The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine in what way library users are depicted on images at two academic libraries; the University College of Borås Library & Learning Resources (BLR) and the Gothenburg University Library (GUB). 62 images, from websites and information brochures, are analyzed and the main questions are: How are users represented on images? What activities are shown? What is the difference between BLR and GUB? How can the consequences of the representations be understood? Little is currently known in the LIS-field about how images work as constructors of the social reality. The theoretical and methodological point of departure of the study is discourse analysis, new institutional theory and picture analysis.

Studie är baserad på Siegler & Ramani (2008) ?Playing linear numerical board games promotes low-income child­ren´s numerical development?. Syfte är att undersöka om det med intensivträning (i form av ett linjärt tärningsspel) går att stimulera sexåriga barns talförståelse inom talområdet 1-10. Metoderna som valts är fältexperiment och observation. Fält­experimentet påvisar att intensivträning med ett tärningsspel, utfört under 4 stycken 15 minuters lektioner under en tvåveckors period, tydligt kan förbättra barns talförståelse medan observationen visar att utfallet påverkas av pedagogens olika yrkesverktyg samt undervis­ningens organisation (en-till-en undervisning).

This thesis reports on the methodology and results of a study with one retailers 73 units to investigate factors of the store managers leadership that influence productivity performance in store. The study determine the impact of ten independent variables in terms of the store managers leadership on four performance measures: (3) three productivity measures: Sales Over Labor (SALOL), Sales Over Inventory (SALOI) and Sales Over Square-metre (SALOS) and (1) one profit measure: Contribution Income Over Square-metre (CIOS). The result shows that the leadership factors give no more explanation to the economic results after factors of local market condition and the store attributes are taking in to account. The store manager's leadership can though influence his or her decision-making in-store. The store manager's decision to staff the store more intense (higher service-intensity) can increase the level of contribution income over square metre in-store..

Project Safe Sleeping Position (SSP) contains all parts in a product development phase. The project comprises the whole cycle from idea to a complete product where all aspects are included. The scope is to develop an innovative solution for a common known problem and work with all parts within the man-machine-way. The result is an inflatable product which secures a child in the correct way for the seatbelt to work properly in the rearseat of a car. Ergonomics, technical extent, usability, design, construction, product solutions and market potential are some of all parts witch the project includes.

Today all private corporations are obligated by statutory audit. The government of Sweden appointed an investigation to conclude if the audit should be statutory or not. The investigator presented on the third of April 2008 a report (SOU 2008:32) that suggests abolishment of the statutory audit for approximately 97 % of all private corporations in Sweden. This will result in certain effects on the banks credit rating because of the fact that the banks trust the audited accounts to have been audited by an independent audit.The most important in the banks credit rating are: personal judgement, business concept, business plan and repayment ability. The banks also use the private corporations audited accounts in its credit rating.We conducted a case study by interviewing four bank officials in different banks in Skövde and Tibro.

Arbetet behandlar utvecklingen av ett grundläggande element till en framtida webbaserad community för dataspelsutvecklare. Grundelementet är en användarprofil som inom communityn kommer att åskådliggöras i ett grafiskt webbgränssnitt för alla registrerade användare. Användarprofilens syfte är att presentera användaren på ett attraktivt sätt för såväl spelindustrin som andra spelutvecklare som söker samarbete och bekantskap. Gränssnittet utvecklas ur ett användarcentrerat perspektiv genom den metodologi som McCracken och Wolfe (2004) presenterar. Utvecklingsprocessen inleds med att kartlägga marknaden, de tänkta slutanvändarna och deras behov samt den svenska spelindustrins intresse av en sådan community.

The purpose of this study was to examine the narrative skill of sixyear-olds in terms of macrostructure and cohesion, and its relation tonarrative content, auditory attention, auditory short-term memory and threemeasures of word retrieval. A group comparison of macrostructure andcohesion was also performed between children with and without epilepsy.The material consisted of audio recordings of 44 children (18 with epilepsyand 26 from a reference group) retelling the story Nelli-sagan (Holmberg &Sahlén, 2000). No correlation was found between content and macrostructureor cohesion, but several between the latter two. Auditory short-termmemory and word retrieval without pictures showed several correlationswith macrostructure as well as cohesion. No differences in macrostructure orcohesion were found between the children with epilepsy and the referencegroup.

