The main purpose of this C-essay is to answer the question: What have been the consequences and effects of the merit point system on language studies and the parties concerned (teachers, students and principals) during the school year of 2010/11?The merit point system is the result of a political decision and was implicated for the first time in the Swedish upper secondary school during the school year 2010/2011. Being a completely new phenomenon it is of great interest and importance to study its effects.The study in this essay also aims to verify, falsify or nullify two hypotheses very often referred to in the political discussions regarding the merit point system:The merit point system will replace affection and interest as main reasons for language studies in upper secondary school and cause a rectification amongst the students choices of additional courses.The merit point system will have a segregating effect upon society and make it harder for people to rise in society through education in the future.A verification of these hypotheses would imply the appearance of an increased rectification amongst students as well as an orientation towards an in the future more segregated society.The empiric material has been collected and examined with qualitative as well as quantitative methods (questionnaires and interviews) and belongs epistemologically to the phenomenological and hermeneutical traditions..

The main purpose of this Bachelor´s thesis is to investigate the visions chief librarians have for their public libraries. The world around us and our way of living is changing as the society is changing ever more rapidly. This evolvement also influences the public library, its role for society and individuals, its activities and its design. The question is how the public library can face these changes and what function and role it can get and make for itself in the future. Through qualitative interviews with five chief librarians our aim is to answer the main question of this thesis: What are the visions that chief librarians on public libraries have for the public library´s future? This study also contain the role the chief librarians give the public library of today and what they mean is necessary for their visions to be achieved.

Since energy simulations are used to verify that projected residential buildings will reach the current energy requirements it is important that the results are reliable.This report investigates the extent of uncertainty in energy simulations, estimates the causes of the uncertainty and its economic and environmental consequences.The method used in this report is based on three validation methods; empirical validation, analytical validation and comparative validation. The analysis was carried out for five multi-family dwellings in Uppsala with installed meters for energy measurements. One of these objects, Klockarlunden, was studied in more detail than the others.The results show that the deviations are between 10 and 29% for the studied objects, which means that the uncertainty is estimated to be at least 29%. All simulations underestimate the buildings need of energy. The simulation for Klockarlunden can predict the energy consumption to be within the range of 46-98 kWh/m2year with 90% confidence level based on the current uncertainty.

Blood-borne infectious diseases such as Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)and Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) spread when the addicts share needles and injecting equipmentwithin contact networks. A quantitative cross-sectional study was conducted in Winnipeg,Canada in December 2003 - September 2004. Through a special questionnaire, respondentswere asked to answer questions about themselves and about their contacts, about relationshipsand how they shared syringes and other injection supplies. Blood tests were used to identifywhether they carried any blood-borne infectious diseases. We selected some variables from theoriginal data set.

Abstract______________________________________________________________________Title:A study about creating understanding for different kinds of empowermentLevel:Bachelors thesis in Business Administration, 15 creditsAuthor:Fredrik LegovicSupervisor:Tomas KällquistDate:2014 - JuneAim:The main purpose of this study is to increase the understanding for different kinds of empowerment and how it affects the staff in the public sector.Method:The choice of method was based on the research aim. The method used to meet the objective was qualitative. The qualitative study was conducted with a hermeneutic basis, where individuals were asked to describe their experience of empowerment and how they feel affected of it. This thesis has a deductive approach, where existing theories dealing empowerment formed the basis for the design of interview substrate, which is then paired with the empirical evidence, based on this the conclusions was drawn.Result & Conclusion:What separates the different kinds of empowerment and how it affect the staff depends most of all on how the management chooses to communicate and share information with their staff.Suggestions for future research:A study regarding managers that works with different kinds of empowerment, and how that affects them, could be regarded as an interesting future research.Contribution of thesis:It shows that different kinds of empowerment affect the staff in different ways, which I made clear to the readers.Keywords:empowerment, thinking skills, relations and organizational - structure and theory.

Energy efficiency is today more important than ever, mainly due to the high energy prices and the approaching climate changes. Heating of buildings is an essential area within energy efficiency. Many buildings are old and were built at a time when the energy prices were low and the term ?energy efficiency? was unheard of. By applying today?s broad range of energy saving actions on these old, and thereby often, heating ineffective buildings, this area has a large potential in reducing energy consumption and costs.Churches and chapels are generally old buildings with, in many cases, ineffective heating systems and therefore consume much more energy than needed.

I have studied how human networks can affect decision-making and different constellations. The primary purpose is to clarify the possibility to affect the decision to move the infrastructure investments from Region Skåne to Region Västra Götaland. The study starts at the EU-level and continues to the Government and on to the region. Region Skåne is studied especially since it was from there the infrastructure investments were moved.The conclusion is that there is no specific representation in the government that represents regional topics, in spite of the fact that almost 30% of the members of the Parliament come from these regions. There is no discussion between the members that could be considered a networking-activity beneficial for the regions.

