Background: Diabetes mellitus is one of today's major public health problems, affecting up to 347 million people worldwide. Several studies have shown a correlation between hearing loss and diabetes mellitus. However, it is still unclear whether this correlation differs between type 1-diabetes and type 2-diabetes.Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate whether there is any difference in prevalence of hearing loss in type 1-diabetics versus type 2-diabetics.Method: A meta-analysis was performed based on ten studies that were identified through the database PubMed and through manual searching of references. Odds ratios for the risk of developing hearing loss were calculated in each study. Pooled odds ratios were calculated using a random effects model.Results: Pooled odds ratios indicates that both type 1-diabetics and type 2-diabetics are more likely to develope hearing loss compared to non-diabetic controls.

The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate the understanding of children's librari-ans regarding children's needs and preconditions in a library context and based on devel-opmental psychology and information seeking theories. The children's perspective is said to be the guiding star in the children's library and the thesis also aims to study the chil-dren's perspective as defined by children's librarians.The master thesis is a qualitative study based on interviews with children's librarians working at major public libraries. Observations of the children's libraries in the study have to some extent been performed.The study reveals that children's librarians are fairly knowledgeable about children but do not to a full extent use that knowledge into adapting the library to children and their needs. The children are not contributing to the adaptation of the library to any extent as there are few routines for that matter. In society in general children are on a regular basis represented by adults and their perspective on children and children's needs, which may differ from the perspective children have on their own lives, and the same is applicable for the children's library.

High technology companies in Sweden spend a huge amount of money on research and product development in proportion to what they get back in earnings from their inventions. Product development has traditionally been regarded as much more important than business development. This thesis aims to point out the critical factors behind successful business development processes for high technology companies. We have chosen to make a case study of Hexagon, a highly successful and innovative company within the measurement technology business. Internal and external actors that are important for business development have been identified and interviewed in order to understand how ideas are developed and executed.

Social work as an traditional aid is an area that provides welfare services financed from public funds, which is one of the methods of microloans. Microloans have since the mid-1970s has become an increasingly common tool in the fight against poverty. Instead of purely assistance is now offered microloans from more banks and other institutions, as well as NGOs (non governmental organization). This paper aims to study whether and how microcredit can contribute to the empowerment of women in Bangladesh and India. This study is based on a qualitative text analysis, and has hence been based on a number of reports and articles. The paper examines, from a radical feminist perspective how microcredit can fight and eliminate poverty, and how empowerment can help women in developing countries to become independent and liberated. The introduction of micro-loan is considered to have positive effects on women's empowerment in the short term. But it is, however, the longer term effects that are considered to have the greatest positive impact on society's unequal structures.

The aim of the study is to learn more about the way preschool teachers work with Information and Communication Technology(ICT). More specifically, this study aims to explore how preschool teachers describe their experience of ICT, the conditions and opportunities to work with ICT, and their own knowledge and competence in the use of digital tools with preschool children. The research method consists of interviews with preschool teachers and observations at five municipal preschools in Stockholm as well as an analysis of the relevant passages in the Curriculum for the Preschool and the Curriculum of Stockholm city. This study shows that there seems to be great variation in the amount of ICT tools present in preschools. Preschool teachers expect a lot from ICT, and the improvements that it can make on their work.

The purpose of this thesis has been to develop a tool for modelling and simulating the nuclear plant Ringhals 3. The model should be used to improve the knowledge on the dynamics of the plant. Ringhals 3 is being upgraded to produce more power and a tool for analyzing the new operating conditions is needed.The work in this thesis has consisted of improving and developing an existing model of Ringhals 3 made with the modelling tool Dymola. The model has been validated by comparing the results of a simulated house load transient with data from the actual plant. Validation shows good agreement with data from the real plant.

The purpose of this thesis has been to develop a tool for modelling and simulating the nuclear plant Ringhals 3. The model should be used to improve the knowledge on the dynamics of the plant. Ringhals 3 is being upgraded to produce more power and a tool for analyzing the new operating conditions is needed.The work in this thesis has consisted of improving and developing an existing model of Ringhals 3 made with the modelling tool Dymola. The model has been validated by comparing the results of a simulated house load transient with data from the actual plant. Validation shows good agreement with data from the real plant.

