The educational underachievement of children in foster care has been known for a long time. This study aimed to compile and analyze the current knowledge about interventions, intended to improve foster children?s school achievements. The method used was a systematically undertaken narrative review. Despite a comprehensive searching strategy, only ten relevant studies were found, indicating that little has been done to improve the educational outcomes for children in public care.

Today automotive manufacturers are facing a crisis with increased pressure to strengthen their brands. To prevent declining results many automakers have chosen to extend its brand to other industries i.e. various forms of brand extensions. Automotive manufacturers have developed an international strategy for what merchandise to offer. The strategy has received an overall positive response, however, it does not apply well within the Swedish market where merchandise is sold in less quantity than abroad.

This degree project is an inquiry in how plan layouts and functions should be designed to suit families with children. The project aim to, if possible, find good solutions and designed houses that satisfy the requirements a family have.Last spring we contacted Willa Nordic AB, a company that produce houses, and they had a suggestion to investigate living for families with children. Their motif were that they lacked in information and knowledge in how to design houses that correspond to a family's needs. We thought the idea was exiting and motivating.The autumn 2008 studies were made on earlier published reports, in the subject "living environment", to get a solid background. The earlier inquiries shows a clear development through the whole 1900's, from being without standards to have well defined norms.

Oxelösund är en liten kommun på den Södermanländska kusten. Denna kommun har trots sin storlek stora problem med ohälsa i form av bland annat hög andel missbrukare. Dock kan man se att hälsoproblemen i Oxelösund är mer omfattade och innefattar i princip alla områden av folkhälsan. Man kan se att riskfaktorerna delvis är fler än friskfaktorerna. Detta kan vara en del i samhällets habitus, man en ohälsosam livsstil i Oxelösund..

The aim has been to create a new student housing where there should be more togetherness between people who live in the residents. The house will have more common areas for the integration of students for a pleasant stay in Växjö. We have concentrated on finding and solving the interior design of the joint surfaces. The proposal consists of CAD- drawings.The student area is intended to be placed on the Brände udde, which is part of Campusvision 2005..

The main purpose with this master's thesis was to develop a survey with the intention to examine what expectations the JM AB:s customer had on a future garden and also to discuss if the lawn has a symbolic meaning in gardens. The lion's share of the thesis is based on a survey, aimed at people in the company's customer database. The intention was to examine what expectations they had on their future garden and if their expectations were met when they later bought a house from the company. The work also consists of interviews and visits to areas with newly built homes. I interpreted the result from my surveys as the lawn on its own being is a strong symbol for a garden and also signals a social status of the owner. To the company the pre made lawn on a role is a way of saving time and easily achieve what the customer request. The company wants to create a concept of a "preset-garden" that meets the company's vision as well as the expectations of the customer.

Lots of choices are to be made by a company who enters a new market with a new businessidea. Common questions that show up when a company is making it´s businessplan are how to target the market and how to use marketing as a tool to reach a specific customer or segment. It is difficult to know wether to target the market in different ways and what processes that can be used in the choice how to select the most potential and profitable customer. Another important question is how a company can positioning themself in a way so the customer will get a positive understanding of the company and what different positive abilities to mention in a possible businessproposal. This study is made on a small company in Sweden called AYEN Technology.

The thesis presented in this report has been made on behalf of Scania and their basic frame design department with the subject to solve an implementation of a weight sensing system in the chassis. The system is supposed to be implemented in the seat springs, and the reason for this is that all the force will have to go through the weight sensing transducers. With all the force going through the transducers the weight sensing system will not be sensitive for the differences in tolerances from manufacturing. The transducers could be pre-calibrated to avoid a calibration of the whole vehicle after it?s completed from the manufacturing line.Weight sensing systems is today a reality in trucks with air springs.

In conventional viscose manufacturing, a large amount of carbondisulfide is consumed. This amount has to be decreased to keep the production cost down and to reduce the environmental impact. The purpose with this work was to show if an enzyme treatment of a dissolving pulp could increase the degree of substitution in the viscose so that the amount of carbon disulfide consumed in the process could be decreased. Previous investigations by Kvarnlöf (2007), Engström et.al. (2006) and Henriksson et.al.

