Bribery is a concept which has appeared quite frequently in the media recently, but what constitutes a bribe and what factors can be used in determining if an individual case is actually a bribe? The purpose of this essay is to try and answer these questions through a study in which respondents were presented with different scenarios and were asked to determine whether a bribe had occurred and explain their reasoning. In the study, it was evident that the amount of money involved in a given case had a large impact on respondents? determination of whether a bribe had occurred or not. The grey area that seems to exist between what is appropriate and inappropriate most likely stems from ambiguousness in Swedish law..

NMD 100 is a notes and media dispensing machine, manufactured by De La Rue Ltd, located in Flen, Sweden. The customers, mainly bank offices, have expressed a need for a more comprehensive description of errors occurring from time to time in their machines. In order to acquire a BSc-degree in Computer and Electronics Technology at the University of Linköping I have carried out a diploma work, regarding new computer programs to fulfil the customers? wishes. The machine NMD 100 is connected to its PC through handshaking.

Within system development users have rarely been involved or received much attention during the development. Most of the times, the primary focus within system development lies on insuring functionality, rather than making the system usable. The literature specifies that a non user-centered approach can contribute to a product with low usability, which can lead to an ineffective and unsatisfactory experience for the end users.The purpose of this thesis is to begin an investigation to see if the use of non user-oriented system development methods is a possible cause of low usability in the final system.To achieve the purpose of this thesis, we have conducted a case study. Within the case study we examined the usability of a time reporting system. The case study included seven minor studies; an investigation concerning the development of the system, an expert evaluation of the system, interviews and observations of users, developed paper prototypes and executable prototypes, both which user testing was performed on.The result of this study shows that by working with user-entered methods, the usability in the time reporting system increased after the design had been revised.

This master thesis is intended to give an increased understanding of the stress state in an axle, which is assembled in one of Atlas Copco?s mountain drilling rigs. The main problems investigated were how the axle is affected when the bearing is worn, when the pretension is varied, and how to dimension the axle. Answers to these questions were found by using hand calculations, practical testing and with Finite Element analyzes. The dimensioning of the axle is currently based on the bending stress, but the author?s opinion is that the axle should be dimensioned considering the equivalent stress.

Who is responsible for youth policy implementation?This thesis attempts to deepen our understanding of Swedish and Nordic youth policy. Youth policy is cross-sectoral and includes all the decisions and measures affecting the conditions of young people. National youth policy therefore concerns young people's life situations in a number of different areas, such as work, housing, education, health, leisure and influence. The purpose of the study is to increase the knowledge of youth policy work the last century by understanding the impact of youth research concerning adults' role in youth policy implementation. A mixed method approach has been applied to the study: interviews, documents and youth theory have been analysed.

Sweden is the country that has got the largest amount of elderly in the adult population in the world. The physical activity level decreases as we grow old and we experience muscle mass loss and a bone density reduction. This leads to an increased risk for falls and subsequent fractures. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether an exercise program could affect muscle function and balance ability to prevent falls. 17 women (age 64-79) participated in this study and was assigned to a control group (n=7) and an intervention group (n=10).

Background and problem: Whether or not the pay to executives is fair is widely debated. During the last years especially the variable pay has been in the spotlight. But at what levels are the compensations really at? Media?s focus is mainly on the absolute highest compensations which may result in a skew view on pay-for-performance incentives.Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to establish the levels of compensation to executives in a wide range of randomly selected companies listed on the Stockholm stock exchange during the years 2001 to 2005. Furthermore, the impact of a set of firm specific variables on compensation levels will be analyzed with basis in several hypothesis.Delimitations: The variable pay considered in this thesis will only be variable cash bonuses.

Profit in first commercial thinnings of today is hard to achieve. This is because of prevailing pulpwood prices and because of high costs of logging and transport. To reduce these costs higher productivity is advocated. One way to increase the productivity is the use of multi-tree handling harvester heads. The aim of this study was to calculate logging and transport costs in first thinnings, where multi-tree handling has been used.