The background to this study is built upon the results that emerged from our former study: Elever med svenska som andraspråk i mångkulturella skolor - Bakgrundsfaktorer Tester och Utredningar (Odén och Bagge, 2006). Those results made us aware of the lack of cooperation in the work around immigrant pupils with special needs. In this study we have therefore chosen to look at the cooperation processes. The aim that we agreed upon was to explore the intercultural cooperation process around a few immigrant pupils in school year F-5, before and in connection with the pupils possible registration in the special school. We also wanted to pay special attention to the roll that the special need teachers played.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the educational opportunities that exist within hip hop music, i.e. to highlight the possible strengths and opportunities in informal learning. The aim was to answer the following questions:In what way do young people acquire knowledge through music?How can hip hop music affect language learning / vocabulary?How can hip hop motivate and support young people in school?The study was based on qualitative semi-structured interviews with six youths, three hip hop directors and a well-known researcher who has investigated that Hip Hop pedagogy.The results show that there are many benefits of learning that takes place in the context of hip hop music; from my informants? statements one can accordingly see the role of hip hop music plays in the absorption of knowledge. The conclusion is that hip hop music can lead to alternative learning about politics and society, as the music often deals with various social conditions and policy issues.

Requirements management is an important part of the software development process. The success of a project may depend on how this is handled. Even though several research studies indicates that more attention should be paid on non-functional requirements, the primary focus in practical projects still regards identifying functional requirements. Especially the prioritization of the non-functional requirements has been proven to be of great importance for the success of a project.This report investigates basics in agile requirements management involving opinions from experts from a software development company. This is done with help of existing literature and interviews with key actors involved in prioritization at the company.

The purpose of this Masters thesis is to investigate the reasons for public libraries to have story-time today and also the reasons for story-time at the public library historically in Sweden. Why is the phenomenon of story-time still existing at public libraries today? The study is based on a questionnaire that was sent to childrens librarians in the Västra Götaland region. The material collected in this questionnaire was put together and resulted in six different categories showing the libraries purposes and thoughts of their story-time activities. The categories were: cultural heritage/tradition, joy of reading, language and imagination, library visits, storytelling and mutual experience.

This thesis considers the problems associated with searches in insufficiently geographically tagged data. The thesis was carried out at Booli Search Technologies AB, a company developing a search engine for the Swedish real estate market.The aim of the thesis is to identify some areas of possible improvements of the company?s existing technical platform, perform a benchmarking among similar services, suggest possible solutions and lastly, build a prototype from one of the suggested solutions.The thesis starts out with defining the problems that the search engine faces: some areas are not possible to perform searches on, the users are not presented with the full search result that they expect, some results are placed incorrectly on the map associated with the search results and results are also not described with enough geographical information. These problems are due to the fact that the data retrieved at the indexing stage in the company?s information retrieval process are insufficient and incomplete.As a result of a benchmarking process and after discussing the results, severalinteresting solutions were identified.

This thesis deals with the concept of soft balancing, traditionally defined as the diplomatic means of restraining a dominant state's ability to exercise its military power. As the dominant power in today's unipolar system, the United States, and other states? behaviour towards it, is the focus of analysis. The aim of this thesis is to explore the possibilities of developing the concept of soft balancing so as to include strategies to restrain also the political and economic capabilities of a dominant power. The thesis also considers the possibilities of soft balancing that small states ? to a large extent overlooked in existing theories on the subject - can possess.As a state with policies that aim to reduce the U.S.

In recent years, the penetration of new players on the telecom market hasdrastically increased the work pace, affecting both design and production. Inthis report the technical and economical potential of a DC/DC converterplatform is investigated, in order to shorten the time of the design process.This is done in comparison with the present discrete type designs. PowerIntegrations offers a product, the DPA-Switch?, enabling this.By developing a wide DC/DC converter platform based on the DPA-Switch?,many advantages are gained. The component count is decreased by up to48 % and the yield increases by up to 2.9 % which in all yields a costreduction by up to 43 % or ?390 000 for 100 000 manufactured units.

The work with this report has been focused on developing a methodology model for control at purchase. The methodology model covers parts classification, dispatching systems, batch shaping and more. The aim with the methodology model is that it will be used as an aid for a cost effective material planning to increase the value for customer.The work covers also a description of the present situation and the purchase process at Company X. Six parts have been applied, two from each class (A, B and C), in the methodology/model. The parts that have been applied are included in the flow between Company X and their supplier Company Y.Data have been collected trough literature studies, interviews and the company?s business system.