Background: The increasing competition on the market demand both companies and supply chains to find optimal solutions. The edeavour to reduce inventory levels is a part of this. Earlier, inventory was seen upon as valuable assets, but today they tend to be more and more negative in the eyes of the companies. Inventory demands capital, handling, and space. Therefore inventory creates unnecessary costs.

The aim was to examine whether measurements of creativity as a domain general trait can explain possible connections between a domain general creative performance and one of the creative domain specific areas, humor. Another aim was to examine whether the maladaptive humor styles can explain possible differences in creative performances. An Internet-based survey was used on 281 students from a Swedish university. The survey was composed of three parts consisting of three separate measuring instruments ? Sense of Humor Questionnaire (SHQ-6) was used to measure the respondents? sense of humor, Humor Style Questionnaire (HSQ) measured the respondents? humor style and Alternate Uses Test (AUT) gave the respondents an opportunity to account for their creative performances.

The aim of this study was to reach a better understanding of voluntary work and its possible influence on the work role. Based on a phenomenological approach, five voluntary workers from the leisure field were interviewed. The interpretation of the empirical data was based on the Humanistic psychology and its theories about personality, self-realization, motivation and emotion. The results show that the motive behind the voluntary engagement varied amongst the participants and all of them stated more than one motive. However, social motives, wanting to learn more and develop their skills and also wanting to help others, were the most frequent motives among the participants. In the light of the theoretical background for this study, these motives can be understood as being due to the need of self-realization and appreciation from others, and also a wish to reach an ideal self.

Tidigare empirisk forskning förevisade samband mellan optimism och hälsa, likaså mellan self-efficacy och hälsa. Föreliggande undersöknings syfte var att utifrån könsskillnader mellan kvinnor och män undersöka hur op­timism och self-efficacy samverkar med deras självskattade hälsotillstånd. Deltagarna var 190 högskolestudenter, varav 113 kvinnor, i Mellansverige. Statis­tisk analys utfördes genom t-test, multipel linjär regressionsanalys och jämförelse mellan korrelationskoefficienter. Mätinstrumenten Life Orientation Test?Revised, General Health Questionnaire och General Self-efficacy Scale, samt ett påstående om fysisk hälsa användes.

The study's aim is to implement a textbook analysis and examine how women are described in history textbooks for high school and in the curriculums Lgy 70, Lpf 94 and Gy 11. The study has a gender perspective and the study's purpose is to make a comparative study and compare textbooks with the current curriculum and compare the results with each other to see if there has been any change over time. The survey's material is three editions of Alla tiders historia from Gleerups förlag. The study refers to editions from 1989, 1996 and 2011. General parts from Lgy 70, Lpf 94 and Gy 11 are also central for my study.

Competence Portals are software tools that are intended to make it easier for persons that have had no previous contact to find and contact each other. The portals can address areas ranging from finding an expert within an organisation to the marketing of the competence of a region or a research centre to other organisations. The purpose of the thesis is to examine the necessity of Competence Portals in research-intensive organisations. Important characteristics of the information in such portals have been identified and used as a basis for recommendations regarding how Competence Portals could be designed. Furthermore, the thesis focuses on the task of finding a source of knowledge within an organisation.

The aim of this essay is to analyse certain succinct statements of Russian leader Vladimir Putin. His rhetorical style in general, and these statements in particular, are distinguishing Putin from other Russian political figures. The statements have survived the test of time and lived on in the media, on the internet and in the vernacular. They have come to be called Putinisms.The essay is descriptive and treats these special statements, describes where and how they came into being and analyses them on a micro level, word by word. The analysis is also qualitative as it covers selected statements, which represent only a small portion of all the statements made by Putin within the time frame chosen for this study.

AimThe aim of this study is to discuss process orientated education by identifying and describing general elements in two alternative pedagogies that in different ways attempt to separate themselves from the didactics in the traditional school. The questions are:1. How do the general elements for example the pupil, the knowledge and the lesson, in classroom education appear at a Waldorf and a Freinet school respectively?2. How do the general elements for example the teacher, the lesson planning and the overall goal, that teachers obey to and create in their lesson?s planning appear at the two schools respectively?MethodThe study is based on four days of observations in one ninth grade class at a Freinet school and a corresponding amount of time in one eighth grade class and one ninth grade class at a Waldorf school.

