At the beginning of the 1970´s forestry feared an imbalance in the future wood supply. Because of this anticipated "timber slump" forest companies undertook a variety of measures to counter this. One of these measures was the introduction of exotic tree species. The choice finally ended up with lodgepole pines which were considered a fast growing tree species compared to our native tree species. Theambition for the new lodgepole pine stands were to run these with rotation periods of between 40-60 years, thus smoothing out the ?timber slump? that was anticipated.

As energy prices skyrocket and the environmental issues become more frequently debated, interest in energy-efficient buildings has increased sharply in the past decade. Because of this, the interest to achieve high air tightness in building envelopes have once again awakened, due to a good air tightness contributes to lower energy consumption in several ways and to a healthier indoor environment.As the regulations for energy consumption and controls of achieved air tightness has tightened considerably in recent years, the work regarding sheets for air tightness changed significantly for construction contractors. This thesis includes a study that aims to detect what kind of manuals, recommendations or instructions contractors working according, and how a number of randomly selected construction companies in Halland, Sweden, are dealing with the matter of high air tightness of the building envelopes. The study also includes a knowledge inventory of supervisors, site managers and skilled workers, and what their opinions and attitudes are like towards work regarding the sheets of air tightness. The results have been compared with a similar survey dated to 2004, conducted by the SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden in collaboration with Chalmers University of Technology.

The purpose of this study is to examine young peoples' perception of their media criticial competence in relation to digital news. The study is based on quantitative research interviews with young people (15-17 years) and qualitative interviews with people in the same age group as well as teachers and international media professionals.This study's theoretical point of departure is McQuail´s observation that peoples' values and views to a great extent are influenced by the media. Another source of theoretical inspiration was Haberman's ideas about how a diversity of views and arguments increase the citizens' ability to reflect critically on social developments - maybe even more so than in societies with  independent media and "neutral" news.The study shows that the young generation of web based news consumers assumes that it is very important to be an aware and critical consumer but also that they do not feel sufficiently equipped with the right tools required to understand the long-term impact and effect of the media reporting online. Young people basically seemed to acquire their knowledge about media by doing and learning on their own. Surprisingly, according to the young people that were interviewed for this project, the schools seemed to play a secondary role in the development of their media critical capacity.

This study is about state officials who handle applications for sickness benefits and about municipal officials who handle applications for financial assistance. The purpose of this study is to explore the differences between the two professional roles regarding their conception about their exercise of authority, in terms of flexibility, individual adjustment, empathy and legal security.The study has a qualitative approach and is based on structured interviews with two state officials and two municipal officials. The questions that this study aims to answer are:- Is there a difference between state officials and municipal officials regarding their experience and use of flexibility? - Is there a difference between state officials and municipal officials regarding their perceptions of legal security, individual adjustment and empathy in their exercise of authority? - What kind of bureaucracy can you find in the two organizations?The results show that the state officials in this study have very limited flexibility due to legislation which makes their exercise of authority neither empathic nor individual. The municipal officials in this study state in their turn that the law entails broad flexibility and the opportunity for them to be empathic and to make individual decisions.

In the beginning of 2002 a new kind of debate started inside the Swedish trade unions that also were published in the newspapers. The debate was about if the Swedish trade unionshould organize the undocumented workforce or not. In this thesis I will deal with this issue and also investigate what kind of solutions the trade unions in Sweden use on this newphenomenon, a phenomenon that recently have become a social and political problem during the last years. This is a new subject within political science and there is limited research made before. Because of that, this thesis will be empirical, inductive and exploring by its nature.

It is a common view that companies should focus on building brands to increase profitability and stabilize cash flows. However, building and keeping brands alive is costly. Many firms spend large sums on branding only because they are supposed to, without knowing if they will actually gain from it. Up to date, there is limited convincing evidence that branding actually contributes to shareholder value creation. This thesis aims to investigate the relationship between brand strength and profitability and shareholder value.

Issuing convertible bonds for financing purposes has never become widespread practice amongst Swedish companies, in spite of the instrument being common in international markets. Economic theory based on efficient markets suggests that companies should gain no financial benefits from using convertibles and the Swedish situation could be interpreted as in line with this reasoning. However, there are Swedish companies that have chosen to issue convertibles and the Swedish market therefore seems both supportive and contradictory to the existence of benefits of convertible bond financing. Little research concerning the Swedish market has been conducted and the purpose of this explorative thesis is thus to enhance the understanding of the Swedish market for convertibles. This is achieved by conducting in-depth interviews with six listed Swedish companies that have recently issued convertible bonds.

