This thesis is about a language-stimulating activity, called the Book Teddy, which take placein Markaryd, a small municipality in southern Sweden. The activity is described and someexamples given of the Book Teddy's visits to the homes of parents and their preschool children.Similar activities in Värnamo, Kumla and Borås, which have been inspired by the BookTeddy are also described.Facts about children's psychology, language development and child language illustrate theimportance of stimulating language acquisition in the early years. An important example is"The Bristol Study", a longitudinal study of preschool children.A questionnaire was sent to 93 parents, whose children were bom in 1991. 53 parents or57% answered. The analysis was made out of these 53 questionnaires.

Through a sociocultural perspectivethe purpose of this study is to investigate how preschool teachers look at quality development in preschool and how they perceive their participation in this development.I have used a qualitative method based on five interviews with preschool teachers from three different parts of Sweden. I used an interview guide with open questions. The interview answers were categorized in themes based on the responses which were most frequent. In the result I have been using an analysis based on these themes. The result showed that the preschool teachers consider that the leadership style affects their work.

The aim of this study is to investigate how employees in consulting companies develop their competence in order to perform their daily work. The focus is on informal competence development. The theoretical framework consists of theories concerning learning and competence development in working life, theories on organizational change and evaluation, a well as professional reflection. The methods applied are narrative research and interviews based on the assumption that knowledge about reality is only obtainable through language and communication.The main results show that competence is developed through experience, social interaction, communication and dialog with co-workers and customers. The post-modern conceptions of the rapid (technical) development and need to be up-to-date has a strong hold on the informants apprehension of working life, as does the notion of not having enough time for all the competence development they would like.

Immune stimulating complex (iscom) matrix is a formulation that is used as anadjuvant within research. The capability of the iscom matrix to elicit an immuneresponse when not present together with an antigen has not been extensivelyinvestigated. One way to evaluate the status of the immune system is to measure theamount of cytokines that usually are produced by various cell types during an immuneresponse. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the early immune responses inporcine peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) after stimulation in vitro with theiscom matrix, AbISCO®-100. The immune response was evaluated by measuring themRNA expression for various cytokines, a chemokine receptor (CXCR4) andregulator of G-protein signaling (RGS16) in porcine PBMC after stimulation withAbISCO®-100 or other inducers like a lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and a CpGoligodeoxynucleotide (ODN 2216) used as controls.

This paper is intended to provide a picture of which associations water can wake in the human mind from the perspectives of garden history as well as from that of environmental psychology. I hope to paint a fairly broad picture of our perception of water that can serve as a basis for discussion and as a starting point for different forms of design work in landscape architecture. The historical perspective emphasizes the importance of water as a condition for the emergence of gardens and in a wider perspective the importance of water in early cultures. Also, I describe a picture of how water has been used throughout the history of gardens from early Egypt to the baroque era. The garden history analyzed from an art historical perspective gives a picture of human associations to water, and the history behind these associations is presented. As a compliment to the art history approach, I have chosen to highlight our associations with water from the perspectives of environmental psychology and evolutionary science.

During the last decade working with competence has emerged as a more strategically important area. Today the human resources in a company are considered a competitive advance and the HR-units play a significant role when it comes to HR-management. Different motives for investing in strategies that promote competence development and learning also exist. The purpose of this paper was to examine how the process of competence development was managed at a large global company. The empirical material consisted of four persons who were interviewed and the analysis of the material was inspired by grounded theory.From the analysis four major themes or core factors emerged as central to the interviewed persons' understanding of the competence development process; solid preparatory work in relation to competence development, communication, awareness of responsibilities and finally the taking action and evaluation of the action.

Abstract Title: Enabling Smart Research and Development through Knowledge Conversation Seminar date: 2005-06-08 Course: Master thesis in business administration, 10 Swedish credits (15 ECTS) Authors: Andreas Johnsson, Johan Rosendahl Advisors: Lars Bengtsson Key words: Knowledge management, Knowledge conversation, Research and development, Ba, Trelleborg Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is to create a model that shows how knowledge management aimed at research and development processes can be used and how the theoretical fields can be connected. Methodology: The thesis is based on abductive perspective where empirical and theoretical material has been mixed to create a foundation for the analysis. Theoretical perspectives: Theories concerning knowledge management and research and development have primarily been used. These have been complemented with material about team structures and incentive systems. Empirical foundation: The empirical material is based on semi structured, mostly qualitative interviews and strictly quantitative inquiries performed at Industrial Hose within the Trelleborg group.

