The purpose of this paper is to find out which characteristics the female and male characters have in five selected horse books in children's literature. I have analyzed five horse books by Professor Maria Nikolajeva?s gender roles schedule. I have chosen to do a qualitative text analysis and the questions I chose to ask for the books are: Which characteristics does the girls and the boys have in the selected horse books according to Nikolajeva?s gender chart? What is the relationship between the main characters and the horse/horses according to the theories of Backman? What does the typical horse book look like today? What I come to conclusion in my paper is that all the horse books I analyzed have female main characters, and the girls in these books about horses take a lot of space and demonstrate themselves strong.

This thesis serves to examine how manufacturing SMEs consider outsourcing. Furthermore, we aim to identify the main characteristics and patterns for these types of companies that can explain their rationale in such a decision. The chosen method for this thesis is abduction and selected research approach is multiple case studies. Seven case studies have been conducted at EAB AB, Esbe AB, Hörle Automatic AB, Pelly Industri AB, SGV Industrier AB, Swede-Wheel AB and Wulkan AB. Our findings have illustrated that although traditional outsourcing theory provides a good platform for explaining the rationale behind outsourcing decisions in SMEs, we have identified additional considerations that SMEs, operating as 2, 3 or 4-tier suppliers towards OEM-corporations, make.

The purpose of this thesis is to understand the reasons to why management consultants choose to leave their positions at large and established management consultant companies. The empirical data are made up of eleven interviews with men and women, both management consultants that have left their previous positions as well as a consultant who has chosen to stay with her first company and a representative from one of the large companies active within the management consultant industry. We have used the Job Embeddedness Theory combined with theories about identity, legitimacy, institutional norms and gender in order to understand the thoughts and reasoning behind the management consultants´ resignation. We have found that issues with the work itself and characteristics of the industry prevent the management consultants from being embedded within the management consultant company. Rather, some of the characteristics of the industry such as ?up or out? and the need to constantly perform work as a ?pushing-out mechanism?.

The essay deals with hierarchies that occurs between inmates in prison. It deals with a theory that these hierarchies, when seen through a gender perspective, can be understood as a hierarchy where you are valued based on traditional male characteristics. Empirically, the paper consists of interviews with five inmates, or former inmates, who during a period in his life, has served a prison sentence at a closed institution. Based on the informants' statements, conclusions are drawn about which properties are valued low in the hierarchy. This becomes clear when the informants speak humiliating about sexually deviant groups, snitches, or sex offenders.

The dissertation were performed on SP, Technical Institute of Sweden. The dissertation were carried out on the measurement technical department, this dissertation is a part of a bigger project, project ClampCal. One of SP?s returning assignments are flow-measurement. When flow-measurement is performed, the flow has to be stopped so that a meter can be installed in the pipes where measurement is going to take place. At every stop there is time delay in the flow which causes the customers to loose money. This is why SP wanted to find a better solution so that measurement can be done without any stops in the flow. Usage of a so-called Clamp-on meter was considered, but since the measurement uncertainty is too large it takes some investigation on the parts where the largest uncertainties occur and thus find a solution that can diminish the uncertainty as much as possible. The parts that were considered to have an opportunity to reduce measurement uncertainties were the fluid temperature, its characteristics and the pipe geometry and its characteristics. For the fluid temperature a Pt100-sensor with four different radii for various pipes was used.

The purpose of this research is to evaluate traditional market segmentation variables, as criticism has been directed towards these variables. Based on our problem discussion we find it motivating to undertake investigation in order to understand which connotations an ethnographic approach will provide. Methodology:We have applied an ethnographic approach, which has enabled us to attain under the surface knowledge from our respondents. Theoretical perspective:As we wanted to evaluate existing traditional segmentation variables, we decided to only include theory regarding these variables. Empirical data:In order to collect our data, we observed seven respondents at Ikea and conducted observations and in-depth interviews in their homes.

The aim of this thesis was twofold, on the one hand to compile a set of usability and accessibility guidelines in order to establish the characteristics of a user friendly website, and on the other to test these guidelines on eight library webcourses with user education to see how well they adhered to the guidelines. The methods used were literature survey and source studies. The guidelines found in the literature survey were divided into four different categories: document properties, structure and navigability, visual characteristics and accessibility. In order to establish the adequacy of the guidelines, I examined reference sources, mostly on the web. To a certain extent this examination has been based on HCI Human-Computer interaction theories.

