In a time when milk producing farm businesses face decline in profitability it is of great importance to examine how the situation can be improved. This thesis is a study off efficiency in milk producing farm businesses represented by Swedish, Dutch and German farms. The aim of this study is to investigate whether any differences exist between companies in these countries. Moreover, the study includes a mapping of a number of factors that determine how efficient milk production can be managed. This mapping is based on a literature review on prior efficiency studies followed by qualitative interviews with milk production advisors as well as a questionnaire sent out to dairy farmers in Sweden.

This is a heuristic evaluation of Umeå university library?s Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC). It makes use of four of Nielsen?s ten heuristics, flexibility and efficiency to use, match between the system and real world, visibility of system status, and aesthetic and minimalist design. The evaluation was done by having 3 evaluators inspect the interface individually, as per Nielsen?s (1990) recommendation of 3-5 evaluators.

In a time when milk producing farm businesses face decline in profitability it is of great importance to examine how the situation can be improved. This thesis is a study off efficiency in milk producing farm businesses represented by Swedish, Dutch and German farms. The aim of this study is to investigate whether any differences exist between companies in these countries. Moreover, the study includes a mapping of a number of factors that determine how efficient milk production can be managed. This mapping is based on a literature review on prior efficiency studies followed by qualitative interviews with milk production advisors as well as a questionnaire sent out to dairy farmers in Sweden.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyse studies that evaluate Web search engines. This is done in four categories; the researchers? purpose, the evaluation measurements, the relevance, and the time aspect. Our method is based on a text analysis in which we use the direction of analysis of the content of sixteen evaluation experiments. Our results indicate fundamental differences in the way the researchers are tackling the problem of evaluation of Web search engines.

The study examines how efficiency and effectiveness are measured in charity organizations in Sweden. The rules of Svensk Insamlingskontroll, Årsredovisningslagen and Bokföringslagen make up the accounting framework upon which efficiency and effectiveness are measured in charity organizations. The study is based upon interviews with the sector's main actors: Svensk Insamlingskontroll, Frivilligorganisationernas insamlingsråd, auditors and the charity organizations themselves. The interviews are supplemented by studies of the guidelines issued by Svensk Insamlingskontroll. Today's measure of efficiency is the percentage of a charity organization's income that benefits their goals, called nyckeltalet.

Efficiency has become an important objective for many providers of welfare services. Among Swedish schools, both private and public, increased administrative demands seemingly influence operations, and affect teachers negatively through perceived stress. Simultaneously, Swedish students scored an all-time low in the latest PISA survey, and are now performing below the OECD-average in science, mathematics and reading. A central administrative task in the Swedish elementary school is the parent-teacher conference, which is an important activity in supporting the development of the student's knowledge and social skills. Lean is a well-established operations framework, which has proven successful in order to improve process efficiency.

In today?s computerized society more and more companies choose to utilize new applications that can ease the way of handling the information. For many of us is imperative that the process as efficient as possible if one takes in consideration the size of savings that this new application can bring.The developer of the evaluated system is SYSteam AB Huskvarna and they are the ones that gave us this assignment. The application that we evaluate is SCM (Secure Connection Manager). It is already used today by big companies such as Telia and Ericsson to search for errors in telephone servers placed all over the country.

This thesis evaluates the user board of the elememtary school in Veberöd, Sweden. In this process an evaluation model is developed. The model itself gets evaluated in a meta-evaluation to improve the model for future use.The starting point of the evaluation is the deliberative democracy theory. Although Sweden is a representative democracy an official desire exists to have a democracy with deliberative qualities. The evaluation model is constructed to fit this context and is therefore, not only, set out from classical goal-based evaluation but also from deliberative democratic evaluation.

In today?s computerized society more and more companies choose to utilize new applications that can ease the way of handling the information. For many of us is imperative that the process as efficient as possible if one takes in consideration the size of savings that this new application can bring.The developer of the evaluated system is SYSteam AB Huskvarna and they are the ones that gave us this assignment. The application that we evaluate is SCM (Secure Connection Manager). It is already used today by big companies such as Telia and Ericsson to search for errors in telephone servers placed all over the country.