The report presents a thesis carried out on behalf of the company SAAB Training and Simulation which is situated in Huskvarna. The authors of this report are going to graduate as mechanical engineers focusing on product development and design, and this thesis should reflect the knowledge obtained during the education. The assignment, given from the company was to develop a concept of a stand that will constitute as a part of a mobile system for target practice. The reader get to follow throughout the project and can hopefully learn from the smart solutions and approaches that have arisen during the process.Today SAAB doesn?t have a mobile application in their portfolio that utilizes the benefits of their sensor measuring system, also called the LOMAH-bar.

Under framtagandet av nya produkter måste ett antal prototyper tillverkas för att verifiera konstruktionen. För en metodingenjör som tar fram reparationsmetoder innebär prototyptillverkning att tankar som växt fram under utvecklingsfasen kan provas för första gången på en fysisk produkt. Detta sker relativt sent i produktutvecklingen och eventuella ändringar som kan uppstå på grund av att servicevänlighet inte uppnås blir mycket kostsamma. Om däremot prototypen där metoderna verifieras för första gången är digital och detta sker tidigt blir kostnaderna för eventuella ändringar avsevärt mycket mindre. Modellen som ligger till grund för metodstudierna kan sedan används för att skapa ett utkast till service litteratur, detta medför att även den delen av slutprodukten kommer att vara i fas med övriga utvecklings avdelningar. Under detta projekt har en digital prototyp av en Scania motor använts för genomförandet av metodstudier.

To assure good quality the software needs to be tested to find errors and to verify that the programme meets the customer?s expectations. Traditional methods are usually used in software development and means that a number of predetermined steps are followed. By using agile methods the development can more easily be adapted to the changes on the market. With these methods the testing is carried out continuously throughout the project.

In the social sciences, geopolitical theory is used in order to analyze states actions and commitments when it comes to foreign policy. This thesis develops a new understanding of geopolitical theory. Firstly, the development and application of geopolitical theory, from its foundations in the early twentieth century to contemporary geopolitical studies is discussed. Secondly a revised understanding of the variables integrated in the concept and how it can be operationalized as an analytical tool is presented and tested empirically.The critical assessment of the research field of geopolitical theory tells us that six different geopolitical perspectives have been considered the most influential (room, strategy, power projection, identity, affiliation and governance) when it comes to analyzing state action. This model is applied as an analytical tool and thus tested on a single case.

The foundation for this thesis lies in whether or not, and how, the body representation in printed commercials, specific products directed to the body (shampoo, body lotion etc.), has changed during the last fifty years. Four years have been chosen because of the changes in society that we believe might have had an impact. The commercials that have been picked out are the ones that best represent the general view of the body. We have found that the changes when it comes to body presentation has followed the social development to a certain degree, but it is difficult to say how much the society has had an affect on the body ideal in advertising. Representations of the male body is something that has escalated since the early 70?s, fifteen years earlier few commercials was made with male models, and the few there were, never showed more than the face.

The present study examines the demolition of a house on Hammarkulletorget in 1996 and the discourse of Hammarkullen, Gothenburg(Sweden), drawn from the perspective of historicization [?historisering?]. I have examined how the past played role inpresentations of Hammarkullen and how the past affected the decision to demolish a house. By examining which role the neighbourhood?spast time played in the perception of the neighbourhood, the thesis aims at providing a better understanding of howthe past can influence and legitimize major changes in the urban environment.In the early 1980s the image of Hammarkullen as a victim of negative publicity is established and this reputation lives beyond thesimplistic and negative descriptions themselfs.

The purpose of this Master Thesis is to analyze what suitable hardware platforms there are on the market in order to build a low price control and information system for mobile applications, called small display module. The thesis will be underlying material for making a decision for further development. The result of the thesis consists mainly of a Windows CE kernel and a schematic for a CPU card, on which it would be suitable to build the display module. Another major part of the report is the introduction of different techniques that could be of interest when designing a processor based system. The processor architecture that was chosen is the x86.

This master thesis is a study of how city cemeteries can be used and contributes to a socially sustainable urban development. Today sustainable development and sustainable urban development is something that more or less every organization is working with. Therefore it is also relevant to integrate our cemeteries in this work so that they can become a part of the sustainable urban development process.The thesis gives a basic understanding of sustainability as a concept and also defines socially sustainable (urban) development. The work then immerse itself in various types of park structures and how the relationship between the human individual and the public space work, to satisfy the needs that different people have.The literature study that has been made is also the base for the design of the walking interview that has been made for the two city cemeteries. The cemeteries that where studied where the Assistens cemetery in Copenhagen and the Eastern cemetery in Gothenburg.