While the call for regulations against greenhouse gas emissions are louder then ever before, demand for oil is also at an all time high. Oil companies face the dilemma of making sound business without being perceived as environmental villains. In this essay I will examine how BP, one of the largest companies in the world, broke rank with the industry and devoted itself to being an environmental friendly oil company. The actions and motives of this change will be evaluated through up-to-date theories about company motivation to environmental adaptation. We see that BP:s transformation can be well explained through Simone Pulvers theory about the socially embedded company.

Every year the Swedish government invests capital in different projects. In recent years the Swedish government has chosen to invest in design. The reason for this is that the government wants industry to use design as a competitive source. Two organizations, Svensk Form and Stiftelsen Svensk Indistridesign, have been assigned to improve industry and society?s under¬standing of design.

As the football industry develops into a highly competitive commercialized industry, football clubs must step up and improve their business strategy. This study focuses on the famous Italian club AC Milan, a club with many international titles but with declining revenues. The purpose of this thesis is to study how AC Milan can generate higher revenues by comparing its marketing and business strategy with the most profitable clubs in the world, the benchmarking partners Real Madrid and Manchester United. By using a benchmarking model, following the five steps of this process, conducting observation studies, an interview and examining secondhand information, gaps between the clubs were evaluated and analyzed. These evaluations became together with chosen theoretical references, the basis for the improvement suggestions and conclusions shown by the authors.

The purpose for this study is to look at the Pink Caravans, which is a Swedish travel company that started in the beginning of the seventies. The company today has a unique profile within the travel industry which made us curious about how they have managed to keep their distinctiveness over such a long period of time. We have chosen to focus on how they work with the market in this ever changing world, including aspects regarding for example the customer being more demanding today than before. We have also looked at a potential future for the company considering new trends popping up like the environmental issues. The study is based on a qualitative approach and a case study research regarding the Pink Caravans.

The  construction  industry  is  a  costly  business  such  in  respect  of  capital  for  most construction defects which then require rework, tear down and rebuild again. This study is  meaningful  awareness  of  tools  that  can  reduce  this  best  through  communication  and information sharing between the parties.  The  construction  industry  is  known  as  temporary  projects  organizations,  where  the construction  project  consists  of  several  actors  who  have  to  communicate  and  share information  between  them  to  avoid  mistakes  later  in  the  build  time.  These  actors  are bounded together thus for the duration of the project, then broken when the project has reached its end. The challenge here is for these actors to apply a tool that can help and simplify communications, information sharing, and perhaps the most important aspect is to  create  a  routine  for  the  association  and  the  shattering  of  these  actors.  To  implement such  behavior  using  a  tool  such  as  BIM  in  the  industry  whose  size  perhaps  is indescribable may be a very hard task.  BIM (Building Information Model) could be seen as the solution to this problem because it  acts  as  a  portal  where  the  actors  involved  must  sign  in  and  communicate,  share information, and eventually create a behavior, a routine for this association and division of  the  actors  following  the  end  of  the  project.  The  technology  could  help  the  involved from  the  beginning  of  the  project,  already  in  the  model  stage,  break  down  and  prevent any construction barriers when the building has been placed in the works.

Swedish sawmills of today suffer from unsatisfying economy with high costs and low benefits. The economical result depends on how well the sawmill can use their raw material. Iggesund Timber AB, a sawmill in the Holmen group, produces a large amount is enduse orientated products for the woodworking industry. Therefore the aim of this student thesis was to investigate the possibility of automatic enduse orientated quality grading of Scots Pine (Pinus sylvestris) saw logs by using a gamma-ray log scanner. Iggesund Timber AB has the possibility to grade logs automatically with TINA, a two way gamma-ray log scanner. Grading and classification of Scots Pine logs in Sweden today are mainly manual but can in some rare cases be automatic.