On the first of January 2012, a new public authority was formed in Värmland, due to a new legislation on public transport. The first task for the new public authority was to produce a plan for the development of public transport. In order to do so, it had to execute an extensive consultation process about the long-term goals of public transport. The purpose of the thesis is to investigate how a public authority can use a consultation process as a means to clarify accountability and produce unified goals. To answer that, I have done a case study about how the new regional public authority in Värmland for public transport has acted in the process of writing a plan for the development of public transport.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to, from a users perspective, investigate which factors affect the library use for six persons with disabilities or visual handicaps. My method has been a case study and the methods applied are interviews and observation. As a theoretical framework I use Tom Wilsons theories and models about information behaviour and transform them to a model about library use. Answers are sought to the following questions: - What does the library use look like for six persons with disabilities or visually handicaps? - How do they experience the library in their own municipality? - Which factors affect the disabled persons library use and experience of the library? All interviewees showed a very positive attitude towards the library and the majority of them visited the library regularly or received audio books by mail.

I have studied the suburban municipality of Botkyrka, south of Stockholm, from a rural perspective. Through that I`ve compared how countryside comes into being with the planning and building of suburbs. I have looked for a definition of Countryside, and found that it is often explained or defined in negative terms, as what it is not. In that it says nothing about what it really is, or about the qualitiies it has to it. Botkyrka is a suburb, but it does in large parts consist of countryside. Apart from defining countryside and rural I´ve been searching for a definition of suburbia, of it´s structure and the mental picture we have of it as a cultural phenomena. In order to understand the role that suburbs have in planning I describe their history from Italian renaissance villas to sprawl. By opposing urban and rural, modern urban planning and how rural areas are created, I´ve come to a definition of rural planning and the making of countryside. To make countryside, planning and building should come from individual needs and desires. A relationship to the surroundings based on continous interaction between the human beeing and it´s environment, a constant process of shaping and reshaping. To put my thoughts to the ground I have collected examples of projects and ideas, that fits into my view of what rural planning and making countryside is all about. They are put in different categories according to the possibilities of influence and to what degree it is put into private hands. The first category is ?allemansrätten?, every mans right. That is the rigt to use private land as long as you don´t disturb or destroy.

Kevin Roberts has extended the comprehension of strong consumer brands to a higher level where loyalty beyond reason is established. He calls this new status Lovemarks. As the concept of Lovemark has only been applied in B2C markets, this thesis is directed to find out the applicability of Lovemarks in B2B context. In order to fulfill the research purpose, three main questions are answered based on a cross-sectional research approach: What role do intangible factors play in B2B branding? Is the idea of B2C Lovemarks transferable to B2B context? How should a B2B Lovemark be characterized? The results of the qualitative interviews indicate insights of high investment and involvement, integrated brand communication, balance between function versus emotion, brand?s trustworthy personality, customer partnership, and finally, the potential establishment of B2B Lovemarks.

En av samhällets viktigaste frågor idag rör den framtida energitillförseln till den byggda miljön och dess koppling till miljö- och klimatfrågor. Energitillförseln sker idag till 80% genom fossila bränslen och bygg- och fastighetssektorn står idag för 40% av världens energianvändning. De CO2-emissioner som förbränning av fossila bränslen genererar påverkar jordens växthuseffekt. EU-direktiv rörande en effektivisering och minskning av energianvändningen har implementerats för att minska belastning ur energi- och miljösynpunkt på jorden. Sverige har satt som mål att minska energianvändningen med 20% till år 2020 och 50% till år 2050 i jämförelse med värden från år 1995.

Today's planning strategy, densification of cities, makes it difficult for municipal authorities to find spaces to build preschools and daycare centers on. The Planning and Building Act , Chapter 8, § 9 states that " if the site should be developed with buildings that contain one or more dwellings or premises for after-school , preschool, school or other activities, it should be on the property or near it, enough free space which is suitable for play and being outdoors. " Each municipality has to define the expression enough free space and a number of municipalities have established guidelines for preschool and daycare centers concerning dimensions. The guidelines measure the number of square meters of free space per child with the aim of contributing to a qualitative environment. But the size is just one quality and the issue is how other non-quantifiable qualities are taken into account in the planning process. The paper compares three municipalities, Gothenburg, Malmö and Lund.

We have studied the effects that blogs have on the society through interviews with influential bloggers, a news director and the founder of Sweden?s largest blogprovider.Existing theoretical work by other researchers have been used as a starting point to our thesis. Via a deductive method we then proceeded to test these existing models and viewpoints on the reality.Through our research we have concluded that blogs, if they co-operate, have an agenda-setting function, and that they can affect newspapers to write about certain topics.We have also discussed blogs role as media watch dogs. Gunilla Sax, news director, questions the blog world?s ability to fully cover all media, and to deliver a systematic and just review of the media.

