studies deals about the history use and about the cultural-historical values on buildings. The buildings are from a certain area called the neighborhood Almen and have in the past been threatening many times of demolition. The neighborhood Almen buildings survived a huge city fire back in the 19th century. Since then the buildings has been known as a memory and by the inhabitants and as the oldest part of the city left.

To design new and high tech products the engineers rely more and more on computer based simulations to investigate the properties and behavior for a component or system.To verify these computer based simulations the dynamic properties for the components of the drivetrain needs to be verified. Therefore measurements of the stiffness and vibrations for the rear axle has been performed. This report show how the measurements has been implemented and evaluated, along with some interesting results for the rear axles properties.The static stiffness for the drive shaft along with the axle-gear has been determined. It is found that the stiffness for the whole rear axle is near the stiffness for the drive shaft, which means that the drive shaft becomes the dominant component of the system and affects the rear axle stiffness the most. The measured stiffness of the driveshaft is close to its theoretical stiffness.The stiffness for solely the hypoid-gear have been calculated using the stiffness for the rear axle and driveshaft, and thus has a range for the stiffness of the hypoid gear been determined.The backlash for the whole rear axle and for some individual components has been determined, where the backlash between pinion and crown-wheel has negligible impact on the total backlash.Measurements of the crown-wheel and pinion movements have been conducted, where the direction of movement is consistent with the theoretical direction of the forces.The vibration measurements show that the vibrations are more severe at certain rotational speeds.

The aim of this thesis is to analyze children?s picture books regarding whether and in what form gender stereotypes can be seen in these. The purpose is also to evaluate whether the findings correlate to the different regulatory documents libraries have to abide to.       The study comprises five books, who are part of a selection of books especially chosen by Uppsala City Library to be used by primary school children aged 6-9. The method used is the study of text as well as illustrations, as the theory of this thesis is that the two cannot be separated, but has to be seen a unit. Other theories used in the analysis include Nikolajeva?s schedule of male/female properties and theories on gender.      The result of the study shows that gender stereotypes are in majority regarding the characters in the books, but that the opposite also exists.