This report is a part of a diploma work, conducted as a part of a Master of Science degree. The diploma work consists of a preliminary study, two case studies, a user study, a paper and this report. It was created at the Linköping University for the department of Science and Technology, in cooperation with Unilever Research in the UK, and partly with the EC founded project, Smartdoc IST-2000-28137. Hand-held, mobile devices like Personal Digital Assistances (PDAs) are becoming increasingly popular in today?s wireless world.

The aim of this study was to investigate how school counselors experienced collaboration with social services and whether they felt they have the ability to improve upon this collaboration. The empirical data consists of qualitative interviews with eight school counselors from public schools, ages 13 to 15, in eight separate municipalities in the Stockholm area. The main results showed that the school counselors recognized the positive benefits from collaboration, but that they in practice experienced difficulties turning this into a high-quality collaboration. The school counselors experienced that due to uncertain expectations in the collaboration it led to unclear distribution of areas of responsibilities. The school counselors expressed small or no possibilities for them to improve upon collaboration but pointed out that higher commitment and a positive attitude are valuable attributes to improving collaboration.

The purpose of this essay is to examine what literary heritage teachers communicate in the school subject Swedish at upper secondary school. The overall research question for this work is: Which authors and/or works are mentioned by the teachers in the school subject Swedish at upper secondary school? How well do these authors and/or works answer towards a multicultural perspective? Which factors affect teachers´ selections of texts? Based on this purpose and these research questions, the aim is to answer the didactic question of what.To accomplish the purpose of the study a quantitative method has been used. The survey was conducted in two medium-sized cities in central Sweden, and was answered by 17 teachers. The study shows that the teachers ascribe the Western and Swedish literature great importance.

Eight libraries, seven public libraries and one college library, in the northeast of Skåne serve as foundation in a collaboration where students and adult learners are placed in the center of attention. The aim of this Master's thesis in library and information science was to study how the students and adult learners in the northeast of Skåne perceive the library services that are developed with their needs in mind.Our method for this thesis was a quantitative interview study. We aimed to conduct interviews with users at the public libraries within the cooperation and thereby find out whether or not users within the target group were aware of the services that are developed and established within the northeast Skåne collaboration.The results showed that only a few respondents in the key target group did in fact know about certain parts of the library services especially developed for the northeast of Skåne-collaboration. The majority of the key target group also thought that study-related literature and reading rooms were the most important means that the libraries have to offer them in their studies. The northeast of Skåne-collaboration had many ideas concerning library services.

According to the health care law and the national care guarantee, all individuals with mental illness have the right to good health care that is knowledge based as well as to rehabilitation where and when they need it. They also should be able to choose and have control over who is performing the care, including the design of these efforts. The purpose of this study is to investigate patients' experiences of general psychiatric emergency care and the cooperation between outpatient care, inpatient care and the municipality. This study is a descriptive cross-sectional study, conducted with a quantitative and qualitative method. The study is performed in collaboration with Akademiska Sjukhuset and is part of a larger quality improvement project.

This essay is a case study based on two sources of empirical data, qualitative interviews and responses from a questionnaire, which examines upper secondary school students? attitudes to history teaching in a museum context. The students? answers are further analyzed in relation to the concept of historical consciousness. Thus, history teaching in the museum, from a student perspective, and the students? capacity of expressing a historical consciousness in their answers, constitute the core of this essay.

The purpose with the examination is to examine a preschool head and three teachers experiences and opinions of whether the tablet can be used to support childrens linguistic development and social interactions in preschool. To answer the purpose we will use these questions of issue:What is the purpose with tablets and how are they used in preschool activity?What pros and cons do the teachers see with tablets?How do the teachers resonate about the use of tablets to develop childrens language skill and social interactions?What type of social interaction occurs when children use the tablet?We have used interviews and observations as our methods. We interviewed three teachers and one preschool head in the capital city of Sweden. They all have a positive attitude towards the use of tablets in preschool.