The gas turbines in the Swedish secondary reserve are reaching the end of their technical lifetime, hence alternative solutions need to be considered. One of the solutions thought to have the greatest potential is the use of so called consumptionreduction. By entering contracts with large consumers, agreements are made to reduce consumption in the event of major disturbances in the power system and thus being used as a secondary reserve. This thesis investigates the feasibility of consumption reduction as part of the secondary reserve. This has been achieved by developing a requirement specification for the disturbance reserve and by studying the technical and economic potential for consumption reduction among a range of consumers.The technical potential for consumption reduction that fulfils the requirements for participating in the secondary reserve are on average 750 MW in SE 3 and 98 MW in SE 4.

Strömstad is a small city located on the Swedish west coast. Urbanization and development is acurrent issue for the municipally, as for many other in the current situation. The municipal housingcompany Strömstadsbyggen is one of the parties involved in the extensive development that mustbe implemented to meet the changes and developments which the issue holds.One area that is of interest in the discussion is Rådhusberget - this due to the existing infrastructureand unique qualities that the area holds. In order to achieve the best solutions possible for the area,Strömstadsbyggen wishes to listen to what the existing tenants at Rådhusberget thinks and feelsregarding the area and its future potential.This thesis has therefore been carried out in collaboration with Strömstadsbyggen and has beenaimed at identifying the current tenants' thoughts and opinions in the existing area of developmentand infill potential. The aim of this work was also to investigate how the tenants value their homeand local environment in its current state, and what their wishes are for the possible futuredevelopment of Rådhusberget.To achieve analyzable results concerning how the tenants perceive these aspects, an extensivesurvey have been carried out which were sent out to all tenants in the area.

In today's society, the availability of energy plays an integral part in our everyday lives. Unfortunately, the price of energy in Sweden has increased in recent decades. A large part of our energy consumption goes to heating modules for houses, where heating methods that depend on energy sources such as electricity, district heating, fuel oil, gas and biofuels are the most common ones. During the winter period, the increase in energy costs becomes significantly evident, especially for small property owners. This increase in energy cost is most noticeable for home owners with electric heating.This thesis is written at the Halmstad University, in cooperation with a company, which makes parts of this thesis confidential.

This paper is based on a quantitative survey. The study aims to answer the questionwhich media young people rather use to take part of the news. The results showthat young people today in Kalmar preferably and often read newspapers on theInternet and mobile phone.The questions asked was about which media they usually use, the level ofconfidence they had in various media, how interest was in different newscategories, willingness to pay for online news and background issues relatedsubjects. The survey was aimed at high school students in Kalmar and weredistributed and collected on-site at the schools. What was remarkable among theresponses was that young people largely had access to a morning newspaper athome and said that they would consider subscribing to one in the future.

The public sector has through the years been exposed to a rather radical alteration. The aim with this alteration has been to make the public sector more effective. It?s a dynamic society that Norrbottens läns landsting (NLL) operates in today and it is therefore of great importance that the managers get a solid foundation to rely on, since they have a central role in the ambition for efficiency. Another reason to educating the managers is that NLL can secure the future pension losses.

The attitudes towards nature conservation in forestry are based on the individual forest owner. The theme of the interviews is the opinion on nature conservation in forestry. The purpose of this study is to identify if there is any difference in attitude to nature conservation in forestry according to the age of the forest owner. The study discusses different factors that affect the private forest owners consideration of nature conservation and give an insight in different generations attitude to nature conservation. Other topics that are discussed is if future change of generation will change the consideration of nature conservation in Swedish forestry and what is needed to enhance the interest in nature conservation among forest owners.This study is the result of interviews with a number of forest owners in the county of Uppsala, Sweden.

This thesis examines the use of history, historical narratives and the relation to Venezuelan historical consciousness in Libro Rojo, a publication of The Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). It consists of four parts: an introduction, a declaration of principles, statutes and finally what is called the programmatical bases (bases programaticas) of the party.A starting point for this thesis is that this is an under prioritized area of research about the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela. It aims to show the centrality of history in these fundamental documents of the biggest left-wing party in Latin America.The thesis finds that symbolically charged historical figures ? mainly national icons of Venezuela´s struggle for national liberation - are mobilized to back up contemporary aspirations and influence public perception of what kind of future is possible and desirable. Libro Rojo structures the relationship between past, present and future in order to influence historical consciousness.It also finds that Libro Rojo constructs a vision of socialism which aims to show that the ideas and actions of Venezuela´s symbolically charged historical figures are compatible with the ideas of 19th and 20th century western Marxism.

I have studied how network in a broad sense can affect decision-making. The primary purpose is to see if the political initiative somewhere disappears when it comes to understand the relations between power, actors and politics. The study discuss in a theoretical area that concerns the reliability in neoinstitutionalism to use as an analytical instrument. Some criticism is given to the theoretical standpoint in the sense that there is no power perspective included in the theory. I include a discussion about a concept of power, which I include to the theory.