The main subject with this master thesis is to take a closer look on how some of the university libraries of Gothenburg have evaluated their electronic services (such as search-systems, Internet-based services, CD-ROM etc.). The information technology has made its way into the library field during the past century and needs to be evaluated and quality measured to ensure the best possible service to the users. Since evaluation of electronic services is a new area in the evaluation field, some problems has arisen in terms of choosing evaluation strategies and finding the appropriate performance indicators for the evaluation process. The main questions asked in the thesis are; - Which are the most common theoretical strategies for evaluation? - How do some of the university libraries of Gothenburg perform evaluation in practice? - How does the various strategies for evaluation apply to the context of this thesis? The results show that specific strategies for evaluation aren't used in the reports discussed in this thesis.

Poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are a group of environmental contaminants that have gained increasing attention due to their potential to bioaccumulate, environmental persistence and potential toxicity. PFASs have been found in surface water, sediment, air, soil, sludge and ice caps globally, as well as in wildlife and humans. Furthermore, PFASs have also been detected in drinking water, leading to raised concerns for human health, since drinking water is one of the most significant sources of PFASs for the general population. Conventional water treatment techniques have shown to be ineffective removing PFASs, highlighting the importance for further research to develop efficient removal techniques. The aim of this study was to investigate the removal efficiency of PFASs in water using two treatment techniques; granular activated carbon (GAC), type Filtrasorb 400®, and anion exchange (AE), type Purolite A-600. Additionally, the effect of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) on removal efficiency was studied.

Within process or manufacturing industries, the production of goods and services or the products themselves may have negative side effects such as pollution. An important task for environmental policy is to control and limit these pollutions, for example via regulatory measures. Although, the efficiency of such measures vary greatly between different industries and an increasingly important task for environmental policy is then to encourage companies to engage in environmentally motivated innovation. Governments can utilize other measures than regulation to indirectly decrease pollution. This thesis aims to analyze such activities and how it affects the innovativeness of wastewater treatment, refrigeration and automobile manufacturing industries.

The purpose with this report is to examine how the implemented energy efficiency measures on Bokelundskolan in Växjö have had impact on the energy use. The measures which have been implemented are, new ventilation system, new heating system, optimized adjustment of the heating system, new windows with U-value 1.2 and lower window height, insulation under windows and in the crawl space. The school's energy use before and after rebuilding has been calculated with the calculation program, Vip-Energy 1.5.5.Calculations of energy use for the school with windows on U-value, 0.9 and 0.7 have also been done. The replacement of windows has been studied from a cost perspective. The conclusion is that the exchange of heat and ventilation system was the biggest contributor to reduced energy use on Bokelundskolan.

 Tediousness, fear and boredom are all part of everyday?s life for a student. How can a teacher counteract these feelings of boredom and replace them with a feeling of pleasure of learning? Students have to be motivated and want to go to school every day. By comparing student?s experiences of motivation this essays purpose is to create a theory about factors for motivation in education.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate the policy proposal The right to Challenge (utmaningsrätt) and the political motivation that has been used to implement it, as well as the result of it. The focus is on a case study of the implementing in Örebro municipality. Moreover, a comparative study is done to investegate the differences and similarities between Örebro and other municipalities that have chosen to implement The right to Challenge.The main question in this essay is How did Örebro?s municipality implement it and what was the result? There is also four minor questions: How was The right to Challenge motivated and what hopes did the politicans have for it? What has The right to Challenge so far contributed with in Örebro municipality? What do the entreprenures think about their oppertunity to challenge the municipality? What similarities and differences exists between Örebro and other municipalities that have chosen to implement The right to Challenge?The results that are presented in this essay generate conclusions that the implementing of The right to Challenge was motivated with arguments that it will result in increased diversity, improved efficiency, and reduced costs. This has however not been the case since very few challenges have been submitted, most likely due to a lack of promotion.