African swine fever, ASF, was first described 1921, in Kenya. The virus has thereafter spread through many African countries as well as in Europe, Asia, South- and Central America. The virus is spread via three different cycles, of which one is sylvatic and includes warthogs and soft ticks. The other two are between domestic pigs and the one most common one is caused by humans, who not always realize the seriousness of precautions. The infection manifests as hemorrhagic fever, but can also be more or less unnoticed. The aim of this study was to use molecular tools to detect and partly genetically characterize ASFV both in soft ticks and in serum from domestic pigs in Uganda. Comparing viruses detected in ticks with those detected in domestic pigs I also wanted to investigate possible links between the sylvatic and domestic cycle.

The number of studies on IFRIC 15 is very limited. The available studies have either been conducted before the introduction of IFRIC 15 or at an early stage of the implementation. This study examines IFRIC 15s practice from a longer perspective. The purpose of this study is to explain the effect that the interpretation IFRIC 15 has had on accounting objectives and qualitative characteristics of the revenue recognition of Swedish construction companies. The study will also analyze whether the construction companies has changed their perception of IFRIC 15 after applying it form a longer time perspective.

Background: Pervious research indicates that communication between patient and nurse has shortcomings. For the nurse, difficulties in care giving may emerge when the nurse and patient cannot understand each other. Research also shows that patients? participation in their care become more difficult by lack of communication. The care giving of patients who speak a different language is seen as a challenge by the nurse.

The main purpose of this thesis was to examine the collection management at five different hospital libraries´ children and youth?s section to discern different roles of the collections. We made qualitative interviews with five hospital librarians. The purpose was also to see how the collection development affected the different roles of the collections. We used two theories.

Property sales involve two main contract partners, the buyer (the new owner) and the seller (the property owner). In some cases the property owner can have let a third person (the leaseholder) lease the property or the land.The rights and obligations that fall on the property owner, the leaseholder and the new owner according to the Code of land laws can appear difficult and unclear, especially con-cerning reservation, the new owner?s duty to inspect the property and when he does not act in good faith, the formal requirement and when terms are changed.The work towards a more uniform interpretation of the Code of land laws should result in a greater correspondence between the rules of leasehold and property sales, the rules of leasehold should be interpreted in accordance with the rules of property sales. This should mean an increased responsibility for the property owner to reserve the lease and a de-creased duty for the new owner to inspect the property. If the lease is only partially re-served, the new owner is only bound by the leasehold to the parts which he understood from the reservation and the duty to inspect the property is limited to documents in the property owner?s possession.

This report is a result of a first survey of Halland?s gravel pits as an assignment from the County Administrative Board of Halland. The focus has been on Apalus bimaculatus, since the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency are creating a restoration program as it is red listed as Near Threatened. The purpose was also to get an overview of the pits since the County Administrative Board wants to continue this project. Apalus bimaculatus is easy to overlook since it is a short-lived beetle and it lives early in the spring.

Earlier research has shown that generational differences between younger-supervisors and older-workers may cause tensions that lead to team ineffectiveness. There is however still a lack of research in this area. This thesis presents possible tensions that might occur between a younger supervisor and an older worker due to their age and generational affiliation, and how these tensions affect the team dynamics. The empirical data collection was limited to the boundaries of the dental care industry where these generational/age differences between younger supervisor and older worker are common. The thesis looks at the tensions from a qualitative perspective and data was collected in the form of in-depth interviews with selected dentists and nurses.

AimThe aim of this study is to through managers in eldercares deskriptions of the systematic qualityleadingsystem examine the implementation process of this system in the eldercare in the municipality of Halmstad.  BackgroundIn this paper the background explains elderly care and social work context, leadership in change and implementation processes. The theoretical frame illustrates Vedungs implementation theory and Webers model of bureaucracy MethodTo collect empirical data for this study, a qualitative research design was used in which eleven managers within Halmstads municipality home care management stood as respondents. ResultThe respondents highlighted a variety in the use of the systematic quality management system tool. The result describes that several obstacles were experienced in the use of the systematic quality system. ConclusionBased on the descriptions the respondents gives of the implementation process of the systematic quality management of Halmstad municipality home care management, the conclusion can be drawn that the implementation process has not resulted in the employees making use of systematic quality management in practice. The systematic quality management system that will ensure the quality of the care work is thus used to a limited extent..