In light of health scandals and intense debate in the media about the elderly, the authors investigates two Swedish newspaper and their depiction of elder care in Sweden. Using Faircloughs three-dimensional model and critical discourse analysis, it is investigated if there is a more prominent discourse and if so the impact of globalization on this discourse concerning swedish elderly care. A sample of a total of ten articles in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter is analyzed. The authors found that older people who are granted home help or place of accommodation rarely make their voices heard. Rarely were also relatives of residents given the opportunity to speak.

Visualization plays a key role in the concept of Lean. Lean was developed in Japan as a business philosophy in order to lead to an activity, where only steps that contribute to customer value of the final product are being performed. By defining the customer value and establish visualized standards, it is possible to see when situations differ from the standard. Then it?s possible to lead the process back on track.

The main purpose of this Master?s thesis is to investigate the experience of art students and their attitudes and use of information during the last years of their Master?s degree. I also examine their opinions about the art education in general. The theoretical framework encompasses a sociocultural approach within the field of psychology-pedagogy and library- as well as information science. The empirical material has been collected through qualitative interviews with seven students studying at an art school in Sweden.

The purpose of this essay is to analyse how and why culture and tradition is created and maintained within a minor student society at a Swedish university by looking at its history. The West Coast Nation student society provided the material which was subsequently analysed and three sociological perspectives were applied in order to give the study a theoretical base. In order to investigate the purpose of the society, durkheimian theories on functionalism were applied. Moreover, Bourdieu?s thoughts on social fields were used as well as Elias? theories on the established and the outsiders.

Fetma utgör ett folkhälsoproblem. Fokusering på vikt och olika risker med fetma är otillräckligt för att förstå hur personers hälsorelaterade livskvalitet påverkas. Studiens syfte var att beskriva självskattad hälsorelaterad livskvalitet hos personer med fetma. Kvantitativ ansats valdes och 100 personer med ett BMI mer än 30 besvarade ett självskattande instrument, SF-36. Dataanalys genomfördes med korrelations test för att få styrkan i samband mellan variabler.

The relationship between the pet and it's owner is a very important and interesting issue. Unfortunately there is not so much research on this and in addition to that Swedish veterinarian education does not put much emphasis on pet's role in society or their pattern of behaviour nor treatment. This thesis is based on an opinion poll that 20 dog owners and 20 cat owners contributed. The main purpose of the thesis was to compare the relationships that the pet (dog or cat) and its owner can have. The issues such as the pet owner's attitude to his/her pet, how the pet owner percieves and interprets the signals from the animal, and what they think about the natural behaviours and needs that their pets (might) have. The results show that dog- and cat owners are people who generally love animals, that they used to have even other animal species in the past, but when it comes to choice between a new dog or a new cat they choose the one that they previously have had and that they are used to. Most of a dog owners choose the dog to be their pet because of the company while the majority of a cat owners choose cat because cats are independent and they are used to cats.

The leadership within healthcare is a constantly discussed subject. The discussion today is evolving around the physicians' lack of strive towards becoming managers within healthcare organizations. Furthermore the leadership that the nurse practice when becoming manager is on the other hand not discussed. The purpose of this study is to describe important factors of the leadership the nurse practice upon physicians in a healthcare organization as well as to explain why that is. To fulfill this purpose, we have used a qualitative case study research design including a private Swedish healthcare company.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the properties of the municipalities in Sweden that influence the choice of being a certified Fairtrade city. The independent variables which are used in the statistical analysis are municipal governance, local tax rate, whether there is an university and/or university college in the municipality, average income and higher education in the municipality. The variables are examined by logistic regression. Since there are no statistical data on ethical procurement, this exogenous variable isn?t included in the regression.