The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine the importance of public libraries for individuals in their everyday life and to study the differences in views between the individuals. Questions posed in this study are: What do public libraries mean to individuals? Which differences between individuals views of the public library are to be found? What is the reason for differences to occur? The analysis is based upon qualitative interviews with six persons, four women and two men between 31 and 55 years of age. The theoretical starting points are Anderson and Skot-Hansens theory of four different roles of public libraries and Bourdieus theory of lifestyle. The study acts on a hermeneutic attitude.

Arbetet gick ut på att designa och programmera en prototypmobiltelefonmodul till HandyBlue, ett omgivningskontrollsystem för personer med funktionshinder. Rapporten går igenom de olika momenten i modulens utveckling som marknadsundersökning, expertintervjuer, design och implementation och fältester.Programmet fick bra betyg i fälttester och ansågs av samtliga testare som lättanvänt och intuitivt. Slutsatsen är att  genom att hålla målgruppens önskemål i fokus och låta tänkta användare vara delaktiga i utvecklingen i ett tidigt skede, blir slutresultatet en modul som väl uppfyller de krav som ställts på den..

The study examines conceptions of identity among girls with foreign background. The aim was to study how identity is understood by the girls based on ethnicity, images of the origin, the value of gender and the meaning of the family. The theoretical approach was post-colonial theory based on Stuart Hall in combination with gender theory by Yvonne Hirdman. The study was conducted using qualitative individual interviews of open character with six girls. They were aged 17-18 years old and were born in Sweden or had lived here since the age of six.

This thesis explores how the city of Gothenburg integrates and use social capital, defined through factors such as trust and cooperative networks, in its crisis preparedness strategies and how this can enhance the city's collective resilience. The study aims to contribute to the understanding of how social capital can be leveraged to strengthen crisis management and resilience in urban environments. The research analyzes existing quantitative data from the SOM-Institute regarding residents perceptions and self-reported preparedness actions and reviews Gothenburg's official civil defense plan for 2024?2027. By examining various aspects of social capital, including levels of trust and cooperative networks across different city districts and age groups, the analysis focuses on how social bonds and community contexts are considered in planning for handling and recovering from potential crises.

This essay examines the visual art of Helena Blomqvist with theory of performativity from Judith Butler among others, with a focus on the potential of visual art to question and dislocate norms. It consists of an analysis of three works of art from three aspects: the work of art, the viewer and the situation, and eventuates in an analysis of how the works relate to representation and norms. The construction of the works is related to Butler's theory of identity construction..

AbstractAt the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992 the nations stated that traditional environmental policies were not sufficient to handle the multidimensional challenges posed by sustainable development. Governments needed to broaden their political decision making procedures in order to coordinate and integrate environmental, social and economic policies. Therefore a new tool was introduced in Agenda 21, National Strategies for Sustainable Development (NSDS). The aim of an NSDS would be to bring together actors from all parts of society to jointly reach a consensus on how to work towards the vision of a sustainable society. An NSDS would be seen as a strategic tool to help focus national policies for SD.

The purpose of this paper is to fill the gaps in current research on trade shows. The business-to-consumer aspect has been greatly ignored by academic theorists. We are aiming to make an exploratory study into during-show promotion practices. We will also create a continuation of the Hansen (1999) framework. In order to analyze "during-show promotion" two business-to-consumer trade shows; the ITB in Berlin and EuroHorse in Göteborg were visited.

In this paper the effect of capital structure on profitability has been investigated among Swedish companies. The essay intends to examine how the relationship between debt and profitability appear among Swedish companies and if the relationship differs between industries. The purpose is to find out how debt affects the profitability of Swedish companies.A quantitative approach has been applied. The selection was made among companies listed on Nasdaq OMX Stockholm, which resulted in a sample of 207 companies. Several regression analyzes has been formed, based on the independent variable debt-ratio and the dependent variables profit margin, pre-tax profit margin, operating margin, return on assets and return on equity.

Today?s society is one where technological advances are made daily, which increases the need to stop and assess the risks against users? integrity when integrating new technology in contemporary systems all the greater. We have taken two technologies, Near Field Communication and Certified Wireless USB, whose envisioned area of use is to be integrated into mobile phones, and evaluated what security threats are revealed for the respective technologies. The threats against security have been identified through research of the standards and existing reports for each technology. Practical experiments have not been conducted on account of us not having access to any equipment to run such trials.