In 1998 the Swedish Socialist Government initiated a project in order to promote economic growth and to end the discriminating social and ethnic segregation in the greater city regions of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmo. One of the goals of the project was and still is to promote political participation in 24 of the poorest areas of the three cities. In a quantitative analysis I evaluate whether or not the project so far has been successful in promoting a specific part of political participation, i.e. electoral participation in communal elections. The results of the 24 poor city areas are compared with a group of 14 likewise poor city areas of major swedish cities.According to my hypothesis, general improvements of the socio-economic status of poor city areas ought to generate positive effects on electoral participation in communal elections.

Colour has encountered to be a significant part in marketing, which advantageously can be used in todays competitive market. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to analyze the colours varying associations and present ideas how colours can affect the hotel business. In coherence with the purpose we deveoled the research question, which resulted in following: How can hotels affect their servicescape and identity by the help of colour?The study has a qualitative method that began in an empirical problem that has been tested against theory, which subsequently developed the research question. This implies that our study alternated between induction and deduction.

Tidigare empirisk forskning förevisade samband mellan optimism och hälsa, likaså mellan self-efficacy och hälsa. Föreliggande undersöknings syfte var att utifrån könsskillnader mellan kvinnor och män undersöka hur op­timism och self-efficacy samverkar med deras självskattade hälsotillstånd. Deltagarna var 190 högskolestudenter, varav 113 kvinnor, i Mellansverige. Statis­tisk analys utfördes genom t-test, multipel linjär regressionsanalys och jämförelse mellan korrelationskoefficienter. Mätinstrumenten Life Orientation Test?Revised, General Health Questionnaire och General Self-efficacy Scale, samt ett påstående om fysisk hälsa användes.

The Swedish stock-market gives investors an opportunity to benefit from the global growth while financing companies invests and contributes to a socio-economic development. Parallel to the ownership of the funds also follows a responsibility as companies in the funds affect society and the environment. The growth of savings in funds, combined with an increased focus on sustainability has developed SRI (socially responsible investment). Therefore it is interesting to examine whether responsibility is an exception, which only concerns SRI-funds or a general principle, which includes the whole Swedish stock-market.The results of the survey makes it clear that all the Swedish major banks actively works to integrate sustainability within the respective bank's business to achieve a more sustainable financial system. Thus concludes the investigation that responsible investments are a general principle on the Swedish mutual stock-market.How responsibility is integrated in fund management differ between the banks.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate how large Swedish corporations within the same industry protect themselves against foreign exchange risks and to determine if there is a general practice for how the protection is done. What is the responsibility structure at these corporations regarding the handling of exposure to foreign exchange?.

With starting point in the increasing ill-health in Swedish working life today, in form of for example absence due to sickness and early retirement pension, and the knowledge that the working environment effects peoples health in a big extent, I found it very interesting to inquire into how people within the working life experience health promotion and how this can be developed. A qualitative method was used to receive a deeper understanding for the employees? experiences and data was collected through semi structured interviews with employees on a bank called Ikanobanken, in Älmhult. The result shows, among other things, that respondents find responsibility and the opportunity to influence the learning processes and development important. It also became clear that the respondents find participation, motivation, communication and safety essential factors when related to changes in health behaviours.

A B S T R A C TTitle: Democracy- Choice of the people or the voice of media? (Demokrati- Folkets styre eller Mediernas Makt?)Number of pages: 36Author: Carolina VallinTutor: Else NygrenCourse: Media and Communication Studies CPeriod: Autumn term 2006University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala UniversityPurpose/Aim: The purpose with this essay is to discuss which influence media has on the democracy.Material/Method: Qualitative explorative research method is used to see how much space the newspaper Dagens Nyheter gave to the parties represented in the parliament, and compare the results with the numbers the parties received in the general election 2006.Main results: This research showed similar results in the survey made of DN and the numbers the parties received in the general election 2006. Media can?t decide how people should vote in a election, but they can influence what citizens think and talk about by having the power to choose which information that shows on the agenda.Key Words: Dagens Nyheter, Agenda setting, Media, Power and Democracy..