This paper presents a study that evaluates the performance of stock recommendations issued on Swedish stocks during 2003. The selection of recommendations in this paper originates from banks, major brokerage firms and financial press located in Sweden. The total of 171 recommendations consisted of 99 buy recommendations and 72 sell recommendations. Forecast revisions presented in this paper suggest that Investment managers have no ability to predict performance winners, nor do their forecasts in general have any significant impact on stock prices. A mere 50 percent of the recommendations in this revision had a weak ability to outperform their benchmark indexes as in other similar revisions.

Kärnkraften ser vi som ett miljövänligt och bra alternativ för framtiden. Därför kändes det intressant att undersöka om vi som blivande sjöingenjörer har en framtid där efter våran karriär till sjöss. Syftet med detta arbete är att få ökad insikt om vilka teoretiska kunskaper, praktiska och personliga egenskaper som gör sjöingenjören attraktiv i ledande befattningar vid kärnkraftsverk. Datainsamlingen skedde med hjälp av en enkätundersökning och en intervju. Undersökningen skickades ut till Sveriges samtliga kärnkraftverk och intervjun gjordes med en anställd på ett utav dem.

Kärnkraften ser vi som ett miljövänligt och bra alternativ för framtiden. Därför kändes det intressant att undersöka om vi som blivande sjöingenjörer har en framtid där efter våran karriär till sjöss. Syftet med detta arbete är att få ökad insikt om vilka teoretiska kunskaper, praktiska och personliga egenskaper som gör sjöingenjören attraktiv i ledande befattningar vid kärnkraftsverk. Datainsamlingen skedde med hjälp av en enkätundersökning och en intervju. Undersökningen skickades ut till Sveriges samtliga kärnkraftverk och intervjun gjordes med en anställd på ett utav dem.

This paper is about the new programming language from Microsoft, C# (See Sharp) and the .NET Framework. They are still in beta-version, but will be released on the market in February 2002. This paper presents C#, not in detail but the characteristics that distinguish the language. A comparison is done with C++ and Java, since C# is most resembling to these languages. Both C# and Java have been developed from the mother- language C++.

The stretch from the riparian zone of a major river, through the mouth and upstream in tributaries forms a range of differing habitats. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of these different habitats on the riparian frog community in primary rain forest in Borneo; i.e. examine whether any gradients could be demonstrated in terms of species composition, diversity and density of frogs, as well as which environmental characteristics that seem to be of most importance in forming habitats of high conservational value. A major river, Segama, and three of its tributaries were investigated. The surveys were carried out at night by searching for frogs visually and acoustically along the streams, from the shore of the Segama river and 400 metres upstream in the tributaries.

This study is a first attempt to try to understand what the variables could be that make the person responsible for the grave sign up for grave gardening services by the church or to maintain the grave by him- or herself. There has been almost no research done within this subject. This study has been made by a qualitative research method and interviews have been performed with both persons responsible for the grave who have gardening services made by the church and with those who maintain the grave by themselves. The characteristics that are affecting consumer behaviour and the buyer decision process are presented in the theoretical part of this study. That is done so it can be seen if a comparison between the results of the study and the basic theoretical concept is possible, resulting in an understanding of how the costumers think and argue about this question.

Quality Assurance in Service Procurement --- Total Quality and Total Quality Management refer to popular management philosophies in organizations these days. The purchasing department has an important part in the strive for organizational quality as several studies show corporate spend is significant and increasing. In this master thesis I study the actions companies take to ensure quality in service procurement. I argue that managing quality when sourcing services is particularly tricky, because of the special characteristics that belong to services. The purpose of the study is to examine whether different actions are taken to ensure the quality of different kinds of services.

Alien plants that have intentionally been introduced to an area for cultivation in public or private gardens constitute the primary pathway of introduction for invasive alien species that spread into nature. Garden owners want species that have satisfying characteristics, these characteristics are often also linked to plant invasiveness. Thus, the horticulture industry plays an important role by making scientifically based decisions and phasing out invasive plants and replacing them with alternative species with satisfying characteristics, but low risks of becoming invasive. This thesis aimed to examine the sale of and the attitudes towards alien plants in the horticulture industry in Sweden. Alien terrestrial plants identified to have a severe risk, high risk or potentially high risk of spreading and becoming invasive according to ArtDatabankens assessment, were examined to see if they were for sale.