This Independent work is about testing a method to create meaningful learning and a deeper comprehension in matter of basic hairdressing techniques. I got the idea for this method by reading literature related to my education to become a teacher for hairdressers, the new schoolreform and from my own experience of a teaching method that I saw an opportunity to develope. My teaching method was based on first teaching the pupils the basic techniques, and then give them an assignment were they were to find out their own final result by using a picture for inspiration. They were given an assignment description with certain frames but with freedom of choice how to get to their own final result. By making a job description and a headdrawing to show how the work should be done, and during the process try different ways to achieve the best result, my idea was that a deeper understanding and a feeling of meaningfulness would appear.The result shows that the pupils by freedom within frames experienced meaningful learning and thereby deeper understanding when it comes to basic hairdressing techniques.

The activity of interest groups in the political process of the European Union has given rise to a broad debate concerning the effect on European democracy these groups have. As relatively powerful political actors, the question of these groups? views on the EU and how the union should be is an important one. The status of these groups owns democratic representation also affects the democratic status of the EU. Being based on a number of theories, this study adopts an ideology analysis for the purpose of testing these theories on two cases ? the Swedish environmental organizations World Wide Fund for Nature and The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation.

Since criminality started to rise steeply in most western welfare states following the second world war the relationship between welfare support and criminality has been debated. For a period of time thought to be an effective preventive measure against crime welfare support has since from time to time come to be seen by some as ineffective and in some cases even as a contributing factor to the rise in crime. It remains a contested issue as new theories, such as social support theory, which is employed here, attempt to contribute to the understanding of what effects general welfare has on overall crime levels. As a connection which is relatively well-researched in the USA, altough still not yet fully understood, this study strives toward a better understanding by testing the relationship in a swedish context. The relationship might not function in the same way considering that the US is a fundamentally different welfare-regime than Sweden, liberal and social-democratic respectively.Untangling the relationship is attempted by employing a multivariate regressionanalysis on a crosssectional dataset consisting of data from 2012 covering 247 of Swedens total of 290 municipalities.

Payday loans are becoming a challenge of increasing gravity for society. Statistics show that the number of young adults with financial issues related to such loans has been growing over the past few years. Despite efforts to halt this trend, little is changing. Government mandated warning labels in commercials are typically used to inform about the risks associated with the consumption of certain goods and services, such as alcohol and tobacco. Despite issues related to payday loans, there is currently no legislation in Sweden mandating the inclusion of warnings in marketing of such loans.

In society and school today there is a major focus on assessment, and this can for example be seen in an increased research on assessment over the last ten years. But one research topic still quite unexplored is how students perceive assessment. The main purpose with this study is to explore students? experiences of assessment, how assessment interferes with their volition and if the extent of the impact on the motivation varies depending on how the assessment is performed. In order to answer these questions a quantitative investigation was performed at first. 83 students answered a questionnaire about what kind of assessment they experience in school, if they receive feedback, what is important for being successful in school, if they know on what grounds they are assessed, what impact failure and/or success has on their motivation, if they are stressed by school etc.

This thesis is written at WSP management and investigates the practice of pre-project planning and feasibility studies at Swedish construction companies, through the study of the ongoing feasibility study of the mall Sturegallerian in Stockholm, and through interviews with experienced project managers in the construction industry. There is currently a big span in the way Swedish construction companies plan the pre-project phase and the aim of this thesis is to present a more generic and standardized way that helps minimize project risks and maximize efficiency and profit. The result is a generic model which can be used in pre-project planning. The model describes the phases in the preproject planning process and the activities that span these phases. Is also describes the categories of professions that need to participate in the preproject planning group and which activities that each profession executes. The other result is a list of factors that need to be considered for a well performed pre-project phase, as found during the interviews. Among others the thesis stresses the importance of involving the client as a key participant in the process.

Major changes have occurred in the music industry the last twenty years which can betraced to various reasons like technological and economical problems. Meanwhile, theSwedish songwriters have had incredible success on the international music scene when itcome sto songs with commercial impact. Their success has been very present in the lastfew years and during the writing of this essay, we see no evidence that they shoulddecrease.The purpose of this paper is to analyze and clarify the factors behind the internationalsuccess of Swedish-produced music has had in recent years. We will also show theimportance of the success that characterized the 90?s and how it affects Swedishsongwriters success today. .