In this study my aim has been to discover what connections can be made between the way of creating a library building and the general values concerning the library activities and the library users. What kind of ideology could possibly be reflected in a library room? My study includes two different parts. First of all there is a theoretical section based upon literature relevant for the subject. Here I try to focus on the libraryÕs role in society as a public room.

Ruins and derelict places have since long fascinated and attracted humans. With my starting point in the wild vegetation and the spontaneous activities taking place on derelict land and in industrial ruins, I explore with help from the theoretical sociology, what creates not only this fascination but also fear. The purpose of the thesis is to explore and exemplify how the industrial ruin as a place outside the restrictions and control as well as design intentions of modern society can be used as an inspiration in a landscape architecture context.The modern city consists of areas and places with a well defined purpose. A piece of derelict land or a disused building is instead ambiguous, undefined and open for new purposes. However described in negative terms, these placesare often perceived as places of mystery and magic.

The purpose of this thesis is to gain a holistic understanding of who are the consumers of fortified health food products; moreover to highlight what are the characteristics of the consumers who are likely to purchase these products. This thesis employed a quantitative strategy with an inductive and a grounded theory approach. The data was collected from a research company. Existing theories in the area of functional food were not possible to find. Considering that the area is new this seems plausible; however, previous studies provided insight for substantive framework.

This study includes several purposes which are to describe the concept of working environment, explain who is responsible for its functioning and how the working environment should look like. Other purposes the study have is to investigate how the working environment is in both Swedish and the two investigated companies construction sites and to share some operators proposing measures for the shortcomings and problems that exist in the construction sector working environment. To achieve these purposes was a qualitative study made with unstructured observations, interviews and survey where three construction sites were observed. The result shows that the concept of the working environment cover many aspects and is essentially about the environment we live in and experience in our work and this environment can be both an indoor as an outdoor environment. In this work, the concept is divided into four areas; it is the physical, the ergonomic, the psychosocial and the chemical.

New production is not the only thing that is important for the city?s growth. It is also crucial to recover Existing buildings in order to create attractive areas. There is a school in Va?stera?s city called Wenstro?mska skolan which consists of six high schools that provide different professional specializations and which has an area of about 35000 square meters.

Although school librarians have an important role to play in high schools helping teachers and students during their education, Swedish school librarians are often considered to end up left out by teachers and head principals due to school librarians vague and unclear professional role in the school. The aim of this thesis is to attempt to study school librarians own apprehensions of their particular professional role in a high school context, and how their professional role is believed to be apprehended by teachers and head principals. The results are based on interviews made with eight school librarians working in different high school libraries in Gothenburg during April 2002. By using phenomenographic method various existing apprehensions of the specific phenomena that the professional role of the school librarian constitutes of are made clear. The aim of the method is not to study what the profession constitutes of, but rather how it is apprehended by the school librarians themselves.

The purpose of the thesis is to examine why women face greater difficulties than men in the management consulting industry when advancing as well as to identify potential success factors that enable women to overcome the existing difficulties. In order to fulfil the purpose, a theoretical framework including gender and organisational theory has been applied to a qualitative case study of two Swedish management consulting firms. A number of difficulties have been identified related to women's career advancement, which are the following: the male leader and the stereotypical male leadership, firms having higher expectations on women's performance, women's reluctance to self-promotion and to play "the organizational game", women's preference of social networks, men's tendency to promote other men, and the choice and conflict between a career and family life. The identified success factors that enable women to overcome these difficulties are: adapting the male leadership style, having an extrovert behaviour, becoming more active in professional networks, promoting one self, actively seeking to gain more attention, and prioritising one's career. These success factors can be summarised as women adapting a more male-like behaviour.

This examination report is a part of a program for Industrial organisation and Economics with specialization in Logistics and Management at Jönköping University. The report contains an analysis of the internal material handling at Kongsberg Automotive, and also an improvement proposal for a new material handling system.The aim with the report is to find a better material handling system and also make an analyse of the existing system. The goal is to shorten the distance for the operators when they order material, and also to increase the productivity.The investigation methods for the report have for the most part consisted of observations and interviews of key-persons who daily work in the production. During some time the actual material handling-system has been observed and some shortcomings have been discovered, and these are also discussed in the report.The shortcomings that have been discovered are for once the indistinct signal that should signal need of material in the production. Some other activities have also been discovered that does not bring any value into the final products.