Mediation of fiction has always been one of the main tasks of the public library. The focus on information technology is often seen as a threat and competitor to this task. But technology can also offer new ways to mediate fiction, and the aim of this thesis is to examine how library websites and blogs can be used for this purpose. The research questions are:? What forms of fiction mediating material exist on library websites and blogs?? How is the fiction mediating material presented?? Are there any differences between the fiction mediating working methods on websites and blogs compared with those in physical libraries?The thesis is based on a qualitative content analysis of eight Swedish public library websites and three blogs, and on a theoretical frame work including literature and research on mediation of fiction, library websites and blogs, web design and usability.

The purpose of this law-sociological study was to, on the basis of the District Court's decree to single custody, analyze the District Court?s comprehensive ideas and fall-oriented interpretations of the concept of the best interest of the child and the way they are constructed in connection with the District Court's application of the new law regulation of 6kap. 5§ FB regarding collaboration between parents. Our empirical data consisted of ten decrees to single custody. The decrees were examined and analyzed on the basis of social constructionism as a theory and the idea-analysis as the study's method.

About a quarter of the Swedish land area is covered with shallow or thick peat. There is a potential to increase forest production in Sweden with almost 2 million m3/year in selected peatlands with low conservation values. This increase can be accomplished by drainage, complementary drainage, ditch maintenance operations and fertilization. The purpose of this study was to determine the level of knowledge regarding the management of forests on peatlands and was restricted to selected forest companies in Västerbotten County, with offices in Umeå. Three companies were chosen, SCA, Holmen and Norra Skogsägarna.

The functionalism started in southern Europe after world war one and got its breakthrough in Sweden with the Stockholm Exhibition in 1930. Poverty caused many people living in overcrowded conditions which the functionalists wanted to change by using less expensive materials and giving healthier living conditions to the people. The industrialization brought new materials and working methods which made this possible. The Swedish functional style is recognised by its light plaster facing and nearly horizontal roofs. Also the garden design of that time was influenced by the functionalistic ideas. The garden was now introduced as a pleasure garden for not only the rich but for everyone.

A case study was done of Sthlm Policy Group, a consulting agency that mainly targets NGOs and government agencies in the peace and security sector. The goal of the case study was to explore the tendency of NGOs in Sweden to hire commercial consulting companies. The main interest was to see what the key reasons are for NGOs to hire private consulting agencies, but also to explore what problems that might be associated with such relationships. Interviews were carried out with representatives of the consulting agency, with its clients as well as with other NGOs that were identified as potential clients. The interviewed NGOs and government agencies were found to approve of the use of commercial consultants.

AbstractOur study deals with intrapreneurship in local activity. The main purpose of this study is to understand, explain and develop the concept of intrapreneurship in local activity with the help of existing information, our discussion, and reasoning and with the help of theoretical concepts. One reason for the choice of this topic was our pure curiosity towards this quite unique and unexplored phenomenon. We know that the term intrapreneurship in local activity has not existed longer than about ten years and the amount of existing thesis of intrapreneurship in local activity is very few. The information about intrapreneurship in local activity is mainly collected by studying Örebro´s intrapreneurship policies but also by studying other local authorities in Eksjö, Umeå and Västra-Götaland.

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka specialpedagogers tankar kring hur förskolans arbetssätt kan anpassas för att ge stöd till barn som far illa och underlätta tidig upptäckt.Som metod har semistrukturerad intervju använts. Sex specialpedagoger med grundutbildning som förskollärare deltog. Som hjälpmedel användes fallbeskrivningar att reflektera kring och resonera om.Studien visar att specialpedagogerna i undersökningen anser att förskolan spelar en viktig roll för barn som far illa och deras utveckling. Personalens förhållningssätt till barnen och deras föräldrar är avgörande för att skapa goda relationer.Studien visar även att anmälningsfrekvensen i förskolan när det gäller barn som far illa är låg. Vanliga anledningar till detta är obehagskänsla och bristande kunskap hos personalen.

This thesis aims to describe and characterise the foreign policy change the United States has experienced towards Europe. This thesis claims that the United States is presenting a more supportive attitude today towards the development of the European Union. This more positive attitude has developed during successive U.S. administrations and has become visible since the end of the Cold War.Washington is today less ambiguous and less ambivalent towards the integration of Europe. The United States appreciate that a common foreign- and security policy in Europe is in accordance with American interests.