The purpose of this study has been to investigate how socialworkers describe their attitudes towards reporting childabuse to the police and if they make different decisions when they believe the violence to be honour related and how they handle these questions. The main questions are; How does socialworkers describe their and their colleagues attitudes towards reporting childabuse to the police and when do they believe they should report? Do they describe honourviolence as a specific kind of violence that should be lifted and in what way does it affect their work? The study is written from a legal sociologist perspective with a qualitative approach. Four socialworkers were interviewed and the interviews were analyzed with an anti-racist theory and with the theory about freedom of action.The conclusions is that the socialworkers mostly report childabuse to the police when the violence is physical. This means that children who describes to be subjected to psychological violence, including honourviolence, has poor legal security.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how three Swedish news publications writes about integration and immigrants. The news articles were analyzed with a rhetorical analysis. The method was supplemented with theories of media and ethnicity, agenda setting theory and gatekeeping theory. This study resulted in the conclusion that racist discourses are found in the three news publications, regardless of political color, writer or article genre. Many of the articles makes a clear division of "us and them", where "them" is defined by the text's "us", who are often Swedes.

The purpose with the paper is to theoretically investigate how sensory experience and positive affect in contact with outdoor environment can promote health by 1) develop a model of the sensory and emotional processes based on multiple code theory (Bucci, 1997) and 2) examine if this model can increase understanding of the processes that takes place in outdoor recreation, the way this is described in environmental psychology research and theory. The paper starts by introducing research and perspectives concerning outdoor recreation. Different theories of nature?s health promoting effects are described. These include the restoration theories of Roger Ulrich and Steven and Rachel Kaplan, theories more concerned with outdoor activities and a theory combining these two perspectives called instorative theory. After this sensory and emotional information processing is examined through the works of Wilma Bucci and Jean Ayres. Antionio Damasio?s theories of emotion and Daniel Stern?s concept of vitalityaffects are than introduced to extend this reasoning.

The purpose of the study isto,based on network theory, systems theory and development ecological systems theory,understand parent?sexperiences of having children with autismspectrum, as well as understand the importance of social networksfor the parents. All of the intervieweeswere mothers. The results showed that it is important to parentsto have contact with other parents who are in the same situation as them. Many of the interviewees had a small social network.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att granska hur ett företags arbete överensstämmer med lean service samt ge förslag på hur verksamheten kan förändras för att bättre arbeta enligt lean. Detta görs inom ett begränsat område av företagets serviceverksamhet, hantering och rutiner av nycklar. Studien utförs i ett företag i hiss och rulltrappsbranschen som arbetar med allt från tillverkning och montering till underhåll.Arbetet utförs genom intervjuer med anställda med god spridning av befattning och arbetsuppgifter och observationsstudier av serviceverksamheten i aktuell organisation samt viss benchmarking med annan verksamhet som upplever samma problem.Studien visar att verksamheten har tillgång till en rad verktyg som enligt många definitioner karaktäriseras som lean, men benämns internt till viss del under andra namn. Vidare kan det konstateras att dessa verktyg och rutiner inte implementerats till serviceverksamheten varför lean inte i dagsläget anses tillämpas. Utav detta kan slutsatsen dras att det inte är tillräckligt att utarbeta och ha lean-verktyg tillgängliga för att lean ska tillämpas.

Purpose: The aim is to investigate the mechanisms behind the destructive entrepreneurship in the assistance industry.Method: To investigate the destructive entrepreneurship in the assistance industry, we conducted a qualitative study in the form of semi-structured questions. In total, we interviewed four authorities and an employer organization.Theory: Theoretical framework: The study is based on Baumol's (1990) theory of productive, unproductive and destructive entrepreneurship and rent-seeking by Murphy et al (1991), but the study's principal theory that we have chosen to apply is the routine activity theory of Cohen & Felson (1979) that describes three elements that must come together in order for a crime to be committed.Conclusions and discussion: Our study shows that it is clear that there is both fraud and abuse within the assistance allowance, which can be done in different ways. Some users simulate their illness that they exaggerate their need for assistance. Some assistance providers have abused the compensation by paying lower wages and empty false wages etc. The study showed that there also exists a type of human trafficking.